Customizable Splash Screens

After reading some of the other threads here on how to, I created a personalized splash screen from a digital photo I had taken, and used Paint Shop Pro to resize it to fit my 660 and added my name, cell number and email address.

Looks great.

Thanks for the links. I'd been thinking about making my own custom splash screen and this was the incentive that I needed. Some of these splash screens were really inspirational.

One note: I believe that image dimensions for widescreen nuvi's should be 480 x 272 pixels, not 480 x 212 as you stated.

If you leave the dimensions at 480 x 272, the image will not expand to the left and right edges of the screen. This is because the bottom portion of the screen is reserved for Garmin prompts.

If you change the dimensions to 480 x 212, the image will fill the entire top portion of the screen.

As Gary A said we added our own splash screen with a personalized digital pic. To do this on the 660nuvi go to the tool (wrench) symbol press then to the display icon then to the splash screen & hit change you can select a pic from the internal storage or a memory card.

To get pics (you can download more than 1) onto your nuvi just connect the nuvi to your computer via a usb cable. If you dont already have a nuvi drive on your pc this should create one, then copy & paste your pics (jpeg files) to the nuvi drive.

Also after downloading numerous pics (we have downloaded about 18 to ours) you can play them as a slideshow.
To do this go to the main screen to the travel kit & select picture viewer & then select view images from internal memory & then select slide show.

FWIW...after much playing around, I've found that 480x272 fits my 200 screen perfectly...taking up all the available room not used by the Garmin prompts.

I just *hate* when I do that!

You're absolutely correct. 480 x 272 gives you a perfect full screen in Picture Viewer, but your image should be 480 x 212 to fully fill the screen when used as splash screen.

I was under the impression that the splash screen was only displayed at start up. I set my image to 480 x 272 just like the default Garmin splash screen. It fills the screen when I start up, without any cropping. It also fills the screen in picture viewer. Are there other ways to display the splash screen during operation that may crop the image? I have a NUVI 650.

And Gary, thanks for the tip about adding ID info to your image. Just made this change for my unit.

My nüvi will shrink the Splash Screen if I make it full screen height because at start up it needs the bottom of the screen to display copyright info.

Though the screen is 320 x 240, I have to keep the splash screen size to 320 x 160. If I make it any taller than 160 the nüvi will shrink it, making it look jagged.

Forgive me, I may have sinned...

http://members.shaw.ca/cgy_guy/images/poi_fac.jpg

Of course this only works if an honest person finds my GPS. It gives them 2 ways to contact me without disclosing my home address.

If its stolen... its gone! Which is why I don't leave it in the car.

good tips. thanks

My lock feature is turned on, at least the bad guys can't sell or use it. Or can they reprogram the device, what then.

thanks for the site!!!

I created one from a photo of my car and added name, phone and email contact info. Worked great and a good idea in case a honest person would find it or a dishonest person looking for a reward.

I have a 660. So which one should I use?

THANKS Go Fish!!!!!

Hi,
I'm the italian boy who created the site mynuvi.it and I'm very pleased to see that the function to customize the splash is appreciated as I hoped!
I hope in future to have the time to translate all the pages of my website, for now this page may be a good start.

Sorry for my english!

Thank you

What dimensions did you use? The pixels given for the screen dimension of the Garmin?

(GaryA, you remind me of Dick VanDyke..yeah..)

Hi. Like your website.

We were in Orvieto this June, and fell in love with Italy.

That worked when I dropped my BlackBerry during a snow storm--got it back two days later! Cell minutes are a commodity, nobody really wants to steal them (my buddy lost his in a busy hotel lobby next to Grand Central Station--got it back 3 hours later!). It certainly can't hurt to put the info on the splash screen imho...

I connected the 660 to my PC with the USB cable. I navigated to the JPEG folder on the nuvi with Windows Explorer. I looked for the default splash screen file and checked its properties. It was named d_splsh_scrn.jpg and found it was 72dpi and 480x272 pixels in size. Depending on what model you have, the size may vary (widescreen vs. non-widescreen for example).

Next, I found a photo I had taken a couple years ago, and using Paint Shop Pro, cropped it to the same 480x272 size. Finally, I added a text box with my contact information and saved it at 72dpi.

The only thing left to do was to copy it to the JPEG folder on the 660, disconnect it from the PC and go into the nuvi and select it as the new splash screen - on the main Where To page, press the Wrench (Settings)>Display>Change... (to the right of Splash Screen)>View Images From Internal Storage and then scroll through the images and touch the new one that I had just uploaded.

That was it. I cycled power on the nuvi and it started up with the new splash screen.

EDIT: this is what mine looks like (with my cell number & email removed).

http://home.att.net/~gwa2001/2007morels1a.jpg

p.s. You aren't the first to bring up the Dick Van Dyke look alike. I don't see it, myself.

I agree - it doesn't hurt to have the information available, just in case an honest person finds your phone or GPSr. Glad to hear it worked our for you and your friend.

How do you actually change it. Is the original splash screen "GARMIN" with the blue Tri angle, if so how does one change it

I didn't change the default Garmin splash screen, I created a new one from a jpg photo I wanted to use and added a text box with my contact information.

I connected my 660 to my PC via USB, and looked at the file properties to find out the correct size so I knew how to crop the new photo that I wanted to use. Then I simply copied the new jpg file into the same folder as the default splash screen, disconnected the 660 from the PC and let it boot up.

Then I went into the settings and changed the selected splash screen to my new one.

Thanks for sharing the link.