Magellan GPS - Mapsend Topo question

Author

Mapsend Topo question

tarbay2000@yahoo.com

2007-01-06, 10:38 pm

I have a Magellan eXplorist 500 and have a question on Mapsend Topo
Canada.

Guess the Mapsend Topo USA is the same.

1. Have an SD card of 1Gb and could only upload a 64mb file size but I
have overcome this and amended the "mapsend.ini" file to allow for a
1.3gb file size upload.

2. I want to upload only one province to the GPS receiver. Is this
possible from some sort of menu (don't want to read forever to learn
how to do this...). Guess It would be the same for eg... Florida....
could you upload only the topo from Florida with Mapsend Topo USA.

3. Can someone confirm the Mapsend DirectRoute 3.0 software that has to
be activated via their website unlock code will have the basemap for
the entire North American continent... ie... all of Canada and the USA
as later I wish to use this to drive from Canada to Florida and wanted
to load on a basemap of Eastern North America and then just plug in my
location and the ending location and let the autoroute take me. Would a
couple of thousand mile trip take forever to process in a "goto" or
would it be better to load the route via the program and then upload
with the basemap to the GPs unit.

thanks in advance...

Pretty clunky software to learn ... load, activate, then find out you
can't communicate with the GPS directly because of the USB cord issue
(although I loaded in a dummy USB to serial patch so I can now access
it via COM port 3), upload a base map to your computer and then use the
conversion program to upload to the SD card. ... ps has anyone just
uploaded the file same in the IMAGE directory directly to the SD card
via a 9in1 reader without using the mapsend conversion manager or is
the conversion manager a required step?

Ron Hunter

2007-01-06, 10:38 pm

tarbay2000@yahoo.com wrote:
> I have a Magellan eXplorist 500 and have a question on Mapsend Topo
> Canada.
>
> Guess the Mapsend Topo USA is the same.
>
> 1. Have an SD card of 1Gb and could only upload a 64mb file size but I
> have overcome this and amended the "mapsend.ini" file to allow for a
> 1.3gb file size upload.
>
> 2. I want to upload only one province to the GPS receiver. Is this
> possible from some sort of menu (don't want to read forever to learn
> how to do this...). Guess It would be the same for eg... Florida....
> could you upload only the topo from Florida with Mapsend Topo USA.
>
> 3. Can someone confirm the Mapsend DirectRoute 3.0 software that has to
> be activated via their website unlock code will have the basemap for
> the entire North American continent... ie... all of Canada and the USA
> as later I wish to use this to drive from Canada to Florida and wanted
> to load on a basemap of Eastern North America and then just plug in my
> location and the ending location and let the autoroute take me. Would a
> couple of thousand mile trip take forever to process in a "goto" or
> would it be better to load the route via the program and then upload
> with the basemap to the GPs unit.
>
> thanks in advance...
>
> Pretty clunky software to learn ... load, activate, then find out you
> can't communicate with the GPS directly because of the USB cord issue
> (although I loaded in a dummy USB to serial patch so I can now access
> it via COM port 3), upload a base map to your computer and then use the
> conversion program to upload to the SD card. ... ps has anyone just
> uploaded the file same in the IMAGE directory directly to the SD card
> via a 9in1 reader without using the mapsend conversion manager or is
> the conversion manager a required step?
>
I have DirectRoute V2, and it does have detail maps for the US and
Canada. On the wrong computer to verify, but I believe it also has much
of Mexico. BTW, making a 1.3GB file for a 1GB card isn't really a good
idea....
Given how long DirectRoute takes to make a map of only 64mb, even on a
fast 64 bit machine, I don't know that I would want to mess with a 1GB
file. Perhaps the TOPO software is faster.

As for Goto processing, it is pretty slow. For a 150 mile trip (fairly
complex routing), it took about 5 minutes. Don't do the 'goto' process
while moving as it just confuses the machine. A better plan is to
identify main points along the way and set up goto routes for each of
them as you go. Note that the goto will be remembered even if the unit
is turned off.

The conversion manager prepares the data for the eXplorist. It is
necessary.

Jim Townsend

2007-01-06, 10:38 pm

tarbay2000@yahoo.com wrote:

> 2. I want to upload only one province to the GPS receiver. Is this
> possible from some sort of menu (don't want to read forever to learn
> how to do this...). Guess It would be the same for eg... Florida....
> could you upload only the topo from Florida with Mapsend Topo USA.

You can't choose a province. You can mark regions and upload them to
your eXplorist.

Start Mapsend Topo on your computer and, zoom out so all of the province
you want is showing.

Now go to the top bar and click on "Regions".

In the dropdown menu choose "New"

Hold the left mouse button down, and drag the mouse over the whole
province you want. (It will create a square or rectangular area which
will cover a bit of the neighboring provinces, but that's no big
problem).

When you let go of the mouse button, you will be prompted, give the
region a name.

