Windows/Linux – VeloMap Map Downloads

InstructionsVeloMapContourlinesNon UnicodeMac_OSXOpenMTBMap

About the Maps - Please Read

Video Tutorial how to send the maps. For more Video Tutorials explaining all the basics go here: https://www.velomap.org/tutorials/enbeginners-starting-guide-dewo-beginnen-tutorial/

 

Maps are available Worldwide. They are usually updated every Friday.

- Map Data

All maptiles are compiled with mkgmap using map data from openstreetmap.org & Contributors. You can use and edit the map data by visiting openstreetmap.org. Thanks to Geofabrik for providing the map data snapshots which I use to create the maps. Thanks to http://viewfinderpanoramas.org for the best DEM (contourlines) available on the net. -- For Copyrights please see the Installer or if you unextract the installer see the file copyright.txt. Contourlines/DEM data: The altitude data for the contourlines is from varying sources in the following priority (if available):

  1. LIDAR data from open government data and other openly available sources - collected and converted to hgt format by - Sonny - DEM Altitude Models This data is very very high quality and resolution - there is no better open data available according to my knowledge.
  2. ALOS World 3D30 - überall zwischen N60° und S60°
  3. SRTM 1" v3.0 - very rarely for some tiles missing in ALOS data - also only between N60° and S60°.
  4. Viewfinderpanormas 1" - then 3" - above N60° / below S60° as there is no SRTM data nor ALOS or LIDAR Data avialble.
  5. SRTM v3.01 3" v3.0 (very very rarely, 8 tiles only)

more exact info which data is used where - inside the copyright.txt files.  

 

Programs to Display the VeloMap

Besides being shown on (nearly) all Garmin GPS devices - most People will use Garmin Basecamp (v3 or later) or Garmin Mapsource to show the maps on their Desktop and plan tours/trips. For anyone on the good side of earth Velomap  / Openmtbmap maps are also correctly shown in Qlandkarte_GT - QLandkarte_GT is compatible with all big OS (Linux, MacOSx and well Windows too). Linux users can alternatively install Mapsource 6.13.6 in WINE. After unpacking you find instructions for Qlandkarte / Linux use in a .txt file (informations... .txt).

For Linux/Unix users there is also a script to unpack the maps, and automatically create a gmapsupp: https://github.com/btittelbach/openmtbmap_openvelomap_linux Mapsource - I wouldn't use any version but 6.16.3. Mapsource versions 6.14 to 6.15.6 are complete junk, if you use it, please update. Also note that Mapsource versions prior to 6.16.1 do not show all ways and pathes so they are not really usable. Mac OSx users please use Qlandkarte GT or use the provided Mac OSx maps.    

 

Problems – Help – Tutorials

A Beginners Guide can be found here: get started with VeloMaps Install Mapsource: tutorials/install-mapsource/ To install the maps, just run "VeloMap_country_setup.exe". Qlandkarte GT/linux users only need to unzip the .exe maps (7-zip lzma2 compresion e.g. with p7zip) and open the map via Qlandkarte GT (choose .tdb and osmmap*.img). Linux Users also look at this script to unpack/create gmapsupp.img - After unpacking you find instructions for Qlandkarte / Linux use in a .txt file (informations... .txt). Note all installers should work perfectly fine using Wine too. Send Maps to GPS with Mapsource: tutorials/send-maps-to-your-gps/mapsource/ I recommend to always send maps to an external data card and not internal memory. (this way if something goes wrong, or maps would be damaged you run less danger of wrecking your GPS).

Alternative: Use create_gmapsupp.img.bat or create_gmapsupp.img_with_mkgmap.bat and place the newly created gmapsupp.img into /garmin folder on your GPS. Address search cannot be included this way.

