Junction View - Use it or Lose it?

RNH,

One value to Junction View in AZ is in Flagstaff. For folks traveling westbound on I-40 that plan to exit northbound on SR-89 (Exit 195) to visit downtown Flagstaff, drive to the Grand Canyon, etc., there are two Junction Views that pop up within maybe 10 seconds of each other. The second of these (SR-89 N / Flagstaff) could easily be missed without the visual Junction View (as with my nuvi 750) ending up with folks incorrectly heading south on I-17 rather than northbound on SR-89 (Milton Ave). So for me, I'll keep my JCV active and if I'm using my 750 instead of my JCVed 855, I'll miss the photo-realistic J-Views.

I traveling I have only hit junction view once st sticks in my mind, traveling west on I90 and getting on I405 in Seattle, it was a little too short and too late the one thing I don't remember for sure was how lane assist worked at that intersection, you have to be in the correct lane to get on I405, the exit has two lanes for it, the right lane as shown in the JV takes you to I405 north, the left lane takes you to I405 south, problem is if you hit it at a high traffic time and do not get into the correct lane you might not have a opportunity to correct.

Personally I think it is a nice addition while driving.

I find junction view to be very useful when traveling in large, unfamiliar and even familiar metropolitan areas.

Last week while driving in South Florida (Ft. Lauderdale and Miami), junction view was most useful to me at a number of interchanges and exits. I'm from South Florida originally, but it changes all the time down there.

I find it to be fairly useful and somewhat cool (especially the new photoreal views), and the fact that it now seems that whole entire states are being covered (like Alabama, Georgia, Arizona, North Carolina, ect.) and not just certain cities increases the practicality of it. What I find even MORE important and useful though is the lane assist, simply because it tells you everything you need to know in an efficient and simple manner and it also is still more dependable than junction vies because it is now available anywhere in the country where there is an interstate. Although I think junction view is cool, I could easily live without it, but lane assist, that's a different story.

I remember 2 years ago, I was traveling to a location close to downtown Minneapolis, MN. The GPS told me to exit off to the right, then exit left again. It was an immediate "exit left" too! The junction view came up just at the right time to save me from missing the turn, and seemingly would have probably made me go around in circles to get to my final destination. Of course, it has helped me since, but that particular time was a doozie!! Some times JV had been not necessary, but never has it been a distraction.

Junction view was one of the reasons that I bought the 1490LMT, Unfortunately, after the latest map update I seem to have lost some of them. There are three that used to appear on my regular run to work but they have now disappeared.

I like it and plan to keep it.

I see Junction Views quite frequently while driving in the Middle Atlantic States and in Florida.

I find it very helpful especially on many tricky multi-road situations.

I like it.

Gary Hayman
Garmin Tricks and Tips
http://bit.ly/garmin_gps_tricks

I agree with Gary and probably for the same reason.. I live & drive here in the mid-Atlantic area, where the drivers maintain a full 1/16 car length behind each other and 8 out of 10 have no intention of allowing anything into that space.

LA is great and JV is a welcome final visual confirmation for me.

I also find JV helpful but it only stays on for a short time. Is there a fix for that problem?

I think the JV's are a great feature and really help with those large and confusing interchanges.

I like the junction view but it only shows for a short time. I agree that while it shows, other information is lost. It would be nice if you could control it, i.e, be able to press something to keep it on longer or turn it off when you don't need it (for each viewn not permanently).

I agree with the others: I find JV helps with big confusing intersections, of which there are many in the NY/NJ/CT tri-state area!

Works well in Chicago and worth having IMHO.

Thanks blake7mstr for mentioning a specific interchange, I-90 & I-405 in Seattle. I just ran through that interchange in simulation mode to see the JV's that pop up there. Looking at a few other interchanges I know well, I am starting to like the way the photo-realistic views are giving me a better visual representation of the interchange, so I'm still a little on the fence about this.

A few others have mentioned a few places that they find JV useful too. I'd be interested in hearing of some specific, complex interchanges that really let JV shine through.

Anyone know of locations with several successive interchanges (within a mile or so of each other) that I can navigate through using simulation mode? Thanks!

