walkinTas wrote:Ok! So what is essential software you can't do without and what is just nice to have?
My list is only a few hours old so its very short.
StitchMap - simply joins scanned maps together - don't know how good this is or what is better.
OziExplorer - Mapping Software to upload/download waypoints, routes and tracks on most brand of GPS. Seems to be well like.
OZI rules. my favourite mapping software by far...and it runs under Wine ok so i can still have it in my superior operating system
The collection of maps I have means ozi is pretty much all i use.
Ozi3d is also awesome. It enables you to render any map that you can open in ozi as a 3d projection of the area. Speculator has posted some examples of this in the gallery forum.
I quite like Garmin Mapsource too. I have a number of free map sets for this and they are all very good. Shonky Maps is one in particular that is produced by a guy on mainland but I have contributed a lot of Tassie data to him to be included. The shonky maps now have most tasmanian roads (outside major cities/towns) and many many tracks throughuout the bush. All of tasmanias waterfalls, caves, and giant trees are also marked on them (thanks to the datasets I make available on my website)
Although I believe shonky to be better Tracks4Australia is also good. I disagree with the way the owner asks for community contirbuted tracks but then charges for the permium version. I believe if community is contributing the product should be free. As shonky maps are. but it pays to have both, can be run side by side and are still a good resource
Contours Australia is antoher garmin mapsource product worth getting. 25k contours for the whole of country I believe.
For communicating with a GPS nothing beats GPSBabel. its pretty much what all the other programs that do so are based on so why not use the orriginal. It runs on every platform you can think of, is open source and is just damn good.
If you are considering GPS purchase then i reccomend GARMIN gps purely for the sheer amount of free mapsets out there. Magellan dont even come close for community driven mapping projects. Anyone with a garmin gps wanting to learn more about the free mapping products available dont hesitate to ask