How to make custom vehicle icons

This site is in German, but has 3 pages of custom vehicles. Click the links on the left side of the page (fahrzeuge 1, 2 and the next one). I like the radar and pfeil. They are in .rar which is a zipped format, so they have to be extracted before transferring them to the unit.

this site:

http://www.alice-dsl.net/fahrzeuge/index.html

Photoshop does not work. It has some issue with PNG files.

Paint.Net is a small freebie program that does work.

When you are completed your PNG file, add a transparent layer above all the other layers save as PNG, and convert that PNG with that website you mentioned.

Viola!

I modified the blue 2d arrow vehicles from Garmin so that the tip of the vehicle is at your current location instead of the middle of the vehicle, as well as experimented with making a few crosshair vehicles.

This is pretty cool, thank you rapriebe.

after installing tinyxp (a stripped-down version of xp pro), using virtual pc (i'm on a mac powerbook), after installing .net framework, after installing paint.net, after sitting through progress bar after progress bar after progress bar, i finally got to try your solution.

it works!

aarrgghh ... just think, next vehicle icon, not so many progress bars !!!

I'm glad it worked. If it didn't work after all that work, boy, you would be mad at me

I converted one of the vehicles on that website and got it to open in Photoshop, but have been to busy to finish it. I wanted to make the vehicle smaller so you can get a more precise location of where you are. Sometimes the vehicle is so big it's hard to see when to turn or where you are exactly.

I already modified the 2d blue arrows so that the tip of the arrow is at your current location instead of the middle of the arrow ... the size is the same, it is just repositioned. I find it works well and you are welcome to a copy if you like.

PS ... if you are using Adobe Photoshop, you will have transparency problems when you reconvert back to the garmin format.

If you want to use Photoshop to do you work, when done, save as a PNG, load your PNG into Paint.NET, add a transparent layer at the very top, resave your PNG and convert.

Maybe there should be a catagory where people can upload there modified vehicle images on poi-factory? I would like to see some of the creations.

Awesome, awesome, awesome! keep up the great contributions!

i've just posted two vehicle icons i made. they can be downloaded from my blog, where i walkthrough the process of making them. thanks for all the help.

http://glad-you-asked.blogspot.com/2008/01/chicks-dig-car.ht...

thanx for those aarrgghhh. good job!

AND i agree with you lerch. That would be cool

Classic...I can't wait until I can figure out how to get it in my Garmin!!!

Great Job!

Yes, I don't see why the car has to be so big. Half as big would be just as visible. At close-in zooms the car looks like it's a half-mile long. That gets longer as you zoom out since everything gets reduced except the car.

Are all the vehicles on the Garmin website about the same size? They all look large, but I don't think they are drawn to scale.

they go in the unit's "garmin/vehicle" directory

Great Batmobiles! I've never seen those versions. I would LOVE to have the 1960s TV show batmobile!!!

aarrgghh, Thanks for sharing that with us, I have linked this thread to the faq are so that others can find it easily.

Miss POI

that would be awesome!

Please let us/me know when you create more. I love it, I love it, I love it!

Holy Cow Batman! That'll keep the Joker away!

It's now my vehicle of choice!

Thanks,
Ralph

I agree with Lerch and would like to see a page where they are all posted. I started a collection of websites of vehicles that people have created. I thought this might be a good place to post them. Let me know what you think!

Converting png and srf files to create your own
http://www.techmods.net/nuvi/

Mini Coopers
http://homepage.mac.com/WebObjects/FileSharing.woa/wa/defaul...

BMW Z3 and Z4
http://www.ecarter.net/midwest/nuvi.htm

Smart car and Lexus suv
http://techmods.net/nuvi/vehicles/

Garmin Garage
http://www8.garmin.com/vehicles/bundles/allvehicles.html

VW Van-White, Red, Blue, Silver
http://odometer.org/misc/vanagon_gps_avatar.zip
http://www.fileden.com/files/2008/1/2/1675667/vanagon_blue_v... (just replace the blue wording with silver or red for other)

FJ Toyota
http://www.mediafire.com?0jxrwgrnxby

Honda Element
http://rapidshare.com/files/60108418/Element_Garmin.zip.html

Toyota 4Runner
http://www.toyota-4runner.org/attachment.php?s+a8dd25a883403...

If anyone comes accross more sites can they please post?

p.s. (aarrgghh, I like your Bat Mobile!)

Thanks,
Paul

Please check FJ Toyota link. Appears to be bad.

good job PaulAtl. Now the next challenge is to get it hosted on Poi-factory. Whadayasay?

Try these for the FJ Cruiser.

http://www.mediafire.com/?0jxrwgrrxby

http://www.mediafire.com/?0h32w1xd3y1

I just noticed I typed rn before instead of rr in the link.

Hey buddy, I have windows XP and my computer will not let me download the Sony extension for the .SRF files of the BMW's. Do you know what I might need to load them onto my Garmin?

