United states topo map gps file depot for free#
United states topo map gps file depot how to#
United states topo map gps file depot upgrade#

Open Street Maps produces crowdsourced maps that can be downloaded for free from sites like and. Touch screen units work best for this, and itвЂ™s ideal to have a mount and a power cord for your car. Just make sure you have a compatible device capable of turn-by-turn routing. Urban cacher? Want pure highway maps? Garmin City Navigator (shown at right) is the way to go, with options as low as $59.99. The primary reason to buy one of these units is if you travel the country extensively and donвЂ™t have time to load 24K scale maps. Second, the 100,000 scale roads appears to be based on TIGER data, which is notorious for misplacing roads a hundred feet or so. First of all, you can get better quality 1:24,000 scale maps for free (see above). I say donвЂ™t buy them, going for a version with just a basemap instead. The вЂњtвЂќ model Garmins, like the Oregon 450t come with preloaded 1:100,000 scale topos.

Why you should avoid the вЂњtвЂќ models with preloaded topos These are available direct from Garmin, and various online merchants, such as Amazon, REI and GPS City. Routable roads allow you to use a compatible handheld GPS to navigate to a trailhead waypoint, making this one of my favorite map products.В Another advantage is that these maps come with a digital elevation model, giving you shaded relief (although the darker images can reduce visibility on touchscreen models such as the Oregon series). Highway and points of interest coverage seems to be nearly identical to the City Navigator maps found in their Garmin nuvi products. Want the best of both worlds? GarminвЂ™s new 24K topo series offers detailed topographic maps along with routableВ roads and trails. In the images above, a vector map example is show at left and a raster map on the right. They are also limited by the fact that you can only zoom in or out so far before the image becomes fuzzy. Since they are image files, they take up a lot more memory. Examples include Garmin BirdsEye Topo and BirdsEye Satellite Imagery. Raster maps, on the other hand, are made up of images. They also have an advantage in that you can zoom in and out very far without any blurring. Because the files are data, they take up very little memory. Vector maps, like the ones from GPS File Depot and GarminвЂ™s new 24K series (discussed below), are made up of data, which show up on your screen as lines and points. Tech talk: Raster vs vectorД«efore we go any further, I should explain the difference in these two types of maps.

United states topo map gps file depot upgrade#

It offers an all you can download subscription plan for $29.99 per year, but if youвЂ™re smart about it, you can download whatever you want the first year and not have to pony up again unless you upgrade to a new GPS. Want USGS style topos on your Garmin? Then BirdsEye TopoВ (shown above at right) is for you. A sample screenshot is shown below, at left.

United states topo map gps file depot how to#

There are plenty of high-quality, free 1:24,000 scale topo maps available at GPS File Depot, along with some very good instructions on how to install them. IвЂ™ll break this down for folks who need topo or highway maps, and weвЂ™ll explore aerial imagery as wellвЂ¦ Topo maps for Garmin handheld GPS The free option ThatвЂ™s a question that keeps coming up, so here is another handheld GPS FAQ.