[GRASS-user] Making and Uploading Maps for Garmin Etrex Legend GPS - v.net.salesman

[John Stevenson]

Thanks to everyone for their help so far.  It seems like this is much 
less straightforward than I had expected.  I've looked into some of the 
options e.g. QLandkarte, cGISmapper and tried to upload a ready-made 
.img file but had problems with the port speed (I'm using a usb/serial 
converter to connect to the GPS).

As I am most interested in loading up my road data, I thought about 
putting them on as tracks.  I exported the vector map to kml, then used 
gpsbabel to convert to .gpx format.  I then edited this by hand to name 
the tracks and join all the parts into track segments.  Unfortunately 
when it loads up, all the segments get joined together so that the end 
of one road jumps onto the start of the next.  I think that either 
gpsbabel or my etrex don't support that feature.

So now I have a new plan:  is it possible to use v.net.salesman to 
export a single track that covers every road in my network and doubles 
back on itself to return to the start?  If so, can someone give me some 
pointers on how to do it - I'm still getting to grips with the vector 
format and don't really have a clue where to start.

Thanks,

John




Tom Russo wrote:
> On Thu, Aug 07, 2008 at 10:12:08AM -0700, we recorded a bogon-computron collision of the <tech_dev at wildintellect.com> flavor, containing:
>   
>> I see some room for confusion here. I think on Garmins the basemaps 
>> "built-in maps" are not vector format but raster format .img files.
>> So the short answer is you can't dump them on the way you're trying to, 
>> you need to convert them.
>>     
>
> Try looking at cgpsmapper and GPSMapEdit.  Neither is open source, but 
> both work under WINE on linux.  There's a Linux build of cgpsmapper, too.
> These tools will let you create maps for your Garmin GPS from various vector 
> data (with a lot of work).  See:
>
> http://home.cinci.rr.com/creek/garmin.htm
>
> for a walk through the process and links to the tools.
>
> Since you've already imported your GPX files from gpsbabel into GRASS, you
> can just export them as shapefiles for reading into GPSMapEdit.
>
> GPSMapEdit will read shapefiles, but it's a bit of a chore to get it Just Right.There is talk about making an OGR output format that can handle the "Polish"
> format used by cgpsmapper, but it ain't there yet.  I'm not aware of any
> other tool than GPSMapEdit that can write Polish format from shapefiles.
>
> HTH,
> T.
>
>   
>> John C. Tull wrote:
>>     
>>> I've used gpsbabel for moving points, tracks, and routes to/from a 
>>> Garmin GPSV.
>>>
>>> http://www.gpsbabel.org
>>>
>>> John
>>>
>>> On Aug 7, 2008, at 5:17 AM, John Stevenson wrote:
>>>
>>>       
>>>> I have digitised some points, roads and a lake in GRASS and would like 
>>>> to be able to upload them onto my Garmin Etrex Legend.
>>>>
>>>> I have been able to use v.out.ogr format=kml to output the points, and 
>>>> can upload them to the GPS with gpsbabel.
>>>> However, I would like the roads and the lake to be loaded into the 
>>>> built-in maps.  I read a post on the GRASS mailing list archive that 
>>>> mentioned cGPSmapper, but it seems like this only works with ESRI 
>>>> shape files (v.out.ogr again) if you have one of the paid-for versions.
>>>>
>>>> Is there any open source software that can do this?  Can GRASS export 
>>>> in a format that can be more easily converted to be compatible with 
>>>> the GPS?
>>>>         
>
>