New WMS map service available for Canada based on vectorized data

[Papa-Bear-NYC]

This will be of interest to those developing or using custom topographic maps within Google maps.

 

There is a new WMS service from NR Canada that provides a vector graphic service for Canada based on the 1:50,000 series of maps.

 

I have been part of a discussion on the Google Maps API Developers forum. See

this thread: Google Maps API Developer's Forum thread

 

This new service is vastly superior to the old service based on raster based tiles from scanned images of the maps.

 

I have a sample map using the new service here: MARBLE IBC sample map

 

If you bring up this map, a USGS based topo of Marble Mountain, on the Canadian border in Maine should appear. If you then change the map type using the selector in the upper right, beside the usual map types, you can select either "CanRas" (the old raster service) or "CanVec" (the new vector service). The new map type looks quite good, especially when compared to the older version.

 

The only drawback is that it only supports zoom levels 11-18. The old service (and most map types) go out much farther, to 7 or 8. The new service will take

you out to about 3 miles to the inch (on my screen, YMMV). This should be adequate for most benchmarking uses, you just won't see a whole county or

province.

 

I have searched for a number of markers on or near the border, so this is valuable to me.

 

For those interested in the code, it's in this file: JS Script

 

It is based on code originally written by Jef Poskanzer of Acme Mapper, since modified by others and myself.

Edited September 12, 2009 by Papa-Bear-NYC