NAVIGATION
Free Resources Available
By Ian Fieldhouse #1888
Up until recently, I’ve existed completely in the Applesphere. This meant when it came to
navigation the highly rated OziExplorer was not an option for me. So for the past couple of
years I’ve been using Hema Explorer App which cost $50 purchase plus $50 per year for
access to more detailed maps. This was great as it provided me with all the Hema maps
including track classifications as well as the State 1:25,000 maps in an App that could be
used to route plan and track. However, in the past 6 months Hema Explorer has become
very buggy, crashes regularly, features stop working, so generally unreliable and Hema’s
response has been lack lustre to say the least. The development of this App seemed to
effectively cease at least 3 years ago. So I went looking for an alternative and found two
options which when combined seem to offer a real solution.
GET LOST MAPS
It’s amazing what some people do for fun – and in this case we all benefit from Tommo
making Getlost Maps. Getlost Maps (www.getlost.com.au) is a completely free set of
topographic maps including the following:
1. All of Victoria in 1:25,000, 1:75:000 which correspond to the Vicmap series.
2. All of Australia in 1:250,000
3. Special purpose maps of ski resorts and areas like Wilson’s Prom.
Tasmania & NSW also seem to be under development.
The maps are a compilation of a range of public information and in addition to standard
information on topographic maps include seasonal track closures (although I would always
check the Parks Victoria site for changes) and hut sites.
The maps have been released in 3 different formats:
1. OZF4 for use in OziExplorer
2. GeoTIFF for use in Avenza Maps (see below) but can also be opened on a computer
3. JPG which can be viewed on any device and in the PC version of OziExplorer
File size varies between formats. The 1:25,000 Selwyn map which has Wonnangatta Station
on it is 75MB OZF4, 64MB GeoTiff and 24MB for JPG.
Map datum / projection is WGS84 / Pseudo Mercator (EPSG:3857) with a UTM grid overlaid.
WGS84 is what most GPS systems use. EPSG:3857 is what is used by Google and
OpenStreetMap but watch the default grid reference as I found out using Getlost on Avenza