Where can I find an introduction to installing mkgmap hiking maps

General talk
21

Hi

Sorry but I have spent hundred of hours putting data into OSM maps. I am on the node count rated at 585 on the mapping list worldwide so have have invested an an enormous amount of time in to OSM. Please look me up under Ent on http://hdyc.neis-one.org/ and you will see that my heat map is Tasmania. I have managed to convince our Parks and Wild Service to release their track data that they hold for OSM. I have been using OSM Australia for my IMG downloads but they are not suitable for bushwalking for the reasons that I have mentioned.

Honestly I should not be that hard so I have gone back to the default file rather than find and mix and match stuff spread across the web as mkgmap appears to constantly changing and that might be causing me issues. I have assembled the following components.

  1. osm.pbf file from my area (PS none of the extraction websites that I have pointed to have yet to generated a file as they are overloaded, but a fellow mapper using Linux has taken the Australia PBF file and split out Tasmania for me)
  2. Extracted the contours for the area. Again from my fellow mapper,
  3. Downloaded and using yet another editor Notepad ++ to overcome Windows versus Unix confusion on LF versus CF.
  4. Installed mkgmap and set up directory structure along with bat files.

Using the default styles that came with the mkgmap package I was given the following cmd line.

java -Xmx8192m -Xms2048m -ea -jar mkgmap.jar --max-jobs=4 --gmapsupp --route --drive-on-left --check-roundabouts --remove-short-arcs --generate-sea --remove-ovm-work-files --add-pois-to-areas --location-autofill=nearest --style-file=styles\Test\ –description=“OSM Tasmania Contours” --country-name=Australia --country-abbr=AU --region-name=Tasmania --region-abbr=TAS --draw-priority=25 tasmania.osm.pbf

It generates a IMG file that loads on my Garmin. Progress!!!

I then add

–family-name=contours Tas_contours_20M\tasmania_lon*.osm.pbf --draw-priority=1000 --transparent

I get a gmapsupp with zero bytes. Back to zero again.

Yet if I run the same cmd line pointing to the style from http://www.cferrero.net/maps/downloads/CF_Mapsource.zip with

Contours take their name from the elevation setting.

contour=elevation & contour_ext=elevation_minor
{ name ‘${ele|conv:m=>ft}’; }
[0x20 resolution 23]
contour=elevation & contour_ext=elevation_medium
{ name ‘${ele|conv:m=>ft}’; }
[0x21 resolution 21]
contour=elevation & contour_ext=elevation_major
{ name ‘${ele|conv:m=>ft}’; }
[0x22 resolution 20]
contour=elevation | contour_ext=elevation
{ name ‘${ele|conv:m=>ft}’; }
[0x21 resolution 20]

added I get OSM data and contours combined and it looks good. I think right I am making progress but no idea why the default style does not work yet this one does?

I then change the resolution level of for highway=footway so they are visible above 300 metres zoom and and the wheels fall off with white paths appearing on a white background.

Now I am referred to a site that uses Perl. I used to write in Cobol, Basic, SQL, Pascal, DBase3 nearly thirty years ago but I am past learning another computer language.

All I need is

  1. cmd line that will generate and IMG file with OSM and Contour data merged.
  2. Style sheet that will handle contours. Maybe the default does but using the above cmd line it does not, for me.
  3. Some idea how to deal with white paths on white background (sorry my eyesight is not good enough read this) when I play with the resolution levels to have footpaths, mountains and alpine plus wilderness huts appear at say 12 km zoom level.

I would then have everything I need to prove to a large part of the hiking community that use GPS that OSM is a worthwhile project including the Parks and Wild Life mapping officer that handed over the data hopping to get some IMG back to help in their projects on a remote island that Garmins own maps have three hundred kilometres in the wrong place and want hundreds of thousands of dollars to correct.

It would be nice but I can live without

  1. Icons for huts that are the same as Mapnik.

As mentioned I have put a lot of effort into OSM and been attempting to encourage others.

