I came across some great TomTom hacks this weekend, including one for aerial photos (or any kind of raster imagery). I haven’t tried any of these out, so you’re kind of on your own here. As always, I’d do a full backup of the unit before trying them. Regardless, these look like some great resources for the TomTom enthusiast:
- Create your own content – includes a page on creating map overlays for raster/aerial imagery
- TomTom customization – scroll down and click the menu on the TomTom screen to navigate the hacks
- Paperless geocaching – for the TomTom ONE XL, but it should work fine on other units too
About Rich Owings
I have put raster arial images on my tomtom. I got the maps/pics from google earth. It’s hit or miss. With one maps it looks great and works well but with another it isn’t even close to real life. Since they only show up on the map view screen and not the navigation screen, it is not something that is all that usefull to me.
Thanks Mike. Can you clarify? Does it show your position on the aerial image? Can you navigate using the image in 2D mode?
If you zoom out on the map screen (not the navigation screen but the one that you can zoom and scroll around on) you will see a raster image of the US (at least you can on my go510). With this hack, you can see a raster image when zoomed in. The raster image, which in my case was an arial view from google earth, lays underneith the location pointer and the road layer. If you would normally see an off white back groud then now you would see the raster image. So you can navigate normally and if you have the cordinates set correctly then you will see the pointer on a satilite pic. The difference that you set the zoom range. That is, you say that the pic is visible from zoomed all the way in to about half way out, or 1/4 to 1/2, or 1/2 to full; what ever you want but they don’t all look good if the raster is small and you are zoomed all the way out.
It’s actually easier than it sounds. You should just try it. It is very easy to undo if you don’t like it. My biggest problem was getting the zoom range correct.
Thanks for the details Mike. I imagine the quality / resolution of the aerial images makes a big difference too.
I am trying to locate an old mining site on harding point in the Coconino National Forrest, near Flagstaff Arizona. Google Earth brings me to within 300 m altitude. The image is just not clear enough to show the detail I need . Is ther any better imagery available. Thank you.
Don Childers.
There is some one meter/pixel imagery available at http://aria.arizona.edu/search/index.html. You might want to check out TopoFusion too. And you should be able to get one meter B/W imagery at http://terraserver-usa.com/.