Moagu brings USGS maps to your Garmin handheld

Last month, Leszek Pawlowicz of Free Geography Tools hinted at a new project code-named MOAGU. He may ascribe a different meaning to the acronym for legal reasons, but let’s call it what it is — MOAGU is the mother of all Garmin utilities. What Leszek has created is a utility that will place a USGS topo map on your Garmin GPS. Actually, it will put any scanned, georeferenced map on your Garmin. It won’t work on just any Garmin mapping handheld yet; I haven’t been able to get the maps on my Colorado 300, though I’m hoping some of our more technically inclined readers can figure that one out.

I have used it on my Garmin 60CSx and I have to say that Moagu rocks! This really is revolutionary. Handheld users have been asking for 1:24,000 scale USGS maps for their GPS units for years. The DeLorme PN-20 and Magellan Triton series have implemented this, more or less successfully (respectively), but we haven’t had an easy solution for Garmin devices until now.

Let’s start out by taking a look at the process and limitations.

Installing Moagu

The installation process is very straightforward, though you will need to have the free version of cGPSmapper installed first.

Creating a map with Moagu

Moagu includes step-by-step instructions for the process that are very easy to follow. This is the simplest map creation method I have seen using cGPSmapper . The final stage of the process, compiling the map, does take some time and eats up your CPU power.  I decided to compile the map at bedtime and let it run overnight, an option suggested by the developer.

Real USGS quad maps

These are not your typical cGPSmapper 1:24,000 scale vector maps. Moagu generated maps actually look just like a USGS quad map, complete with all the standard USGS symbols, place names, etc.

Accuracy

Map registration (accuracy) was spot on. In other words, when I was on a road, the display showed me on the road. Too bad Garmin Topo U.S. 2008 isn't as good at this!

Imagine the possibilities

You should be able to convert any map you can scan and georeference — PDF’s, aerial photos, etc. Be forewarned though, aerial photos will likely only work at hiking speeds (see below).

Caveats

There are several things to be aware of here (of course, they are all balanced by the fact that you have a real USGS topo map on your GPS!). The main one is that map redraws can be slow. The initial map draw will look like it’s taking forever, but once it's loaded and you move around, the redraws keep up pretty well. The maps work great at hiking speeds and even on a bike. The first time I tested Moagu maps on a mountain bike, I noticed some map redraws at 5–10 MPH, though they were not problematic at that speed. On a 25 MPH downhill run however, I saw the screen go blank momentarily. There are less problems with this the further out you zoom. The second time I generated a map of a large area and selected the medium map tile size. Map redraws were a little more noticeable. After discussing this with Leszek, he did some additional testing and indicated that the small tile size is the way to go for biking speeds.  He has already incorporated some changes that should improve map redraw performance, and has more on the list for future builds.

Color slows down the map redraws, so the green vegetation shown on USGS maps is converted to white by Moagu.

Don’t expect a wide range of zoom levels, though you can specify 0.2/0.3 mile, 800 ft and 500 ft (I understand that Leszek will be adding one or two more). I included the latter two in the maps I created, and used the 500 ft level on the trail, since it gave the best balance of detail and legibility.

Occasionally you’ll get a row of blank pixels, which can be seen upon close examination of the image at left.

I mentioned that Moagu works on my 60CSx, but not on my Colorado. According to the developer, it works best on the Garmin 60 / 76 / Astro family units; the response on a Venture HC has been slow.

Since the maps are based on raster imagery, they will eat up much more memory than a vector map for the same area.

Getting Moagu

Moagu is being offered at an introductory price of $19.95. A demo version will allow you try it out and make a map of a small area for free. You can get it at Moagu.com. (Disclosure: Though I do earn some revenue from GPS Tracklog, I have no financial relationship with Moagu or its developer.)

I highly recommend trying this out, if you have any interest at all in 1:24,000 scale maps. Leszek has a long list of planned future improvements and I expect that Moagu will only improve with time.

Comments

[g.o.cashers]

Rich,

What did you see on the Colorado? When I download to mine I see the area where the map is supposed to be, the cGPSMapper banner but the map area is a dark gray color. Is this what you've observed?