Send maps to GPS with mkgmap (for Unix users): tutorials/send-maps-to-your-gps/mkgmap/

You can also send maps to your GPS with QlandkarteGT

Mapsource Error / debug Mapsource: There is a problem with the MapSource registry. Please re-install Mapsoures and start again Solve with Mapsource Fix Or with Mapset Toolkit Please also read the FAQ

 

Current Issues

- General: Autorouting over (very) long distances on GPS works only with Via Points. If you plan your routes on a PC solve this issue with WinGDB: plan-routes/ - Autorouting needs attributes like tracktype, lanes, routes, smoothness, class:bicycle and others to work well. So keep care to enter those details into OSM. (not all are needed, but enough for me to guesstimate wheter a street is cyclefriendly/mtbriendly or not). - Non Connected ways and overlapping ways without node, this is the main problem and a problem of the underlaying map data – please check here: http://keepright.ipax.at/report_map.php Only check/enable: "allmost Junctions" , "intersections without junctions" as well as "overlapping ways". This helps you to quickly spot the erros. You can then follow the link to Potlatch (or also JOSM is integrated for JOSM users) and quickly correct mistakes! Watch out not to connect ways that are not connected in reality (i.e. a way crosses another on a brigde, here no connecting node is the right solution). - If you use Windows 2000 you need to install the "reg" command : Reg cmd at Microsoft if you want to run the batchfiles (.bat files). The Batches are incompatible to earlier Windows versions. - Note sometimes sea is missing or lakes empty. It is usually a problem in OSM data. - Note 1: older GPS (non touchscreen) run slower the more maps are inside memory. For 60CSx or Vista/Legend HCx I recommend to not use more than 2 GB of maps, else your GPS gets slow.

Overlapping maps in border regions

While you can join maps of different countries, routing over the boundary is a bit shaky, and you will have one map overlaying the other with white background. As long as mkgmap cannot create randomly shaped overview maps (currently only rectangles), this problem is not solvable. There is however the possibility to download a Europe map, which will be updated every 4-6 weeks.

 

Velomap and Openmtbmap of the same Country -- Problems

If you install an openmtbmap and a VeloMap of the same country with contourlines as separate download (and Spain as well as Canary Islands), you should only send the contourlines once (meaning with either Openmtmbap or Velomap of the country). Else you GPS might not show the maps, or worse not even start until maps are deleted. There are several possibilities. a) Install both maps without contourlines and contourlines separately (install separate contourlines only map option in installer). You have not trouble. b) be careful here: Select the map as usual in Basecamp/Mapinstall, then go to the list of the selected tiles ready to be sent to the GPS, scroll down to the bottom, and unselect the contourlines only tiles from the list. -- This is not a problem with countries where contourlines are fully integrated like Germany, Alps, Austria,......

Notice on Updating Maps

Just run the velomap_country_setup.exe again.

Overlapping maps in border regions

While you can join maps of different countries, routing over the boundary is a bit shaky, and you will have one map overlaying the other with white background. As long as mkgmap cannot create randomly shaped overview maps (currently only rectangles), this problem is not solvable. There is however the possiblity to download a Europe map, which will be updated every 4-6 weeks. Get Europe Map here (donation needed): www.velomap.org/support/europe-map/

 

Change Layout and Contrast of the maps

On installation you can choose the layout of the maps. Traditional layout is for Qlandkarte GT, Mapsource and Basecamp and offers a good layout and design for big screens. On the GPS device velo.typ offers high contrast for best orientation while riding your bike or walking. For riding your roadbike, or commuting I have included the "racing bicycle" layout. The Racing Bicycle layout is heavily simplified, and focusses on the street network. Buildings or other distracting objects are not shown. Also most POI are not shown. In order to change the layout - simply run velomap_country_change_layout.exe (this is also linked in your Start --> Programs Folder for each map). This also enables you to quickly change the layout before sending maps to your GPS device, and then quickly change it back for better planning on your desktop. You can change .TYP-files - which are responsible for the layout, and therefore the map colours, to your liking by using MapTK to adapt the .TYP files. Do not use because it is not fully compatible and may corrupt the .TYP file.

 

Compatibility - Standard (Unicode) vs Non Unicode (cannot authenticate maps)

Unicode is needed to display several alphabets in one map. Non Unicode maps can only display a single alphabet - e.g. kyrillic and latin - but not both. However Garmin blocked using Unicode maps in part of a broken copyright protection on newer GPS device series.

