Canadian Topo Maps - free to download

mckrob

mckrob

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Jan 15, 2007
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St_Johns_001N10.jpg


Tired of paying $11.45 a sheet for your 1:50000 topo maps?

There is a relatively new Government of Canada website called GeoGratis that gives you access to the entire National Topographic System (NTS), and best of all it's free!

http://geogratis.gc.ca/geogratis/search?lang=en


Follow my directions below to download any 1:50000 NTS topo sheets you need



1) first you will need a viewer. The best by far is Globalmapper, but this costs money. The USGS has a free "lite" version of Globalmapper called dlgv32, you can download it free from here:

http://tahoe.usgs.gov/viewers.html

http://www.bluemarblegeo.com/products/global-mapper-dlvg32.php



2) to find out what NTS sheet you are looking for, find your local index map here (bookmark this page):

http://www.nrcan.gc.ca/earth-sciences/geography/topographic-information/maps/9765

write down the full NTS sheet numbers that you are interested in (i.e. St John's, Newfoundland is NTS 001N10)

For those not familiar with the NTS system, the first number represents the NTS zone, each zone is 8 degrees of longitude in width, starting at one in Newfoundland, increasing to the west and to the north. Each zone comprises 16 smaller zones represented by letters, starting in the SE corner of the zone, then each of these is broken down into 16 smaller 1:50000 numbered sheets (see the sample index map below).



NWT_NTS.jpg





3) now you can download the individual map sheets from the GeoGratis server (bookmark this page):

http://ftp2.cits.rncan.gc.ca/pub/canmatrix/50k_300dpi/

The map sheets are organised by NTS sheet number (see example above). Map sheets are quite large so they are compressed as zip files, if you don't have it already, you will need Winzip or WinRar to unpack them.

Unpack the contents of the zip file, I would suggest creating a map folder and organise by map sheet number the same way as it is organised on the GeoGratis server. The large "TIF" file is the georeferenced map image.



4) View / print your maps by opening them in Globalmapper (dlgv32). I believe that the lite version will let you open four sheets at a time, this is usually more than enough.




And that is all there is to it! ENJOY !
 
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kta2402 said:
Ok I found how to download pdf files of the maps on geogratis, thanks a lot mate
Click to expand...

pdf's can be downloaded here:

http://ftp2.cits.rncan.gc.ca/pub/canmatrix2/50k_pdf/

If you don't need the funtionality of Globalmapper and are just looking to print a map or section of a map, the pdf files are the way to go.

Globalmapper lets you view the file georeferenced (with UTM coordinates), you can also directly import just about any format of geographical information into this software, including AUtocad DXF's, ESRI ARC/GIS, and your Garmin waypoints and tracklogs, there is also the funtionality of directly importing live GPS data and having it plot directly on you map in real-time (like if you were using your laptop with bluetooth GPS in the car). You could also go the other way (with the paid version) and pre-plot a route on the map in Globalmapper and then upload the file as a tracklog back to your Garmin to follow the same track in the field.

Globalmapper is a powerful piece of software. The only differences between the free and paid versions of Globalmapper are: 1)the number of open sheets is limited to four; 2) the free version does not allow the saving of workspaces; and 3) the free version does not allow the export of data. The fully functional licensed version is 300 $US.
 
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Thanks for the direct link thats great, Well I just want maps to plan trips, so viewing is my priority, if I want to plot on it I'll do it with illustrator. Great subject, I seriously thank you for that

RAT Pack #75
KTA
 
This is a couple of years old, some of the links were dead so I've updated them. The Geogratis website has been updated, but the FTP server addresses remain the same for CanMatrix raster/PDF images.

The newer Toporama digital maps can be downloaded here:

http://ftp2.cits.rncan.gc.ca/pub/toporama/

The CanMatrix/PDF maps are georeferenced scans of the original topo sheets (identical to the paper map sheets you can buy) while the Toporama product is a digitized version of the CanMatrix maps. The Toporama is sometimes lacking the detail of the CanMatrix product, but the nice thing about the Toporama maps is that there are no map sheet borders so multiple maps can be loaded seamlessly in the viewer for printing or uploaded to your garmin.

The free USGS DLGV32 viewer is no longer supported, it looks like you now need to download the new trial version directly from the Globalmapper website:

http://www.bluemarblegeo.com/products/global-mapper-dlvg32.php

As I'm running the fully licensed version I haven't downloaded the trial to see if it's a time limited fully functional trial version or if it's an indefinite license with reduced functionality, the latter used to be the case.
 
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