make your own NSW topo maps [large images]

[Rob A]

I stopped looking at these things a couple of years ago.
Not sure how you would use them in practice.
Are you or how are you locating a position on the map?
Overlaying a decimal Lat long or MGR somehow?
Yes I know theres a tool for when you are on the computer, its a point locator decimal Lat Long.
There are features not available on Safari. Am I missing something?
How are you customising?

[colinm]

I stopped looking at these things a couple of years ago.
Not sure how you would use them in practice.
Are you or how are you locating a position on the map?
Overlaying a decimal Lat long or MGR somehow?
Yes I know theres a tool for when you are on the computer, its a point locator decimal Lat Long.
There are features not available on Safari. Am I missing something?
How are you customising?

Where to begin ... you get some software (I use and like http://www.qgis.org/) then you get some data (georeferenced images are good, vectors are better) and you use the two to generate maps.

The nice thing about having the raw data is that you can zoom in on the area you're hiking, you can have 5m contours if you want, you can colour the stuff you're interested in and leave out the stuff you aren't, you can overlay the map with tracks from your (or others') GPS, you can mark points of interest, etc.

You can also upload your beautiful new map to your GPS.

Yes, you can overlay a reticule (I think it the term) which gives you lat/long or eastings/northings.

I also carry the standard topo maps, but really like to have a personalised map in addition.

[Rob A]

Colin,
Thanks for that, downloading and will have a real good look at it.
Last time when I was by myslef was too busy to get to a chart table.
A4 scans in cheap clear plastic binder sleeves were a real convenience, and a thick texta for big writing glance notes.
With a second pair of hands the dynamic is completely different. Time to do whatever you want.
On dry land, have to say I still prefer the folded topo, occasionally popping gps for a spot (Im sure Ive done it once or twice), but then Im not shifting like the skiers.

[WarrenH]

michael_p, you're a Champion and thank you.

Six Maps functions just like SIX Lite and is faster than the old NSW GPS Portal. I'm aufait with the tools with them being similar to Six Lite.

There is one issue with Six Maps, that I spotted instantly, which Six Lite details better, that's SIX Maps (perhaps because it is still in the Beta stage?) does not indicate the qualities of the wild roads well. It caters for the roads more like how Garmin's V3 topos are dumbed down.

Warren.

Last edited by WarrenH on Fri 16 Nov, 2012 2:33 pm, edited 2 times in total.

[climberman]

Very nice michaelp !

Does anyone know a trick to get the trails to stay on as you go out in scale ?

[davidmorr]

Six Maps functions just like SIX Lite and is faster than the old NSW GPS Portal. I'm aufait with the tools with them being similar to Six Lite.

It is impressively fast compared to the old SIX system.

There is one issue with Six Maps, that I spotted instantly, which Six Lite details better, that's SIX Maps (perhaps because it is still in the Beta stage?) does not indicate the qualities of the wild roads well. It caters for the roads more like how Garmin's V3 topos are dumbed down.

One more issue is what it shows. For example, the names of Pocket Hut and Bill Jones Hut in KNP are shown, but the nearby Oldfields Hut is not. Where there is a name, there is no indication of the exact location of the hut until you zoom right in. If you know where Oldfields is, you can actually find a square by zooming in. Some of the foot tracks also only appear when you are zoomed right in.

[galah]

I have this running on a linux box, allowing me to build a few maps for oziexplorer. Thanks Matthew.

[Rob A]

David, you can go into advanced search and try points of interest and coordinates tool.
For example by looking for scarey petes, lo -32.053277 151.455289 careys peak just off the williams range track.
Unfortynately if you want an overlayed coordinate, or grid reference you will have to get into GRASS or something and you could lose yourself in it for days.
Works for most stuff.

Go try it for Oldfields, it shows it off Murrays Gap trail. Is that the one you were looking for?

.

Attachments

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[davidmorr]

I have this running on a linux box, allowing me to build a few maps for oziexplorer. Thanks Matthew.

Is it (nswtopo) working at present? I get this:

Map details:
name: Newcastle
size: 220mm x 360mm
scale: 1:25000
rotation: 0.0 degrees
extent: 5.5km x 9.0km
Downloading: aerial-best, 5500x9000 (49.5Mpx) @ 1.0 m/px
[ ]
Error: 404 "Not Found"

Error: Service 'sixmaps/LHPA' of type 'MapServer' does not exist or is inaccessible.

