EOTopo questions

My copy of EOTopo is 2014.3 and has the freeway through Albury.
It was a free upgrade, just had to send the SD card back for a replacement.

If you read the update notes it explIns the 2014.3 update included all new roads.
The notes will probably provide insight into most of your other questions.

I think there is a bit of confusion as to which map set is being talked about. There appears to be 2 versions, EOTopo and EOTopo 200K.

EOTopo and updates is available for download. Latest version is 2014.2.

EOTopo 200K is the one that is purchased and is updated by card replacement, updates not available on line. Latest version is 2014.3.

This is my take on it but happy to be corrected.

I posted this above as a followup to Rod, but realised none of you in the post will get a notification so to ensure those in this post see my response, I've copied it here as a reply FYI.

EOTopo actually refers to the ONLINE version of the topographic mapping - and this is not defined to any scale, hence no scale in the name. The zoom controls allow you to increase or decrease the scale of the map you are viewing. ie. we have stored topo mapping data at smaller (more detailed) scales that what we sell on SD/USB. Due to the number of tiles that make up the mapping to allowing this zooming feature, all zoom levels (scale) are not available on hard media. BUT as stated on the EOTopo info page (see here), the data we have stored for EOTopo (online) allows you to view data at 1:56,000,000 (56 Million) down to 1:54,000 (54K).

EOTopo200K is the scale we selected to make available on hard media for purchase as we feel it is the best fit for purpose of indash vehicle navigation in outback areas (our target market). NATMAP was traditionally 250K but due to various reasons, including the resolution of modern hand-held navigation devices and smartphones/tablets etc, Dave decided to release a tiny bit more detail hence the 200K scale. This also means that the 200K maps do not show as much detail as you can obtain from zooming right in online in EOTopo! In fact, Dave has updated the maps in some selected areas to a detail of 50K (eg. Vic High Country).

Now - here's where some people have got a bit confused. We do also make EOTopo maps available for you to access at other scales and these are the ones that you can download them from the website (from the EOTopo page - link above). These are NOT the 200K scale but the 10M, 5M, 2.5M and if you are an existing EOTopo200K customer, you can also download the 1M map. These scales are bigger (ie. less detail) than what you get when you buy the EOTopo200K versions and just simply there for trip planning purposes and are nice to have as an overview. The bigger the number the bigger the scale and the less the detail and therefore the less the file size hence we can offer these maps as downloads.

The 200K map of Australia is too big to make available for download at this stage.

Hope this helps clarify the difference between the files that you see available for download, and the various terminology between the hard media and online EOTopo maps.

Hi Julian,
Whilst I've answered Rods' queries, I think I can help you with yours too.

1. Images on the product pages in the shop could well be from the first release and as someone else has confirmed, these roads are on the current release of EOTopo200K. Based on your feedback however, I will ensure we update the images. Fair comment!

2. Updates are simply replacement hard media but if you are an existing customer you don't need to pay the full price so you will receive a brand new full product but pay no more than half price. These are now all managed through the warehouse as we have too many customers to do it manually on send and return which we did on the first update.

3. Yes - send to updates@eotopo.com.au AND upload your file as a User Trek online (this is in the Treks menu tab at the top of the site).

4. Yes - go to the EOTopo page (also in the site menu) and click the Reviews/Discussion tab. At the time of writing this today, I see there are 58 posts there.

Finally, be sure to read the tab on that page about Updates. As explained by John and Val elsewhere in this thread, you will find fully detailed explanations of exactly what is contained in each release update. And for the very technical, you can read the Technical tab.

Hope this helps!