Garmin has announced a new desktop application — BaseCamp — designed for backcountry GPS enthusiasts. It basically does the same thing MapSource does, adding 3D rendering, photo geotagging, and the ability to rotate to non-north up viewpoints. It will also bring improved printing capabilities, geocaching information display and data management functionality.
BaseCamp will be both PC and Mac compatible and will ship with all new TOPO DVD map sets. It will also be available for current TOPO users as a free download at the end of the first quarter 2009. No word about how it might work with micro-SD products.
Why not just add these features to MapSource? I’m betting this will become a portal for downloading and transferring raster imagery such as USGS topo maps and aerial photos to the next generation Oregon handhelds, as forecasted in my 2009 predictions.
Here’s the full news release.
About Rich Owings
I recently bought a Garmin 400t which I wanted to use with my Mac to create trails for backpacking. This is easily the most confusing, least documented product I have ever encountered in my life.
I just bought a 62s and have been using Nat Geo Topo. I downloaded the 24000 California topo from http://www.gpsfiledepot.com. For planning trips and keeping logs of my trips, do you prefer Basecamp, Nat Geo Topo or Topofusion? What are the relative advantages of each? Please let me know.
I tend to prefer TopoFusion for trip planning and downloading tracklogs. I love TF’s track import function. For trip planning, the ability to toggle between aerial photos and topos is nice. NG Topo is good for printed maps. I still don’t use BaseCamp for much other than BirdsEye imagery.
just purchased a garmin astro gps for all my outdoor activities. i have been told that i can download basecamp then birdseye to get goggle type maps from above,but i have read that birdeye is not that clear are there any other sources(like goggle) that will enable me to get great airel maps for the astro.
You can do it with Garmin custom maps, but it’s a hassle and there are significant limitations…
http://gpstracklog.com/tag/garmin-custom-maps
I’d say try BirdsEye first and make sure you have it set to download the highest resolution imagery. Here’s a little more info on it…
http://gpstracklog.com/2011/07/garmin-birdseye-satellite-imagery-2.html