[mountainhigh]

Is it (nswtopo) working at present?

I used the nswtopo ruby script on the weekend to make some maps. It ran quickly and smoothly without errors.

Before I started, I checked that I had the latest version of the script from the Github repository.

Looks like your script ran into problems downloading aerial imagery, or maybe downloading anything at all? Have you tried without the aerial stuff?

[davidmorr]

Before I started, I checked that I had the latest version of the script from the Github repository.

I have version 0.6.3, downloaded on 5 November. As far as I can see, this is the latest version.

[tom_brennan]

Has anyone got the new version of nswtopo running under Windows? Mine will download and assemble the raster layers - eg aerial photos, but I don't seem to get anything for the vector layers. All I get for topographic at the end of the process is a 1KB SVG file called topographic.svg. I'm not sure what I'm supposed to get, but would have expected to get some tiles for each of the underlying layers that are supposed to make up topographic.

[colinm]

Tom, I suspect that LPI have shut down vector access. I'm currently applying (through GIPA) to have all the relevant topo vectors available. We'll see how that goes. I suspect it'll go to court.

[brian_p]

Very interesting... I've been attempting to produce some "usable" high-res & hopefully accurate topo maps for some time now - Matthew Hollingworth's Ruby script is by far the closest I've got so far.... (I'm using version 0.6.3 on Linux MInt)
The GOOD news is that the LPI vector data is still available (7-14 April 2013), I've managed to create several maps & aerials over the past few days...
The BAD news is that the data availability is sporadic, I haven't been able to figure out why (yet) but is appears that for a day or so selected data is "unavailable" which results in blank images being produced. On other days perfect. Availability seems to have no relationship with the location, extent, time-of-day, day-of-week... So far it appears totally random, but probably not. I'm very interested to hear from others especially if they've found the magic key

[OzGrin]

I've just starting trying to use the nswtopo script and the good news is that I seem to be able to get all the topographic data no problems - no blank areas at all. The bad news is I can't seem to get the vegetation data working. Does any have any tips??

I've tried to download the NSW Interim Native Vegetation Extent (2008-v1) data, from the NSW gov site, but they don't seem to be providing it any more. The closest I can find is: NSW Interim Native Vegetation Extent (2008-v2). Whilst this sounds very similar to what the script needs, it doesn't seem to like it. When the script tries to generate the raster files it bombs out with a bunch of errors if I try to include this layer.

So I guess my questions are, has any one had any success with this new vegetation data? Or does anyone have the older data they'd be prepared to share?

[OzGrin]

Deleted - duplicate post

[davidmorr]

The BAD news is that the data availability is sporadic, I haven't been able to figure out why (yet) but is appears that for a day or so selected data is "unavailable" which results in blank images being produced. On other days perfect. Availability seems to have no relationship with the location, extent, time-of-day, day-of-week... So far it appears totally random, but probably not. I'm very interested to hear from others especially if they've found the magic key

Just the other day, I was using the SIX viewer on the LPI site, and one section of the topo map came up with "data unavailable" instead of the map. Curiously enough, when I zoomed in or out, that data was there. All resolutions appear to be there again today. So perhaps certain resolutions of the maps are unavailable at different times.

[michael_p]

Just the other day, I was using the SIX viewer on the LPI site, and one section of the topo map came up with "data unavailable" instead of the map. Curiously enough, when I zoomed in or out, that data was there. All resolutions appear to be there again today. So perhaps certain resolutions of the maps are unavailable at different times.

I've noticed this happening in the last month. Don't know what is going on but it is a PITA.

[Hazy]

Hi Matthew,
I just downloaded the tools and followed your excellent tutorial with some success.
I realize that it's not the fault of your tools but I find the vertical resolution of the contours somewhat less than I'd been hoping for and wonder if this is the best level of detail available or whether I can access more detail somehow. ie. are there any maps higher detail than 1:250,000?
I'm looking to make 3D map presentations of farm systems and need detailed height information so the lay of the land is accurate looking. It doesn't have to be perfect but it does need to 'feel' right when a farmer views his property.
I'm also still unsure how to be sure I'm downloading the highest quality aerial photos and how to change the output image resolution.
Any pointers would be much appreciated.
Cheers
Hazy

[Hazy]

Has anyone got the new version of nswtopo running under Windows? Mine will download and assemble the raster layers - eg aerial photos, but I don't seem to get anything for the vector layers. All I get for topographic at the end of the process is a 1KB SVG file called topographic.svg. I'm not sure what I'm supposed to get, but would have expected to get some tiles for each of the underlying layers that are supposed to make up topographic.