Please humble yourselves and provide a cmd line that will take the pbf and contours that I have already have that using the default style will work. Sorry if I sound frazzled but I am as otherwise I have wasted a year of my life entering data into a project that can only produce pretty website maps.

Thankyou for your patience. Please have a a go yourself with the tools that you point me to an see if they work as claimed.

Regards

22

Dear Extremecarver

I have just received this email from a member of the OSM Australia mailing list.

“Thanks for posting this stuff, I’m watching with interest. I tried a while ago and gave up.”

I spent four months wandering around Europe and it is vastly different to my home state. On OSM Australia website there are minor roads locked in at two kilometres zoom and every (about ten so far) people that I have loaded them up on their GPS after a walk have come back to me with the complaint that they zoom out too quick and lose the path. The three hundred metres ones are considered totally useless. I walk every second fortnight for a weekend and two to four times a year go on five to ten day walks. Is there anywhere in Europe where you can walk for ten days without been twenty kilometres near some man made feature for every day except the first and last? On most walks you will not find a signpost yet the tracks split off in numerous directions. Tourist every year get lost in Tasmania and sadly some die when they assume that a trail is heading the way they want but instead it twenty kilometres later winds up in wrong valley running parallel to the valley they needed.

Three weeks back we were enlisted into a night bushwalk to find a missing walker. They had a GPS but when they zoomed out they lost the track and could not work out which of the four options they should have taken so were heading kilometres down one to return back when they thought it was not the one to try the next. Very happy to see us they were. We on nine day walk two months back tried finding the mountains that we loaded into OSM and in the end gave up as we had to move the cursor over to where we thought the mountain was, zoom in and try and find the peak, hence name and then try and figure out which one it was. I managed to get a track to show with mountains at the twelve kilometre zoom level and it was the only one so screen clutter is not an issue. Sorry but thirty years of bushwalking disputes your comments. I have no doubt that they valid in Germany but not in Tasmania.

It is the same issues with 4WD tracks. Do you have tracks thousand kilometres long with a multitude of branch tracks hundreds of kilometres of long and not a single guide post to be found? Do you have major connecting roads suitable only for 4WDs? As you say not one map can do it all. On my Garmin 62s I load up the basic standard OSM maps for car use in one profile, ones without contours in another and the hopefully the detail set in another.

Look I do not expect a European based concept of what is suitable to apply hence looking for basic tools to optimize OSM maps for the area of the world that I walk, and that means often tens of kilometres away from anything but natural features. As mentioned like many Australians I connect to the internet via mobile phone networks. The easiest maps to load are ones with contours in them. For Tasmania alone that is around 40MB of data. No issue if your connection is fibre optic but try that on a mobile phone network at 10 MB per Euro and you might understand a little better the local conditions.

Cheers

23

Well I don’t see a problem with my maps for Australia. I put all pathes,trails and so on in resolution 22. If you use detail level = most - you get them shown until 3km (for detail level = normal - it is still 800m!
I know there are many maps that only put all pathes at 24 or 23, that is not suitable. But resolution 22 should be enough.

I don’t think that you can walk on a trail if you use 3km setting, so please use my maps, instead of talking rubbish. (if they are part of a route, they are even shown until 8km (respectively 1.2km on detail = normal)!!! (depending on route type and according typfile/layout, this applies to either cycle/mtb OR to hike/walk/foot)

(figures tested on etrex 30 as well as Oregon 600 - using newest firmware. Older firmwares were less agressive on most setting - I think one or two steps less - which would still be plenty!). So either you are no able to correctly setup your Garmin GPS, or I don’t really know.
I used my maps without any zoom problems in Peru, Bolivia and Chile - which are not very well mapped either.

As for no traffic, Sorry, but 99% of all people got good internet - I cannot offer maps for minorities that make 2-3% of my map users. Even in Africa I think you should be able to get good enough internet in internet cafes (so maybe not everyday you have a chance for good internet, but at least once in a while)… As for the rest of the world, this is definitely no problem.