In general just download the Maps from the first "VeloMap" tab - they are in Unicode if useful. Some maps by default are in Unicode. You can identify them by (Unicode) note behind the name - alll countries/maps not listed on the "Non Unicode" tab are anyhow Non Unicode. If you get the message - "cannot authenticate maps", and you have you have one of the following devices:

  • All Garmin devices which were introduced 2016 or later e.g.
  • Oregon 700/750 (however not 6x0 - 6x0 is fine with Unicode)
  • Edge 520/820/1000
  • Epix
  • Etrex 20x / 30x (not "etrex 30")
  • Etrex Touch 25/35
  • GPS Maps 64 series
  • Montana 610, 680
  • Some recent Nuvi devices - as well as some super old devices that do not support Unicode. (E.g. Garmin Vista C, GPS Maps 60 C)
  • Some Zumo devices

you will need to download the "Non Unicode" version of the map instead. So get the map from the "non unicode" VeloMap tab instead. Only maps of regions where several different scripts are used - are in unicode. If Latin is the predominant script - then of course no unicode map is offered. If your device can display Unicode maps - then of course get the standard version - meaning Unicode. Note1: if you install the non Unicode version of a map - you will overwrite the Unicode map. You can only have either or installed. Note2: The contourlines are identical for openmtbmap/velomap and unicode or non unicode. You only need to download the contourlines once. On updates it's enough to re-download and reinstall the map installer.

 

Garmin Edge x30 or newer

Garmin introduced a completely broken high contrast mode - that washes out the colors of the maps. Either disable the high contrast mode on the map visibility section. Or delete the \Garmin\MapThemes\Mountain.kmtf (sometimes also called \Garmin\MapThemes\Mountains.kmtf ) file (back it up if you think you ever want to use that mode. Since the newest firmware in July 2021 you need to enable classic mode - 

Activity Profiles, select a profile, and select Navigation > Map > Map Theme > CLASSIC

Classic: This shows the OpenMTBMaps / VeloMaps as intended, however POI are now shown from Edge profile. 
High Contrast: Complete fuckup by Garmin - because they are not able to make their own maps high contrast in first place.
Mountain Biking: Complete fuckup by Garmin - because they are not able to make their own maps high contrast in first place.

SD Cards

This is not about the maps but in general Garmin units that have a microSD card slow only accept SDHC cards - SDXC cards will not work.  Max 32GB size and you need to format it with FAT32 (not exFAT). Be careful with 32GB cards which are available as both SDHC and SDXC. 16GB and smaller usually are always SDHC.

 

 

Language and Codepage

Default - Local Language Unicode. All labels / street names are exactly like in the name tag of OSM. Note for any country that uses latin - the default will be latin1 and the options below are not available. An exception is the South America continent map that is additionally available in English Non Unicode. For USA/Canada this is also the only option. For European countries using latin if you want the English version - you can use the European continent map that is available in English versions.

English Unicode: If available in OSM - English or other European language translation is used. If no translation is available in OSM, the local name tag is used.

Local Language Non Unicode: Same as default but instead of Unicode the local codepage is used. So some characters may need to be transcribed automatically in creation. Codepage is always the local default codepage.

English Language Non Unicode (always latin1): If available English or other European language translation from OSM is used. If not names are transcribed to Latin. 

 

Feedback

Please comment if you like theese maps or even better tell other people about them (forums, blog about it, twitter, etc…) In case maps break Mapsource or don't work – please write exactly which downloads don't work and the time of download as well as your OS and Mapsource version.. Please also read here https://www.velomap.org/download/#problems-help-tutorials or in the FAQ

Map Downloads by GWDG

Maps are updated once weekly - usually Thursday-Friday. In order to see the last update time, or check the exact filesize (or md5 checksum) - just click on the MD5 link that follows each download.   For some countries contourlines (height lines) are available as separate downloads – please get them from the contourlines tab. They are only available for VeloMap Members

