How to do transparency

I have a few ideas, but I'm not certain they'll work:

* try saving in BMP format with 8 bit color
* If you still can't get it to work from Photoshop, try opening and resaving from MS Paint (ick -- sorry, I know; but some times it's easier to get simple results with a simple tool.)

Also, some models like 2720 don't support using magenta as a transparent color. I haven't heard one way or another for c330.

Please share how it turns out.

JM

I haven't played with any of the icons but have a full suite of photo/graphics software here. Is it just a matter of creating an "invisible" icon? If so, send me the icon file and let me play...

I have tried just about every version of a bmp with magenta as the color i want transparent. I've tried 8bit (even though the gps supports 16k+ colors) and I've tried 24bit. yesterday i contacted the garmin support to see if they had any suggestions to get a transparent color in the poi icons. We will see what they do. Robinh let me know how to send files to you and i will do so. Your secret sounds interesting.

Send to my email robin (@) hugginsnet.com (broken up to keep spammers off my address). I'm sitting at the puter for the next couple of hours. Takes about 5 minutes to convert most backgrounds to transparent. I use either PSP or CS2, create an outline of the icon you want displayed, cut it from the frame, then reinsert it into a frame of exactly the same size but with a transparent background. That's how I got my icons to work where I could get just, for instance, an anchor and not the anchor on a white background.

It's fairly simple if the drawing/icon has a good border around it. IF not, then it just takes some finageling (sp?) to cut it and reinsert it.

also, if you can't send them via email, you can upload them to my document server at http://www.hugginsnet.com/gpsdocs

To log in there, use User ID poifriends, and the password is gpsfiles, both are all lower case.

There's a field at the bottom for upload, enter the number of files you want to upload, then click the Upload link, it'll ask you to browse to the files on your puter, then upload. Easy cheesy...

Which receiver do you have ?

I have just finished extensive testing on transparency with my nüvi. The conclusion I came to is that transparency in bitmaps is broken. I can't get the magenta transparency to work. Nor can I get transparency in alpha channels (as provided in 4-bit and 8-bit .bmp files) to work.

If anyone has a .gpi file with an icon with transparency in that works on a Garmin Nüvi then could you email it to me or put it where I could grab it ?

i know how to do a transparent background is cs2 but how do i save it to my gps and still keep the transparency? the bmp format doesn't hold any transparent value or anything. Is there another format, like gif, that the gps might support that holds transparency?

well i got my response from garmin and it is sad (very sad) news:

"Thank you for contacting Garmin! The magenta (255,0,255) is the color that the gps makes transparent for most unit but this is not the case for the c330. Transparent is not available through the poi loader for that unit.
Thank you for choosing your guidance by Garmin."

Well i guess i won't have transparent poi icons for my gps.

My custom waypoint symbols (16x16x256 .bmp files) had transparent backgrounds using magenta. I used the same files for custom POI symbols, but the magenta appears on my Quest2 display as magenta.

I have a Garmin support request pending, and I will share it when received.

In the interim, any ideas?

One must wonder: How does Garmin create transparent backgrounds for the POI symbols already in their maps?

Fred

http://www.malsingmaps.com/wiki/index.php/Custom_POI_Icon

should help you get your poi icons, but haven't tried it
Dan

I tried to set the transparency as explained on above and it didn't work at first, but then I read in another post that the .bmp file should be 256 colores, or less, and sure enough, now the transparency works just fine.

Icons look much nicer now.

Thanks for that bit of info. After some tweaking I finally got the transparencies to work as well. For some reason photoshop will not export 8-bit BMPs from other formats.
One thing I'm finding though is that with transparencies the icon will display with small artifacts above the image.

After doing what others described (saving in .bmp with the same magenta backing of FF00FF in 24x24), I too was perplexed when all the ones I created or optimized came out showing the magenta on my nuvi. But since one that I hadn't touched did not show the magenta, I realized it had to do with something in the format saved. Sure enough, all the ones that showed magenta that I didn't touch were in 256 colors. For that matter, all the ones I retrieved from here were 256, magenta or not.

I went thru six different programs on my Mac. Five will export the right file size and format, however they don't give you the choice to save in 16, 256, thousands or millions of colors. The one that I found that does do that, AppleWorks, won't allow any files smaller than 36x36!!! I even tried using AppleWorks to convert to 256 and then changing that same file to .bmp with the other programs, but they automatically revert or open it to either millions or to a .pict file! AARGH!

Is there an easy program for Mac (may some free download) that will save .bmp's in at least 24x24 AND ALSO in 256 colors??? I have plenty of photo-editing apps and this is the first time I could not perform what I wanted to with any, even many complex projects. Thanks in advance!

I use a very simple program to make my Icons and even able to add the Invisability.

It's called PC PAINT and it is on evey PC that runs Windows from the original Windows from years ago to the newest version.

AND IT WORKS................

You can save to all types of formats including 16 color, 256 color and 24 bit BMP files.
You can edit the colors by Red-Green-Blue number values. thus making it easy to make the 255-0-255 Magenta.

TRY PC PAINT -- you will like it for it ease and simplicity.

