Messages

Just in case anyone is actually using (or trying to) the free contours and OS derived topo maps for UK, I have moved them from Sugarsych to Dropbox, and they can now be found at:

(a location on dropbox  which the damn board won't let me post - email me, or maybe the mods can let me through!? Will it let me post the bit after the dropbox.com/ .. i.e.
/l/Ho4JU1GkCP6DkXbF7AO7Ku  oh, apparently it will!)

Shropshire maps are obviously only for Shropshire (!) with a slight overlaps into some adjacent counties, but the contours, and open Topo, and access areas, and boundaries, may be of more general interest (at least in the UK!).

As usual I am somewhat behind OS Opendata releases, but given the choice of grinding data, or walking, I generally wind up walking. 8>. There are only a couple of roads I know of which they managed to omit from the dataset I'm using.

Ok, here is the link .. as I mentioned this is 'work in progress' (see the readme.txt file for more info). Not sure what up/download speeds from sugarsynch are like, but that was the first free file sharing site I happened across.

If you want a =specific= tile (or set of tiles) for a UK region, let me know and I'll figure out what the img number(s) would be; this is a link to the base folder.

The .reg files ('somewhat tested', but mapsettoolkit will save your @$$ if they mess up the garmin registry)  ASSUME that the files are installed at c:\freemaps .. edit if not.

I assume most folks here know how to fiddle with the .typ files (which are really just one, renumbered for the 3 different FIDs) if the results are not pleasing - I expect some of the lines will be too thin on a hig res touchscreen (spit!) garmin display.

Oh, one last glitch I noticed - the 'find history' on my 60CSX insists on showing the original Garmin POI symbols, even though the actual map (and mapsource) show the .typ edited version ('land feature' for woodland names for example).

https://app.sugarsync.com/iris/wf/D1666843_64982917_63564

Feedback appreciated (email works too). I await the OSGB next opendata release with interest - I do at least have a process now, unless they change all the data formats yet again.

D.

Are there any brave people willing to road test some new Garmin topo maps of great Britain .. derived from OS Opendata.

These include (hand drawn) contours, road and water features, and basically all the other stuff OSGB has released under the opendata license./ They are NOT (and not intended to be) routable, and in urban areas you'd do better with Open Street Map (OSM) mapping.

They haven't eaten my venerable 60CSX, but you never can tell. Prefer someone (or ones) with enough experience to recover from mangled installation, or whatever (we are at beta release stage here).

Assuming they a) work and b) are deemed useful, I will try to figure out how to get them hosted on GPSFiledepot, rather than the current file sharing site(s).

Note - they are LARGE, especially the 'ornament' layer, which is where the OS draftsmen (draftspeople?) get all creative with shading and outlines to represent rocks, crags, scree fields etc.

Cheers
Dave Storey (Aka GSV3MiaC)