Standard - Local Language Maps (Unicode if useful)
  Map Legend 

  • velomap - Legend for Mapsource/Qlandkarte_GT Installation
  • For the map legend in OSM format and the style-files, please look at the SVN (see FAQ)

Continents map downloads:

Premium - Unicode English Language Maps - ONLY for Countries not using Latin

Continents map downloads:

Europe map downloads:

Africa map downloads - (contourlines separate except for Canary Islands):

Asia Map Downloads - (contourlines separate):

 

North America

 

Contourlines Premium Downloads

Most countries, especially the popular ones, have the 20m contourlines already integrated. However for several countries the contourlines are rather large (rule of thumb if contourlines have more data than the maps) and I integrate them, but you need to download them separately (once). The installer will ask for the contourlines file as soon as you activate the checkbox to integrate the contourlines in the installer. You do not need to extract the contourlines - this will be done by the installer (and is only needed once. On updates you don't need to redo it).

In general it is fine to only update the map, as I try to change the contourlines as seldom as possible.

The 10m contourlines always have to be once downloaded, and the installer will ask for them if you chose to install them.

 

Standard - 20m Contourlines

Continents

Africa:

Asia:

Australia-Oceania:

Europe:

North America:

South America:

10m Equidistance Contourline Maps for PC installation

In mountaineous regions I recommend to use 20m equidistance instead. However as of popular demand you can alternatively download 10m equidistance for all countries and continents. Note that the underlying data outside of Europe in mountaineous regions is actually not good enough to really profit from 10m equidistance lines at all. For flat regions however worldwide 10m contourlines can make sense. So that's why I offer them for download worldwide.

Also in Europe only where there is LIDAR coverage 10m contourlines make sense in mountain regions. Inside the copyright file you can find out the data sources.

In general I recommend not to install more than 6-8GB of maps on your device at any time. As the contourlines do not have an address index or any POI they don't count towards that limit - as they will not slow down your device like normal maps do.

Do note however that all Garmin devices have a max tile limit of 2048 or 4096 - so do not forget about that. The South America contourlines 10m for example already have about 3000 tiles.  So better just export those ones that you need with MapInstall and do not send the full continent.

If you break the 2048 or 4096 tile limit - some tiles simply will not be shown - which ones I cannot tell you - that's random.  

 

Continents Contourlines 10m:

Europe Contourlines 10m:

German Bundeslaender 10m:

France DOM-TOM 10m:

Africa Contourlines 10m:

Asia Contourlines 10m:

Australia-Oceania Contourlines 10m

North America Contourlines 10m: 

For an Overview of the areas covered by the US-extracts please visit: https://www.velomap.org/support/north-america/

  • us-midwest (MD5) (from North Dakota in the Northwest to Detroit / Akron in the Norteast, to Missouri in the Southeast and Kansas in the Southwest)
  • us-northeast (MD5) (northeast of Pittsburgh and Philadelphia)
  • us-pacific (MD5) (Alaska, Hawai and other Pacific Islands)
  • us-south (MD5) (south of Baltimore, Louisville, Tulsa / Oklahoma City)
  • us-west (MD5) (west of Denver, Colorado Springs, Albuerque -- complete N/S or Canada to Mexiko)

South America Contourlines 10m:

Non Unicode Premium Maps - Only offered for Non Latin Using Countries

Some maps by default are in Unicode. You can identify them by (Unicode) note behind the name - alll countries/maps not listed here are anyhow Non Unicode. You will need to download the Non Unicode Version if you have one of the following devices:

  • All Garmin devices which were introduced 2016 or later e.g.
  • Oregon 700/750 (however not 6x0 - 6x0 is fine with Unicode)
  • Edge 520/820/1000
  • Epix
  • Etrex 20x / 30x (not "etrex 30")
  • Etrex Touch 25/35
  • GPS Maps 64 series
  • Montana 610, 680
  • Some recent Nuvi devices - as well as some super old devices that do not support Unicode. (E.g. Garmin Vista C, GPS Maps 60 C)
  • Some Zumo devices

