Monday, May 28, 2007

Free Canadian Digital Topo Maps

Someone just sent me a link to a source of free Canadian digital topographic maps scanned at 300 dpi. (BTW It seems strange that the government has to scan paper versions of maps they printed in the first place. Couldn't they do a more direct conversion?)

You need to know the map id, but you can get that from an online index.

I use Fugawi and Etopo maps and they're more user-friendly, but they are only 150 dpi and they tend to be out of date (and they cost money) In the past sometimes I have ended up getting the paper maps and scanning them myself but maybe now I won't have to.

You can also use the on-line government Toporama, but compared to Google Maps/Earth it is pretty bad.

What I'd really like is if the government would provide free vector versions of the maps. When they announced that they would discontinue printed paper maps they said they would provide free vector maps on-line. But this seems to have gotten lost when there was so much outcry and they decided to continue with paper maps. Personally, I'd rather have the digital ones!

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