As for contours, use phyghtmap.

24

…so I was curious what my hiking map setup would result and look like if I’m just saying “north=-40,east=149,south=-44,west=144”. Here it is:

http://getmap.gpxtour.com/20130718_tasmania.zip (30 MB Download)

Looks like most informations are contour lines…

25

Hi Joachim

Thanks for posting that information. Much appreciated, especially the img file. You are correct most of Tasmania is just contour lines with a lot of lakes, rivers and mountains to add but we are gradually working through it. To get the best idea have a look at Mapnik and it will show huge areas being national reserves (parks in our speak). The true wilderness nature is normal for us locals but amazes visitors to think they can be thirty or more kilometres away from any man made feature except for a rough track that locals seem to see that they can not. Most track splits are not marked or might have a few rocks that to the unfamiliar look natural but for the locals mean a split in the track cairn. I am interested in why some tracks appear a little different on your rendering so will have a good look at your creation style and now I that found Typviewer can have a chance to understand typ files as well.

Hi extremecarver

I do not wish to argue with you. Yes I do not expect you to do anything special with your maps as they are your project to do as you see best and we are only 500,000 people so a drop in the ocean of humanity. It is you simply that do not understand wilderness, and nor do I expect you to. You come from a land with numerous paths, tracks, roads, etc that has been trodden and fought over for thousands of years. The concept that a valley or mountain that has only seen a handful of people visit over thousands of years is one that is a struggle for people unfamiliar to Tasmania to accept. Probably in Europe only the Norwegians and Swedes in the vast untracked North would understand. They actually were the earlier European explorers whose footsteps we follow.

If you are interested in getting an understanding find Mount Hyperion using your maps on your GPS and then using your zoom levels find the nearest tracks around you. No cheating looking at the bigger maps. Yes we plan walks but sometimes a flooded river, dense scrub, towering cliffs, etc means that the planned route is not possible so you go looking for alternatives. The issue we have is many of our maps are thirty years old and the more recent ones due to politics are having tracks removed. Often you are not on a track to visit such remote peaks and valleys so you can not follow a track at 300 metres as it does not exist. Instead you are scanning maps for tracks twenty to thirty kilometres away and working out the best path in the terrain to get to them. And even when you get to a track there is a very good chance that you will miss it as it is often just a animal trail. Now imagine finding that in a metre of snow and you are starting to understand wilderness.

Hi popej

mkgmap has a lot of assumptions and knowledge that you as an experience user understand or more like have even forgotten that you make. Something as simple as the contours not working with the default style was traced to the “include” command path assuming the Unix / rather than the Dos . Fix that and it worked. Trouble is the style sheet is a huge array of commands and until a user can abstract away the bulk of them it is very confusing as the intrinsic assumption in the mkgmap downloads is Unix not Dos. Also why a style sheet has one “include” command for addresses at the top and another for contours at the bottom does not make for easy understanding either. As basic as it seems a Dos version with the appropriate directory switches would have meant I could start my learning with standard default styles and command lines without having to trawl through a mass of commands. It is very strange but I have grown use to a program been an program in Windows and forget that many years ago about assemblers. Yes I use to run “basic myprogram” command lines but did not drop to that been thirty years later still required by the “java mkgmap”. I feel I fool but that concept of assembler user program is unfamiliar to most Window users.

You may not be aware but most new users have no idea on the relationships between all the components. You have pbf, contours, style, type to name only the aspects that I am aware of. I read that icons are governed by hex codes preset in the Garmins and then read Garmin can change these for model to model and firmware to firmware. I see in the default maps I have created the tourism=information coming up as a toilet. It was not until I stumbled across another forum that I found a reference to Typviewer and then I understand by looking at it that is where icons can be created. I assume that the “hexcode” used in the the style sheet needs to be matched to the type in the typ file. It is rather a simple concept but one that is very poorly explained along with style sheets using the include command to link to style sheets.

