Bodies of Water

Bodies of water are likely very low on the priority list for maps designed for AUTOMOTIVE GPS units.

Topo maps and/or BlueChart maps would be more appropriate for this level of detail.

For us hikers and geocachers, bodies of water are a really big deal.

I have learned to take even the commercial 24K topo maps with a grain of salt as far as placement of creeks and rivers go. They are certainly more detailed than my automotive maps. But an error of even just a few feet can result in a mile or more hike to go around in some circumstances.

Some counties show small ditches and farmer's ponds. The next county does not show a major creek that floods over the road sometimes. The Edwards river only showed up on 2012.10. So I'm guessing that it is a work in progress.

Personally, I feel a GPS should be like a portable road atlas. Every road atlas I have ever seen has detailed geographic features. They are inherent geographic landmarks.
I also personally think water features would be a much higher priority than say, 3d buildings or things like that. I would think that geographic data of water would be something readily available and I find it very peculiar that all of that data has been in Navteq's database from the get-go.

...when I see a little blue on my screen. It gives the GPS a little character. Not only that, it is kind of fun to see if I am actually crossing a river when it shows that I am on the GPS.

One thing that I've notice about switching to Open Street Maps is that the maps show a lot more creeks than my 4 year old Garmin maps did. While more information is generally good, my impression is that all of the extra blue lines clutter up the small screen and actually distract from the display of the streets. I'm talking about creeks that are a few feet wide, or even less.

It might be a little better if the creeks were a pale blue rather than the darker blue that they are. But I doubt that OSM can even control that, I think the Garmin nuvi picks and renders the final colors based on the data (remember, the colors all change at night).

Alternately, it might be great to have the creeks when zoomed in on the most extreme resolutions (where POI icons start to become visible), but I would gladly give them up when zoomed out and they make following the streets harder.

My developments in Florida has quite a few little lakes from very small to a few quite a bit bigger. The funny thing is they all show up on my GPS.
There are a few creeks that run from the gulf under US19 and they all have some water running in them.
These show up most of the way towards US19 and then stop and pick back up on the other side of the road about 1000 feet in. Same creek,same size, same water in them. You would think that they would just continue them on the map.

I have a bit of an opposite problem to Narvick's.

I don't mind seeing bodies of water show on my 2555 (and prev. 255W). It is nice to know that there is a lake there out of my sight to left or right,

BUT! Why is it necessary to Name every little friggin' island in that body of water. It's not like I can either drive or walk to it, so really there is no need to name it. Often my screen is completely cluttered with island names - none of which I could get to even if I wanted to.

What really bugs me is that the name of the tiniest island will show, but not roads adjacent to me.

It would be nice if the body of water itself would be named though - then I could check it out later on Google Earth, or similar.

Unlikely you will see any changes in this area. roads are the priority.

Maybe the lesser creeks would only show if you have your GPS set on the max detail level.

I don't necessarily disagree per se, however, one must be realistic. And one must understand that there are limitations generally and that both Navteq (as the provider of the basic map data) and Garmin (as the creator of the maps themselves for the GPS units) must make choice about what they choose to include and what they choose to exclude from the end product.

It's not practical to include absolutely every minor detail. Something is going to get left off.

And for Garmin AUTOMOTIVE units, features that pertain to road navigation are going to get included as a higher priority.

And 3-D buildings are much more likely to be important to users traveling in a dense city than the exact location of the shoreline of a river or creek.

Personally, I would like to see all the marine navigation markers and water depths shown on the maps, too. But realistically, I know that that is not going to happen. That's why I use paper charts and aerial photography to assist with that type of navigation.

I like seeing the lakes and being able to identify them by name. Anything on my State Highway paper map,should be on my GPS. I would like to see the railroads on my gps at a decent zoom level. Now I have to zoom in to 120 feet to see them.

The factory map that was loaded in my nuvi 350 shows water/rivers weather it's an lake or ocean...but when I updated the map, the waters disappeared from my county where I live in but reappears when I drive out of the county limits.

I was able to turn off the updated layer and it all came back but the map is outdated this way.

I think the details on the bodies of water you are crossing or are nearby is one of the detail items Garmin removed from being displayed on the newer GPS Models.

My old 780 displayed the names of rivers, creek and ponds on the screen,

I guess the data is still inside the map, but Garmin chooses not to allow it to be displayed.

For at least some of the newer nuvi models, tapping the map (avoid tapping the vehicle) will give added info like lake and river names. Tapping Back returns you to navigation mode when you're done.

It was Boxcar who gave me this tip:

http://www.poi-factory.com/node/38947

For bodies of water shown on your map, the following applies. Why some bodies of water are not even shown is something that needs to be asked of the map companies.

I took three nuvis out for a ride today (all with latest firmware, City Nav NA NT 2014.10 maps, and Map Detail set to Normal) and drove past three bodies of water.

The short answer:
It depends.

The long answer:
Why am I not surprised that the answer will vary between nuvi models and how they're being used?

-When in "View map" mode with no route (i.e., the nuvi does not know you destination) selected. One of three possibilities exist: 1) Bodies of water will appear on the navigation map so nothing need be done to ID the body of water (often seen with my nuvi 750 and 855); 2) Bodies of water are unmarked, so you need to tap your map (anywhere except on the vehicle icon) which brings you to a different kind of map page--the body of water may now be identified (sometimes seen on my nuvi 750 or 855); 3) Bodies of water from step 2 (above) still do not identify the body of water--tap the body of water again on this 2nd map page to see the water identified (sometimes needed for the nuvi 750 and 855--always needed for the nuvi 2460).

-When driving a route (i.e., the nuvi is directing you to a destination). For the nuvi 750 and 855, the steps are identical to those given above when not driving a route. For the nuvi 2460, tapping the map anywhere except on the vehicle brings you to a second type of map which is zoomed down to the point that allows your entire route to be seen; i.e., if driving on Day 1 of a 2000-mile route, you will be shown a map of a majority of the USA where you'd be lucky to be able to correctly tap a state smaller than Texas! So for the 2460 running a route, tapping the map will not bring you to a page that offers, even with another tap, the name of any nearby body of water. It is possible by multi-zoom-ins to finally see the body of water, tap it, and have it identified, but this may require a dozen or more Zooms to achieve. (Subsequent taps from a navigation map to the other map default again to show your destination meaning that it'll be very time-consuming during any multi-hundred mile route to ID a body of water.)

Long story short: At normally-used zoom levels, bodies of water can be identified with from 0-2 taps to the map when not navigating a route--and from 0 to maybe dozens of taps when driving a route, the longer the route remaining, the more taps that will be needed.

I've tested just these three discontinued nuvi models. I would not be surprised at all to read that other nuvi models behave differently in how to show a body of water.

Ugh, TMI. Can anyone offer other options for nuvis not tested here?

I just tap once on the body of water and it give me the name.