Create maps for on your Garmin Edge/Forerunner 205/305

[beetee]

I love my own Garmin Edge 205, but it was lacking the ability to display maps of my surroundings while riding in the mountains around Mexico City. That’s why i have created CourseMapper.

http://coursemapper.hostsnake.com

CourseMapper
Lets you create map that you can load on your Garmin Forerunner 205/305 or Edge 205/305
If you are the owner of a Garmin Edge or Forerunner 205 / 305 you are going to love CourseMapper for Garmin, by BT Logics.

Your Garmin 205 / 305 is a wonderfull device, but unfortunately Garmin didn’t implement the functionality to show maps. The availabiltiy of maps on your GPS enabled workout / activity registration device is a feature that will come handy if you wish to explore new routes or simply if you have to take a detour. Without maps of your surroudings you will easily get disoriented. Using the standard available "follow course" option you can follow a course generated from an activity in your device?s history or you could download a course from the internet (E.g.: Garmin?s http://www.motionbased.com) However, this will only show you a single line to follow on a other than that empty display.

CourseMapper for Garmin, by BT Logics, uses the "course" functionality that is standard available to allow you to display maps of your surroundings on your Garmin 205 / 305 device. Without the need of additional hardware or software upgrades for your device!

How does CourseMapper do this?
The CourseMapper website will allow you to draw your custom maps over a Google Maps "street", "satellite" or "hybrid" underground. You can include for instance main roads, rivers, railway tracks or other distinctive orientation items in your map so that you can explore away from the standard track you were allways following.
CourseMapper also allows you to load and create Waypoints and Courses with Coursepoints so that you can have all orientation aids together in one view. You can even follow a course or track as you were used to, but with the map displayed as well on your display at the same time. For this functionality CourseMapper lets you "join" the map with the course, and then export those to a single .crs format file that you can import into Garmin Training Center and from there you can download it to your device.

Start enjoying maps on your Garmin 205 or 305:
go to http://coursemapper.hostsnake.com and start drawing your own custom maps for your Garmin 205 / 305

[beetee]

Recently I added some new functionality:

1) Exporting and importing files directly from your computer.

2) Saving the created course, coursemapper map and waypoints directly to your Garmin device using the Garmin Communicator plugin.

3) Furthermore the import course functionality has been enhanced so that it now imports the time and altitude data from the original course as well.
While exporting this course (usually in combination with a coursemapper map, or also called MapCourse) the virtual partner functionality will work and follow the course with the speed of the original course.

4) Also the altitude data is retained, so that you can monitor your position on the altitude screen while following the course.

I hope you enjoy using http://coursemapper.hostsnake.com/

Greetz,
Henk

[Jeff Barber]

This is a really interesting workaround since the Edge 205 and 305 don’t have built-in maps. I haven’t tried your program yet but it seems like a good way to save spending $500 on an Edge 605 or 705 (which appear to be delayed once again)…

[BeeTee1976]

The old server is down. I moved the pages to a new server and registered the following new domain for it:
[b]
[color=red:1ofwwzak]New URL : http://www.CourseMapper.com[[/color:1ofwwzak]/b]

Since the old server is down, you will not be re-directed.. So please update your bookmarks.

I have also improved the site visually and functionally.
E.g. Now it shows statistics such as quantity of map and course points and course length.

Have a nice day!

Henk

[BeeTee1976]

Hi all!

Thought I would let you know what I?ve been working on till dawn (and a little more) this night:

I created the "CourseCompacter" application to compact (compress) the size of Courses for my Edge 205.
However, I made it compatible with .crs & .tcx and .gpx files so that most GPS devices should benefit from this "track compacter".

I have done some tests, and they are pretty amazing.
The results vary depending on what kind of Course or GPX file you load.
If you have a file with many curves the compression is a little less, but with files with some long more or less straight streches
the reduction can be to less than 15% of the original file size.
With my usual tracks that i recorded while mountainbiking on the winding paths in the mountains I could achieve a reduction to a good 25%,
but with roadbiking the reduction is far better because of the straight parts.

The tool lets you specify the accuracy of the track that you wish to maintain. I used settings of 10 to 15 meters with very good results.
Because the GPS accuracy is normally no much better than 5 meters going below that limit is pretty useless anyway.

During the conversion of both courses (.crs & .tcx) and tracks (.gpx) the original timestamps and elevation of points is retained.
This ensures that the "Virtual Partner" and "Elevation Profile" of your GPS device maintains fully functional!
When compacting courses you can even choose to maintain CoursePoints so you don’t loose important indications.

I would say, test it for yourself! Please tell me your findings and recommendations.

I?m pretty happy with the result and hope you are as well.

You can find the online tool at http://www.CourseMapper.com click the [Compact Courses or Tracks] tab to load the application.

Good luck, I will try to get some sleep now

[BeeTee1976]

I was informed that the page did not load in Internet Explorer 7.
There was a slight mistake in the code for the index page (which I hadn’t tested in Internet Explorer for a while)
It seems the pages are compatible now with :

Firefox, Opera, Safari and Internet Explorer.

Sorry for the confusion this might have caused.. If you were unable to load the site before, try doing so now: http://www.CourseMapper.com

Furthermore I added the ability to download History tracks and Courses directly from your Garmin Device.
This new function has been implemented for both the CourseMapper and the CourseConverter application.

Comments appreciated,

Cheers,
Henk

[Author]

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