Advent OGM1 Navi Bootup Screen

wottenad · September 10, 2013

If anyone wants to customize their iGo Primo map "splash screen" with something a little less boring than the factory Advent/iGo map loading screen, we made some different graphics you can install pretty easily, provided you are a little computer savvy:

IF YOU ARE NOT COMFORTABLE WITH ANY INSTRUCTION GIVEN HERE, DO NOT ATTEMPT THIS MODIFICATION! WE ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY ERRORS YOU MAKE AND WE WILL NOT PROVIDE TECH SUPPORT FOR THIS MODIFICATION.

This operation will require some basic knowledge of compressed (.zip) files and file operations. You will not be extracting any files from your original map SD card here - only renaming original files and adding new files to a compressed .zip file on the map SD card.

Before you start, YOU MUST FIRST BACKUP YOUR ENTIRE MAP SD CARD!!! WE WILL NOT BE RESPONSIBLE FOR YOU TRASHING YOUR NAVIGATION FILES!!! If you make any mistakes in this process, it's imperative that you be able to restore your original files - DO NOT SKIP THIS STEP!

You can download the splash screen files here: GMC or Chevrolet - the zip file for each contains two .bmp files; "exiting.bmp" and loading.bmp". Extract these two files to a directory on your computer and remember the location.

Once you have backed up your SD card files, open the "branding.zip" file that's in the root directory of the SD card with Winzip, WINRAR or even inside Windows itself (DO NOT EXTRACT ANY FILES FROM "branding.zip" - ONLY VIEW THEM):

You will notice that inside the "branding.zip" file, there are multiple folders and files.

Open the "ui_igo9\800_480" directory as shown above so you can see the files inside.

In this directory, you will see "exiting.bmp" and "loading.bmp", among others. You will not be able to view any of these files with a conventional graphics program like Photoshop or Windows Paint - don't try.

RENAME THE ORIGINAL "loading.bmp" AND "exiting.bmp" TO SOMETHING LIKE "loadingORIGINAL.bmp" and "exitingORIGINAL.bmp" BEFORE YOU COPY ANY NEW FILES TO THE CARD.

On your computer, open the directory where you extracted the two ADC Mobile-modified files ("loading.bmp" and "exiting.bmp") that you downloaded, unzipped and saved in the step above.

Copy both of these files into the "ui_igo9\800_480" directory (REMEMBER - "BRANDING.ZIP" A COMPRESSED FILE, SO BE SURE YOU ARE COPYING THE TWO FILES INTO THE .ZIP FILE ITSELF)

If you did the copy action correctly, you will now show "exiting.bmp" and "loading.bmp" in the 800_480 folder as well as your renamed original files.

If both files copied correctly, you should now be able to remove the SD card, then reinsert it into your OGM1 and when you start the navi, you will see something like this when you start he navigation system:

If anyone follows these instructions successfully, please post that you accomplished it and feel free to add any modifications to these instructions that you feel necessary.

Have fun!

evance74 · September 24, 2013

Loaded the Chevy boot logo to both of my OGM-1 units. They look great.

Thank you!!

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

skicrave · October 28, 2013

Walt-

Thanks for posting this, it's a worthwhile upgrade to really improve the polish of the OGM interface.

I haven't been around for a while; was a solution for the nav not running in the background but ever released by Advent/ASA?

wottenad · October 28, 2013

Walt-

Thanks for posting this, it's a worthwhile upgrade to really improve the polish of the OGM interface.

I haven't been around for a while; was a solution for the nav not running in the background but ever released by Advent/ASA?

No - it ended up being too flaky in terms of crashing the unit if other functions were happening at the same time (BT pairing, indexing of iPod, etc.)

ponchonutty · October 28, 2013

Is there a way to make the boot screen just have the background and the "GMC" logo with out the rest of the things listed????

skicrave · October 28, 2013

No - it ended up being too flaky in terms of crashing the unit if other functions were happening at the same time (BT pairing, indexing of iPod, etc.)

Yeah, I remember that was your experience, but that doesn't make any sense, because if you turn on the Auto-Switch feature (I don't remember what it was called), the nav will automatically boot at startup each time and it works just fine. They need to enable that, but let is happen in the background, and not automatically switch to navigation every 30 seconds.

That's really a shame, without that functionality the OGM1 is essentially worthless as a reliable navigation tool.

skicrave · October 28, 2013

You can load any Bit Mapped Image (.bmp) file that is 800x480, if you're not comfortable using a photo edited software package like Photoshop, Gimp, etc. then you'll need to have someone make the image for you.

wottenad · October 28, 2013

Yeah, I remember that was your experience, but that doesn't make any sense, because if you turn on the Auto-Switch feature (I don't remember what it was called), the nav will automatically boot at startup each time and it works just fine. They need to enable that, but let is happen in the background, and not automatically switch to navigation every 30 seconds.

That's really a shame, without that functionality the OGM1 is essentially worthless as a reliable navigation tool.

The auto-boot in the background functionality was done solely by editing some of the plain text files in the GPS system. I found out which ones strictly by experimentation, and once I accomplished that function, I found out the negative side effects of booting the navi SIMULTANEOUSLY with the radio systems - it crashed when too many "housekeeping" functions were performed at the same time, since the system ran out of RAM. Once the new map updates were released, the same method wouldn't work and I never went back to attempt it again. If you're a good programmer, you may find the magic combination of settings that will allow that functionality and have it be stable.

For most people in normal daily use, navigation itself is not all that critical, since we all know how to drive back and forth to work, right? Where navi is required is when we travel, and the extra step of hitting the navi button and waiting 15 seconds for bootup is not all that dramatic. Being worthless as a navigation tool is a little strong, if you ask me, since the unit does work perfectly well, and in my opinion, iGo Primo is the best navi system out there in terms of being able to customize it and get more data from the system than anything else.

I think your wish to have the unit boot up automatically is covered by the "Auto Switch to GPS" option, and the main difference between that method and the one I used is that the auto-switch option allows the deck to get all booted up and working for 30 seconds or so before it starts the navi, where my hack started all the functions at the same time. This is what makes it reliable, and as far as I can tell, is required.

It sounds like what you want it to do is to default to the audio system screen once it boots the navi, correct? If so, I've asked for that functionality and haven't gotten a positive response from Advent. However, I will be going to the SEMA show next week and will have many, many questions and feature requests for the Navi Product Manager, and this is one of them...

skicrave · October 28, 2013

Sorry if my words seemed harsh; when it comes to product design, in my mind products either work, or they don't, there's not a lot of gray area there.

Since they already support automatically loading the navigation software (albeit only by forcing users to view iGo constantly), it should be a trivial task to load that as start of the boot up process, but just leave it sitting in the background until Nav is selected. If you press the Nav button during that booting process, you get the boot screen we're talking about modifying in this thread until iGo is loaded.

Have them review VW's RNS-510 headunit, it performs really well in this regard.

Here's a video that shows this perfectly:

If you don't press the Map button like he did at 0:39 it will just keep playing the source you're listening to with the audio UI front and center until you do press the Map button.

Hulsund · November 16, 2013

I have no luck making this work. I have tried with the downloadable .zip file from Walt, and with a file I have made myself. When the navigation starts I get an error message saying: "User interface resolution [800x480] is not supported or compatible skin can not be found. Exiting application."

I'm using WinRAR to put the files into the .zip