Simple Way to Download Free Map and Install into Garmin Streetpilot and Nuvi Series GPS

GPS (Global Positioning System) has becomes more and more popular in today’s consumer market. It has been integrated as one of the must have accessories especially in middle and high end vehicles. Besides the receiver module that is able to lock onto at least 3 out of 24 satellites surrounding the earth to enable coordinate finding and route tracking, there is another important element – mapping database that makes the whole device usable in city drive with great visual experience and vocal direction guide. Here I intend to provide a simple guide on how to install a new mapping database especially for Garmin Streetpilot as well as Nuvi series.

If you are planning to navigate in Singapore or Malaysia, you can get a pretty neat and comprehensive map free at MalSingMaps. Thanks to a team of GPS enthusiasts that help to update and maintain it.

Once after quick registration, user can start downloading the map by connecting a USB cable from the GPS device to PC system. It is an executable file that can run in local device drive and what user needs to do is just execute it and the whole map database will be extracted into the selected local drive as the *.img format. The whole database occupies not more than 20MB and depending on the device storage capacity, user can choose to store the map in either the removable SD card drive or into the device directly. Good thing is, you don’t even have to delete your existing maps while still able to add few more maps so that they are usable for navigation in different cities. One thing to take note here, the *.img mapping files need to be resided in the Garmin folder in order to be recognized by the system and work correctly. So, you may need to create a folder and name it as ‘Garmin’ before storing the *.img files into it.

Now you are ready to browse the right map and start the navigation.