Raster charts on Garmin plotters

[Sticky Fingers]

Well I've had my new boat for a couple of months now and I'm getting used to what we've got. Or don't have.

The boat has a Garmin GPSmap 820 plotter, equipped with a Garmin chart cartridge (which cost an arm and a leg, over 300 of your english pounds). It uses vector charts with what to my eye seems to be a very poor quality of cartography. Accuracy seems fine (ie, the boat always seems to be where the plotter says it is) but the visual interpretation leaves a lot to be desired and of course it looks totally different to the lovely Admiralty (or Imray) charts that I'm used to and that I like to use for planning. I do on the other hand have utterly useless underwater fishy views, a simulated 3D view that's of Sinclair Spectrum quality, and many some things I'll never ever want to trust or use because they look so horrible.

What I'd like is to have auto-scaling and tiling raster charts (like the VMH Android charts for example). Anyone know if this is possible or can recommend a source of Garmin-compatible charts that are a joy to behold. Or at least, look like they were drawn by a cartographer.

 

[Moonbeam]

I believe you can only use Garmin charts on Garmin plotters. Perhaps there might be a hack/bodge out there that allows you to load dodgy/copied raster charts onto them, but I would not want to try it. Your expensive plotter might stop working and your Garmin warranty void

I've been using Garmin plotters for the last 9 years, and although I know what you mean about the vector presentation compared to nice Admiralty paper charts, I like and trust the Gamin cartography. It's never put a foot wrong on UK and French waters.

 

[Sticky Fingers]

Yes to be clear this isn't about the accuracy or completeness of the vector charts (though there may be issues there too). It's about the visual and interpretive experience. The VMH raster charts (£8) on an £200 android tablet are worlds better.

 

[AntarcticPilot]

Garmin use charts in their own proprietary format, which is a vector format. They don't support raster data, unless things have changed since I last created charts for use in Garmin GPS kit! And I did investigate the possibility of using raster data, as one of the things I wanted to display (hill shaded topography) is easy in raster but difficult in vector (I did it in vector...).

If you want to look further, there is software for creating your own charts for Garmin kit (search for CGPSMapper and similar utilities) ,but I am pretty certain that you can't simply ingest a raster map into Garmin kit, and I speak from experience of creating continent wide maps for GPS units used in Antarctica!

 

[Cantata]

The Raymarine plotters that run Lighthouse software do have the benefit of being able to use Imray raster charts. Not much help to the OP though.

 

[Sticky Fingers]

No. I've now also heard from Clipper who confirm it's Garmin charts only.

It's way too soon to change it out so I guess I'm stuck. Hey ho.