I just realised that I have the same issue here.

What I thought was the topographic was actually just the low res rasterised topo. I get the same 1KB SVG file called topographic.svg, which is empty.

Any pointers please.
PS. After re reading the excellent tutorial, I also worked out how to change the resolution of the output image:)

[inglewood]

I am trying this out for the first time and I keep getting the same message:

nswtopo.rb:122:in 'rotate_by': undefined method '*' for nil:NilClass (NoMethodError)

Could anyone help me please to work out what I am doing wrong? Many Thanks. Tim

[Hazy]

Hi TIm,
sadly the people over at the NSW geospatial portal have stopped their servers from giving out the vector data. They are now selling it for a fee.

They also have an online thing called SIXMAPS, mentioned above somewhere.

Good luck

Nigel

[inglewood]

Thanks Nigel - is there a way of downloading the imagery raster images from SIXMaps and then combining them - I think you can do it with GoogleEarth? Thanks, Tim

[tom_brennan]

Is there a way of downloading the imagery raster images from SIXMaps and then combining them.

The raster images on the SIXMaps servers are just WMS services. So any WMS client can view that data (I believe Google Earth can act as a WMS client).

[Hazy]

Hi Guys,

I'm a graphic designer but several of the formats used in mapping are new to me. A quick Google shows that WMS images are bitmaps which I doubt would be any better in quality than Google Earth.

http://www.ga.gov.au/topographic-mappin ... ccess.html

My personal quest, to make accurate 3D models of farms, requires better height data than the 10 meter contours seen in the NSW topo maps. So I've been researching digital elevation maps (DEMs), and hoping to find a way of using these to displace 3D meshes.

This company claim to have 1 Meter vertical resolution satellite images available. Minimum area for purchase is 100 square km at a cost of $800.

http://www.astrium-geo.com/en/66-geo-elevation-and-dem

Any suggestions for workflow would be appreciated.

Nigel

[tom_brennan]

Quality is determined by the resolution of the underlying images. Dept of Lands has much better resolution than Google Earth for areas outside cities (ie interesting bushwalking areas). But I think that inglewood was talking about using Google Earth as a WMS client, not getting Google Earth's own images. I could be misunderstanding.

For example, go to http://mapsq.six.nsw.gov.au/arcgis/rest ... /MapServer - at the top of the page you will see a list of viewers that service can be opened in. Try the ArcGIS JavaScript viewer. It's quite nice, and if you zoom in on say Wollemi NP, the imagery is way better than Google imagery.

sadly the people over at the NSW geospatial portal have stopped their servers from giving out the vector data. They are now selling it for a fee.

Did you have this working earlier (ie downloading data in SVG format)? Just curious since I never managed to get it working. How do you know it's been turned off?

[Hazy]

Hi Tom,

Thanks for the nice Dept of Lands satellite link. I took your advice and tried the ArcGIS Javascript viewer and it is indeed nicer than Google. It's kind of fun looking at my veggie patch and working out when the image was taken.

I know that the vector service is stopped because I phoned to ask and the man on the phone seemed to be of the opinion that people had been stealing the maps from under their nose and, finally, they were going to have to pay for them.

I can't wait to look at that 1meter elevation map.. I just need to know how to process it and what with. The game engine I'm working in has a terrain tool which accepts 16 bit greyscale height maps. I'm hoping it'll just be a single photoshop transformation from the astrium file. Fingers crossed. The Astrium website claims their data can be used to measure the progress of crops!

Nigel

[mholling]

Hi folks,

I just thought I'd update this thread. I have recently fixed the vegetation so it once again works with the newer data set. I can confirm that you can still get nice vector maps away from populated areas. e.g. the most recent ACT rogaine map (8 Mb). Glad to see some people might be finding it useful. (Setup still requires a bit of effort though.)

-- Matthew

[Hazy]

Hi Matthew,

That's great news but I'm at a loss how you are doing it. Have you changed the source for the vectors? If so, please update your tutorial and I'll have another go.

Sorry to anyone I've misled regarding availability.

Cheers

Nigel

[Hazy]

I just retested my nswtopo.rb and got 1K empty svg files

Please share the latest update or source / script.

Thanks in advance

Nigel