GPS topo mapping (GPS Topo PLUS Australia 10) puts a completely different perspective on the screen of your in-car navigator or hand held GPS. GPS Topo PLUS is supplied on DVD, ready to load to computer and many Garmin GPS. While it works well in urban areas, the advantages are particularly noticeable in rural areas, where changes in the landscape form become clear, without the clutter of city roads and intersections.

After some practice, you can envisage the steepness of the country ahead, you can learn how to look out for ridges, sudden drops, creek beds, and other land-forms. If you have City Navigator or Metroguide already loaded on your GPS, the topo mapping becomes an even better tool, where you can see man-made features such as roads, and points of interest, and other natural features, such as parks and natural areas, with the contours wrapping neatly according to the terrain.

This product has been developed by us to enhance your pleasure at using GPS in the field. It is by no means to be regarded as a primary navigation resource. It should be used sensibly, and with care. The contour lines are spaced at 10 metre vertical intervals, which is twice the resolution of similar products currently available. The contour lines cover all of Australia's mainland and offshore islands, and the first contour is 10 metres above sea level. This product shows contour lines only, with height labels. For roads and other feature data you may use the existing data on your GPS, or you may need an additional map product. Both sets of mapping will show simultaneously on the screen of your GPS. Other sites where you may be able to obtain feature data for Australia, include Tracks for Australia.

Professional and GIS users can obtain these contours for any part of Australia as .shp files. Please ask at one of our offices.

This is a screen shot in real size, of GPS TopoPLUS on a Garmin Nuvi 660 portable in-car navigator. The background detail is Garmin City Navigator. The performance of the Nuvi is not compromised by the additional map data. 100 metre contour lines (100, 200, 300 etc show as a dark blue or black line), and individual contour lines show in brown. Each individual GPS may differ in how the lines are shown. On this model, all contour lines show at 300m scale on screen. On some models, all lines may continue to show at scales beyond 300m. The contour mapping has the same resolution and feel on the Garmin hand-held range, such as the GPSMAP 60CX, or Vista CX. Again different models may show more or less contour lines at various screen scales. There are some more images on the next page.

GPS Topo PLUS is designed to work only with Garmin GPS. This incudes most mapping type hand-held GPS, portable in-car navigators, Garmin PDA's such as the iQue, and the newer GNV series for in-car installation. We have tested the mapping on all these product, and have found it satisfactory.To load this mapping to a Garmin GPS, you require a computer, with the Garmin Mapsource program. Johnny Appleseed GPS can load the GPS TopoPLUS on to your GPS for a nominal fee, if you do not want to use your own facilities.

Some in-car navigators that come with maps pre-loaded, are not supplied with computer mapping, so you should check if you need to purchase a Mapsource product. This may be as simple as Trip and Waypoint Manager, which is less than $60. Proper use of the contour maps is the purchaser's responsibility, and of course we cannot be held responsible for any inaccuracy, or any incident arising from the use of the map data.