Other issues - Dear Mr Garmin and popej and extremecarver

When learning weird things happen. I was successfully creating OSM data with contours but only contours were showing on my Garmin 62S. Very frustrating. So I went back to basic trouble shooting. I loaded back up a img with contours that a fellow OSM Australia user had sent me through as their first experiment with mkgmap. It had the same issue. Err? Um? It had worked but now did not! I do not know why but my Garmin had got itself corrupted. I played with all the settings but no joy. Then I copied the original Garmin img gmapsupp file that I had renamed back and loaded on the the osm img as test.img and everything worked. Lost two days with that issue. I will be prepared to bet that I will never strike such an issue again, and likely nor has anyone on this forum. It must be hard for you to understand why I am not getting the result you are but thanks to something buried in the firmware it happened. Hope it never happens again.

Closing

I hope that I have not too greatly offend people that have tried to help out but I was hoping that the mpgmap community could understand that apart from a the wonderful work being done on mkgmap without some sensible instructions optimized for the Windows users this is wasted on a large part of the OSM community. Also, on the Australia mailing list an overseas aid agency was seeking people to help in developing maps for a near by neighbor country to map local roads as government maps simply did not exist. Such a project means that standard levels of European road type does not exist. My brother volunteering on an aid project in the Philippines asked for my older Garmin and then fronted up at the Manila headquarters for mapping and liberated government maps of the area that he was active in. The best maps were 1:50,0000 and made in 1954 by the US Navy. He spent many long hours simply trying to find the villages and struck the issue that even the local freight companies had no idea so supplies just sat at the nearest town until they “disappeared”. It would be great if I had mapped out the area in OSM and produced Garmin img with rules that understood you needed to see paths and low level roads at higher resolution levels. Sure extremecarver this would result in massive screen clutter in Europe but it is the remoter islands of the Philippines not Berlin, Amsterdam, or London.

All I ask is the mkgmap community look at documentation for Windows and I am happy to help but have no idea how to start work on this. I plan to work out OSM Wikipedia entry though as a start.

Thanks and cheers. I now have the basic tools and understanding to experiment producing maps for my “special” part of the world.

Brett

26

I’ve seen this on the OSM website. I’ve done some efforts to get nature reserves shown on my hiking maps, but that results in most cases in less readable cards. The information “here is forest, there is wetland etc.” is much more importand for hiking (unfortunately this isn’t yet mapped in Tasmania). So the only way is to overlay that nature reserve area on the card like Mapnik does. But: On a Garmin device you don’t have the big area in front of you as you have on a computer display, you already have more informations on a very limited display. Here in Germany overlaying such areas just with green letter “NR” is too much.

That’s because I do not have a style for a track, another for a path and so on. A path with “surface=fine_gravel” is a perfect way for hiking, while a track with “surface=grass” might be no fun on a rainy day. You’ll find a short legend of the ways on the website of my main map:

http://www.gpxtour.com/en/page/getmap/

I cannot help on windows. But is there really a difference? Path separators are different - that’s it. And windows users are less used to work with a command line. But building a GUI for some map building tools like mkgmap would surely end up with a limited functionality - and the large amount of cards are built up via scripts automatically. And therefore batch files with comand line tools are simply perfect.

And yes, mkgmap & co isn’t a tool for the average user. For those other people are making their cards available.

27

Hi Brett,

this kind of forum works on principle: question - answer or problem - solution. You are trying to change it into: complain & request - work. This won’t work. People respond because are interested in subject, not because they feel obliged. Since your main subject seems to be “these tools aren’t good” I suggest you look at Mapwel:
http://www.mapwel.net/

This is complete GUI tool that should be able to perform all required tasks, from downloading OSM data up to loading img to GPS. I haven’t used it, so I can’t comment much, but it is very different approach than in case of mkgmap, so maybe you will find it comfortable.

