Garmin GPSMAP 60CSX: custom POI icons

Hello all,

I'm trying to create custom POI's with transparent custom POI
icons on my Garmin GPSMAP 60CSX (Software Version 3.50 and GPS
SW Version 3.00).

I've created the directorie

Flying_Sites/

that contains a .csv file BVVF_sites.csv

At the same location of the directory, there is a file named

Flying_Sites.bmp

which I would like to use for the custom icons. The
file-structure I have is also online at

http://users.telenet.be/vandewoestyne/bart/downloads/Flying_Sites.zip

Uploading the custom POI's with POILoader works fine. I put the
60CSX into USB Mass Storage mode and then upload the custom POI's
into the D:\garmin\Poi folder.

There is however one problem remaining: the custom icons are not
transparent, they have a white background so I always see square
icons on my map and that is not what I want. I only want to see
the paraglider-icon with not a white, but with a transparent
background.

How can i make them transparent? I think there's something wrong
with the .bmp file and I should change it somehow, but I don't
know exactly what to do to make it transparent.

Any help very much appreciated.

Thanks,
Bart

--
        "Share what you know. Learn what you don't."

The color should be magenta (255;0;255) for transparency.
--
Tom
http://home.att.net/~tbharvey/

I already came across this suggestion after googling a while.
Unfortunately, i can't seem to get it to work. I just changed
the background color to (255,0,255) and tested it, but it's not
working. I now simply see the icon with a magenta background.

The .bmp file I'm using is in the .zip file at
http://users.telenet.be/vandewoestyne/bart/downloads/Flying_Sites.zip

Does anybody see why my .bmp file is not working?

Thanks,
Bart

--
        "Share what you know. Learn what you don't."

Bart Vandewoestyne wrote:

I haven't checked your file to see exactly what is in it. However,
the background color is essentially user settable. It doesn't
have to be magenta.

The transparency color may be the color in the 199th index
position of the color palette. Seems to me there was something
else to it, but I don't remember at the moment. My custom symbols
have magenta in the 200th spot (index = 199 counting from 0) of
the color palette and that works as the transparent color.

Some things to try:
1. Download some custom icons that work. Get the color
palette from them.

2. Do a Garmin receiver screen capture with xImage. This
will give you a file with the color palette that the
receiver expects.

--
Dan

Personal: www.gpsmap.net
Business:
Western Maps LLC
www.westernmaps.us

Bart Vandewoestyne a écrit :

Hi Bart,

A poi icon file has to be a 8-bits RGB picture : it can hold a maximum
of 256 different colors ( hex FF).
Garmin uses Magenta as a transparent indicator.
I always rebuild the color palette so that it contains no more colors
than used in the image.
The order (sequence) of the magenta backgroundcolor in the palette is
not critical.

I've converted your Flying_Sites.bmp to a 8-bits RGB picture; now it
should show with transparent background on your GPSr:

http://home.scarlet.be/~tse99634/Flying_Sites_256.bmp

In the next picture you can see the color palette of your icon file: it
has only 14 different colors (magenta is on the 6th position)

http://home.scarlet.be/~tse99634/Kleurenpalet.jpg

(ps: a 16 X 16 pixels 8-bits RGB icon with 256 different colors can at
most contain one magenta-pixel, wich is quite useless in regard to the
problem of transparency)

greetz
Queya