-Scott

[Rich Owings]

Scott,

All I could see was background shading that looked like it might have been the underlying DEM. I did not see a dark grey box where the map was supposed to be, and I don't recall seeing the cGPSmapper banner.

I don't understand why other cGPSmapper maps would work on the Colorado but these don't.

[g.o.cashers]

I've tried a 1.0m B/W ortho and a 100k Topo (for some reason the 24k Topos aren't available in my area).

In both cases if I have the Topo2008 maps enabled I can see the map tile for the Moagu map but in the case of the ortho image I see a dark gray box in the case of the 100k Topo I see a white box. In both cases I see the cGPSmapper banner along one side.

If I look closely the boxes don't appear to be 100% solid color but as you say that could be the Topo2008 DEM showing through.

Unfortunately I don't have a 60csx to try it on to make sure my maps are good.

GO$Rs

[Mark Perkins]

Is there any chance this would work on a GPS V with it severely limited (~20MB) internal map memory?

This statement, "Since the maps are based on raster imagery, they will eat up much more memory than a vector map for the same area." led me to believe there might be an issue.

Thanks,
Mark

[David]

It appears - at first glance - that he is pulling this off utilizing custom area types - breaking the image into n x n chunks and creating a custom type for each chunk. If true it is surely stretching the capability and limits of that feature... Very cool though - will definitely download and check it out.

[Leszek Pawlowicz]

Hi Mark,

As the author of Moagu, I can answer your question - there's no way to make these maps work on a GPS V. It's not the memory that's the issue - you can fit about 1/2 a USGS 7.5' quad in 20 MB. The firmware has to support custom color types, which limits it to Garmin color GPS units made after 2005 or so. And even with those, lower-end units like the Venture HC will display the maps so slowly that it's really not practical. Don't know about the Legend series - I'm hoping to get some feedback on that.

Leszek

[Mark Perkins]

Hi Leszek,

Thanks for the quick and informative reply.

Maybe its time for me to get a modern GPS :)

Thanks,
Mark

PS Moagu sounds like an excellent project.

[rock-licker]

Has anyone tried it out on a Vista CSx? I was just about to buy one, but if Moagu will not work on it, then I'll go for the 60 CSx.

thanks

rock-licker

[Carphunter]

Interested to hear if this works with the Vista HCX or Rhino 530 HCX too.

[bmap2mp]

Hi All,

You may be interested in similar free utility:
http://bmap2mp.webhop.org/bmap2mp.rar

No tutorial, no GUI, no web support - but it works in some way :)

Below I give you a couple of links to pages in Russian language but actually you may be interested in links you can find on these pages.

Here you can find a link to example of the program work (Moscow region map):
http://w.bookwar.org.ru/

Here you can find links to some screenshots of program work results in Mapsource compared to source screenshots in OziExplorer:
http://www.gps-forum.ru/cgi-bin/forum/showpost.pl?Board=gpsgeneral&Number=100188

Thanks,
bmap2mp

[bsieb]

I've had good success with the Vista HCx.

[Rich Owings]

Good to hear. Thanks for sharing.

[Boggie]

Just tried the demo version of Moagu and created a topo for CO and loaded it up on my Venture Cx. Worked great not even that slow - of course demo version only allows one small tile. May be very slow with a whole 7.5 quad. Going to try the demo with a quad around home if it works, I'll buy Moagu.

Nice piece of software. Curious, many quads and orthos are now also available in MrSid format will Moagu handle sid files?

[Leszek Pawlowicz]

MRSID files are not supported by the graphics library I use, so the answer is no. You can always use a program like GlobalMapper or MicroDEM to open a MRSID image, and save it as a GeoTiff. Two things to watch out for:

1. MRSID images tend to be very large, and the largest image size that Moagu can handle is roughly 10,000 x 10,000 pixels

2. MRSID uses image compression, which modifies the color palette substantially. So you can't use the USGS Topo setting with these images, which in turn means that they will display much more slowly than comparable TIFFs created from the original USGS Topo imagery.

[Robin]

i have a rhino 530hcx. the problem i have with the mapsend progrm is that it does not name forest roads. will the moagu solve this problem and also does it have trails mapped.

