Worldwide routable Garmin maps: URL REMOVED

Lambertus · 2011-01-02T15:39:01.000Z

It looks like these last few days people are requesting maps like crazy. Since the 26th the disk utilisation is at maximum all the time and that’s the cause of the massive backlog in request processing (around 266 now). I guess it requires some patience now and then…

Edit: Perhaps something nice to know: Since record keeping started in April 2009, the service received it’s 100.000th map render request on November 28, 2010. Of course there have been many more downloads (as the most requested map combinations are stored in a cache and can be downloaded immediately without sending a render request), but I don’t keep those statistics. The service is getting around 140k hits and is using about 200 to 300 GB bandwidth each month.

Beddhist · 2011-01-02T23:57:35.000Z

Would donations help? If so, I’m willing to add a little…

DiabloV · 2011-01-03T13:36:26.000Z

Thanks for map, but i have a problem. Install map of China region into my Windows mobile phone Garmin-ASUS M10E. I see map, but without route. Then i try to find chinees city - i cant change country - i see only “Russia” from official garmin map (ihave it with my phone).

Muruk59 · 2011-01-04T01:20:53.000Z

As a new member I would like to say Hi and also say thankyou for the work and time that has been put into this site by all.
Congratulations Lambertus on such a great site.
Cheers
Greg

Ebenezer · 2011-01-07T09:09:21.000Z

Hi. Thanks for your great service. One suggestion: I noticed that the default tile set for Australia is missing one tile north of Melbourne (“AU-Albury” - 63240316.img), and it probably does not need to include the tile for the south of New Zealand (“NZ-Dunedin” 63240324.img).

Lambertus · 2011-01-07T19:08:49.000Z

Thank you all for the nice comments.

Elbenezer: I know that the country masks of several countries are suboptimal. E.g. UK, Italy, some US states and apparently Australia as well. However it’s a pain to define proper country masks and I keep postponing working on it

Edit: Well, I decided to do something about the country matching and wrote my own “matchit” application (I previously used a generic one Greencaps wrote, but that did not like my country definition polygon files very well). It’s working alright (Italy, UK, Arkansas and Australia are nicely covered now) but there are still a few glitches to cover. I hope to update the website with the new country definitions quickly.

Lambertus · 2011-01-10T09:57:39.000Z

With a nearly 500 requests backlog extending 3 days back I have reduced the map availability time on the server from 48 tot 40 hours…

Edit 1: It’s not helping much though Disk usage is 100% all the time and CPU usage is working on new maps about 70-80% of the time. This service does not need to become even more polular… Releasing a new map version doesn’t help either I guess (as it needs every map request to be rendered, so no help from caching).

I just see in the stats that this service server almost 19.5 TB in traffic during 2010. Wow!

Anyway: the new tile matcher is now in production. You might notice nicer country names in the pull-down menu’s (e.g. ‘San Marino’ instead of ‘san_marino’) and the problems with obviously missing tiles for certain countries (like UK, Italy, Arkansas and a few others) has been fixed finally.

Now an opposite situation has developed: for some countries too many tiles are selected (e.g. Netherlands, Germany), but I don’t expect that to be a big problem for all you out there

Edit 2: Ahh, I still see some countries with ‘holes’ in them (e.g. Kazakhstan, Thailand). I need to improve the algorithms a bit more. Please be patient.

Lambertus · 2011-01-11T16:56:45.000Z

Over 500 requests now, after the map update yesterday. I guess it’s time to start some serious thinking about the future. For now, I’ll probably update only once every two weeks which will use the caching mechanism more effectively.

Lambertus · 2011-01-12T21:00:44.000Z

As per request here I added the queue length below the map on the main webpage and a rough guestimate of the waiting time.

Nand · 2011-01-13T03:06:42.000Z

I had requested for a map (for Bangalore, just one tile) 2 days back and still I did not get that. That time the waiting list was 400+. I am trying to request the same again and I am getting the following error:

"Error: Requested map version (08-01-2011) does not exist. This is mostly caused by some browser caching issue. Please clear your browser cache before trying again.

I’m very sorry but your request failed, this combined map won’t be created. Please try again."

Any idea how do I get the latest map for Bangalore, India.

garfield1970 · 2011-01-13T08:35:16.000Z

First of all , I want to thank Lambertus for this great service !

