GPS Tracklog

UK to get raster maps for Garmin Oregon

UPDATE: Garmin UK has a page up on the product, dubbed called Garmin GB Active^TM.

Garmin Oregon owners in the UK will soon be able to view Ordnance Survey raster maps on their units. Raster aerial imagery has been available on marine units since the release of the Garmin Colorado and Oregon 400c/i models, yet we landlubbers have had to make do with vector maps.

The OS maps, due to be released early next month, will reportedly overlay vector data on top of raster imagery, allowing for turn-by-turn navigation.

Garmin nuMaps Guarantee

Garmin is also announcing its nüMaps Guarantee today, which will ensure that new owners of select Garmin personal navigation devices (PNDs) receive the most updated map available.

There has been a great deal of confusion over Garmin's policy on units purchased without the latest maps pre-loaded. Today's announcement is welcome news, if for no other reason than it formalizes their policy and we know what the rules are.

Garmin nuvi 200/260W Mexico

Planning a south of the border getaway? Garmin has you covered. Without much fanfare, they've released two nuvi models with pre-loaded maps of Mexico. There is no page for them per se at Garmin.com; the two links below go to the Amazon pages for these models.

• Garmin nuvi 200 Mexico - Includes pre-loaded maps of the lower 48 states, Hawaii, Puerto Rico and Mexico; does not include text-to-speech
• Garmin nuvi 260W Mexico - Includes pre-loaded maps of all 50 states, Puerto Rico, Canada and Mexico; also includes text-to-speech

National Geographic TOPO! adds support for new Garmin units

National Geographic has released TOPO! version 4.5, adding support for Garmin Oregon, Colorado, Edge and nuvi models.  A Mac OS X version is also available. This is a welcome improvement, as too few mapping software programs support these models.

Ten reasons TopoFusion rocks

TopoFusion is my go-to program for planning and tracking backcountry adventures. It’s typically the program I turn to first and there is rarely a day that goes by without me using it. Here are ten reasons that TopoFusion rocks:

1. The ability to toggle between USGS topo maps, aerial photos and hybrid imagery

All you have to do is tap “a” on the keyboard to toggle between these views. The TerraServer aerial imagery includes B/W U.S. coverage to 1 meter/pixel and color urban coverage to 0.25 meters/pixel. TopoFusion also accesses Canadian topos, TIGER street maps and worldwide LandSat imagery. The color urban imagery below is of salt ponds at the south end of the San Francisco Bay (16 meters/pixel).

Garmin adds China map coverage ahead of Olympics

Heading to the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing? Garmin has you covered. Two weeks ahead of the games, Garmin has released City Navigator China NT, though I have to wonder if the coverage is as good as is suggested by the map above.

Garmin TOPO U.S. 24K goes nationwide

UPDATE: The Mountain Central card (Colorado and Utah) has now been released.

I knew something was up when Garmin named their last topo product with the soon to be dated moniker TOPO U.S. 2008.  Now it's official, Garmin will be releasing 1:24,000 scale topo maps of at least the 48 contiguous United States, complete with routable roads and trails. Previously available only for some National Park areas, this software will be known as TOPO U.S. 24K.

These will be available by region -- the Pacific Northwest (WA & OR) is already out, with California / Nevada scheduled to be available in July. The remainder of the U.S. is "coming soon." The maps will come pre-loaded on micro-SD cards with an SD card adapter at $99.99 a pop.

Upgrade your maps within 30 days of buying a GPS

UPDATE: Garmin has updated their policy with their nuMaps guarantee, which gives users 60 days to register their device. Follow the link for more details.

It appears that TomTom and Garmin have both adopted a formal policy of allowing free map upgrades within 30 days of registering a unit. Wait 31 days and you no longer qualify. Hence, I am recommending that anyone purchasing an auto GPS register their device immediately to see if they qualify for a free upgrade.

Open Street Map on a Garmin handheld

In last week's Waypoints, I issued a challenge to Free Geography Tools' Leszek Pawlowicz to check out Open Street Map (OSM) on a Garmin handheld, now that OSM has incorporated U.S. TIGER data. He good naturedly accepted the gauntlet and posted his findings. The screen shot at left shows a sample.

I'm disappointed that using OSM data in this way doesn't allow for autorouting. Still, for those of you with Garmin handhelds that don't want to lay out the bucks for MetroGuide or City Navigator, this is another option.

Thanks Leszek!

Free hi-res topo maps of CO and WY (and Utah soon)

One of the great things about Garmin units is the wide range of free maps that are out there for them. I recently became aware of another source, this one offering 40-foot contour interval maps of Colorado and Wyoming. The not quite accurately named site, Miscjunk, will soon add Utah to the mix too.

The screen shot at right shows a sample map loaded onto the new Garmin Colorado series. If you load a custom (U.S.) map onto the unit and have Topo U.S. 2008 (which has DEM data) loaded too, you'll get the nice shading effects seen here.