Offline Google maps with RMaps for your Droid Incredible

A lot of people are asking about how to download Google maps so that they can use it when they don't have access to wifi or cell service. The process is quite simple using RMaps. It's a great application from Robert that allows you to view offline maps on your android phone. You can download RMaps directly from the Android Market. The next step is to create the maps. You'll need the open source Mobile Atlas Creator.

Although it's possible to download the entire map plus all the 19 zoom levels from Google you may not want that since the file will be big...very big. Most likely you will want to focus on a particular area of interest. You then need to decide if you want all 19 zoom levels or just a subset of them.

Here are the instructions to download the maps:

Click on the picture for a larger image.

Download and extract Mobile Atlas Creator (Currently version 1.7).

Run the program. Use the zoom slider and the arrow keypad buttons to position the area of interest on your screen. In my screenshot, it's the city of Paris.

Draw a box around the area of interest.

On the top left, select "Google Maps" for Map Source.

Then place a check mark for each of the zoom levels that you want. Remember the more you checked the bigger the file will be.

In the Name box, put in a descriptive name of the area and then click the "Clear" button and then the "Add selection" button.

Select BigPlanet SQLite for Format.

Now click the "Create atlas" button. Depending on the number of zoom levels selected, this may take a while.

Once it's done, navigate to your "Mobile_Atlas_Creator\atlases" folder, you should see your map file. Mine is Paris.sqlitedb.

Plug in your phone to the computer. Create a new directory "rmaps\data" on your SD card. Copy the map file to that directory.

Now we need to enable that map on your phone. First run the RMaps application. Then select Menu->More->Settings. Select User defined maps, you should see your new map, select that and then Enabled map.

Back to the RMaps application, select Menu->Maps, you should see your maps as one of the items on the list. Select it to enable.