[Rich Owings]

Robin,

Moagu will show whatever the scanned image shows. To get US Forest Service road names, you might want to check USFS quads, which I discussed here... http://gpstracklog.typepad.com/gps_tracklog/2006/10/source_for_us_f.html

Theoretically, you could even scan in a large scale USFS, non-topo map. As far as trails go, I'd say the same thing; if it's on the scanned image, it will be on your Moagu map.

[bezobrazas]

Hello
I have tried this.
for the momekt i have not sucseeded.
I intend to use a simmple paper maps, which were scanned to simple Tiff.
Can you recomend me a proper (as much simmple as possible)softweare for geocentering the tiff image map and converting it into a suitable GeoTiff format.
I have tried Canvas 11, but the maps imported to my gps by Moagu was not displayed correctly and with the wrong coordinates.

[Rich Owings]

I dropped Leszek a note to see if he would respond, but I know he's having Internet access problems this week, so he may be slow getting back with a response.

[Leszek Pawlowicz]

There are a number of programs that you can use to georeference a map; see the help file for more info. Probably the best starting point, especially if you don't know what your map's original projection was (doubly especially if you don't know what a map projection is) is the online map rectifier at:

http://labs.metacarta.com/rectifier/

[DArrell Frogness]

I've had little problem in transferring maps from usgs to an garmin legend hcx. but the detail is a bit much at 1/24k. what i'd really like is to transfer the usfs 1/2 inch/ mile recreation map with good road detail to gps. but its in 1927 datum, utm. any suggestions out there? thx, darrell

[Bezobrazas]

Hello.
Is there possible to have the closer Display level than 300ft/80m Display. Or it is only demo version limitation of the softwere?

[Leszek Pawlowicz]

Darrell:

If your file is in GeoTiff format, with the datum and UTM data embedded, then you can go ahead and use it in Moagu - it will re-project it to WGS84, lat/long automatically. If you only have a worldfile, then you can create a GeoTiff from it using MicroDEM; see the help file for more info.

Bezobrazas:

The true zoom limit for Moagu maps is actually 500-ft./120m. The 300 ft. limit is sort of a hack - the image is oversampled so that there are no gaps in the image at the 300 ft. level, but at the cost of a much larger filesize and slower display time at 500-ft..

Maps created with the BMap2MP utility can be zoomed in closer than 300-ft. without breaking up.

[John Hollenberg]

I used Moagu to create a topo of Joshua Tree National Park and surrounding area. It took 27 segments downloaded from the USGS seamless server, and Moagu broke these up into about 1200 tiles using the "Large Tile" setting.

For anyone who is interested in checking it out, I am uploading it to gpsfiledepot as we speak. It is just the IMG files in a zip file at the moment, but one of the guys is going to convert it to install file for PC/Mac (I think).

[Rich Owings]

Cool! I think this is the link... http://www.gpsfiledepot.com/maps/view/104

[John Hollenberg]

Yup, that is the link. There is now an install file for Windows, and a Mac version. A good way to see what Moagu can do, to figure out if it is a good program for you. I just posted a raster topo map made with Moagu for Coyote Buttes (area to West of Page, Arizona). There is also a tutorial I wrote on my experience using Moagu to create multi-segment raster maps. It is currently under California maps, but will be transferred to the tutorial section as soon as Oz gets to it.

If I get the energy, my next project will be the Southern Sierra Nevada, since I will be going on a couple of backpacking trips there this summer and will be doing a significant amount of cross country travel.

[John Hollenberg]

Tutorial "Creating Multi-Segment Raster Topo Maps with MOAGU" is now posted in the Tutorial section of gpsfiledept:

http://www.gpsfiledepot.com/tutorials/creating-multi-segment-raster-topo-maps-with-moagu/

[Rich Owings]

Excellent! Thank you!

[Jason Koulouras]

Newbie to the GPS community so please pardon my question in advance. Would this software tool (MOAGU) help with Caribbean countries such as Bahamas, Barbados, St Lucia etc.?

TIA

[Rich Owings]

If you want to cover much area, I think it would be labor intensive and might be beyond the realistic capabilities of the GPS.

But you're in luck, because there are free Garmin-compatible maps of these areas...
http://rwsmaps.griffel.se/