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Mapsend Topo Canada


Lost2gether

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I use Topo Canada all the time. I guess it depends on your pursuits, but I do a lot of hiking, and find it very useful. As for geocaching in the mountains and foothills of the Rockies, it helps for route finding; (what side of the stream is the cache on; should I approach from above or below; etc).

 

It may seem rather expensive, but for the price, you get every topo map in Canada. I have way more than that invested in paper maps just for my area of the Rockies.

 

I use a 60CS. I also have City Select, and find it useful for navigating on roads, but Topo Canada is very good in town too. It has a map of all cities and towns, with the streets named. However, it doesn't have points of interest or addresses.

 

If you have use for the topographical information, I don't think you will be disappointed by Topo Canada.

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I use it to have a map in my 60CS ans I find it relatively good. Take care to the time of downloading maps on your GPS. I made a mistake last time and put the v in the choice to download maps with waypoints and route. I spend the afternoon waiting for my computer. I will download a small amount of maps next time. Its is very convenient when hiking to see on the map where you are. Only for that it worths the price.

 

I use it to store waypoints ant tracks as a back up and to see my tracks on map. Maps are good on elevation. They show streams, rivers, but not trails in forest.

 

I do not regret my dollars.

 

Jacques

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I recently received my copy of Mapsend Topo Canada. Like others have mentioned, compared to the price of other digital topo maps of Canada, Mapsend Topo Canada is a bargain. The part I like about it most is that the contour lines are dynamic. Unlike other products that are merely scans of the Canadian government topo maps, the Mapsend maps are completely digital so the granularity of the contour lines adjusts automatically with the scale of the map as you zoom in and out. They also are much more accurate in terms of the streets and roads then the government maps which are often several years out of date.

 

One feature I don’t like about the Mapsend Topo Canada maps is that there is no topographical information for urban areas. I live in the Vancouver area and the topo map depicts the whole Vancouver metropolitan area to be at sea level, which couldn’t be further from the truth.

 

The other problem I’m having with it, and I’m sure there is a solution that I just haven’t discovered yet, is how to get a Topo Canada map and a Direct Route map on the same memory card and still be able to load both of them into the GPSr. Not simultaneously, of course. I can only get one of the maps to load. If I try to switch maps I get an error message stating that the map I am trying to load is an invalid map file. Admittedly, I haven’t spent much time researching a solution as it is just as easy for me to carry multiple memory cards.

 

I haven’t had an opportunity yet to use it in the bush as the product is too new.

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I'm not overly impressed with it. It has pretty well the same old road data as mapsend S&D Canada. They did update a few Highways, like in New Brunswick they updated Route 2, in Ontario the 407 is complete and the area around Perry Sound is now 4 lanes.

 

As to the topo data, in Ontario you can't tell a hill from a cliff by looking at the elevation lines on the map. But it will show you the elevation changes for roads, so it might be good for bicycling.

 

Lots more waterways displayed, a few major named and searchable.

 

Two bugs I noticed is that half the Confederation bridge between NB and PEI will disappear if you zoom too close, when running mapsend on the PC. Another bug is the Topo data in a box (N53, W68 to N52,W66) near Labrador City is completely missing.

 

It's nice to have the additional data displayed on my Meridian, but it just seems so incomplete. Maybe I've been spoiled by paper maps and using Garmin's Topo Canada.

 

This version of Mapsend has the same copy protection as DirectRoute, so you need to keep your CD handy in order to run it.

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One feature I don’t like about the Mapsend Topo Canada maps is that there is no topographical information for urban areas. I live in the Vancouver area and the topo map depicts the whole Vancouver metropolitan area to be at sea level, which couldn’t be further from the truth.

Do you have any other mapping software installed. Both City Select and Metroguide will over ride Topo if you have maps for the same area installed. I live in Calgary, and all the topo information is displayed, but I have to deselect the City select map first.

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One feature I don’t like about the Mapsend Topo Canada maps is that there is no topographical information for urban areas.  I live in the Vancouver area and the topo map depicts the whole Vancouver metropolitan area to be at sea level, which couldn’t be further from the truth. 

Do you have any other mapping software installed. Both City Select and Metroguide will over ride Topo if you have maps for the same area installed. I live in Calgary, and all the topo information is displayed, but I have to deselect the City select map first.