28
29

I wanted to reply Brett’s first question, but I pressed ‘edit’ instead of ‘quote’ :rage:

It’s the default mkgmap style.

Here the links to the generic new styles and typ file

30

Hi ligfietser

Shame about the deletes post but moving on to the core issue.

Unless I following the wrong link the 2000.typ file is is 13kb and does not have the alpine_hut icon. The default style has tourism=alpine_hut [0x2b02 resolution 24] which is the standard Garmin bed icon.

The 2000.typ from garmin@openstreetmap.nl has the following

[_point]
Type=0x048
SubType=0x03
String1=0x04,Alpine hut
String2=0x01,Chalet
ExtendedLabels=N
DayXpm=“16 16 19 2” Colormode=32
“!! c #000000” alpha=15
“!# c #0092DA” alpha=0
“!% c #0095DF” alpha=7
“!? c #008FDF” alpha=15
“!$ c #0099DD” alpha=0
“!* c #008EE3” alpha=6
“!= c #009FDF” alpha=7
“!1 c #0080BF” alpha=11
“!2 c #0099E6” alpha=5
“!3 c #0099CC” alpha=10
“!4 c #008FDA” alpha=6
“!5 c #00AAFF” alpha=12
“!6 c #0092DB” alpha=10
“!7 c #008FDA” alpha=15
“!8 c #00FFFF” alpha=14
“!9 c #0093DB” alpha=14
“#! c #0094DB” alpha=14
“## c #0097DC” alpha=5
“#% c #0080FF” alpha=13
“!!!#!#!!!”
“!!!%!#!#!#!#!!!”
“!!!$!#!#!#!#!#!#!#!#!!!!"
“!!!=!#!#!#!#!#!#!#!#!#!#!#!#!1!!”
“!#!#!#!#!#!#!#!#!#!#!#!#!#!#!#!#”
“!$!#!#!#!!!#!!!#!#!#!2”
“!!!#!#!!!#!=!#!#!!!#!#!!!”
“!!!#!#!!!#!#!#!#!!!#!#!!!”
"!!!#!#!3!#!#!#!#!#!!!!#!#!!!”
“!!!#!#!3!#!#!#!#!#!#!!!#!#!!!”
“!!!#!#!!!$!#!#!4!!!#!!!#!#!!!”
“!!!#!#!!!$!#!#!#!5!#!!!#!#!!!”
“!!!#!#!!!6!#!7!#!!!#!!!#!#!!!”
“!!!#!#!!!#!#!8!#!!!#!!!#!#!!!”
“!!!#!#!!!#!#!#!!!”
“!!!9!1!!#!###%!!!”
;1234567890123456
[end]

[end]

So if I modify the default style to
tourism=alpine_hut & name=* [0x4803 resolution 16]

from
tourism=alpine_hut [0x2b02 resolution 24]

the style sheet matches in with the typ sheet and I get the alpine_hut icon drawn on my GPS as per the icon used on mapnik.

If I use the mapnik.typ from http://code.google.com/p/mkgmap-style-sheets/ it is a a 31.9KB file and has the alpine_hut with the reference code
Type=0x048
SubType=0x03

Which translates to
[0x4803 resolution 16]
in the style file.

So unless I am reading the wrong file the mkgmap default style is not a match to either the 2000.typ file from garmin@openstreetmap.nl nor from http://code.google.com/p/mkgmap-style-sheets/. I could get access to their matching style sheet then I would have a match that should generate icons on the Garmin as per mapnik.

I hope you can see where I am coming from, so in summary

  1. The default type and style file that comes with mkgmap zip file does not have the alpine_hut icon and instead links to the default Garmin icon being a bed.
  2. I have two very good typ files that match mapnik icons but no matching style file.
  3. I would be a lot faster and neater if I could get the style file that matches mapnik icons and not to mention make maps that OSM would see familiar icons for things like peaks and alpine_huts.
  4. I have the skills to reverse engine the default style sheet to match if I have to but this would be unnecessary if I can find a style sheet that matches up with mapnik codes.

