Open Street Maps for Garmin Zumo 550

[ianm00]

I have a zumo 550 with city navigator Europe maps installed. I bought my zumo several years ago but have never wanted to pay for map upgrades.

I understand that you can now put open street maps onto the Garmin.

Has anybody done this? What are the advantages and disadvantages of doing this?

Is the process easy? the web sites I have seen make it sound complicated.

Ian

 

[The Grey One]

I have a zumo 550 with city navigator Europe maps installed. I bought my zumo several years ago but have never wanted to pay for map upgrades.

I understand that you can now put open street maps onto the Garmin.

Has anybody done this? What are the advantages and disadvantages of doing this?

Is the process easy? the web sites I have seen make it sound complicated.

Ian

It really is not hard, here is the website you need. It did not used to work properly from Internet Explorer although they might have fixed it now. I use chrome and there are no problems. You need to need to open the site, if you just want one country use the third question mark down, you will see what I mean if you have a look. If like me you want several countries you need the fourth question mark. Select the tiles you want and you will see your map set grow on the side of the screen. When you have what you want put in your Email address. You will get a message to say you are in a queue and then another message to say its ready.

When you download make sure you pick the right format-it says something like ...for Garmin Mapsource and Basecamp.
Once downloaded the maps should appear in Mapsource or Basecamp. I have found that sometime the PC needs a restart fo find them though.

If you connect your unit to the PC you can then transfer the maps to it.

I use openstreetmaps all the time and find they are more accurate, at least around here, and have better detail than the Garmin maps. I also have the latest Garmin maps so I can compare like for like.

A couple of yars ago I put some openstreetmap maps onto a 550 for someone who had loaded all his trip waypoints but forgot any maps, he only had the UK, not a lot of use here in the Alps! Anyway it worked fine.

Downsides are a bit more clunky than the Garmin to download but looking at threads on here lots of people struggle with the Garmin downloads. The maps, being more detailed take up a lot of memory, I just have one card for around here and load a spare card with what I need elsewhere so for me no big issue.

The maps are free and can be updated as often as you like so you can always have the latest if that is what you want.

I hope that helps, if you are a subscriber you can always PM me if you are stuck, if not an Email (address in my signature below) will get an answer. Just seen it's only the website address so [email protected]

John

 

[ianm00]

Thanks John.

I will get another sdcard and give it a go.

I assume that if it goes wrong I can still use original garmin maps.

Ian

 

[Bear]

The advantage of OpenStreetMap is very simple: it doesn't cost anything other than the electricity to run your computer while you download the maps of your choice. The disadvantages are several but can mostly be overcome. The first thing to think about is whether you want to use either Mapsource or Basecamp for route planning. If not, download each country of interest as a separate gmappsup.img, put them on individual SD cards and off you go. If you want route planning using either of Garmin's finest tools, you'll have to work a little harder. If all you need is a small area then let OSM build you an installer, download and run it, then use Mapsource or Mapinstall to put it onto the Zumo. If you want all of Europe in one go then you'll be challenged as there's apparently a limit of 2 gigabytes on the Windows self-extracting executable. You can download several map sets but then you'll need JaVaWa's GMTK to rename one mapset before installing another. I've looked into this because my 2610 is no longer supported by Garmin so I have to look elsewhere. I also have the best part of 30 years experience persuading computers to work for me and, now I'm mostly retired, I've too much time on my hands. Unless all you need is a relatively small area or cash is a challenge (as it is for most earners of an honest living) then paying Garmin for a lifetime subscription is the easiest option.

I've used OSM in the UK and France and been happy with what it offered. I've just downloaded the UK as a set then France and Benelux as that's as far as I'm likely to go this year. I found it straightforward but I've been practicing. Look in the StreetPilot sub-forum for other opinions as they're the users who need OSM the most.

 

[Bear]

What a lot of posts in the time it took me to type my rambling reply.

