Loading free maps from all over the world onto the Nuvi 300

swatts · Occasional Visitor Joined: Jun 13, 2006 Posts: 1

I bought a Nuvi 300 in the UK and was very impressed. Now I am back in Singapore and it seems like Garmin do not have maps for much of Asia.

After a morning of looking around I found free world maps and the tools to upload to my Nuvi 300. Aplogies if this is all widely known and posted elsewhere but I could not find a straight forward guide and had quite a bit of trial and error.

Free maps are available from:

http://mapcenter.cgpsmapper.com/catalogue.php

I picked a routable roadmap for Singapore:

http://mapcenter.cgpsmapper.com/maplist.php?cnt=192&rgn=&cat=2

Downloaded the IMG file.

Then I used IMG2GPS utility:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/mdipol/img2gps/

I could not get the USB connection to work using this software so used the software to create a file rather than upload.

It created a file called GMAPSUPP.IMG on my computer. I then copied this to the Nuvi 300 in the Garmin directory just using drag and drop from file manager.

Rebooted the Nuvi 300 and all was ready.

Initially it looked like it did not work because the Nuvi does not show the new country Singapore in the list. But simply use "Spell Name" feature instead of "Address". Then just type in a place in Singapore, e.g. Changi and bingo it finds it and displays the map. Impressive!

Obviously quality of maps may vary but for free its better than nothing.

Hope this helps. If there are better ways of doing this please feel free to correct me, I am still learning.

-Steve

borgman · Occasional Visitor Joined: Oct 31, 2005 Posts: 32

Can you only 'see' the maps when your'e in the country?

I've placed the img. file as per advised and the map info button shows a map from sendmap is installed, but I can't type/find any place at all. Its a Southern Ontario Canada map and I spelt out places like Toronto, but it shows no matches.
When I browse the map I can see places mapped like Toronto.
Please Help.
Thanks

PS I also have a TomTom One and i was thinking of just downloading the whole of the North America map from their website. Would that be better anyway?

Chit · Occasional Visitor Joined: Aug 06, 2006 Posts: 1

There's detailed instructions and SGP/MAL maps from www.malsingmaps.com free of charge for Garmin. The maps are updated frequently (almost every fortnights). Please do note the limitations of using the maps on nuvi.

tkerby · Posted: Tue Aug 15, 2006 4:03 pm Post subject:

Any tips on how you can create different map names in the Nuvi map selection screen?

E.g. I have one gmapsupp.img file but within it I'd like to include contour data, some summit details, trig points etc and select these as individual map features to turn on / off

diode · Occasional Visitor Joined: Nov 01, 2006 Posts: 5

cheers to you swatts
good stuff

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