Howdy doody all,
In New Zealand, all our maps are available free online! They can be purchased in store, but they’re expensive – e.g. i’m currently planning a 3-4 day route that would cost $50 in maps because it uses 4 corners of the maps I need (i.e. the area I’m covering would only need the size of one map, but that’s not how the tiles work out). They also make the KZM files free for GPS users.
So I want to be able to print maps of a custom selection to A3 sheets. I can do this by stitching together the GEOTIFF files in photoshop but it’s convoluted and time consuming.
A friend recommended the Garmin BaseCamp software, which lets you import the KZM files. The interface is easy enough to use, but some options are quite limiting (for example the step in/out when you want to zoom in to select a certain section of the map is a really large step in/out).
I know of Caltopo, and caltopo does actually have New Zealand now – but the options are quite limiting unless you pay for an expensive subscription. Additionally I’m going to move overseas soon so paying for a caltopo subscription would be expensive for the short time I’d use it. We have a project in New Zealand called topomap.co.nz, which is great, but the export/print options are heavily limited due to server limitations, according to the developer (for example it scales your maps to an a4 paper size and doesn’t do postering – so your scale becomes unreadable).
So I’m looking for anyone who does make a lot of custom maps – what software do you use?
Additionally, which phone apps are good to use with .kzm files? I’ve looked at a few of the common name ones, but they all want you to purchase their own maps. Never used GPS services before and don’t plan on using it much, but there are times where it might have saved me a few hours after a navigational mistake.
