Global Mapper to Garmin IMG?

[SirPaul]

Hi everyone,

I'm new to the world of GPS, but I have lots of mapping files (dgn, shp, dxf and so on) that would be handy to have on my GPS. Any suggestions as to how I can convert these to Garmin .img format?

Thanks

[global_mapper]

There is a great tutorial on creating custom Garmin .img format maps using Global Mapper and the 3rd-party cGPSMapper application at http://www.globalmapper.com/helpv11/cGPSMapper.pdf .

Let me know if I can be of further assistance.

Thanks,

Mike
Global Mapper Support
support@globalmapper.com

[SirPaul]

Many thanks, Mike. I'm looking at it right now...

[kbellis]

Notes for Greg Riker... if he's listening.

Bum link on your page 7
404 Error - Page not found
http://www.jacksonholewy.net/images/...ckson_toon.pdf

Does anybody have this particular .pdf and might you kindly attach it to your reply?

Greg notes (in GM8):
A brief discussion about labels
Your Garmin GPS receiver (GPSr) has the ability to display road names in upper and lower case, or use accented characters … but not both at the same time. It is important to understand this constraint early in your map design process. This constraint does not apply to city names or area features, only line features like roads and boundaries. If you are quite certain that you will not need an international character set in your map, then you may use upper and lower case in your road names. By default, GM8 creates a header specifying to cGPSMapper that you are using the international character set, meaning that only upper case letters may be used for street and road names. For now, I recommend that you accept this default behavior, meaning that your street names should all be specified in CAPS.

Is this still the case (excuse pun) in v11?

[global_mapper]

Note sure if Greg is on the forum, he was a user on the Yahoo group for Global Mapper when he wrote this tutorial, but I haven't heard from him in a long while.

There should be any limitations on characters anymore, Global Mapper will default to the full 8-bit ASCII character set, although you can use a template file to change the character set. When Greg wrote this there were still some Garmin units out there that only supported capital letters for map display, but it has been a while since Garmin made any with that limitation, so there are fewer and fewer of them out there.

Let me know if I can be of further assistance.

Thanks,

Mike
Global Mapper Support
support@globalmapper.com

[kbellis]

Thanks Mike.

So is GM8DocV2.pdf still the best tutorial for the uninitiated?

[global_mapper]

The latest document is at http://www.globalmapper.com/helpv11/cGPSMapper.pdf. It hasn't really been updated since it was originally written by Greg Riker when GM was at v8, but the vast majority of it still applies with only minor changes.

Let me know if I can be of further assistance.

Thanks,

Mike
Global Mapper Support
support@globalmapper.com

[kbellis]

I've begun working through the tutorials and found this:

Mr. Riker writes:

Vector overlays (Points, Lines and Areas) are the only data that can be compiled by cGPSMapper and downloaded to your GPSr.

And there doesn't seem to be anything instructive offered in his tutorial as to getting raster images from GM into Garmin units that support raster imagery.

I understand that we diverge from the initially narrow topic of .img creation, but I'm hoping on creating vector data overlays with transparent backgrounds and then have aerial imagery (or other raster layers) as the displayed background on the Garmin (CO, Dakota and OR).

What is the best tutorial or instruction set one should consult concerning Global Mapper, raster images and their applications on Garmin units?

[global_mapper]

At the time the tutorial was written it was not possible to send raster maps to any Garmin units. While you still can't do it with cGPSMapper, Global Mapper has built-in support for this under the GPS menu. There is a tutorial on this at http://gpsinformation.org/BaseCamp/GlobalMapper.html .

Let me know if I can be of further assistance.

Thanks,

Mike
Global Mapper Support
support@globalmapper.com

[kbellis]

Great Mike. Looks great.

Thanks.

Kelly