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Free Nova Scotia 1:10 000 Topo Maps


NorthernChinook

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The Nova Scotia government has made free 1:10 000 topo maps available here, the site only works with Internet Explore 6 or higher :rolleyes:

You can log in as a guest but the preview window and what you download are 2 different things as far a detail is concerned.

 

From their website:-

June 15, 2007 - As of today, the full version of the 1:10 000 Nova Scotia Topographic Database Series (including buildings) is free to download. The DataLocator is your tool for downloading free 1:10,000 topographic data from the Nova Scotia Topographic Database. Simply Sign up for a free account and login. We now provide data in a variety of new formats and projections. Formats now available include, ESRI Shape (SHP), MapInfo (MIF), AutoCAD (DXF) as well as Geography Markup Language (GML). These formats are available in both the UTM NAD83 (CSRS) as well as MTM ATS77 projections.

 

I downloaded a few maps of my local area and as a total newbe had a lot of fun creating a half decent map using shapfiles, the is a lot of detail on these maps but one thing is lacking, place names, the maps are of limited use without names.

This is probably something in my ignorance as a newbe that I am doing, I would really appreciated it if one of the experts with a free moment would take a look.

So far I have printed them out added the place names by hand where needed and a scale, they have been quite useful for hiking but this method would be a pain in the you know where, if one moved around a lot.

 

If this can be fixed the next project will be figuring out how to get them into a usable form to work in a GPS

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The Nova Scotia government has made free 1:10 000 topo maps available here, the site only works with Internet Explore 6 or higher :o

You can log in as a guest but the preview window and what you download are 2 different things as far a detail is concerned.

 

From their website:-

June 15, 2007 - As of today, the full version of the 1:10 000 Nova Scotia Topographic Database Series (including buildings) is free to download. The DataLocator is your tool for downloading free 1:10,000 topographic data from the Nova Scotia Topographic Database. Simply Sign up for a free account and login. We now provide data in a variety of new formats and projections. Formats now available include, ESRI Shape (SHP), MapInfo (MIF), AutoCAD (DXF) as well as Geography Markup Language (GML). These formats are available in both the UTM NAD83 (CSRS) as well as MTM ATS77 projections.

 

I downloaded a few maps of my local area and as a total newbe had a lot of fun creating a half decent map using shapfiles, the is a lot of detail on these maps but one thing is lacking, place names, the maps are of limited use without names.

This is probably something in my ignorance as a newbe that I am doing, I would really appreciated it if one of the experts with a free moment would take a look.

So far I have printed them out added the place names by hand where needed and a scale, they have been quite useful for hiking but this method would be a pain in the you know where, if one moved around a lot.

 

If this can be fixed the next project will be figuring out how to get them into a usable form to work in a GPS

 

Ooooooh. This looks like it could be fun!

 

How's the road data on these maps? Do they have road names etc? How accurate? up to date? I've signed up for an account, but they haven't e-mailed me a password yet.

 

The easiest way to get them in to a GPS format is to download

GPSMapEdit, cgpsmapper and MapsetToolKit, exact method left as an exercise to the reader :lol:.

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Here is my first attempt at producing a map from the GeoNova 1:10000 shapefiles alongside one of Ibycus maps

 

Topo%20comparision.jpg

 

Guess thats not working try this link

 

I didn't get the roads right on that attempt they are a mix of good gravel roads and ATV tracks I have since discovered how to seperate some of them, the shapefiles for the primary roads (none on that map) do contain road names I just haven't figured out how to get them onto the maps yet, no doubt the are place names some where in the shapefiles as well.

I've got a way to go yet, but I'm having fun. :D

 

I found the so called automatic new account sign up is a little flaky, it didn't work for me for weeks and then one evening i tried it and I had an automatic response within minutes, i thought it was fixed, guess not.

I'll PM you some addional information.

Edited by NorthernChinook
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Interesting

 

I was looking inside one of the folders I downloaded and the files ending with .shp are listed as type Garmin Mapsource ....

 

Odd... Does the latest Mapsource open SHPs?

 

Dale

 

PS. I eventually got my password sent to me. Have downloaded and am examining some of the files. May require some 'fancy footwork' to script the download and also to manage the fact that the data are in UTMs (I have a library to deal with this... hope it work properly).

 

Dale

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I’ve been playing around with the GeoNova files in my amateur way and still haven’t produced a good map.

 

The road information provided in the main road file NSNR _lines.shp shows any gravel road that might have been in existence in the past 50 years at the same level of detail as a modern 2 lane paved road. I ended up showing the file as gravel roads and overlaying them with the latest (2008) road information from GeoGratis this worked quite well. There is one other file RR_lines.shp which I marked as walkway/trail, it looks about right in my area.

 

The extra detail in the topo lines and the lake contours is also nice, but my biggest problem has been with the water bodies file WA_POLY.shp , it includes wet areas (some with 40ft trees) and lakes as one unit, see here for details.

 

I haven’t had this problem with the 021a06 .shp file that includes this area from GeoGratis which is fairly straightforward to work with and contains files for more features some of which can be overlaid on the more detailed map.

 

Still having fun :D

Edited by NorthernChinook
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I’ve been playing around with the GeoNova files in my amateur way and still haven’t produced a good map.

 

The road information provided in the main road file NSNR _lines.shp shows any gravel road that might have been in existence in the past 50 years at the same level of detail as a modern 2 lane paved road. I ended up showing the file as gravel roads and overlaying them with the latest (2008) road information from GeoGratis this worked quite well. There is one other file RR_lines.shp which I marked as walkway/trail, it looks about right in my area.

 

The extra detail in the topo lines and the lake contours is also nice, but my biggest problem has been with the water bodies file WA_POLY.shp , it includes wet areas (some with 40ft trees) and lakes as one unit, see here for details.

 

I haven’t had this problem with the 021a06 .shp file that includes this area from GeoGratis which is fairly straightforward to work with and contains files for more features some of which can be overlaid on the more detailed map.

 

Still having fun :D

 

I take it you've seen the NSTDB_FCODES.txt file that comes with them? Which provides a description of what everything is?

 

Dale

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Thanks for the clue

 

After a lot of fun editing here is my back yard Pretty Mary Lake img this is Nova Scotia map 1044450065100 and is part of 021A06

 

This took 2+ hours to edit and is a faily simple map, fortunantly I only need a few maps to this scale! although I'm looking for ways to speed the task up.

 

Once they get the download bug fixed, my intent is to do all of Nova Scotia at this scale.

 

Dale

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WOW thats great, these are really useful for hikers who like to hunt around for old trials and other neat places, might be handy for the search and rescue folks that come looking for them as well :(

 

You must have an impressive set of tools and know how to even attempt this, it would take me years!

 

Most of the tools are the same I've used for my other maps (the 1:50k maps and the US TIGER data). Should just require some minor tweaks to get it going with these tiles. I'll probably split the tiles up by 1:50k NTS grid though, just to make life a little easier. (don't really want 1000s of tiles for the area).

 

Dale

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