[Robert Barrack]

I am interested in buying the CD-ROM map of the south island with the idea of printing off the map area for each trip rather than having to fork out $$ to buy a paper map each time.
Has anyone used the CD-ROM -am interested in peolpes feedback.

[Stephen]

Hi Robert

This was reviewed on the Whats New page a month or so back.

I don’t know of anyone who’s tried it but you can check out their website here <http://www.polymedia.co.nz/nzmapped>

I’d be interested to see the quality if you decide to go ahead with this. Would be a good idea to have these CD ROMS available to members through the members page of this site.

Cheers
Stephen

[Andrew McLellan]

There was also some talk of a NZ company putting their (rasta?)scanned versions of the maps on the web for free of charge access. Haven’t seen it happen yet. As a comparison visit www. multimap.com where you can drill down to 1:50,000 topo maps of the UK.
I think the quality of print out depends on your colour printer – but I have heard it still lacks the clarity of bought maps.

[Raymond]

LINZ, http://www.linz.govt.nz has indicated that in time the maps will be available for download, but with all http://www.govt initiatives it will most likely be a long time.

[Andrew McLellan]

Well lets hope they are being fiscally responsible in their web endeavours.

[john maxwell]

I got the atlas of new zealand “nz@aclick” from the warehouse, which is just about the same standard (but it doesnt have the detail that I would have liked, but does give you an idea) it was about $40 and its “polypack”!!!

john

[Simon Ward]

Hiya

There are at least 3 scanned map products for NZ – the polymedia one mentioned above, one from topomappro.com and emap (via http://www.nzam.com) – there may be others

Resolution of the products is about 250dpi at present – this is ok but not great – topo maps are very detailed and often it’s the very fine detail which matter. The emap ones are 175dpi. My experience is that any scans of maps tend to be harder to read, with the subtle patterns and paler colours often becoming indistinct – even at 600dpi on a good printer. If you mainly want to follow marked tracks and routes, these products will be fine, but for bushbashing I would prefer a real map. Another issue – on a long trip you may cover 2 or 3 map sheets – which is lots of A4 pages! Plus printer paper is not as robust and ink is generally not waterproof so lamination is always a good option.

The technology for viewing, searching and printing these maps is improving all the time – the topomappro product interfaces with GPS now. The best thing is the pricing – a few hundred $$ for all the south island is a bargain.

Hope this helps!

Simon

[Raymond]

I have just had a conversation with LINZ and they confirm that the online topomaps is on the starting blocks – business case development stage. Difficulty is justifying the downstream benefits (potentially significant) that would accrue from this type of initiative.

[Author]

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