I think we're talking about Magellan mapping software, not Garmin. :lostsignal:

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Hi guys....i am considering purchasing Mapsend Topo Canada...but i need to know something...on the sites i read, including magellan, it states that the maps cover fro "British Columbia to Prince Edward Island"....however, there is a little more to Canada than that and i live there....Newfoundland...is it or is it not covered? Thanks in advance for any advice.

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I don't have a copy of Mapsend Topo but it will be less detailed than scans of papermaps. If it's like Garmin's MapSource topo (the source data for both is the same) all the topo contours are there but some roads, trails and other detail is lost. Don't forget that this is meant to be displayed on your GPSr so not all the detail could be kept.

 

Also you're getting mapping for all of Canada for a very reasonable price when compared to Fuagwi, SDI or even SoftMap mapping.

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yes i do realize that...but really, who is going to be using all the maps...i just want the maps in my area to be fairly detailed...and more importantly, i want what detail is there to be accurate...you mention some roads being lost...what do you mean...logging roads? main roads...i would consider this to be important...if i'm walking through the woods, i would like to know when there is a road close by..

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i just looked at the magellan mapviewer....i zoomed in on my area, and it wasn't a very impressive map....is this what the actual map will look like or is mapviewer just an indication.

I can't speak specifically for your area, but the maps on the Magellan Mapviewer look just like the Mapsend Topo Canada maps on my PC. The road detail for my area (Vancouver) is better than the Mapsend Canada maps and shows all of the logging roads that do not appear on the Mapsend Direct Route maps.

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how about contour lines...when i looked at mapviewer there wasn't much in the way of contour lines....

Lots of contour lines, although as I mentioned earlier, there are none in the urbanized areas of Vancouver. The scale of the contour lines actually changes as you zoom in or out.

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You can load up to 4 regions onto your memory card. The regions are of your choosing and are limited only by the size of your memory card. So no, it is unlikely that you would have a single memory card large enough to fit all of Canada on, but I have all of southern BC in a single 30MB file on my memory card.

 

If you have a Sportrack, then the 4 MB limitation would be an issue.

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Well I broke down, updated the firmware on my Meri Gold and bought a copy of Mapsend Topo Canada. So far all is working fine and I'm about ready to throw away my old Mapsend S&D Canada. Topo has everything S&D had plus updated roads, a lot more POI's and, more importantly for cache hunting. much better coverage of rivers and streams and of course contours and some other topo features that you won't find on S&D.

 

SW Ontario (Windsor-Niagara-Oshawa-Huntsville-Tobermory-Sarnia) took up about 27 Mb on the SD card so lots of room to go bigger, Interface is much the same as S&D with a couple of enhancements - the scroll wheel now functions for zooming in and out which is handy and there is a vertical profile function on both the PC and the GPS which seems to work well.

 

Contour intervals are 100 feet so it's not obvious, for example, where the edge of the Niagara Escarpment is but the vertical profile interpolates reasonably well although showing it as a steep slope rather than a steep drop. But at least you can run a profile of where you are to the cache and see how much climbing you'll have to do.

 

Wondered how easy it would be to distinguish roads, rivers and contours in black and white but it's not a problem. Took it for a hike along a local creek today (one that doesn't appear on S&D) and the GPS laid down a track pretty much right beside it.

 

On the minus side it has all the same mistakes as S&D and MS S&T has (DMTI must be the common data supplier). Roads spelt wrong (it's Centre not Center and Birch not Burch) and has some curious duplication - Two Holiday Inns a couple of hundred metres apart where only one exists. Around here it shows a gas station that hasn't been a gas station for 50 years and railroad tracks that were ripped up 30 years ago. Doesn't show my local Tim Hortons but it does have a fair number (several hundred) in Ontario at least. One annoyance that is perpetuated from S&D is that you can search for street addresses and it distinguishes ones of the same name by town or township and postal code but you can't search for the towns, townships or postal codes - and you won't find the towns on the map (unless they are major ones) - even though it shows the streets that are there.

 

Bottom line, for me at least, definitely worth the upgrade from S&D. It can't match Softmap or paper topos but for a GPS based map it's pretty good and it might just help me avoid my usual mistake of taking the shortest route to the cache and finding I'm on the wrong side of the river.

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