  This is due to a firmware bug that Garmin introduced as part of their efforts to cut down on people "pirating" their maps. However by doing that they also cut down on Unicode maps produced by mkgmap or even some of their old (legitimate) maps which are not running anymore on these devices. You will know that you need to use the Non Unicode map if on boot your GPS device tells you to "unlock maps". Why is the Europe Map in Unicode? Well for example in Greece and some Eastern Europe countries the script is Cyrillic not latin - and only Unicode maps can contain both scripts in one map. So the non unicode map will not correctly show labels in such countries. Use the country non unicode map instead. They are always in the predominant script of the country. Note: if you install the non Unicode version of a map - you will overwrite the Unicode map. You can only have either or installed. Note: some maps have the contourlines as a separate download - the installer will integrate them during install and unpack them. Contourline downloads are the same as for unicode maps. Here only those countries are listed - where the standard download is Unicode. If you don't find a country here - look at the standard downloads. Note - local language maps of: Sri-Lanka, Nepal and Cambodia are in latin1  - so the local language maps are not very useful. There is no ANSI Codepage available (besides Unicode) that would support the script/garmin units. Israel-Palestine map is in hebrew (so the Palestine area is not useful). Afghanistan codepage is for Dari - Pashto is not supported outside of Unicode.

Language and Codepage

Default - Local Language Unicode. All labels / street names are exactly like in the name tag of OSM. Note for any country that uses latin - the default will be latin1 and the options below are not available. An exception is the South America continent map that is additionally available in English Non Unicode. For USA/Canada this is also the only option. For European countries using latin if you want the English version - you can use the European continent map that is available in English versions.

English Unicode: If available in OSM - English or other European language translation is used. If no translation is available in OSM, the local name tag is used.

Local Language Non Unicode: Same as default but instead of Unicode the local codepage is used. So some characters may need to be transcribed automatically in creation. Codepage is always the local default codepage.

English Language Non Unicode (always latin1): If available English or other European language translation from OSM is used. If not names are transcribed to Latin. 

 

Premium - Local Language Maps
  Continents map downloads:

Europe map downloads:

German Bundeslaender:

France - French DOM-TOM:

To see last update time and filesize of each download go to. /velomap/

Africa map downloads - (contourlines separate except for Canary Islands):

Asia Map Downloads - (contourlines separate):

Australia-Oceania Premium map downloads:

North America Premium map downloads:

For an Overview of the areas covered by the US-extracts please visit: www.velomap.org/support/north-america/

  • us-midwest (MD5) (from North Dakota in the Northwest to Detroit / Akron in the Norteast, to Missouri in the Southeast and Kansas in the Southwest)
  • us-northeast (MD5) (northeast of Pittsburgh and Philadelphia)
  • us-pacific (MD5) (Alaska, Hawai and other Pacific Islands)
  • us-south (MD5) (south of Baltimore, Louisville, Tulsa / Oklahoma City)  -  us-south-linux (MD5)
  • us-west (MD5) (west of Denver, Colorado Springs, Albuerque -- complete N/S or Canada to Mexiko)

South America Premium map downloads:

Premium - English Language Maps - ONLY for Countries not using Latin
Continents map downloads:

Europe map downloads:

Africa map downloads - (contourlines separate except for Canary Islands):

Asia Map Downloads - (contourlines separate):

 

North America

 

Velomap (and Openmtbmap) Premium maps download in Mac OSx format (gmap)

Your account does not allow you to login into OpenMTBMap website 

Mac OSx user - just scroll down here on the normal macosx download page: https://www.velomap.org/de/download/macosx/

Gmapsupp.img Downloads are here: https://www.velomap.org/download/premium-gmapsupp-img-directly-for-garmin-gps-units/

Your account does not allow you to login into OpenMTBMap website - However you can download all Openmtmbaps from here for Windows users: https://www.velomap.org/download/openmtbmap/

Mac OSx user - just scroll down here on the normal macosx download page: https://www.velomap.org/de/download/macosx/

Gmapsupp.img Downloads are here: https://www.velomap.org/download/premium-gmapsupp-img-directly-for-garmin-gps-units/

 

Note if you are not a VeloMap member - please directly go to OpenMTBMap.org

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