Garmin and Open Street Maps

[whiskeylover]

Has anyone had any experience upgrading their old Garmin devices with openstreetmap maps? I'm reading the wiki, but most of the pages talk about either downloading maps made by others (in which case they only cover a small European country of a single US state,) or storing big maps to the SD card.

Is there a way to replace my existing US/Canada map in my Streetpilot C340's internal memory?

I'm trying to achieve this because I don't want to pay Garmin $70 for a map upgrade that will be obsolete in a year or so. Also, I've managed to live with outdated maps for about 4 years now, but its becoming increasingly difficult because it can no longer find a lot of restaurant/new streets etc.

[pwnst*r]

Do you really think that the open maps will be updated as efficiently? Doubt it. I also doubt their accuracy.

[whiskeylover]

Do you really think that the open maps will be updated as efficiently? Doubt it. I also doubt their accuracy.


They're quite good. They're pretty close to the pro maps.

I know they'll always be behind commercial maps in terms of accuracy, but at least they're open and FREE.

[pwnst*r]

I suppose if you don't need them for any business critical needs, it wouldn't be a big deal.

[whiskeylover]

I guess if I can get the maps from OSM and leave the original POI's, it wouldn't be so bad.

I have edited OSM in the past, and in most cases, I added new streets. Very rarely have I added neighborhood businesses information. So I'm assuming their POI's must be more outdated than their street database.

[mihai.ile]

Open street map is better in germany that google maps!
There is a veri high activity in germany on this project. UK and france follows also.
UK will soon be like this also. There are also not so rich coutries where open street maps are better than paid ones.

Note that those coutries noted have already or soon will have better map than google maps or equivalent. Other coutries are still behind, but the project grows very very quickly as anyone with a GPS can help.

[Crowchild]

I am just getting in to using OSM with my garmin so I can't really help you out but I would highly suggest checking out Tim Berners-Lee's talk on open data and mapping (http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/tim_berners_lee_the_year_open_data_went_worldwide. html). According to this talk, OSM is the best place to go for up to date maps on Haiti.


I know they'll always be behind commercial maps in terms of accuracy, but at least they're open and FREE.
In my experience this is not true for my region. Even the government maps are from the 80's here... With a little help from me and the community OSM will be the most up to date maps available online!

[mihai.ile]

I am just getting in to using OSM with my garmin so I can really help you out but I would highly suggest checking out Tim Berners-Lee's talk on open data and mapping (http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/tim_berners_lee_the_year_open_data_went_worldwide. html). According to this talk, OSM is the best place to go for up to date maps on Haiti.


In my experience this is not true for my region. Even the government maps are from the 80's here... With a little help from me and the community OSM will be the most up to date maps available online!

I actually had the chance to add my village on the map. Literally! :D

[whiskeylover]

I am just getting in to using OSM with my garmin so I can really help you out but I would highly suggest checking out Tim Berners-Lee's talk on open data and mapping (http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/tim_berners_lee_the_year_open_data_went_worldwide. html). According to this talk, OSM is the best place to go for up to date maps on Haiti.


Thanks CC for the link. Let me go thru it and then post here on my progress.


I actually had the chance to add my village on the map. Literally! :D

I added a few streets and a few POIs in a town in Massachusetts.