The title of my post was for a "solution for Mac," as I mentioned in my particular situation. As far as I know that would be a Windows-only program you are talking about.

Anyway, no worries. There was ONE other program I forgot about (although I don't know how): Graphics Converter. The free basic version does a lot, including everything I need to convert to and from every image format, color depth and all other properties. I just finished getting all my files converted and in order for POI Loader. Hope it works this time!

UPDATE: Well, it looks like most of the magenta backing icons STILL did not load transparently. A couple did, although you can see some traces of magenta around it. I don't understand what the real trick to all this is, or why a couple worked and the rest didn't. If I had to, I would rather have them with a white background then magenta of course. Icons with white lettering on a dark background look fine as a solid square, but logos with dark lettering are nice without the white background. All I can think to do is to re-open the newly converted 8-bit 24x24 files in another utility to double check the magenta color is still the same FF00FF. I already verified they are all now seen as 8-bit (256 colors) in other programs. Any other ideas? ...anybody???

From my experience, the traces of magenta you see around the edges are a result of the reduction process. You can fix or reduce many of these with most graphic programs by zooming way in, and replacing or altering the offending magenta...basically, one pixel at a time. I've done this many, many times.

Just remember to resave or save as using the proper attributes to maintain any existing transparent BG you want to keep.

Something else I've run across, the image must be in RGB color mode. If it isn't, you won't get the transparency result.

Any decent graphics program should allow you to change the BG from magenta to another color. This way, you can change the BG from magenta to white/black or whatever. Be aware that a black BG may appear somewhat transparent between the hours of sunset and sunrise, or while set to nighttime.

Can't help with mac programs. If you really need help with a specific bmp feel free to email it to me, either by using my contact tab or from the site in my signature. I'd be glad to take a look.

Well, not only did I find the free Graphics Editor program indispensible for converting any attribute or format of an image to another, I realized that the ones that did not show transparently on the nuvi were either still in millions (not 256) or else had a slight magenta variant (FF08FF for instance). All that checked out on both counts displayed transparently, albeit with the annoying magenta artifacts which make the image look amateurish and not very clean. I guess I will have to toy with the worst ones and try to change every single pixel to perfect magenta FF00FF. ...That should be "fun".

On my 765T I have found that using the 255,0,255 color settings work as long as the bmp icon is saved as a 256 color bitmap. If it is saved with any other color resolution there is no transparency. I did this with MS Paint.

I can confirm that this has worked. I saved a custom icon in Paint as a 256 color bitmap and it appeared without a background on my GPS! Thank you kindly!

A buddy of mine got a 2460, and I was copying POI icons over for him. I've looked this thread and looked all over the net, and the 255, 0, 255 doesn't work for the 2460. It works on my GPSes, but the magenta area around the icon is black on the GPS. I've tried everything mentioned here and all kinds of other things I could think of, I've used several different programs, and I just can't figure it out.

What does Garmin do to make their icons transparent, and what makes this unit different?

I'm hoping someone has an easy fix. I'm on a Mac, so PC Paint won't work, but I have an entire suite of graphics/image programs.

If anybody could offer any kind of assistance, that would be wonderful.

Thank you.

Create layers. Use a 24x24 and fill it with magenta. Then, add the bare-bones icon to it, and center it. Save as an 8 bit .bmp. Done.

I usually do a 1 px white border on mine as to show well in night mode. Here's an example: http://members.shaw.ca/anon_y_mous/images/Redlight-Cameras.b...

Others are in that file as well.

I will try that. Thank you very much!

Philip

Nope. It didn't work. I just don't understand this. I haven't had this happen before.

This is from my article on the Garmin Tricks & Tips web site

GOOD CHOICE FOR YOUR CUSTOM POI GRAPHIC
- A Standardization That Will Help

For a Custom POI graphic to be used correctly by your nüvi, here is a preferred setting for the graphic:

--Must be of the Windows (probably Mac has this too) .bmp file type

--Prefix of file name MUST match the .csv or .gpx file name

--Size should be no bigger than 24 x 24 pixels [can be smaller but it will be hard to see]

--Best to use 256 RGB color palette with standard web safe colors saving as a 256 color bitmap -- .bmp.

--The color 'magenta' (RGB R:255, G:0, B:255 [#ff00ff ] is treated as a transparent color)

Since you say that you are doing everything as above, let me suggest that you double check to see if your Save setting is as a .bmp in the **256 color bitmap category**, instead of some other offering that your Mac may give for a .bmp (I don't know).

See if that is the problem.

You might also want to look at the rest of my article which is on the Custom POI-pg 7 page at http://bit.ly/garmin_gps_tricks

Gary Hayman

8 bit is 256 colours.

Hi Gary -

Thanks for the tips. It's bmp 8 bit. Colors are 256, and the transparency color is R 255, G 0, B 255. On my own units, a 3790 and Oregon 450 it works. It's something about 2460. I'm going to give it back to my friend and tell him I'm sorry, but I don't know why it's not working. I'll keep looking back to see if someone posts a solution that might work.

It's perplexing.

Philip