It would be great if lambertu...@gmail.com or a fellow developer would post their matching style file as they have done the hard work of drawing icons that match mapnik ones that appear in OSM home site.

Hope that the above is not too confusing:)

Cheers Brett

31

Your observations are correct Brett, I copied the mapnik typ file from a french site: http://blog.lionelmaraval.fr/post/2010/01/23/Carte-pseudo-mapnik-pour-Garmin
They have their own style files but I matched it with the default style and didnt care too much about the pois, so most of those are still referring to the default garmin ones (alpine huts for instance).
You can change the bed icon for the mapnik hut icon, just import them with typviewer from http://www.sjjb.co.uk/mapicons/contactsheet where you can find most of the mapnik icons.

32

Hi ligfietser

Thanks for the clarification and a starting point, and also thanks for working on this project as I assume that you are the same as wizardof...@gmail.com.

Is it possible to have the source style files in the download section as the browse option only allows a HTM file to be saved? Arh, I figured out that I can select and copy and paste to Notepad ++ the code. Clumsy but it will work.

Ok, now back to map creation and mapping.

One remaining question is the resolution levels. As mentioned in the deleted post I can change the line resolution levels to say 16 and highway=footway hangs in to 50km plus level which is a little high but it seems that I have choice between 8km or that. But if I select the same resolution levels for POI such as peaks they drop out past 8km. It could be that I am using mismatched style/typ so will be working form yours now on. I did read somewhere that you can set the number of levels in the img file but this impacts on img file size. Size of the img file is not an issue so I would like to have as much ability as possible to use fully the resolution levels. Any hints how to do this or are my assumptions on resolution levels incorrect.

The reason is peaks. In Tassie we have a high plateau of around 1000 metres so mountains below a 1000 metres can be dropped at say 5km level as they are generally not visible beyond that. The ones above 1400 metre are visible for tens of kilometres so they are the main navigation aids so can stay in up to 50km zoom as there are not enough in Tassie to create a screen clutter issue. The ones in between 1000 to 1400 metres could be set at 8km zoom levels as they are generally visible to that level. I am comfortable using the same logic for population centres and using the ele tag value to set up three icons resolution but if I can not get the peaks (POI) to show up above 8km I am defeated before I start.

Cheers

PS a rough test map I put up is getting favourable response but striking issues with only contours showing up with some model Garmins so I will change my cmd line as per your advice.

33

Glad to see you are making progress. The levels you can set in the options style file. Please note that the number of levels is limited, i think max 8.
About the pois, its Garmin who decides when to drop the rendering. Some types can be visible when you zoom all the way out, but most pois not, they disappear very soon. In basecamp its even worse. Pois that remain visible are the major city pois 0x01, 0x02 etc so maybe use them instead of the default garmin peaks poi. About your contours, what draw priority do u give them, still 1000? This doesnt make sense, 31 is the maximum draw priority.

34

Hi Ligfietser

Yes I will change the draw priority to 31 and try that. The cmd line number came from a fellow OSM Australia mapper. As an aside by using using Linux he has had an easier path as straight copy files and the run works unlike the subtle Unix Dos issues that frustrated me but in a way forced me to understand the files better. Not sure where he got the 1000 from though. I think probably someone thought make the number large enough to avoid any problem but I think that can result in a very confused Garmin.

Three people (me being one) have struck the problem of only contours appearing on the map and no other data, then done the disable, delete other img files, copy my img “process” then enable my img, and it works. Strangely when they re-copy the other img files back everything works well despite enabling and disabling the other img. It appears to be a random issue but probably the root cause is the 1000 number corrupting some hidden Garmin file.

