GPS reviews, news, tips, tricks and deals
With today’s topic, I’m starting a new series, a follow up to my Handheld GPS 101 posts. Are you ready to move on to the next class? Alright then. Today’s topic is mapping software — and I’m not talking about maps for your GPS here, but rather desktop or laptop software that will turn you into a power user. read more
National Geographic has announced that they have cut the price of their TOPO State Series
Garmin has announced a new marine planning software desktop application dubbed HomePort. After the introduction of this and BaseCamp, perhaps we’ll see a new auto trip planner in the near future. Click here for the full news release.
I learned the other day about a new 10,000 acre tract of public lands near me. There are no trail maps of the area and I am dying to explore it (once all this rain stops). I’ll probably do another post on prepping my GPS for exploring there, but this one aspect warrants its own post.
When planning a new outdoor adventure, I usually search online for tracks that I can download to my GPS. There are two places I typically look:
The latter is actually my first choice, since it is (IMHO) the best trail database in the US. What continues to amaze me is that Garmin doesn’t seem to realize what they have. We still get maps with plenty of missing trails, and they seem to be based on ancient USGS data.
I see no reason Garmin can’t utilize their MotionBased data to build a better trail map. They could decide how many tracks they would need for a given trail, and how much error was allowed before throwing out a track. A little follow up by hand (and even this could be automated) could establish trail junctions and where they connect to the nearest road (i.e., trailheads).
Magellan announced new firmware today for their Triton series, and a new version of VantagePoint as well. It looks like their acquisition by MiTAC has infused the company with some much needed energy. I’ve been very impressed with the improvements made to their latest auto units and have been hoping they would ramp things up on the handheld side too.
The Triton line has already seen some recent firmware updates, and it appears that these are forthcoming, adding to the improvements previously made. A discussion thread has been started on TritonForum.com.
Here is the full news release.
The folks at Garmin have been quite busy lately, hitting us with software and firmware releases, and even new Oregon models. Let’s start with software…
Garmin BaseCamp
This new mapping software, which we first mentioned when it was announced back in January, is now available for download (there is also a Beta version for Macs). Note this disclaimer from the download notes:
“BaseCamp will only recognize MapSource products that contain digital elevation model (DEM) data. Some examples of products that contain elevation data are Topo U.S. 24K, Topo U.S. 24K National Parks (version 3), Topo U.S. 100K (version 4 and later), Topo U.S. 2008, Topo Australia, Topo Canada (version 4), Topo Deutschland, Topo Great Britain, and Topo products produced by many Garmin distributors.”
UPDATE: TWICE is reporting that ecoRoute works with 2xx and 7xx series nuvis.
Another Garmin announcement today is ecoRoute, a software update for some nuvi units that adds a "less fuel" route option. Additionally, ecoRoute includes a Fuel Report that tracks fuel usage over time, and a Mileage Report that monitors mileage and fuel usage on a per-trip basis.
You can see if your nüvi is compatible with ecoRoute through a free, downloadable software update at www.garmin.com/ecoroute.
UPDATE: I’ve posted a more comprehensive set of resources for free topo maps for Garmin GPS receivers.
The list of states for which there are free high-resolution, Garmin-compatible topo maps continues to expand. The following are currently available:
There’s been a lot of progress recently on making custom maps for the Magellan Triton series. For any of you with these handhelds, here are some resources to check out…
GPS Tracklog is written by Rich Owings, author of GPS Mapping.