Beoshingus

You know the Developer mode screen in the Navi diagnostics? The one where you can customize the colors of your map display? (If not, read below.) I love that, but it always irritated me that every time you turn off the car, it would go back to the default tan background (for day mode) and dark grey background (for night mode). I knew that there had to be a way to change these colors permanently.

I ran this idea by bysin a couple of days ago, and he pointed me in the right direction. I have now successfully made color changes permanent.
Now, thanks to bysin's dumpnavi console program and a little bit of hex editing, you can make the changes you want and make them permanent.



Here's how:

Use bysin's console program to extract the contents of the .bin to a directory on your hard drive. (My .bin file is BNHN404A.BIN) If you don't know how to do this, bysin has documented it. http://www.linuxkiddies.com/bysin/navi You have to use the command line version - for now.

After you've extracted the contents of the .bin, open NAVI.EXE (which you extracted from the .bin) with a hex editor. I used XVI32 for my hex editor - you can download it for free (Google it.) Be very careful when hex editing. You want to make sure you only edit the area of the file that contains the color definitions. (I was able to locate these offsets by searching for the values of the default colors.)

The default colors are as follows:You will find these hex values at the following offsets in the NAVI.EXE file:
Change these to colors you want, with the RGB values in hex. I chose BD D2 76 for the day mode (a pale green) and 00 00 00 for night mode (pure black.) The tan always made me feel like i was driving in the desert. I like the green much better, but you can of course pick whatever you want. The pure black looks 10x better at night than the grey. Dark blue works well for night mode, too.
WARNING - ONLY CHANGE THE VALUES AT THESE OFFSETS. ANY OTHER CHANGES TO THE EXECUTABLE COULD CAUSE SYSTEM ERRORS. Of course I take no responsibility whatsoever if you screw up your system. If you mess up and have a problem, you can reset to factory default settings by using the method bysin outlined in his documentation.

Once you have changed the values at those locations to the colors you want, save the edited NAVI.EXE file. Exit the hex editor. Now use bysin's program to reinsert the new NAVI.EXE into the .bin file. Then you can burn the disk just like you would if you were changing the back.bmp for the splash screen and follow bysin's procedures for installing it.

Note: This WILL work in conjunction with the custom splash screen as well. Just use the dumpnavi program to insert your custom .BMP following bysin's instructions.

I have been discussing this with bysin, and as time allows, he plans to integrate this functionality into the GUI version of the dumpnavi program to simplify the whole procedure.

In the meantime, if you can follow this process you should be able to duplicate what I've done and get persistent customized colors for your map!

Good luck, and lots of thanks to bysin for his excellent program! I knew we'd find a new use for it if we looked hard enough!

Tintin

VERY cool!

Good job

Got pics to show too?

Yui

What year is this mod for?

RJANACONDA

iTrader: (1)

That is good news im glad the hack navi is comming along i would also like to see some pics

GIBSON6594

Bysin does it again.

Nice work man, post some pics when you get the chance

Beoshingus

This is for any navi system that uses the Orange disk, including 2004-2005 TSX.

Beoshingus

Haven't taken any pics, but if you want to see what it looks like, try this yourself:

Then when you get a color combo that you like, you can use this method to make the changes stick.

Beoshingus

Okay, here are some pictures. Six pictures - that's worth 6000 words, right?

Here is the diagnostic mode screen:


Here is the developer screen:


Here is the map color selection screen with the RGB spinboxes:

Here I made a pinkish-red, just for demonstration purposes. Hit SET and then return return return to get back to user mode.

Here is the final result:


Of course, I would never use this color, but to each his own. You can do whatever color you want.

Here are the colors I'm using. I was much more subtle. Pale green for day mode (might not show up well in this pic, but it looks great in person):


And pure black for night mode. It might be hard to tell from this pic, but there is MUCH more contrast with the black than with the default grey:


Remember, doing it this way will show you what it will look like, but it won't stay that way once you turn off the car. You'll have to edit the .exe as described in the first post to make your changes persistent.

drkangel348

Nice.

