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Garmin TOPO Light Maps


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I have been using OSM maps with my Oregon 600 for the last 4 or 5 years, and have been pleasantly surprised with the number of trails and pathways that are shown on the map. The map area I am referring to is California.

 

I recently learned that Garmin is selling their own version of OSM maps for Europe and parts of Asia and Africa.

 

Garmin TOPO Light web page

 

I would be interested in purchasing the Garmin TOPO Light version of the West Coast of the US.

 

Does anyone have any information regarding the eventual availability of Garmin TOPO Light maps of the US?

 

Thank you

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Use this OSM based maps instead:

http://www.freizeitkarte-osm.de/garmin/en/index.html

http://download.freizeitkarte-osm.de/garmin/1603/

Choose: http://download.freizeitkarte-osm.de/garmin/1603/US_WEST_en_gmapsupp.img.zip for copying onto your Garmin directly

You may also give the maps a different design:

http://www.freizeitkarte-osm.de/garmin/en/design.html

 

Frohes Jagen

Hans

Hello Hans,

 

Thank you for your reply. The Freizeitkarte maps look great. They do not cover North America, unfortunately.

 

Regards,

 

Neil

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Use this OSM based maps instead:

http://www.freizeitkarte-osm.de/garmin/en/index.html

http://download.freizeitkarte-osm.de/garmin/1603/

Choose: http://download.freizeitkarte-osm.de/garmin/1603/US_WEST_en_gmapsupp.img.zip for copying onto your Garmin directly

You may also give the maps a different design:

http://www.freizeitkarte-osm.de/garmin/en/design.html

 

Frohes Jagen

Hans

Hello Hans,

 

Thank you for your reply. The Freizeitkarte maps look great. They do not cover North America, unfortunately.

 

Regards,

 

Neil

 

Neil, you might want to look at Hans' links again (the "download" link). They do include different regions of the US, including the West. I'm downloading them right now!

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What advantage would there be in buying the Garmin version vs. the one you are already using?

 

That is an excellent question. It was the first question I had about the Garmin TOPO Light maps.

 

I found the answer to my question... and your question, at a Garmin UK web page, which is located HERE:

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Use this OSM based maps instead:

http://www.freizeitkarte-osm.de/garmin/en/index.html

http://download.freizeitkarte-osm.de/garmin/1603/

Choose: http://download.freizeitkarte-osm.de/garmin/1603/US_WEST_en_gmapsupp.img.zip for copying onto your Garmin directly

You may also give the maps a different design:

http://www.freizeitkarte-osm.de/garmin/en/design.html

 

Frohes Jagen

Hans

Hello Hans,

 

Thank you for your reply. The Freizeitkarte maps look great. They do not cover North America, unfortunately.

 

Regards,

 

Neil

 

Neil, you might want to look at Hans' links again (the "download" link). They do include different regions of the US, including the West. I'm downloading them right now!

 

Ah, yes! Thank you Cliptwings and Hans.

 

UPDATE: I downloaded the Freizeitkarte map of US Pacific. Meh, not nearly as good as the OSM map of the area.

Edited by Barrikady
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Here's an alternate strategy:

 

You can alter the draw order of maps using a program called JAWAVA gmtk. Load an OSM map under one of the free topo maps (California topo from gpsfiledepot.com for example). Even though the topo map is visible on the screen, the routable data from the OSM is still there, which means you can get turn-by-turn directions and routes shaped to trails while displaying the detailed topo map.

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What advantage would there be in buying the Garmin version vs. the one you are already using?

That is an excellent question. It was the first question I had about the Garmin TOPO Light maps.

 

I found the answer to my question... and your question, at a Garmin UK web page, which is located HERE:

The answer seems to be, "the Garmin version has contour lines". AFAICT, other than using a different style so some things may look different, Garmin hasn't really added anything on top of the OSM data other than the contour lines. If you can get by without the contour lines, then I see no reason to pay Garmin when you can get the same (or better) maps for free.

They also slipped in this little footnote:

This map does not provide address search support.

