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Use pre-installed maps in BaseCamp - very cool!
Boyd
1985 Points
BaseCamp finally supports a feature that everyone has been begging for... you can use the pre-installed maps on your computer without downloading or installing anything. BaseCamp reads the maps directly from the GPS and allows you to compute routes, display tracks, create waypoints and more.
Just download the newest version for either the Mac or PC here:
http://www8.garmin.com/support/mappingsw.jsp
Connect your Nuvi and give it a minute to enter Mass Storage mode. Now start up BaseCamp and it should recognize the GPS and sync with the pre-installed map. This only took a few minutes on my Nuvi 1350; older models with slower USB interfaces may take awhile, and they may also be unacceptably slow in accessing the map. You should see something like this as it prepares the map

When the progress bar reaches the right side, you can then choose the City Navigator map from the dropdown menu. Click on "My Collection" to highlight it. Now click File > New > Route and you can create routes using various options - see the Tools > Options menu for more on this.

The same technique will also work with pre-loaded Garmin data cards and downloaded Garmin maps - just insert them in a USB card reader and run Basecamp.
If you already had the City Navigator maps installed on your computer in Mapsource, then you can access them directly (or any other Garmin maps) with Basecamp as well.
BaseCamp does a lot of other things, I have just started playing with the new version myself. It has come a long way and it makes me wonder if Mapsource's days are numbered....
Just download the newest version for either the Mac or PC here:
http://www8.garmin.com/support/mappingsw.jsp
Connect your Nuvi and give it a minute to enter Mass Storage mode. Now start up BaseCamp and it should recognize the GPS and sync with the pre-installed map. This only took a few minutes on my Nuvi 1350; older models with slower USB interfaces may take awhile, and they may also be unacceptably slow in accessing the map. You should see something like this as it prepares the map

When the progress bar reaches the right side, you can then choose the City Navigator map from the dropdown menu. Click on "My Collection" to highlight it. Now click File > New > Route and you can create routes using various options - see the Tools > Options menu for more on this.

The same technique will also work with pre-loaded Garmin data cards and downloaded Garmin maps - just insert them in a USB card reader and run Basecamp.
If you already had the City Navigator maps installed on your computer in Mapsource, then you can access them directly (or any other Garmin maps) with Basecamp as well.
BaseCamp does a lot of other things, I have just started playing with the new version myself. It has come a long way and it makes me wonder if Mapsource's days are numbered....
Comments
does basecamp support that ?
You can download all the imagery that you want to your computer even if you don't have a subscription. However, without a subscription it will only allow you to send a small 1 mile x 1 mile sample from the center of a download image to your GPS. With a subscription, the only limit to what you can transfer to the GPS is the size of your memory card. I have about 10.5 GB on a 16GB memory card in my Oregon 400t and it works great.
Thanks for the quick reply...
Don't have those units....
I was able to use Basecamp to create routes a few weeks ago.
Any help would be appreciated.
Garmin's own Basecamp forum is a very good place to get help. The developers participate and have helped many people. They also use forum input to update their bug list and feature requests.
https://forums.garmin.com/forumdisplay.php?f=179
Yes, I was able to create routes with it 3-4 weeks ago. I can access the routes I created and saved on the Nuvi (all data), but they now only appear as point to point routes because of the map access problem.
Thanks for the link, I will give that a try later today.
http://www8.garmin.com/support/mappingsw.jsp
There are also beta versions available at the link, but use those at your own risk because sometimes there are problems.
copied from my garmin
to be more safe
thanks
It is possible however to use a "virtual disk" program to simulate a removable drive and copy to maps to that. Probably more trouble than it's worth though.
thanks
i tried to import maps
but nothing , i will try to copy on a usb stick and try it
does it work with gmapsupp.img too?
save gmapsupp.img on an usb stick , should i create a folder on the usb stick?
There is no way to "import" maps. They must be installed on your computer using software such as Garmin's lifetime updater.
i run w7
i though Garmin's lifetime updater doesn't store the entire map on my pc but checks for updates
thanks
An option is available within Lifetime Updater to install the maps to your PC. You'd need to select this option when installing for the maps to be available in Basecamp.
I am trying to get this Garmin maze figured out and it "ain't" easy.
I use 2 XP computers and a Nuvi 255W. I figured I could download a garmin compatible map to one of the PCs, load the map onto the nuvi SD card and when I would go to the other computer with the nuvi Basecamp would see not only the original Garmin maps on the device but also the added topo on the SD card. Seems logical - Basecamp wouldn't have to store the map; just view it.
Apparently not! My nuvi can view and use the added topo (on the SD) but BC doesn't see it (it sees the SD card but not the map on it). That doesn't fit with Boyd's quote above as I read it. Am I doing something wrong? Am I going to have to install that map on the second PC in BC also?
Thanks.
I would have thought the trick would be that you have to have the map file in either a folder called Garmin or a folder called Map on the SD card. Since he says that he can use the maps when the card is in the Nuvi, it would appear that he must have them in the right place already. :?:
.img files are actually "containers" and the contents can vary so you can't generalize about how they will behave. The files used by Basecamp on your hard drive are separate "tiles" that make up the entire map. When you send a map to the GPS, all these separate files are combined in the .img container along with an optional file that defines the appearance of map.
The final .img file installed on the GPS includes a flag that indicates whether Basecamp can "see" the map when the GPS is connected to the computer. If you install a map on your GPS using Garmin's software (Mapsource or MapInstall), this flag will NOT be set, and the map on the GPS will NOT be visible in Basecamp. By default, only Garmin products pre-installed on a device or distributed on data cards are visible to Basecamp,
Sussamb has posted how to make them visible though. JaVaWa's software can also move map files from one computer to another. Very handy utility programs. :)
I downloaded the map from here: http://garmin.openstreetmap.nl/
It has been a couple of weeks now but I may have used the combined image instead of the install option, thiniking that would be more efficient to maintain a ¨repository¨ of maps on one PC and just add or delete them to SD cards from it alone. Ah, no good deed goes unpunished.
It is strange to me that the device (nuvi) can use the map but BaseCamp cannot, without some significant messaging. Shouldn´t be difficult for that to happen but then maybe it would provide some additional competition to Garmin proprietary maps.