Now click on "Regions" on the top bar again and in the dropdown
menu select "Upload to GPS"

Follow the instructions :)

tarbay2000@yahoo.com

2007-01-06, 10:38 pm

Thanks for the replies.... I created a 1.3 gb image max as someone
mentioned somewhere else that the entire base map is just under 1.3gb
so that would let me later buy a larger SD card and upload the entire
basemap. I now have detalied (*.MGI) basemap of eastern canada and also
a detailed (*.IMI) topo map of eastern canada and both working fine.
Bums you out to have to get two lots of software that are only good
with one unit...guess they only want to sell one per person and you
have to take it from vehicle to ATV or Ski-Doo ... must be more money
in multiple mounting brackets..lol Who's running this
company...hehe I migrated from a Garmin to this and for the life of
me I don't really know why? The learning curve is massive and I'm
pretty technically capable.

The squaring of regions I got no problem but I figured you could
somehow just load in one province or one state but guess this is not to
be. Like you said no big deal but just wanted to create overlapping
regions and states on the SD card so the machine hopefully would
automatically migrate from one to the other instead of having to load
in a large basemap. The large basemap works okay but takes a wee bit of
time to load up on first booting the GPS but after that appears to work
okay as the unit only loads the zoomed area into memory and shifts as
you move from that area to the next ...

Jim Townsend wrote:
> tarbay2000@yahoo.com wrote:
>
>
>
> You can't choose a province. You can mark regions and upload them to
> your eXplorist.
>
> Start Mapsend Topo on your computer and, zoom out so all of the province
> you want is showing.
>
> Now go to the top bar and click on "Regions".
>
> In the dropdown menu choose "New"
>
> Hold the left mouse button down, and drag the mouse over the whole
> province you want. (It will create a square or rectangular area which
> will cover a bit of the neighboring provinces, but that's no big
> problem).
>
> When you let go of the mouse button, you will be prompted, give the
> region a name.
>
> Now click on "Regions" on the top bar again and in the dropdown
> menu select "Upload to GPS"
>
> Follow the instructions :)

Ron Hunter

2007-01-06, 10:38 pm

Jim Townsend wrote:
> tarbay2000@yahoo.com wrote:
>
>
>
> You can't choose a province. You can mark regions and upload them to
> your eXplorist.
>
> Start Mapsend Topo on your computer and, zoom out so all of the province
> you want is showing.
>
> Now go to the top bar and click on "Regions".
>
> In the dropdown menu choose "New"
>
> Hold the left mouse button down, and drag the mouse over the whole
> province you want. (It will create a square or rectangular area which
> will cover a bit of the neighboring provinces, but that's no big
> problem).
>
> When you let go of the mouse button, you will be prompted, give the
> region a name.
>
> Now click on "Regions" on the top bar again and in the dropdown
> menu select "Upload to GPS"
>
> Follow the instructions :)
>
>
In the interest of time, save it to disk, and use a Flash card after
converting to eXplorist format.

Earl F. Parrish

2007-01-07, 10:33 pm

<tarbay2000@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:1167685077.530606.153890@48g2000cwx.googlegroups.com...
> Thanks for the replies.... I created a 1.3 gb image max as someone
> mentioned somewhere else that the entire base map is just under 1.3gb
> so that would let me later buy a larger SD card and upload the entire
> basemap. I now have detalied (*.MGI) basemap of eastern canada and also
> a detailed (*.IMI) topo map of eastern canada and both working fine.
> Bums you out to have to get two lots of software that are only good
> with one unit...guess they only want to sell one per person and you
> have to take it from vehicle to ATV or Ski-Doo ... must be more money
> in multiple mounting brackets..lol Who's running this
> company...hehe I migrated from a Garmin to this and for the life of
> me I don't really know why? The learning curve is massive and I'm
> pretty technically capable.
>
> The squaring of regions I got no problem but I figured you could
> somehow just load in one province or one state but guess this is not to
> be. Like you said no big deal but just wanted to create overlapping
> regions and states on the SD card so the machine hopefully would
> automatically migrate from one to the other instead of having to load
> in a large basemap. The large basemap works okay but takes a wee bit of
> time to load up on first booting the GPS but after that appears to work
> okay as the unit only loads the zoomed area into memory and shifts as
> you move from that area to the next ...
>
>
>
You have some of your concepts mixed up. The North American Basemap is
built-in to the device and does not require any action on your part. One
does not load a detailed basemap. A basemap is by definition an overview of
a geographical area. A basemap of all of North America should be less than
sixteen megabytes in size. When you zoom in, you are using the detailed map
rather than the basemap.

--
Earl F. Parrish

Ron Hunter

2007-01-08, 4:33 am

Earl F. Parrish wrote:
> <tarbay2000@yahoo.com> wrote in message
> news:1167685077.530606.153890@48g2000cwx.googlegroups.com...
> You have some of your concepts mixed up. The North American Basemap is
> built-in to the device and does not require any action on your part. One
> does not load a detailed basemap. A basemap is by definition an overview of
> a geographical area. A basemap of all of North America should be less than
> sixteen megabytes in size. When you zoom in, you are using the detailed map
> rather than the basemap.
>
>
>
On the eXplorists, the detailed map information is not used until the
zoom reaches .4mi. This can be inconvenient.

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