Personally for me, the fixed 13 second JV display that obscures the screen unless you physically intervene is the annoying part and is why I looked into finding a way to disable it. I believe my post was the one you read on the file rename disable procedure. Garmin should simply allow an easy way to enable/disable options to the user without having to modify the file system on the unit.

I was so busy keeping my fenders in pristine condition that I only saw 2 pop-ups. One of them was a BIG help.

spokybob--Tell me about it. LOL Driving down there is insane.

I have made a custom mount for my Nuvi in an unused slot in the radio of my Ford Escape. It affords me a quick and easy side glance without really taking my eyes off the road.

For all of you who don't think junction view stays on long enough, I've found that once it goes off you can press the mini lane assist button and it will come back on. I just happened to stumble on this feature one day.

I find it useful when it comes up. Unfortunately, it doesn't stay up for very long and you can miss it. Half the time my wife has to tell me it's on. I look up and it is gone. I wish it started sooner, and stayed on until you passed the intersection.

Personally, I find it quite useful.

I was traveling down to North Carolina and the view very much, the most I've seen.

Nuvi765T

I like junction views but pristine bumpers and fenders are far more a priority for me. The realistic crazies around me keep my attention away from my 765T and its photo-realistic JVs.

Switching from a 260 to a 1490t, I originally liked the junction view. However, I found that it got to be somewhat annoying. It looks nice, but it doesn't really give me that much more information. I might disable it too.

When it comes up on the screen it is helpful BUT it rarely comes up on the screen. Garmin's answer to me about that was that it is centered around metropolitan areas - well I travel through and around NYC and you can't get much more metropolitan than that and I have have seen JV three times since I have owned my 1490.

Thanks. Now if there was only an easy way to shut if off when you didn't want/need it.

Press the back arrow at lower left side of screen.

After the latest map update (2012.01), on my 3760LMT JV comes on .8 mile before an intersection and stays on until after I pass the intersection.

JV only appears on the right half of the screen, while the map and LA remain fully visible on the left side of the screen.

If Garmin can solve the 37xx problem of only one JV appearing on a trip , I'll like it even better.

Junction view there worked well and it was often.

I do not get junction views where I live since Columbia, SC is a relatively small city. The most I have seen is in Dallas/Ft. Worth. Mostly in downtown Ft. Worth. I travel there infrequently for business and bring one of my nuvis along. The JVs are mostly helpful but there was one intersection last time I visited where the JV did not match the actual sign. That is a tricky turn so it helped me mess up. When the JV actually matches what you see, I think it helps. For the rare situations where it doesn't match, I think it hurts. Since the former are so much more common than the latter, I will leave it "on".

Jim

Thanks everyone for your feedback. I spent some more time on the interstates this past weekend. JV popped up for every interchange I encountered, including the last one out in the middle of nowhere. We were heading to a local farm for it's garlic and onion festival. Apparently JV has much wider coverage now than I first suspected. I chuckled when I was approaching I-19 SB from I-10 WB. The photo-realistic JV even showed "A Mountain" looming in the background. Unfortunately the WB to SB flyover is not depicted, so it isn't exactly correct.

I did press and hold the LA button to redisplay JV a few times, but found I spent more time looking at the display closely and not on the road. Not a good idea.

Overall, I'm still not impressed. I'll manually disable it in my unit, but it would be great if Garmin would add a check box so the end user could easily turn it off when they don't use or want the feature.

I have found it to be helpful when traveling in unfamiliar territory.

When I did a map update I discovered that the 1490 does not have enough memory to hold the entire JCV file, which should be about 367.5MB.

Instead, a smaller JCV file of ~46MB is installed. As can be expected, a file of this size can only contain about 13% of the Junction views.

It would be great if BPAINE & Robert1775 could check the size of their JCV file, which is located in the ".system/JCV" folder and confirm this.

I have finally found the size of my JCV file, 46,089KB, a lot smaller than the originall. Can I delete this one and re install the originall that I have backed up on my computer, I have 250MB of free space on my unit.

I replaced my 46MB file with the 367MB file from my 885T and it worked fine.

However if you delete the existing 46MB file, you will only have 250MB+46MB= 296MB of space available which will not be enough for the larger file.

