TomTom map overlay showing country borders

[DeLorean]

This a probably been asked before but here I go

I'm looking for a TomTom map overlay for my TT910 that also shows the country borders.

When I’m cruising (or limping) across Europe it would be nice to see on the "Browse Map" view how far I am from crossing the border.

Editing the supplied TomTom overlay with Paint Shop Pro is one option, but unfortunately my artistic skills are somewhat crap


A nice feature would be if you could configure the TomTom to indicate the distance until you crossed a border (on your current route) in a similar fashion to approaching the proximity of a POI.

I suppose you could dot all the borders with a set of POI’s but this would hammer the CPU your sat-nav

Although some would consider such a feature pointless, when driving across many countries (as we do) and being continually asked by my wife, kids, dog etc. “when we will be in ….” I could respond with an informed response.
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🔸🔸 Currently using TomTom GO 940 & Locus Map 🔸🔸

[mikealder]

I am sure I have seen a border cossing POI file on a site at some point so it might be worth searching for that - Mike

[DeLorean]

[AliOnHols]

Just two ideas on the same theme, but they are untested and may be way off the mark as they are very LowTech. You could perhaps set an itinerary with the WayPoint being set as the point of border crossing, this may provide you with a distance in Driving mode or, if you have the "Flag" Icon which is viewable in MapView, set the Flag Icon on the border and that will show you the distance to the border crossing "As-The-Crow-Flies" from the edge of the screen/map. Trouble with both of these is that a route needs to be pre-planned rather than just "winging-it".

EDIT, There are three "markers" (4?) in MapView; Home, Destination & Flag. You could temporarily set each of these on different possible crossings if you wanted to keep your options open, Each one would display the distance to the respective border crossing As-The_Crow flies whist in MapView. Not sure that "mapView" is a live view or just a snapshot of the moment you switch to it though.
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Garmin Nuvi 2599
Android with CamerAlert, OsmAnd+, Waze & TT Europe.
TomTom GO 730, GO 930, GO 940 & Rider2.
SatMap Active 10 & 20.

[Andy_P]

[DeLorean]

Thanks for all the help guys

I haven’t found the country border crossings POI yet, but Virgin Media has been on the blink for the last few days

Editing each tile for each layer in the raster folder would be a nightmare, so I'm not going to even try it.


Cue swirly dream effect….

Perhaps the nice people at TomTom (kissy, kissy) would make an alternative set of images to replace the current map overlays which show the countries borders.

Poof, end swirly dream effect….


It is fiddly when travelling across multiple countries to get a rough idea of distances from a border crossings using a TomTom.
Actually, it’s near impossible (unless you zoom in really close) so you end up having to use a map or guess work.

If a TomTom can prompt you to get on a ferry at Folkstone, why not an option to alert you of a border crossing looming on your route.

It would also useful for working out approximate distances for the last opportunity to fill up the fuel tank in countries with better fuel prices and/or use a currency you currently have in your possession.

I have a nasty suspicion that using the Euro speed camera database together with a border crossings POI will probably reduce my TT910 to a crawl.

Cheers
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🔸🔸 Currently using TomTom GO 940 & Locus Map 🔸🔸

[superplum]

Bit late seeing this but FWIW, my XL 30 series shows the borders as dotted black lines once you are zoomed into map rather than picture.

[Andy_P]

The original question prompted me to have a play making a "whole Europe" overlay for the TomTom.

"That can't be difficult" I thought.... just find a suitable (copyright free) political map of Europe on the web, simplify it if necessary, then use TomTom's simple instructions for adding overlays.

Unfortunately, it's not as easy as I thought!
I spent hours trying to manually match up several different maps of Europe with the map on the TomTom, using an art program on the PC.

Before I even tried to load it onto the TomTom itself, using the art prog. on the PC, I started by taking a screen-grab of the TomTom "Browse map" while using Home and then laid my new map over it with it set to be half-transparent, so I could see both.
Then I could try rotating and stretching the map all over the place, but I found it incredibly difficult to get the two even vaguely close.

For example, I might get England and France to line up, but then Poland would be miles out and vice versa.

Here's some of the useless results I got when I put it onto the TomTom itself:

1. My house is in London which should be a LOT lower down (vaguely near the blue cursor):


2. Most of the cities in Spain are shown in the sea:



I came to the conclusion that single large scale images aren't going to work (and that explains why TomTom have used so many small "tiles" for their own satellite imagery on the TomToms), and the problem seems to be down to the different projections and datums used:
http://earth.google.com/userguide/v4/ug_importdata.html#mapprojection

If anyone wants to have a go themselves, user "tomtomfan" on another forum has written a small application that allows you to save Google maps for use as map overlays on TomTom, and he's kindly let me pass on the link for it:
http://tinyurl.com/o8ee3u

It should be good for small areas, such as:



and it looks especially good in terrain view:



... but still had no luck getting it to work for a single "whole Europe" image.

[DeLorean]

Hi Superplum.
Unfortunately on my 910 using the latest maps no level of zoom shows country boarders.
Perhaps on units with version 8 Navcore’s and appropriate maps, the borders are shown.

Andy_P, you've had far better success (and patience) than me.

I’ve had a look at the site you mentioned for creating map overlays from Google Maps.
It's shame you can only grab one small tile at a time.
Perhaps the writer will find a way to grab a series of tiles from Google Maps with the associated staticmap.sat file for each tile.

I use currently TrekBuddy Atlas Creator for creating overlays for TrekBuddy on my mobile, it does the lot for you.
You can define an area as large as you want in Google Maps, then choose the zoom to tile ratio you require (number of tiles image to span) and off it goes.
Also, if Google rumbles you for downloading too many satellite imagery tiles a quick change of proxy server in the programs settings and off you go again until you’ve grabbed the lot.

With a bit of jiggery pokery by the creator (it’s written in Java), I’m sure it could be made to create TomTom map overlays.

In the Atlas and Map creators section of wiki.trekbuddy.net/index.php/Tools there are a number handy tools for creating, converting and calibrating maps for TrekBuddy.

An older program for grabbing maps without any calibration data was GoogleMV2, but I’m not sure if it even works any longer.

Thanks for all your input
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🔸🔸 Currently using TomTom GO 940 & Locus Map 🔸🔸

[DeLorean]

[Oldboy]

There's one in the TomTom's own POI collection, but I can't vouch for it's usefulness.
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Richard

TT 910 V7.903: Europe Map v1045
TT Via 135 App 12.075: Europe Map v1140

[DeLorean]

[Oldboy]

It is part of the poi.dat File, and comes, by default with the Europe Maps.

Well it does on my 910.
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Richard

TT 910 V7.903: Europe Map v1045
TT Via 135 App 12.075: Europe Map v1140

[DeLorean]

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