Joined: 05 Jun 2008 Posts: 2874 Location: New Jersey
Fri Jun 20, 2008 9:13 pm
If it's like the nuvi 5000, you need to zoom out to the 8 mile range (or greater) and then wait awhile for it to draw the terrain. It can take awhile - the terrain is generally draw last, after all the roads.
To speed it up and see things more clearly, go to Map Settings and disable the City Navigator maps. This will force the unit to only use the 3d basemap. Now zoom way out and you should start seeing terrain. It's very cool actually.
I started a thread on this at another site, but here are a few screenshots from the 5000 (using only the basemap) to give an idea of what's there.
If it's like the nuvi 5000, you need to zoom out to the 8 mile range (or greater) and then wait awhile for it to draw the terrain. It can take awhile - the terrain is generally draw last, after all the roads.
To speed it up and see things more clearly, go to Map Settings and disable the City Navigator maps. This will force the unit to only use the 3d basemap. Now zoom way out and you should start seeing terrain. It's very cool actually.
snip, snip
Thanks for the advice. Worked great without having to disable any maps. Just had to zoom out. Seemed pretty fast too although not as fast as when zoomed in.
Joined: 05 Jun 2008 Posts: 2874 Location: New Jersey
Sat Jun 21, 2008 3:41 am
After setting the screenshot an icon will appear on the screen. Whenever you touch it an image will be saved (without the icon). Connect the Nuvi to your computer and you will find .bmp images in the Screenshot folder.
I have a 205w and the topography only shows after you zoom out quite a bit. I'm wondering... is there NO way to get the contours of the land when zoomed in for normal driving? I live in a mountainous area and I usually have it zoomed to .8 miles scale, but there's no shading or anything... it all looks flat!
Joined: 05 Jun 2008 Posts: 2874 Location: New Jersey
Sat Jun 21, 2008 1:57 pm
Unfortunately there are no settings which affect at which scale the terrain becomes visible. It's something which is fun to play with, but doesn't seem to have much practical application for normal driving use.
AFAIK, this feature is only available on Garmin's newest units, like the 5000, 8x0 and 2x5 series. The Colorado handheld appears to take this a step father, and can show terrain in 3d view at different scales.
You could always load Garmin's US Topo 2008 maps on any Nuvi if you want to see mountains as you drive, but they won't appear as shaded relief unless you have one of the models listed above and zoom out to the 8 mile scale. They will appear as elevation contours in both 2d and 3d modes. But the Topo maps aren't routable, so they can't be used to calculate a route from point a to b. You can calculate your route as normal with the City Navigator maps however, then switch to the Topo maps and it will be displayed on them as you drive.
Joined: 05 Jun 2008 Posts: 2874 Location: New Jersey
Sat Jun 21, 2008 3:04 pm
This is getting really off-topic in the Nuvi forum, but I have an iPAQ 310 as well and have tried to like it repeatedly. But I just don't get it. Without question, it has the most awkward user interface I've seen on a GPS with the nearly invisible icons that appear on the screen and then vanish. Lots of nice ideas there, but it just doesn't seem to come together in a usuable product for me. And the user manual is hands down the worst I've seen as well.
But I kept it just to use with OziExplorerCE which looks fantastic on that high resolution screen.
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