GPS software

Any feedback on this site:

http://switchbacks.com/

Any recommendations for free mapping software?


Blake

www.outdoorquest.biz

www.outdoorquest.blogspot.com

For free Canadian topographic maps for Garmin GPS units, check out Ibycus Topo.

My understanding is that these are often better than the Garmin ones and they are based on the publiclly available Government data; effectively the same info you'd get from the government issue 1:50,000 topo maps.

I've loaded these on my eTrex 20 and they look great (I haven't seen the Garmin ones, so I can't personally compare the two).

If you want map data, but not for a GPS, I've found this is the best way to get the Canadian government topographical maps: GeoGratis - Product Selection (other than buying the paper copies)

In the search box, type in the full map name (e.g., 082O05 not 82O5) and select the "CanMatrix - Print Ready - <map name>" link. On the next page at the bottom under "Resources" I've found the "Download file in PDF through HTTP" link works best. As a bonus, the newest version of Adobe Reader allows you to print the file across multiple pages without scaling it (under "Page Scaling" you choose "Tile all pages").

If you don't know what map you need, use Toporama to browse and/or search for the location you want and zoom in to the 1:50,000 scale. Then in the legend click on the "1:50 000 Map Sheet Grid" option on. The caveat here is Toporama will display the map name without the leading zeroes (e.g., 82O5) so you need to add them if you are going to use the GeoGratis tool to search for the full map.

Finally, if you have an iPhone, you can download and view these maps using Topographical Maps Canada by David Crawshay. There is also a nice app called Kananaskis Trail Map by the same author which includes both the topography and trails for Kananaskis.

For your computer http://sourceforge.net/projects/viking/ is decent, variety of maps that can be downloaded.
for your garmin there are several
http://gpstracklog.com/2009/09/free-gps-topo-maps.html

GPSFileDepot seems to be a great resource for U.S. and other maps. I just downloaded maps for Washington, Idaho and Montana and loaded them onto my GPS and they seem pretty good.

One thing I noticed is that the maps don't all come from the same provider so they may not all line up exactly. For example, with the maps I loaded, there seems to be an 800 meter or so area of missing topo information between Idaho and Washington.

Oh, and all the maps (Ibycus and the GPSFileDepot ones) can be loaded on to Garmin devices using Garmin's free BaseCamp software.

Did they ever fix basecamp or is it still .net

There are both Windows & Mac versions of BaseCamp and the Windows one is a .NET application. From the system requirements for Windows: "Microsoft® .NET framework 3.5 SP1 is required. A current version of .NET will be installed if needed."

I've been using the Windows version and haven't experienced any problems.

.net is frustrating. It was too slow to use on my netbook because of it and I can run things like google earth fine. Other computers fall into the normal .net versioning issues and I see so many problem with other developers apps because of .net.

I just set my garmin to write the gpx logs to the microsd card and then pop out the card and copy them off.

I'm not a power user of BaseCamp by any stretch, all I've really done is load maps, browse around, and transfer the maps (or segments) to my GPS. But I've used it on both a couple year old netbook (before I broke it!) and now on a 10+ year old desktop and it seems to do fine given the hardware.

That said, I'd be very hesitant to throw any existing performance issues at .NET's feet. If code is well developed, the difference between .NET and lower level languages should be negligible (.NET compiles down to native code anyway). There are even cases where the equivalent .NET code can run slightly faster on some systems. Also, I think it's accurate to say the versioning issues that do exist are dwarfed by the DLL hell days prior to its advent.

It's kind of like that old idiom, a poor workman blames his tools. So in this case, I'd encourage not blaming the framework if an app has performance issues - it lets those who are actually responsible off too easy

Finally, for anyone looking for free ways to add maps to their Garmin GPS, I would encourage you to try the combination of BaseCamp with the freely available maps above to see if the combination works well for you.

I know it was the knowledge that I could get free (and legal!) maps with relative ease that led me to get a mapping unit instead of a non-mapping one.

I have an older XP computer. It did not run anything including basecamp very well until I got more memory.

The reality of MS OS is that they are memory hogs. Any application running any version of windows has always had this issue.

I have never had any issues running basecamp other than when I had a lot less memory. Given that the issues went away when I got more memory, I doubt it was a .NET issue.