VeloMaps and Contourlines

Now the most popular Velomap maps (over 50 countries) come with contourlines integrated

Note that since end of January 2012 the most popular velomap maps have contourlines integrated, the text below is therefore for most people only for reference. On installation you can now select whether or not to also install the contourlines.

Get The Contourlines

You have several possibilities to use them:

a) install them as transparent contourline maps only: Get the maps, unpack them to any folder and run one of the batches you can download from here: velomap_contourline installation_scripts.zip

a2) integrate them with the maps Download the contourline maps and extract them into the same folder as the maps that they should be added to (don't place them into a subfolder).

a) Install Contourline Maps in Mapsource/Basecamp

I tried to make this installation as failproof as possible and this means for me to go with gmaptool and gmaptool and mkgmap.
Alternatively (actually better) you don't need maptk, but you have to install JRE 1.6 (JDK 1.6 is of course also possible) and download mkgmap from http://www.mkgmap.org.uk/snapshots/mkgmap-latest.tar.gz

As the author of maptk decided to no more compile overview maps (as of version 2.7.3) I will change the batchfiles to use cgpsmapper – but I recommend using create_mapsource_installationfiles_with_mkgmap instead!

a1)  If you only want to have a seperate transparent contourline map in Mapsource/Basecamp

Extract the contourline map download into an empty folder, and run create_mapsource_contourline_installationfiles.bat or create_mapsource_contourline_installationfiles_with_mkgmap.bat

Then run the newly created install*.bat

a2) If you want to have the contourlines added to normal maps

Add the 7*.img from the contourline download, to your normal map folder, and run create_mapsource_velomap_installationfiles.bat or run create_mapsource_velomap_installationfiles_with_mkgmap.bat (by using the mkgmap batch, a new address index is generated). Note mkgmap has to be the "latest" version (if mkgmap.jar is older than the version used to create the velomaps, than it may fail).

Note that only Basecamp version 3 (or later) will show the contourlines on top of the normal maps (as well as all GPS). Mapsource does not show contourlines – but they are sent to GPS nevertheless.

You can throw together as many contourline maps and normal maps into the folder as you like. They will all be munged into a new map. (make sure not to install two maps with the same FID, use mapsettoolkit to check if in doubt).

Attention: if you use the batchfiles "with_mkgmap.bat", you need to have at least as much available RAM as the size of the maps (select all 6*.img and 7*.img). On 32bit systems there is furthermore a barrier of about 1100MB of maps. Else it may fail, or you might need to wait a very long time (could be hours) for completion. (to know how big the maps are, simply select all 6*.img and 7*.img and look at their size).

b) Sending only the contourlines as a transparent map to GPS

Extract the contourline maps (7*.img) into an empty folder
Doubleclick on "create_contourline_gmapsupp.img.bat"
This creates a gmapsupp.img which you can directly put onto the \garmin folder on your gps or \garmin folder on your memory card.
The resulting maps are transparent and if active will allways show on top of all other maps.

For most people with outdoor garmin GPS (except Oregon, Dakota, Colorado and future units who can simply rename gmapsupp.img to e.g. contourat.img as the units not only read gmapsupp.img)
you probabely want to merge that gmapsupp.img with other maps. Read gmaptool documentation on how to do that. I will not help you on that.
 

c) Sending Contourlines and maps to the GPS

Simply put the openmtbmap maps AND contourliens of your choice into a folder, and doubleclick on create_gmapsupp.img.bat (use the create_gmapsupp.img.bat from the normal map folder, the old batch from the contourlines will not work correctly)
This creates a gmapsupp.img that can be directly placed onto the external data card of your GPS or in the internal memory in the /garmin folder and off you go. Some newer units like Oregon or Dakota with newest firmware can even use any gmapsupp.img be it named gmapsupp.img or openmtb.img so for updating your maps you have more choice.