I also have noticed a strange issue of my Garmin in the POI having peaks appearing twice. I as mentioned had brought and installed the Garmin Topo Maps, and due to them having mountains in wrong places and named incorrectly, I could identify the issue of the POI search picking them up despite the Garmin Top Map being disabled. Also routing would not work giving an error that the maps do not support routing in the area of my POI. But if on the Garmin when the map appeared if I moved the icon say to the hut, and selected it, then the routing worked. All very strange, as the Garmin appears to stored POI in some cache (not just the past ones used) and this gets confused when playing with multiple img files. I have a Garmin 62S and Rino 650 so trying to work out if it is Garmin model specific but so far the contour only appearing issue has come up on a, 62S, Rino 650 and Montana 600. My disable/delete img “solution” has worked on the 62S and Rino 650 but I have not heard back from the Montana user. The Vista user that uses a single gmapsupp.ing has not had an issue.

Thanks for the heads up on the POI resolution issue. Sounds like Garmin has decided to avoid screen clutter issue by forcing POI not to go above a certain level even if the user manually selects the zoom level. I will try the city icon level but get the feeling that will mean peaks will not appear in the geographic list on the Garmin. It will be a case of what trade-off annoys me the least. I have a few options and understanding that is not me but a Garmin issue and that has helped greatly.

It is amazing how people use the map I created. One user plugged in his Garmin and accessed the maps using Basecamp. This is a common trick to see the maps that Garmin preloads on a SD card. As aside if you copy the img file to a harddisk this does not work but copy it to a thumb drive and it does. The joys of copyright protection gone mad. Any way when he directly accessed the img file on the Garmin by using Basecamp the coastline and lakes did not come up. I mirrored his approach and found the same issue. I assume that if I use the make maps for Basecamp and install them the problem will go away? I have not tried creating Garmin Basecamp install files as there is only so much my brain can absorb in couple of days.

I will play with the level command once I figure it out. This could explain why www.cferrero.net style and typ create an img about sixty percent bigger than the default style and typ. His style is a bit too much “style” for me but he has some neat features with contour lines that I will like “borrow”.

And thanks again for your help.

Cheers Brett

35

When you switch to city pois for your peaks, the search will change too, Garmin thinks those peaks are cities.
If you want to make them findable in the geographic list as well, you can use the continue statement and use a transparent icon for the default peak poi.
natural=peak {name ‘${name|def:}${ele|height:m=>ft|def:}’ } [0x02 resolution 14 continue]
natural=peak [0x6616 resolution 20]

Pois are listed even if the maps are turned off, you have to physically remove the map from the unit or rename it.

About the coastline and lakes did not come up, I dont know, maybe it has to do with the draw priority of those polygons in the typ file?

36

Have you set zoom level for POI to 50km in GPS? There still be some declutter but POI should be visible, not only cities.

37

Hi ligfietser & popej

First so you will know what I am up to and the process that I am using. I decided to use the standard default styles as my base and use the full 32KB typ file from the French site. This means I have a bit of adding to do to the default style but at least everything works as it should. Also means that any changes are coming for a known clean base. Actually this works remarkably well except for a caravan or two appearing kilometres from the nearest road so I quickly fixed that. Even had a go at creating a typ for natural=scree, Um? TYPview is an impressive effort but without a help file it takes a while to figure things out. Still I am very glad it exists.

I had a good play with the combination of detail and zoom level for POI on my Garmin and also thought I would add another level but that resulted in my main highways disappearing and a slightly larger img. I attempted to use level instead of resolution to force the peaks to that level but then I found Steve’s post confirming lighieter’s statement that POI will remain fixed to a maximum level based on their category in Garmin land unless forced up by the POI zoom level. Frankly I can not figure out Garmin’s logic with the POI zoom settings. I would have thought it might have forced every POI to be visible at the level you set. No that was not the case. Then I thought maybe is cut-off to stop POI appearing above a certain level. That appears to be the case but peaks still hit the hidden barrier imposed by Garmin. Both peaks and huts despite been level 16 an 18 appear up the to same zoom level then disappear together regardless of tghe zoom level so best stick to automatic. The detail level from “normal to most” acts as filter but still does not bring peaks up any level that must be set in the firmware.

