Geocaching Australia

I've finally finished the latest version of Contours Australia over the last couple of weeks and are FREE of charge as usual. The maps cover all of Australia at 5m contour intervals now. I've added a bit more detail to the preview maps in Mapsource, like coast lines, state borders and town/city locations. This is to be used as a reference, to help people know where the location they are looking at and to make it easier to select the tiles people need to download to the GPS. The coast lines, state borders and town/city locations is only viewable in Mapsource and is not downloaded to the GPS. It's a big download at 2GB. I've only got the win32 up on the site at the moment. I'll upload the Linux and Mac versions over the next few days. You can get it from my site

www.lizarddrinking.net

or

www.lizarddrinking.com


Load on my 60CSx


In Mapsource


Another Mapsource image

I'm very excited! I love the 10m ones you've done!

Just a question: Will it be available, as the 10m one was, on disk from the link listed on your downloads page?

My Broadband plan is both slow and small download allowance-wise, so have no qualms handing over some cash to have a disk burned and mailed!

Love your work!

It will be. I sent a DVD over to WA on wednesday so you will have to give it another week. I would call up to place your order just to make sure the DVD sent got there.

I would be more interested in the raw data - though I am guessing it is pretty big. The reason is we use software at work to do calculations on microwave link paths, which uses the 3 second SRTM dataset. This has a horizontal accuracy of about 90 metres from memory so can easily miss the crest of a hill etc.

Whether it is available in a format the software (Pathloss) will use is a different question.

dumb question or perhaps great question,
is the 5m actually more accurate or just extrapolated 10m data.

richary wrote:I would be more interested in the raw data - though I am guessing it is pretty big. The reason is we use software at work to do calculations on microwave link paths, which uses the 3 second SRTM dataset. This has a horizontal accuracy of about 90 metres from memory so can easily miss the crest of a hill etc.

Whether it is available in a format the software (Pathloss) will use is a different question.

I used the SRTM data for this version. I was 95% done when the ASTGTM data came out. From memory it's 20m 95% of the time. The data is in some sort of DEM .TIF format. I don't have the link any more sorry.

mtrax wrote:dumb question or perhaps great question,
is the 5m actually more accurate or just extrapolated 10m data.

No it's not more accurate. The holes in the data have been filled in this version. I've started the next version which will be based on the ASTGTM data.

Not sure if I'm missing something, but I've downloaded the file, verified the checksum and unzipped it and run the .exe - but all it seems to do is create a directory in the "install" location with an uninstall entry in it.

The .zip files contains the 2 files -

ca5m.7z (2,158,318 Kb)
and
contours_australia_5m.exe (179 Kb)

Should I be doing something other than just running the .exe ?

Geodes wrote:Not sure if I'm missing something, but I've downloaded the file, verified the checksum and unzipped it and run the .exe - but all it seems to do is create a directory in the "install" location with an uninstall entry in it.

The .zip files contains the 2 files -

ca5m.7z (2,158,318 Kb)
and
contours_australia_5m.exe (179 Kb)

Should I be doing something other than just running the .exe ?

Well it shouldn't be doing that. The .exe is to open the ca5m.7z and install the files from there. Go into the Control Panel, Add/Remove Programs and uninstall Contours Australia 5m. Try and install it again. If it doesn't work you can manually install the files. You will need 7 Zip (http://www.7-zip.org) to open ca5m.7z. You will need to extract all the files to C:\Program Files\Contours Australia 5m When you done that you will need to install registry settings. All you will need to do is double click on Contours5m.reg file in the C:\Program Files\Contours Australia 5m directory. A box will pop up. Just click yes to it and it should be all install now.

Dooghan wrote:Well it shouldn't be doing that. The .exe is to open the ca5m.7z and install the files from there. Go into the Control Panel, Add/Remove Programs and uninstall Contours Australia 5m. Try and install it again. If it doesn't work you can manually install the files. You will need 7 Zip (http://www.7-zip.org) to open ca5m.7z. You will need to extract all the files to C:\Program Files\Contours Australia 5m When you done that you will need to install registry settings. All you will need to do is double click on Contours5m.reg file in the C:\Program Files\Contours Australia 5m directory. A box will pop up. Just click yes to it and it should be all install now.

Thanks Dooghan: I've left it at work tonight, but I'll check it out tomorrow and report back

I'm a DH. I had the .exe pointing to the ca5m.7z file on my D drive which is just not going to work. I've fixed the .exe and currently testing it on a couple of PC's. I'll upload and post a link shortly.

OK Dooghan, I followed your instructions and everything looks great - the 5m contours look much "smoother" than the V2 10m ones (as well as providing a finer resolution, of course) and will be a great enhancement to my outdoors GPS based experiences The range of community-based mapping information now available is getting really impressive and I'm glad I've been able to contribute a bit too via the Open StreetMap Project

Many thanks for your hard work

Anyone that has downloaded CA5m here is the patch. Just over write the old contours_australia_5m.exe with this new one [link removed]. I installed CA5m on 3 different PC (2 XP and 1 Vista) and no problems. I've also taken the contours_australia_5m_win32.zip off line while I get the new one on the server.

OMG! Went to download the info but with the pathetic broadband we have - estimated download time was 24hrs Looks like we will have to order it by DVD.

The full version (fixed up) can be downloaded again. I've also added the linux version to the download page. The Mac version may have to wait until next month as I'm just about out of bandwidth. I'll see how I go unless someone wants to be a beta tester?