Garmin Basecamp Manual For Mac

[Mahmod Ohner]

Greatinstructions as always Ray

Is it possible to download entire continents such as North America etc or even just the USA in its entirety rather than having to select all the squares manually?

You can actually toggle the DEM map separately. So you could just add the OSM maps in there as you want (should have plenty of room for both), and then just got into the menus and toggle which layers you want, including (or not including) the DEM map.

The gmaptool.eu maps definitely do include DEM data. There are routable topo maps available for everywhere except Europe. I have used the Southern Africa, Southeast Africa, East Africa and Southwest USA maps both on fēnix 5X and in Basecamp. They are very high quality.

Hello and thanks,

Silly question maybe, what is the use of dowloading a free map on my Edge 820 which already has got one?

Are the ones you mention more precise? It looks you are saying no (in terms of rendering) so really I was wondering.

Thanks!

KRgds,

Ray,

Any idea if Garmin is planning on updating their integration with OSM in the web version of Connect? The current implementation is horrible. No contour lines, missing road names for secondary and fire roads, blocky trails. Just terrible. Looking at connect.garmin.com and openstreetmap.org side by side in a browser is night and day. The maps on the edge device actually look better than the maps in Connect!

The google maps layer may be fine for road rides, but it sucks ass for mtb trails and we have to rely on the OSM option. Unfortunately the connect integration is terrible and absolutely needs to be addressed.

I prefer this maps over the Garmin maps even where the detailed Garmin map is installed. I very seldom use routing, but quite often I use the map during bike rides to make spontaneous decisions where to go next. In this maps here

1) you can see if a road is paved or unpaved and get proper information of which quality the unpaved road is.

2) official bike routes are marked, so I can spontanously decide to follow a bike route with no need to download it.

Meredith,

Thank you for your reply. Which one specifically from the list below and have you tried it?

Generic Routable

Generic Routable (new style)

Routable Bicycle (Openfietsmap Lite)

Generic Nautical (non-routable)

Transparent overlay with elevation contours

If this is explained in the post, and I missed this idea or if one of the comments already covered this issue, sorry. Does the downloaded map data provide elevation details that the Garmin head unit would need to populate the elevation data screen while following a course on a downloaded map?

Ray, I bike tour (unsupported) all over the world. I buy the Garmin SD map cards for the regions/countries of the world I travel (I never bike tour in the US anymore, since 2009 for safety reasons). I have had the Garmin 705, 800, 1000 and now the 1030 (for 3 years). I find using the Garmin SD map for say SE Asia to be great, have never had a problem using the Garmin bought SD map cards. I was on tour in Morocco with a friend from Australia, who also had an Edge 1030 and he had downloaded OSM maps onto his Garmin. He had nothing but problems with turn by turn navigation as well as vast differences between what my Garmin was telling me for distance to go to a city, etc. The navigation errors he had using OSM maps were quite bad, such that he shut his Garmin off and we used mine. I have talked with others who had similar problems with OSM maps downloaded. I love the Garmin SD map cards, expensive but for me, worth every penny.

Installed the map of Morocco from the link and yes it is better than the no good world map pre-installed in Garmin Edge. But not that much.

89.5Mb

are all the data that come with that map.

Go to: link to openmtbmap.org and download the map there and you will get

255Mb

making that not just a little better but a map that can be used and where roads and towns and villages are mapped reasonably correct or at least so good that you will not get lost. You can even get it in local (arabic) language or in English .

As always a great a detailed article with relevant content. Thanks.

I have (only) an Edge 520 but decided to try it out with a super small piece of map from Austria. File size 7,1 Mb.

I created and downloaded the .img-file according to your description above. Then I tried to install the .img-file on my 520.

As expected the disc space was not sufficient. So I decided to move the two pre-installed .img-files (total 51,5 Mb) to a temporary storage place on my desktop. In theory, this should free space up for a small 7,1 Mb file.

Unfortunately this did not happen. I still miss 6,4 Mb to install the downloaded map. I cannot move the two pre-installed .img-files back to the 520 because of lack of disc space. So I basically lost the ability to use my pre-installed maps.

Can you give some advise on how to restore the Edge 520 storage capability? At least so I can get the original pre-installed maps back onto my device. Thanks in advance.