I try not to abuse it by just refreshing my Luxemburg & surroundings map ( 8 tiles i think ) 2 times a year but I’m running into problems this time

Yesterday , Queue 540+ , when i tried to create my request , I got :

“Error: Requested map version (08-01-2011) does not exist. This is mostly caused by some browser caching issue. Please clear your browser cache before trying again.”

aswell , today , withe a queue of 2 , still same error … so I did two tests

remove the version parameter from the URL → Request gets accepted but not executed
replace the version by 24-12-2010 → Request gets accepted and executed but generates an empty map

So I guess there’s a slight problem with the latest map update

Let’s sit back and wait , I’m sure Lambertus will find a solution and please don’t complain too much , don’t forget he’s giving his time and service to all of us at no charge !

cheers,
Claude

Lambertus · 2011-01-13T08:38:17.000Z

Aiaiaiaiiii.

The map directory is gone somehow… I think the cleanup script has killed it by accident. I’m afraid that all map requests of the last 2+ days have failed.

I’m very sorry about this, but everyone who has requested a map from the latest version (08-01-2011) will have to do it again…

garfield1970 · 2011-01-13T08:44:43.000Z

Lol

No biggie Problem identified , that’s the most important thing …

Just let use know when the maps are available again , don’t stress yourself too much

Cheers,
Claude

Lambertus · 2011-01-13T09:00:27.000Z

The old version of 31-12-2010 was still available because there were still requests in the queue for that version number so I’m pointing to that version again. Next update is scheduled for this weekend.

Nand · 2011-01-13T09:08:25.000Z

Lambertus:

The old version of 31-12-2010 was still available because there were still requests in the queue for that version number so I’m pointing to that version again. Next update is scheduled for this weekend.

Thank you very much for your time. I will wait for the next version to release.

Skubiduhh · 2011-01-14T11:01:28.000Z

Hi Lambertus,

whoever you are and where you are, YOU are doing a FANTASTIC Job. The development of your website and the usage of the maps is just amazing. It is admireable how much time you invest into this project and your level of dedication is just outstanding. I am not much of an IT/internet wizz but I certainly can imagine how much work goes into this.
I have been in plenty of countries in Europe and in the US and thanks to your maps I have been really getting everywhere. Allthough not everything works perfectly yet, all users should be very happy with your output. Remember folks: this is a free service!!!

CHAPEAU !!!

Keep up this fantastic job !!!

Skubiduhh

Lambertus · 2011-01-14T16:45:37.000Z

Heh, well, thank you!

Actually, the website is a bit of a hack. It looks ugly and I don’t have the skills (or interest) to make it more polished. But it works, which is what counts I guess. Most of the hours have gone in creating the scripts that automate the map pre-processing, building and other miscellaneous things. There are also a lot of people (mostly the really non-experienced computer users ofcourse) who have difficulties moving the maps to the GPS and ask questions by email which sometimes takes a lot of time.

I must also note that a significant portion comes from Greencaps who provided the transliteration application and the first version of the country vs tile matching application. And, ofcourse, last but certainly not least: this website would not be possible without the work of the Mkgmap developers (actually, “Mkgmap community” might be a better description), they deserve the most credit.

rogal · 2011-01-14T23:00:26.000Z

Hi!
I have two questions:

Is it possible to compile a TYP file into gmapsupp files by default? I requested a map and it uses internal garmin styles which look quite ugly (and don’t render sea areas for example).
Maybe this idea was mentioned before but I missed it - how about pre-generating most popular countries maps and upload them to file sharing service like hotfile or rapidshare? It would certainly free a lot of bandwidth, disk and CPU usage from your server.

Lambertus · 2011-01-15T10:15:41.000Z

rogal:

Hi!
I have two questions:

Good questions

Is it possible to compile a TYP file into gmapsupp files by default? I requested a map and it uses internal garmin styles which look quite ugly (and don’t render sea areas for example).

Yes, it’s possible but there are no good public generic TYP files (afaik, although one is mentioned/developed on this forum, but I haven’t looked at it yet). The sea is not rendered because Mkgmap could not produce a good quality sea, at least not until shortly ago. It has become better but, again, I haven’t really looked at it yet.

Maybe this idea was mentioned before but I missed it - how about pre-generating most popular countries maps and upload them to file sharing service like hotfile or rapidshare? It would certainly free a lot of bandwidth, disk and CPU usage from your server.

Good idea, but I want things to be fully automated, because otherwise it costs me way too much time. So I’ll check it out and see if things can be scripted.

BartB · 2011-01-15T13:40:58.000Z

Lambertus:

Maybe this idea was mentioned before but I missed it - how about pre-generating most popular countries maps and upload them to file sharing service like hotfile or rapidshare? It would certainly free a lot of bandwidth, disk and CPU usage from your server.

Good idea, but I want things to be fully automated, because otherwise it costs me way too much time. So I’ll check it out and see if things can be scripted.

Maybe you could make torrents for the popular country maps, so other people could help sharing them?