6.1 Creating a Map Pack with Center

Creating a Map Pack with Center

Language: English. Reviewed against Center's map-production source on October 15, 2026.

The five-region production below was validated from Center working sources on that date. A packaged desktop release must contain the SD publisher, native-map composer and per-style zoom naming before this workflow can be assumed available. The SDK route-persistence work does not itself publish a new Center desktop build.

Center produces TMAP maps directly in their SD installation structure. Select the area, styles and capabilities; there is no map-format choice. Each selected style has its own file, containing its raster pixels, POIs, search data and any navigation, numeric elevation and contour sections included for the region.

Prepare the map

1. Open Admin Map and the map-pack builder. Select an administrative boundary or enter explicit bounds. Check the selected area on the preview.
2. Download or choose a raw regional OpenStreetMap .osm.pbf covering the area. This is the host production source. Do not copy it to the device as a map.
3. Select OSM, Terrain and/or Satellite and set their zoom ranges. Detailed styles may have different ranges. More high-zoom tiles require more host work and SD storage; refresh the estimate before starting.
4. Keep independent annotations enabled when names should be drawn separately from the pixels. Source names, category filters, zoom eligibility and display collisions affect which labels appear. Display quotas do not truncate the complete searchable POI database.
5. Enter a simple filename such as london.tmap and a stable regional package key. Center adds the style and actual zoom range: london-osm-z13-17.tmap, london-terrain-z16.tmap and london-satellite-z16.tmap.
6. Choose an SD output root, rather than a style subdirectory. Export, wait for explicit completion and inspect the finished map. Cancellation and failed validation do not publish an incomplete file under its final name.

For navigation, open Build navigation and contour map from the same builder. It carries over the basemap settings and creates complete style files with the outdoor data inside. The desktop HGT picker imports one local tile per job; the Center regional CLI additionally downloads, validates and mosaics multiple elevation tiles. See 6.3 Outdoor Navigation and Elevation Profiles.

Output structure

The five-region production profile uses this structure:

SD-root/
  maps/tmap/osm/
    world-osm-z0-7.tmap
    china-osm-z8-12.tmap
    great-britain-osm-z8-12.tmap
    kunming-osm-z13-16.tmap
    london-osm-z13-17.tmap
  maps/tmap/terrain/
    kunming-terrain-z16.tmap
    london-terrain-z16.tmap
  maps/tmap/satellite/
    kunming-satellite-z16.tmap
    london-satellite-z16.tmap
  trailmate/packs/fonts/<resource-id>/...

Copy the maps and trailmate directories to the card root, preserving their structure and unrelated card resources. There is no need to find and assemble separate navigation or DEM files. Center retains plans, source hashes, reports and intermediate data on the host, outside the SD installation tree.

The filename uses each style's actual descriptor, including a single level such as z16. It does not inherit a different style's wider zoom range. Existing map names are protected against overwrite. Generated fonts are shared by identity; copy each complete resource directory rather than only its font.bin file.

Check the result

Open the finished map in Center and inspect known locations in each selected style. TmapTool verify <file.tmap> checks index pages, raster pixel payloads and every outdoor data page. A sampled preview is useful for visual checking, but it is not a substitute for full integrity validation.

Before a device test, confirm that its software integrates the matching TMAP SDK and the selected capabilities. Desktop production does not install firmware or establish physical-device memory and storage performance. Start with a small area, then use the measured capacities in 6.4 TMAP SDK and Resource Budgets.

See the SDK's native map guide for the container and DEM contract, and the Center production guide for CLI plans, source coverage and installation rules. All instructional images in this wiki use English.