Custom Map on Garmin Oregon
In amongst all of the hype around Garmin’s nuLink two-way connected nuvi 1690, the Nuvifone G60 and the Oregon 300 Mushroom Edition (pdf) here’s some interesting news for Garmin outdoor GPS owners who aren’t mushroom pickers.

Yesterday I ran across a new post on Garmin’s TrailTech blog called Creating Garmin Custom Maps in Five Easy Steps.  The post describes the Garmin Custom Map feature which has been released in a new beta software for the Garmin Oregon, Dakota and Colorado which allows users to create custom maps using Google Earth image overlays.  The Garmin Custom Maps process goes something like this:

  1. Find or create a JPEG image of your favorite trail map
  2. Load and calibrate the image in Google Earth as an image overlay
  3. Save the KML file to your Garmin GPS
  4. Custom maps show up on the GPS map page and can be enabled and disabled like other map layers

While I haven’t tried it yet, it seems Garmin is finally adding custom raster map support to their newer units — something Garmin owner’s have been asking for since the DeLorme PN’s introduced it several years ago.  Although the Oregon and Colorado already make use of aerial images in some of the marine basemaps (i.e. 400i and 400c) and GB Discoverer OSM raster maps this would be the first officially supported means for getting custom georeferenced maps onto any Garmin GPS.

Google Earth Image Overlay

Here are links to the beta updates I’ve found so far. More later:


Related posts:

  1. Tips on Garmin Custom Maps — GPS Visualizer Adds Garmin KMZ Support
  2. Tips on Garmin Custom Maps – Using GPS Visualizer
  3. Garmin Custom Maps Officially Available on Oregon, Dakota and Colorado
  4. Tips on Garmin Custom Maps — Random Stuff
  5. More Custom Map Updates and Garmin Dakota How To Videos