So ligtitser your approach is the winner and I will now attempt to integrate it into the style sheet. Having maybe thirty peaks appearing in the city file is a minor issue compared to the benefit of seeing them. Sure I can force them with the GPS’ POI level but then every peak is forced and Tassie goes the colour of mountains as the clutter takes over.

Looking at the actual maps generated the detail to clutter level is remarkably good after playing with a few resolution levels. Once I fix the mountains to cut out by elevation, lighten up the contour lines, and strengthen the line colour and or type for footways they will be near enough to what I had hoped for. Testing my inclusion of scrub and scree references plus dealing with tourism=wilderness_hut would deal with my outstanding wishes. But they will need data entered in OSM as nobody appears to use them probably because they do not render in mapnik/

The the test will be feed back from fellow bushwalkers. Then on to 4wd logic. Um? stiff drink and bed I think.

Cheers and thanks.

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Hi All

Progress is been made with img appearing in the drop box https://www.dropbox.com/sh/g7nxh1xwjrlxg5v/O9sBszLB0n . It has been an interesting learning experience. Still need to implement the mountain logic fully.

As you are most likely aware that the is a lot of interlinking between all the aspects. One thing though that throw me for a while was the waterfalls were not coming up. Sure I struck the familiar ‘include’ command with the Unix switch in the points file plus did battle a bit incorporating the waterfall icon from another typ using TYPviewer. But the real show stopper was the actual OSM tagging. It had been tagged as tourist=attraction and water=waterfall. Sure we have the usual issue of waterway=waterfall as well but that was taken care of in the default style. But what was happening the parsing of the points file starts at the top and tourist=attraction came first. I am familiar with say tourist=attraction | waterway=waterfall option but is it possible have waterway=waterfall taking priority without putting it first in the order. What is the syntax for tourist=attraction | waterway <> waterfall. Is it the <> or some other character.

Also curious why the points and lines files are split with the include option in the default set. If there is sensible logic I will like to stick to so does anyone know the reason?

Thanks again Brett

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tourism=attraction & waterway!=waterfall

This rule for attractions will let you define waterfalls later in your style.

You will find out that for hiking maps the default mkgmap style isn’t a good start which you just have to adjust a little bit. After some weeks I started from zero again. You will find out that anyone handles the keys like “natural”, “highway”, “tourism” and so on separately one after another with every value; That looks tidy in the style files - but as you already found out the logical structure of what you want to see on the map may make more sense.

Change the order of your POIs in the style: The rule matches first catches the POI on the card. Reduces many “and”, “or” and “if” in your style.

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It was a bit of a challenge to understand the inter-raltionship between all the elements. It seems simple now that a style file takes OSM data and allocates a Garmin code to each set of tags. Then the style file adds custom icons to each Garmin code.

Also the style file appears to be parsed and once a tag gets some sort of match it is given the Garmin code or rejected. Hence, the continue command and my yet to understand continue with actions. All now simple concepts that mean I can build some very good maps for Garmins.

Interesting it was the splitting of style sheets that was big headache due to the path switch difference between unix and dos.

Typviewer is a powerful program but not intuitive. However, its ability to do things is top class.

Like notepad ++ as it is a proper programmer’s editor.

But yes I agree probably wind up simplifying style to avoid the include command as this would at least simplify the unix/dos issue.

I have swapped over to JOSM as it recognize more tags but still misses some. Polatch 2 is rather in need of more tags added but I assume this is part political issue and volunteer time.

For JOSM is there a group I can contact re having tags added? By it certifying tags is a powerful means of “standardizing” tags. OSM Inspector is certainly a very good step in that direction.

Anyway much more work to do with the only issue being me understanding the structure better. As linked to a good img has been produced and I am awaiting more feedback from a bushwalking forum. It is worthwhile noting that despite many users having Garmin GPS units the actual use of them is quite small with many admitting they get confused and give up.

And thanks again for all the help.