Tsx536

:Nice: + 1

peterbanks

Anxiously awaiting the GUI version of this!

billyho96

i have an 06 accord EX with navi, which I understand is the same one as in the TSX, the colors don't go back to the default colors when you restart the car.

Beoshingus

You have the White Disk, not the Orange Disk. Good to know, though.

05v6solara

Yes, you are correct white discs. Yes 2006 has save for colours after ignition power down. I found that odd compared to this post as I have not owned a pre 2006 model. I have a 2006 Accord v6 navi sedan auto (Canada )

Beoshingus

Why the ? Because of the car, or because you live in Canada?

Beoshingus

Has anybody else tried this yet?

Michael05

I'm going to give it a try when I get some spare time. Question though -- I was playing around with the colors on the Developer mode screen today (not saving my changes). There are a ton of other colors in there -- the No. 0, No. 1, No. 2, etc. Are those the colors for interstate highways, golf courses/parks, bodies of water, etc? Could we modify all of those colors too?

Teh Jatt

will this work for 3rd gen TL?

Beoshingus

Yes. But I haven't tracked down what each of those colors actually correlate to. My main interest was the background colors. If somebody wants to document what index corresponds to what, that could certainly be helpful.

Beoshingus

It *should.* However, be VERY CAREFUL when you hex edit the file. Since the TL loads a different module than the TSX, it is possible that the locations of the offsets are different. Check to make sure the indicated values are in the expected locations. If so, I'd say it would certainly work.

Beoshingus

Teh Jatt - if you try this, please let us know if it works as is. Otherwise it will just involve locating the TL-specific offsets.

Teh Jatt

I'm scared to do it...

Beoshingus

The worst that would happen is that you'd have to reload from the original disk following bysin's instructions.

fender4645

Anyone try doing a pure "white" background for daytime? The Jeep's Navi has that and looks really clean.

Michael05

I tried doing it this past week. Looks pretty cool during winter, feels like you're driving in snow. Not sure how I'll feel about it in summer.

BananaFusion

Is there a trick to making it save the customized colors in an 06 TSX? It will save the 'regular' ones after you turn off the car that you access through the normal set up menu. But it looses any of the 'custom' one's that you can create in the developers screen.

Also it took me a while to figure it out, but the background in an 2006 is #62. I kept changing the first one that came up, #0, and wondering why it wasn't changing the background color at all.

Michael05

Excellent Beoshingus! I finally got around to changing my map colors permanently, after a year and a half of wanting to do it.

I'm now running a light green day map color (170,210,140 RGB), which looks nicer because it looks like grass rather than sand. At night I now have a navy blue (32,32,105 RGB), similar to one of the defaults in the white disc navi systems.

Some notes that may help others:

The offsets that you need to look for within the hex editor (that Beoshingus mentioned in the first post in this thread) might not be correct for you, depending on what your bootloader file is. My bootloader was different than his (I have BN2HN18B) and they were different offsets. My offset for day was at 4949E8 and my night offset was 494A48.

I figured that out because when I went to the offset he noted, it wasn't D2 D2 A0. So I knew I was in the wrong place. I did a Find command within the hex editor to find D2 D2 A0 and figured out mine was at 4949E8.

But I knew night would be more difficult, since 20 20 20 appears many places in the file. So I calculated the difference between his day offset and my day offset, and used that same amount to figure out the difference between his night offset and where my night offset should be. Once I did the math and went to 494A48, I saw that it was 20 20 20, so I figured I was in the right place!

cybereclipse

u do know that there is a color-changing option built in on the 2006's

clee109

Same issue, there is a save button on the screen but you cannot select it, you can only choose set or default. We may also have to use Bysins set up. Also, does anyone know the street color for night and day??? What it's RGB is etc...? So we can look for that too

Jay_Capo1

Does anyone know if it would work on a 2009 TSX? Just curious! I had it working perfectly on my 2005 TSX.. but I went to test drive the 2009 TSX this past Saturday, and walked out with it.. hehe!

I love it! I would like to have my picture back though..

Thanks!

AustinJay

No one has the answer? I'm curious too.