Mapomatic launch OSM based Canal Map for Garmin
With the New Year brings new ideas, and today we would like to announce we are launching our OSM Canal Map for Garmin GPS units. As with all our maps this is initially UK based only, although we are looking to expand and offer more countries during 2009 (if you have any particular requests, please create an account in the forums and ask for your country).
The Canal Map is a little experimental at the moment, and we would welcome feedback good and bad in our forums. We started with a similar profile as our UK OSM Cycle Map for Garmin, and de-emphasised the cycle routes (although they still appear on the Canal Map to show our Canal Map users easy routes into town centres), and added a number of very specific canal / river POIs (Points of Interest) as well.
Most of the additional POIs are self-explanatory, using the standard Garmin symbols for Marinas, Boatyards etc. but we discovered Garmin did not have a symbol for locks, so we have used the White Navaid symbol for this. If any Canal Map users can find us a more appropriate symbol, we’ll happily change over. Also, as OSM maps each individual lock gate, we often find at least 2 occurrences of the lock name in close proximity, which can make the name look blurred. We’re looking into whether there is anything we can do to improve this, but do let us know whether it’s a real issue or not.
Of course, if you zoom in sufficiently far, you can actually see the individual lock gates…
We believe this is the first UK Canal Map for GPS devices created using OSM data, and hope it proves popular.
As always, this is available for download alongside our other OSM Maps for Garmin here.
Edgemaster:
Not quite the first – http://dev.openstreetmap.org/~steve8/
7 January 2009, 7:41 pmGregory Marler:
You could add a relation to the lock gates, and use the relation for your canal map. Then all you need to do is add the new relation type to the OSM wiki and get people to map like that.
There has been strong debate over mapping lock gates or the whole lock in OSM. The answer being you sometimes get steps of locks, so you want to see how many gates there are.
8 January 2009, 8:02 pmswing:
Edgemaster – indeed, we meant to say the first Canal Map for GPS devices, and have updated the article to reflect that point.
16 January 2009, 10:51 amGervase Markham:
I recently pushed through a proposal to improve the mapping of locks. http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:lock However, it will take time to convert over from the old “lock_gate=yes” to “lock=yes”, which can be either on a way (representing the lock area) or a node. I’ve also been doing other work relating to water points, towpaths etc., although it’s stalled recently due to pressures of other things.
I’m very interested in working with you guys to define a standard way of mapping canals in the UK, and improving this map both on the web and on Garmin. I just got a Legend HCx for Christmas
Gerv
17 January 2009, 9:24 pmGarmin Maps updated | Mapomatic - Applications of Mapping:
[...] our Garmin Maps, covering the original UK Garmin OSM Map, the UK Garmin OSM Cycle Map, and the new UK Garmin OSM Canal Map which we launched only last [...]
21 January 2009, 9:09 pmswing:
Gervase; more than happy to start working with you on this; contact me via the email link on the About Us page, and we’ll discuss the best way forward.
21 January 2009, 9:14 pmJohn:
With flights of locks just put a number for the amount of locks or gates. I. E. one lock = 2 [2 gates]; flight of 6 locks and no side ponds = 7; with side ponds = 13/SP. Also why put the name twice, why not once with two lines to each set of lock gates.
10 February 2009, 7:13 pmJohn
Duncan Clark:
I have installed this on an sd card in my Nuvi250. I get lots of ?? all over the screen.
12 February 2009, 8:52 pmAlan:
Hello,
Have just downloaded the canal maps, and they look very interesting.
However I don’t seem to be seeing any locks at all.
Is there something I must do to make them visible, or are they not included in the current versions of the maps, please ?
(An example would be the 7 locks at Marsworth on the Grand Union Canal).
14 March 2009, 11:16 pmGarmin OSM Maps updated | Mapomatic - Applications of Mapping:
[...] our Garmin Maps, covering the original UK Garmin OSM Map, the UK Garmin OSM Cycle Map, and the new UK Garmin OSM Canal Map which we launched back in January. There’s been quite a lot of activity in the UK map since [...]
23 April 2009, 11:04 amswing:
Locks that have been entered into the master OSM will appear in our Garmin maps, so we are reliant upon all OSM users to provide the data; if you know the exact position of these missing locks, please add them directly to the OSM data, or send them to us and we’ll add them.
13 May 2009, 6:52 pmswing:
Can you try the latest version, and let us know if it’s still happening?
13 May 2009, 6:56 pmswing:
We’re dependent on the OSM data for locks, which has historically mapped every single lock gate, and if the OSM contributor puts a name on each, then that’s comes through in our data (we have a range of scripts to produce our files, and can’t manually turn on and off data for individual POIs).
13 May 2009, 6:58 pmJamie:
Hi,
I note that the last update was in Apr is there another coming?
JB
31 August 2009, 6:15 amadmin:
We’re hoping to release updates in the next few days.
31 August 2009, 6:58 amJamie:
Hi,
The standard OSM load seemed to have been updated but no movement on the Canals – is there a problem?
Cheers
JB
9 October 2009, 11:12 pmJamie:
Still no news or movement on the canals version – is there a release date?
1 January 2010, 9:45 pm