/Morten

The issue is that if you have maps in only in .gmap format for Base Camp (e.g. Africa TOPO maps from ) and need to put .img format for the fenix, you need MapInstall to transpile from one format to the other. MapInstall will only transpile maps onto a Garmin device or an SD card. In the case of an SD card, it works best if there is a GarminDevice.xml file.

My first quick and dirty solution was to copy the .img files I wanted from a fenix 5X to a fenix 5 plus over USB with a Windows VM. Later, I figured out that what you need for macOS to copy files over USB to Garmin that supports music is a Media Trasfer Protocol (MTP) client and the simplest one is Android File Transfer.

A more long-term workaround that does not require a fenix 5x, is to mount a virtual SD card DMG file in macOS and have MapInstall send the maps to the virtual SD card. Then I can copy the .img files it created from the DMG in the Finder to the watch with Android File Transfer.

A NO NAME SD card should now be mounted and visible in the Finder side bar. You can rename and unmount it like any other disk. At this point, if you just double-click on the DMG file, Finder will mount it as an SD card again.

I just tried it with my new Garmin 530, and it works well. I did use a map from link to wandrer.earth , so the download instructions were different, though I followed the other instructions exactly, and it worked fine.

hi ive just got the 830, i wanted to do xc routes on it using footpaths and bridleways but seems only roads come up when setting a mtb route.. is there a more detailed maps for it ,like the topo maps on the fenix x ? thanks

I went there when the primary site appeared to be down. I tried both formats and saw no big differences. I would remind you to rename the new map to gmapbmap and I had to move the gmapbmap.sum file off the device to get it to unlock. Hope this helps.

I have been trying to follow these instructions to download maps on my Garmin Edge 520 Plus that I purchased in the US but am currently in Singapore. Frustratingly, nothing seems to work. I get to each stage and even saved the gmapsupp file to my Garmin device. However, when I look into the device I cannot see the downloaded/saved maps.

I am having some issues though. I no longer have turn by turn directions with the text box at the top of the screen just blank. Weirdly, when I go off course I get directions but then they stop as soon as I rejoin the route. Has anyone else had this issue or have an idea of how to fix it?

Great article and thanks so much. I was nearly at the point of selling my Edge as the maps were so basic and difficult to use, but downloading these maps has changed things completely. The step by step guide is awesome and even allowed a tech idiot like me to install it in about 5mins. Thanks again.

Looking for some help here. I hope to be cycling in the Netherlands this summer. I am new to GPS devices. I have bought a Garmin Explore primarily for the navigation help it provides. It has the following maps loaded and enabled:

Does this method still work? I have attempted to visit the website and have a map prepared, but it seems that the servers might be fried or down. Just wanted to check that this method is still viable.

Sadly the garmin openstreetmap nl website isnt properly working anymore. It is only possible to download the entire map of a country and therefore it is no longer useable with my 520 edge. Do you know of any other way to create maps of selected areas only?

I ended up buying the euro maps from Garmin for $20. But they offer zero documentation (that I found) on moving/replacing the US maps already loaded. This write up was helpful in that respect so thank you!

So that method worked, copied out all the existing img files out of Garmin to my PC. This time downloaded the regular and lite versions in latin. Renamed the lite version as per the article. Now only these two maps show up and I am able to enable them. But nothing loads when I go to navigation.

I ordered the Edge 530 from amazon.de that came with the Europe map installed.

I figured i would try copying the NA cycling map from my Fenix watch over to the edge in the folder location in the article above. It worked!

So if you have devices from different countries (or have a friend with a device that does), you can just copy it over among devices,

It then got picked up.

I disabled all other maps (except trail forks) under Settings -> Activity Profiles -> [the activity] -> Navigation -> Map -> Map Information, only the new map is enabled there.

As I said, I was able to follow the instructions and download a map to my Vista HCx GPS, by means of copying the gmapsupp.img file.

The created map was OK for my use, however I found that when following a track at night, sometimes the street outlines were so faint that it was difficult to distinguish the specific streets at intersections, which made navigation tricky,

Also, the process for selecting a map region was limited, and also there is a limit as to the size of the map image you are allowed to create. So for longer rides (like a 1200k) I think it would not be viable for me as I can only download a single image to my particular GPS.

Bottom Line: I am still looking for a viable alternative.

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