This is another strike against the Garmin Light maps, because most of the non-Garmin OSM-based maps provide address search support.

 

I downloaded the Freizeitkarte map of US Pacific. Meh, not nearly as good as the OSM map of the area.

The Freizeitkarte map uses the OSM data. Do you mean it's not as good as whatever OSM-based map you're currently using? Remember that with OSM-based maps, the underlying data is the same for all of them and the only differences are in what parts of that data are displayed and with what style.

 

It isn't clear what map you're using now, but the ones at http://garmin.openstreetmap.nl/ are very good and are updated about once a month. I'd recommend either sticking with the map you have now or checking out other free OSM-based maps, but don't bother paying Garmin.

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The answer seems to be, "the Garmin version has contour lines".

I hope they have more to differentiate their product than that.

 

As I understand, contour data is freely available in much the same way as OSM map- and POI data, so anybody can put together a free package containing it all. And in Garmin format, they probably have.

 

(This is stuff I take for granted on the phone, OpenAndroMaps, Locus, yeah baby.)

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The answer seems to be, "the Garmin version has contour lines".

I hope they have more to differentiate their product than that.

That's the only thing I could see that differentiates it from the features provided by maps like the http://garmin.openstreetmap.nl/ ones, plus it has negatives like the lack of address search.

 

As I understand, contour data is freely available in much the same way as OSM map- and POI data, so anybody can put together a free package containing it all. And in Garmin format, they probably have.

Yep, that's absolutely right. The SRTM data is freely available and is likely the basis for elevation data in many OSM-based Garmin maps. On top of that, some jurisdictions provide their own elevation data. I used the data released by the Canadian government to produce a transparent contour line map for Garmins for my province. I overlay this on top of a custom OSM-based map that uses a heavily modified and personalized version of the http://garmin.openstreetmap.nl/ style to use on my Oregon 450 and 600.

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<tangent>

One good source of contour data is http://viewfinderpan...s.org/dem3.html where I see they've noticed the poor quality of the gov't data for my own area (Alberta), and smoothly swapped in the better quality SRTM stuff.

 

Which I guess is why contours look just right on my phone (OpenAndroMaps), but ridiculous on OpenCycleMap, where creeks go up and down hills.

</tangent>

 

<topic>

After glancing at that Garmin link, it looks like they put together those maps as a freebie to sell hardware, branded them "light" to entice people to buy pricier maps, and along the way decided to try selling them as standalone maps too. If I was Garmin, I'd probably do that too.

</topic>

Edited by Viajero Perdido
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The answer seems to be, "the Garmin version has contour lines".

I hope they have more to differentiate their product than that.

 

As I understand, contour data is freely available in much the same way as OSM map- and POI data, so anybody can put together a free package containing it all. And in Garmin format, they probably have.

 

(This is stuff I take for granted on the phone, OpenAndroMaps, Locus, yeah baby.)

 

ditto that.

 

"needing to buy map upgrades" is the point in a conversant when my eyes glaze over. people are still going through the process of plugging things into their computer, paying for maps (that are free) and fussing about the process being a big deal.

 

love this smartphone.

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I originally started this conversation; I would like to thank all of the people who replied so far. I have learned new and interesting information regarding Garmin TOPO Light Maps... Thank you.

 

My question has still not been answered, unfortunately.

 

Here it is again:

 

Does anyone have any knowledge regarding the possibility of Garmin producing a North American version of their TOPO Light Maps?

 

Thanks!

 

Neil

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[...]

The answer seems to be, "the Garmin version has contour lines". AFAICT, other than using a different style so some things may look different, Garmin hasn't really added anything on top of the OSM data other than the contour lines. If you can get by without the contour lines, then I see no reason to pay Garmin when you can get the same (or better) maps for free.[...]

 

A lot of OSM based maps have contour lines as well. See the Freizeitkarte US Pacific:

 

56bd9c59c80c30370b341948b60de85c.png

 

The Garmin OSM based maps have definitely no advantage over the free maps.

 

Hans

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