 

[ianm00]

OK as a trial I have downloaded and installed into mapsource the UK map from Open Street Maps.
Within mapsource I can select either City Navigator Europe or Open Street Maps.

My zumo has the City Navigator Maps installed on its internal memory (2008 map version still fits into internal memory of zumo)

Is there a way I can put the OSM onto a SDCARD then within the navigator can I select either City Navigator Maps or OSM maps or can I only install one set of maps. How do I do this?

Also does OSM have speed camera warnings? Do these work in the same way as pocket gps cameras.
My current version of pocket gps is also out of date so will OSM replace these?

Thanks again all

Ian

 

[Bumpkin]

Is there a way I can put the OSM onto a SDCARD then within the navigator can I select either City Navigator Maps or OSM maps or can I only install one set of maps. How do I do this?

Absolutely, write the mapping to an SD card using Mapsource or MapInstaller, either in the Zumo itself or in a card reader. ISTR that the 550 is USB 1 so the reader should be quicker.

Once the SD card is back in your Zumo go Tools > Settings > Maps (that's what it is on the 660 anyway). From here there should be a button (possibly info or details) which will show some checkboxes from which you can select the mapping that your GPS will use.

Also does OSM have speed camera warnings? Do these work in the same way as pocket gps cameras.
My current version of pocket gps is also out of date so will OSM replace these?

In theory Pocket GPS World should work with OEM mapping, can't see why not. Haven't tried it to be honest. It's independent POI data with proximity warnings, can't see a problem there.

Sent from my GT-I9505 using Tapatalk

 

[The Grey One]

OK as a trial I have downloaded and installed into mapsource the UK map from Open Street Maps.
Within mapsource I can select either City Navigator Europe or Open Street Maps.

My zumo has the City Navigator Maps installed on its internal memory (2008 map version still fits into internal memory of zumo)

Is there a way I can put the OSM onto a SDCARD then within the navigator can I select either City Navigator Maps or OSM maps or can I only install one set of maps. How do I do this?

Also does OSM have speed camera warnings? Do these work in the same way as pocket gps cameras.
My current version of pocket gps is also out of date so will OSM replace these?

Thanks again all

Ian

No idea about speed camera warnings, such things are however becoming illegal parts of in Europe. Personally I think that if I needed a warning for UK cameras I would go to the opticians first! I only know of one fixed speed camera around here (other than those in the many tunnels on the local A10 autobahn) It's small and grey with no warning signs at all. The same applies to mobile speed traps, we are fortunate that locally they put then only in towns and at some junctions on the open road (these have lower limit for a few hundred yards) They never give warning but I have never been fined because I keep to the limit in towns and keep my eyes open elsewhere. Over there those big yellow things are hard to miss and there are warning signs everywhere.

Just me, if a warning on your sat nav helps then use it.

Glad you got the maps sorted

John

 

[ianm00]

Is there an easy way to say download all of Europe and use within mapsource?
Trying to select all of Europe "tile by tile" is difficult.

If you create custom set of tiles with a few countries is there anyway that you can save your tile collection so that you could download an update for the same set of tiles at a later date?

Thanks

Ian

 

[Bear]

There's no easy way that I can find to download a selection of countries other than by selecting the relevant tiles. I also haven't found a way to save a tile selection. I seem to remember reading somewhere on the OSM forum that there's a limit to the size of Windows installer file that you can download (2gigabytes I think). To compound the problem, if you download (say) France it will overwrite your existing OSM UK mapping. To get round this you need JaVaWa's GMTK (from http://www.javawa.nl/ or there's a link somewhere within http://garmin.openstreetmap.nl/) which will let you rename one OSM map before installing another. As OSM tiles overlap national boundaries it's impossible to install maps of neighbouring countries withut overlaps that GMTK warns about but it all seems to work with both MapSource and BaseCamp. I'm searching, so far without success, for something that will let me download several OSM maps then combine them into one, which would make routing across Europe an easier business.