Requirements: Any Garmin device and software supporting NT maps
The official Garmin China maps have artificial shift (coordinate deviation) added for national security reasons. Using these maps on normal GPS devices or software will not display your actual location on the map. Instead, you will be a few hundred meters away from your actual location. Only GPS devices and software approved to be sold in the China market have additional built-in firmware or program to use these maps without shift problems. Even so, the saved waypoints, routes, tracks are still shifted. Neither can topo maps be used with them.
Venus is a series of maps derived from the official Garmin China maps but with shifts corrected. Nothing but the coordinates are changed, so all road, POI info, as well as routing, searching capabilities remain intact. Saved waypoints, routes, tracks will have no shift problems. Compatible with topo maps too. These maps can be used on any regular Garmin GPS devices and software as other maps. However, some maps are in Chinese language only and require Chinese support on your device to display and search in Chinese.
Disclaimers:
1. No guarantee or warranty is given. Use at your own risk.
2. The correction is not perfect yet. A few places may have a gap between roads.
For this 2010.30 map:
a. Map is locked.
b. Map ID is 2126.
c. All road and POI names are in English (HanYu PinYin).
Download Site:
[Only registered and activated users can see links. ]
Once opened, search the word WINWAR. The download links are right above the word.
Mirror:
[Only registered and activated users can see links. ]
You can also download the official shifted, un-corrected map from the link below.
[Only registered and activated users can see links. ]
Last edited by syzygy; 9th September 2011 at 07:41 PM. Reason: update download link of official map
Thanks, waterr, I need this one.
In-cre-dible !!!
We spent 3 weeks in China and this map was a great great help, worked perfectly. See the videos here : [Only registered and activated users can see links. ]
It helped to find our ways thru towns, easily locate train and bus stations, know where we are when we were in trains, and even find adresses
in Shanghaï and Beijing, it works, that was extraordinary. Thanks again for this post, I was wondering if it would work before being in China,
and it did, with a Garmin Etrex Legend Hcx.
Please find a photo taken in Pingyao :
[Only registered and activated users can see links. ]
Last edited by shalero; 6th August 2011 at 02:31 PM.
Hi all,
I have a Nuvi 255 and am trying to add this map to it but the Nuvi fails to recognize it. I first copied the img to the Nuvi and it said it was locked. Then I tried the whole process to unlock it with MapSource (installed using Basecamp + MapSource update) and GMapTool to create the files for MapSource. MapSource does show the map (starting at like 200km zoom?) and I can select the sections I want. I tried sending all of them to the Nuvi and it was successful (created a big gmapsupp.img which I renamed to gmapprom.img). The problem was that when I was searching for streets in the Nuvi, only one city's streets were coming up! So I deleted it and then tried to send just the one section of the map I needed to the Nuvi and it created a smaller gmapsupp.img. When I try to use it or view it, it still only shows some of the street names when I search for it. Am I missing a step to unlock this file? Will the maps only show up when I am actually in the city in China? Is there a better version of this file that wont require the unlock using mapsource?
Any help is greatly appreciated! :D
Last edited by arcadi; 10th August 2011 at 09:31 PM. Reason: gramma :S
Ok I used FIU on this file and transferred it to the Nuvi 255 unit (still named as gmapprom.img). There are no other maps on the device. It doesnt say the map is locked but there were no cities, roads, or names for anything when I try to search. (type in something and nothing comes up)
I tried one last thing by taking the unlocked img and created mapsource files for it, like before, and sent it to the Nuvi (renamed the gmapsupp to gmapprom). Same thing as before...I get some street names but when I select a street there is no information for it (locations, house numbers, etc).
The Nuvi 255 I have should support NT maps like this so I'm not sure what's goin on....it should be showing results when I search a street name :S
Garmin's search is done by radial scan from a starting point, default to your current GPS position. To search items on a China or other map, you need to change the starting point to somewher on that map. This can be done by the "Near" function (a button or menu item) on your device's GUI.
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