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Garmin BirdsEye Topo for USA and Canada


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BirdsEye has been out for a while now. I use it on my Oregon 550t. I have had a really good experience with it and love it. Others have had varying experiences from similar threads in the past that I've read.

 

As goes many things with Garmin, it appears as though it has improved with time.

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Because it is nice the have the same map in your gps as in your hand. While custom maps works fine for this, the area your limited to in you gps is rather limiting.

 

In Canada the vector maps are the same as the printed maps and free but with current roads....

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BirdsEye has been out for a while now. I use it on my Oregon 550t. I have had a really good experience with it and love it. Others have had varying experiences from similar threads in the past that I've read.

 

As goes many things with Garmin, it appears as though it has improved with time.

 

I should add that I have personally used the raster topo maps on my GPS (an iQue 3600) for quite a few years and they are really not very good to use. The resolution is too course for anything useful. The vector versions are much better.

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Because it is nice the have the same map in your gps as in your hand.

While custom maps works fine for this, the area your limited to in you gps is rather limiting.

I see a print icon in MapSource; paper size will likely be smaller than a 24k or 50k sheet.

The GPSr will still limit the size of the raster image and it will not be as clear as a printed map.

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We'll just have to wait and see. Hopefully they provide a free sample tile to check it out with. I personally like the USGS presentation, it looks good and most of the updated versions have really good road and trail info (at least for Montana). What would be really nice is if the terrain shading shows through the raster. I'll check ot see if it does later tonight (if they provide for a free tile download.). One bonus for me would be if they have the PLSS (Public Land Section Survey) lines on it. Everyone from fire crews to field biologists and range managers still use the PLSS legal land descriptions.

Edited by yogazoo
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One bonus for me would be if they have the PLSS (Public Land Section Survey) lines on it.

That data would be very hard to remove from a raster image of the printed 24k topo sheets. I expect the data to be the images which USGS first scanned and placed on a public website about 1993. I have heard from people withing USGS that they have rescanned them at least twice, so the currently available files at the USGS map store (free download) are somewhat clearer than the original ones.

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Because it is nice the have the same map in your gps as in your hand. While custom maps works fine for this, the area your limited to in you gps is rather limiting.

 

If you have it on your GPS why do you need it in your hand? I haven't used printed maps for several years.

 

Redundancy. What happens if your gpsr fails? I think it would be great to have the same on paper as you were using in your gps. I am not saying these maps are the best around, as I have been happy with my 24k vector topos from garmin. It is just always nice to have options.

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I was just browsing through the available Garmin maps and I noticed raster maps are now available for the USA and Canada :

https://buy.garmin.com/shop/shop.do?cID=255&pID=98816

Haven't tried it yet but it looks interesting, seems a lot of people have been waiting for this.

 

Hi i have just found out about this getting a little confused and want is best?

 

thinging about Birdseye satlight image, for when i am in the urben areas geocaching, plus

 

this one garmin birdseye topo for canada which looks like a normal MAP?

 

is Raster maps look like the old topo maps we all use to study and read

 

and vecter maps are the one you get on the gps know?

 

I live in Labrador, Canada which is all wilds and a good up todate maps are needed

 

any links or help you be great before i buy the two at $31 cnd each?

 

thanks

 

LWM

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The aerial photos can be useful, but only if there is good resolution where you want to go. There is not always good resolution.

 

The raster maps are the scanned paper maps. The Ibycus vector maps use the same topo, water and vegetation data, but with more up to date road information.

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i have ibycus and the google earth for this area is not very good so the aerial photos i am think that garmin use are not to sharp.

 

i have loads of 1/500000 topo maps for the area, thing you can scan them and down load on to gps may try that.

 

The Ibycus topo vector data came from the 1:50,000 scale printed topo maps. That is 10 times more detailed than the 1:500,000 scale topo maps you are thinking about scanning.

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