Only had one time to use it when i was in atlanta, but it seems like it is ok. just wish i could use/see it more.

Use an SD card and creat folders of garmin and under it JCV. Then copy the larger file to JCV. Then delete the 46MB file from the unit.

I like this idea and want to try it. Where can I find the full/complete JCV file for download? The file on my 1490T is only 48,223 kb. I have 275 mb free, so I'll try the SD card method. But first I have to find that JCV file.

BTW, what file structure and/or names do I need to create on the SD card for it to work?

Thanks.

It's too big to send over email, you would have to find someone near you that has the larger file. I don't think garmin is making it available for the 1490. The folder structure is Garmin/JCV/. The JCV file goes in the JCV folder. It works great, getting the file is the problem.

See this thread http://www.poi-factory.com/node/33360

Seems to me that the "map" file and the "JCV" file should be somehow related. Seems like the software would determine - based on the map - that a junction for which there was an "image" (I will call it) was up-coming and then it would retrieve that "image" from the JCV file.

When people say that - after an update - the JCV file was smaller and some of the "junction view" "images" no longer appear, I wonder if getting the older (and larger) JCV file would have any effect.

Has anyone verified that putting a previous version of a JCV file in place of the JCV file associated with the current map actually produces the older junction views (the ones that were missing with the new JCV file)?

A few posts above I said that I took the large JCV file from my 885T and copied it into my 1490.

I immediately began to see all the local JV's that were missing from the 1490. And of course I had installed the mapsets for my local area into the 1490 beforehand.

Slightly off topic but I wish Google would put LA or JV in their software. I like having the LA on my Garmin and in my wife's car but I've been using the stand alone GPS less and less.

I have both files, the 367MB and 46MB. As a comparison, I simulated a route from DFW to Caribou, Me.. The large file had 17 junction views, the small file had 8.

I got the the 367MB file with MapUpdater V2.6.11. After that version the 1490 has been crippled to 46MB. I suspect this is true for 1390, 1450, 1490, and 1690.

i have absolutly no JVC file with my 1490 now
is it possible to get yours so i can try

Thanks

http://www.poi-factory.com/node/33360?page=1

Look for comments from HowardZ.

That is extremely interesting. I am trying to determine how that would work. It must be that the vehicle is found to be in a certain radius heading in a certain direction that would trigger the GPS to access the JCV file. It would seem that the map file and the JCV file are not interlocked but independent.

Why do you think the junction views in your are were dropped? When you are looking at any of the ones that reappeared with the larger file, could you have made do with the "lane assist" data?

On a related note - did you see any junction views before replacing the file with the older one. I ask because I wonder if the new file had, perhaps, less detail.

JV's are intended to show an image of an upcoming turn required to keep you on the right track to your destination. They will not pop up unless a waypoint has been entered into the GPS.

I believe the reason is that there is not enough memory in the 1490 to do a complete update. Most members of this forum know how to delete unnecessary files, and install maps on SD cards, but Garmin would not want to have every new owner calling tech support saying they couldn't perform an upgrade so they had to do something else.

Garmin couldn't leave streets off the maps because that would surely be noticed by the owners. So they left JV images off, knowing that if people saw the occasional image, they wouldn't complain.

To answer your question, yes Lane Assist does everything JV's do, and is easier to understand with a quick glance. It is also on the screen for a much longer period than JV's.

My 885 with the 2011.10 maps only had JV's around Toronto. When I upgraded to 2012.10 I noticed them around my midsized town of Barrie.

When I upgraded the 1490 to 2012.10 I didn't see any of the new Barrie JV's. I entered a destination in Toronto and then checked the turn by turn list and saw the JV's still existed in the Toronto area. It was as if I had 2012.10 maps and 2011.10 JV's.

"Use an SD card and creat folders of garmin and under it JCV. Then copy the larger file to JCV. Then delete the 46MB file from the unit."

So, if I remove the 46MB file from the Nuvi, will it start to use the large file one on the SD card?

Well, I downloaded the 83MB JCV file into my 1490 and I still don't get any Junction Views. I've tried several routes and the Junction View button never lights up. Can someone give me a junction they know is in the file so I can try a route with it?