Any free/cheap mapping software

Mapping data is expensive, and as far as I know not free in most countries (if any). This means that you're also unlikely to find any free apps with real maps, either.

Mobile GMaps is workable for the UK and the US. But pure mapping software - no not really.

Kool... furry muff

Not too keen on wayfinder tho, too expensive
Tom tom could be a goer.. but shame they don't do a trial of the latest version as i'd like to trial it first... as i have access to a bluetooth gps

then there's route 66.... any good?

What others are there out there?

Anyone used any of these b4?
http://www.gpsgatsomaster.co.uk/
http://www.gpscyclemaster.co.uk/

There's also Navicore: http://www.navicore.fi/en_GB/frontpage/

If its for cycling / walking etc as opposed to driving, you could try GPS Cycle Master. Its a bit of freeware intended for cycling but it would work equally well for walking etc too. You can download maps for it directly from the OS website (www.getamap.co.uk) and having tried it this weekend on a mountain bike ride, I can vouch it works a treat, just download the maps of the area you're visiting and upload them to your phone. It logs distance and top speed etc and even logs your trip waypoints in a "gpx" file which you can put into Google Earth to show your route plotted on the satellite images!
The same chap also wrote GPS Gatso Master which is a freeware speed camera warning device using the PocketGPS monthly updates. Its not ideal as it doesnt give an audible warning (from what I can work out), but its much better than nothing.

Chris

that you guys arew talking about i have managed to get the map grabber to install and the cycle thingie on the phone. i try running map grabber but cant find which longitude and latitude values to put in. google does not show a gpx log data where can i find the longitude and latitude values for particular places??

also try saving maps from map grabber but they only save as .jpg how do i get them in the correct format??? please help!

Yer i'm also having problems understanding quite what to do locoblade do you have any more info about how you got it working??

the instructions are not very useful!!!

cheers

Hi guys

Its not totally straight forward, but the way i did it is as follows:

1, go to Multimap.com and type in the postcode of where you want to map, to start with do your own home so you can test it with the GPS straight away. At the bottom of the multimap page it shows you the Lon/Lat figures for that point on the map (the ones in brackets)
2, Copy these into Mapgrabber, select Level 7 (the most detailed maps) then click grab
3, This loads 9 maps into mapgrabber with the central map being the point you put into multimap. It also saves these 9 maps by default onto your desktop, in jpg format. The maps stay in jpg format, no need to change them.
4, Copy the 9 map files onto your phone into the folder e:\other\maps\7
5, Now crank up the GPSCyclemaster app with your bluetooth on, it will pair up if necessary. Now you should see the white screen with speeds etc at the top and a blank screen below which gradually draws a graph of your speed and ascent/descent. From this screen, press the "5" key to switch to map view, and press "2" to zoom in until you get to level 7 - now you should see a map of your current location (this bit and the other hot keys are described in the readme.html file they supply).

If you download other maps using level 6,5,4, etc, just copy them into the same named folder in e:\other\maps and you'll actually be able to zoom in and out to different map resolutions.

My next use for it will be on my snowboarding holiday, its a pity you can't switch arond the ascent option to only show descent, but it will still log how far round the mountain we've travelled plus the all important top speed 😊

HTH

Chris

Locoblade wrote:Hi guys

Its not totally straight forward, but the way i did it is as follows:

1, go to Multimap.com and type in the postcode of where you want to map, to start with do your own home so you can test it with the GPS straight away. At the bottom of the multimap page it shows you the Lon/Lat figures for that point on the map (the ones in brackets)
2, Copy these into Mapgrabber, select Level 7 (the most detailed maps) then click grab
3, This loads 9 maps into mapgrabber with the central map being the point you put into multimap. It also saves these 9 maps by default onto your desktop, in jpg format. The maps stay in jpg format, no need to change them.
4, Copy the 9 map files onto your phone into the folder e:\other\maps\7
5, Now crank up the GPSCyclemaster app with your bluetooth on, it will pair up if necessary. Now you should see the white screen with speeds etc at the top and a blank screen below which gradually draws a graph of your speed and ascent/descent. From this screen, press the "5" key to switch to map view, and press "2" to zoom in until you get to level 7 - now you should see a map of your current location (this bit and the other hot keys are described in the readme.html file they supply).

If you download other maps using level 6,5,4, etc, just copy them into the same named folder in e:\other\maps and you'll actually be able to zoom in and out to different map resolutions.

My next use for it will be on my snowboarding holiday, its a pity you can't switch arond the ascent option to only show descent, but it will still log how far round the mountain we've travelled plus the all important top speed 😊

HTH

Chris

Nice one dude, cheers for the extra info... I'm goin walkin in the lakes this weekend so gonna give it a whirl with my mates tomtom gps and see how it goes, hopefully it will work!

:icon14: 😊

Locoblade wrote:If its for cycling / walking etc as opposed to driving, you could try GPS Cycle Master. Its a bit of freeware intended for cycling but it would work equally well for walking etc too. You can download maps for it directly from the OS website (www.getamap.co.uk) and having tried it this weekend on a mountain bike ride, I can vouch it works a treat, just download the maps of the area you're visiting and upload them to your phone. It logs distance and top speed etc and even logs your trip waypoints in a "gpx" file which you can put into Google Earth to show your route plotted on the satellite images!
The same chap also wrote GPS Gatso Master which is a freeware speed camera warning device using the PocketGPS monthly updates. Its not ideal as it doesnt give an audible warning (from what I can work out), but its much better than nothing.

Chris

Carl,

Carl, did you try it a few times because Ive noticed it sometimes crashes 2-3 times almost straight away when starting the app, but after a couple of tries it goes in and once its in it seems to be rock stable and work for as long as required. I also found on one occasion I needed to get it to search and re-pair with the GPS.
Still, IMHO its a good little app considering its free and hopefully it will be developed further with more menu option etc.

Chris

I started it up and it went searching for the BT device,

Found the TomTom MkII,

Selected it, Then it crashed,

Will try again later today, (Will try it more than once, lol),

Carl,