Eventually I would like to have more libraries available in our download area. Custom vehicles will be one of the top priorities and I will be reaching out to the creators of those files to see if they would be willing to let us post their work on our site.

Miss POI

That would be a great idea..it would also draw I believe more discussion and interest to the site...

After you download the srf file, you would simply drag and drop it into your vehicles folder on your Nuvi unit.

If you are trying to "edit" the file or "view" it, you would need to convert the file from a srf to a png then you can use photoshop or paint to adjust colors. Then transfer back to srf. The conversion site I believe is at the start of this whole topic but this is it.

http://techmods.net/nuvi/

aarrgghh has a pretty descriptive website that explains how he did one from scratch. His site is early on.

As I was looking around the 'net for more information and, because I'm lazy, some pre-made custom cars, I found the Garmin blog, and a link to Garmin created custom cars!:

http://www8.garmin.com/vehicles/bundles/allvehicles.html

Some cool, some silly, and some I am interested in, until I create one for a CTS.

Unless someone already has a CTS created!

FJ Toyota
http://www.mediafire.com?0jxrwgrnxby

Thank you for your help also on the .srf file to garmin info.

OK, Try this one. I don't know why that does not open for you since it opens for me. If the below does not work go to the www.fjcruiserforums.com and do a search for "srf". This should bring up the forum pages there and you can click the links to each color of the vehicle you want.

They have a couple of links for each color car but since it is a long address I will just post one (Titanium).

http://www.fjcruiserforums.com/forums/attachments/stereo-ele...

Anyone got a Toyota Tundra icon to keep me in company with my Nuvi 660?

thanks for the link. i see the thread's gotten some attention while i was rescuing my hard drive and all the hard work i've been documenting from digital oblivion. i'm actually at work on another famous car, this time modelling it from scratch in lightwave 3d as opposed to photographing a toy. i should have something to show soon.

YES! YES! Me, please! MEEP!

And thank you! This is now my icon of choice!

Mio, giggling in a fit of geek frenzy

Eventhough I have a mio, this might work on Garmins. I went to google image, downloaded an image of a car I wanted, open it ina picture editing software and resized it to the pictrue of the the arrow or other car.

Thanks for sharing

How's it going. I was curious if you were able to download the TRD vehicle icon from the website. Its wouldn't let me.....

Aconite, I was able to locate and download your cross-hair vehicles, which I have been able to customize for my preferences.

I added "Direction" indication, since I use 2D North Up quite often, and wanted to have the travel direction shown, also changed colors, It's very nice. Let me know if you want me to e-mail you the modified version.

Thanks!

Where did you get a cross-hair vehicle? I have been looking for one for quite a while. Can you point me to a site that has one?

Garmin Garage just posted a new vehicle.

http://www8.garmin.com/vehicles/index.html

Hi, the cross hair vehicles are not mine. I modified the Garmin 2d Arrows so that they point to your current location instead of sitting on top of it.

How did you motify the 2d to point to your current location?

thanks

It was pretty easy.

I noticed on the GPS that the center of the vehicle was at your actual location on the map.

- convert SRF file to PNG
- Load into Paint.NET (freeware and very small)
- Create new layer
- Mark center point of each arrow on the new layer
- Select and move each arrow so tip is at center point
- Delete center point layer
- Add transparent layer on top
- Save as PNG
- Convert to SRF

Now at any zoom level, the tip of the 2D vehicle is pointed to where you are actually at. Makes a world of difference. I didn't bother modifying the 3d arrow as I don't use the 3d map, but it could be done the same way.

i found the arrow that i wanted, but its in a strange format: Pfeil_Radar.rar

how do i convert this to .srf or .png

You'll need an extracting tool.. similar to WinZIP. Here are a few, all are freeware:

http://www.download.com/UnPacker/3000-2250_4-10408407.html?t...

http://www.download.com/ExtractNow/3000-2250_4-10038365.html...

http://www.download.com/AutoUnpack/3000-2250_4-10578583.html...

After extracting the file, place the .SRF file in your VEHICLE folder.

Which program would I use to convert SRF to PNG?

Thanks

For more information about converting .srf vehicle files see:
http://techmods.net/nuvi/

two new vehicle icons are up on my blog and available for download: the 2005 "tumbler" batmobile from "batman begins" and the 1968 "mach 5" from the "speed racer" cartoon tv series.

all that's missing is the roar ...

http://glad-you-asked.blogspot.com/2008/02/more-cars-that-ch...

update:

1) all my custom icons to date are now available in one download:

http://glad-you-asked.blogspot.com/2008/02/aarrgghhz-carz.ht...

2) i've changed the haloes on all the icons from white to yellow and/or blue. the white haloes never looked proper in daylight mode due to the quirky nature of the masking of the icons against the background.

so in all there are now 7 icons in the package:

1940s batmobile with yellow halo
1940s batmobile with blue halo
1950s batmobile with yellow halo
2005 tumbler batmobile with yellow halo
2005 tumbler batmobile with blue halo
1967 speed racer mach 5 with yellow halo
1967 speed racer mach 5 with blue halo