Garmin Announces BaseCamp™, hints at 1:24k Topos on DVD
Jan.14, 2009 in
Garmin
Updated 1/15/09: GPS Business News is reporting that 1:24K Topos will be available on 4 regional DVDs for $99 each.
Garmin has announced a new software utility called BaseCamp which is aimed at outdoor users. This new product feels like an updated version of Mapsource with some new features. The new features that I picked out of the press release are:
- Native support for Geocaches (Mapsource currently does not provide access to the full set of groundspeak extensions)
- Support for 24k and 100k Topo maps in 2D or 3D. 3D view on the computer is a new feature. Let’s hope it is more useful than the Colorado and Oregon 3D view.
- Although the press release is not very clear it seems to hint at the fact 1:24k regional topo maps might be released on DVD to support BaseCamp (they are only available on SD card today). Some are speculating that this refers to the National Parks 1:24k DVD only not the regional 1:24k maps.
- Maps can be oriented in any direction, not always in “North Up” orientiation as in Mapsource.
- Support for geotagging photos
- Real-time “TrackDraw” allowing the user to create a track and view the elevation profile as it changes. This suggests BaseCamp can use the Digital Elevation Model (DEM) in the topo maps to generate elevation profiles. Elevation profiles can only be done in Mapsource using the track data from the GPS.
- Transfer of photos to the GPS (although they indicate “on supported devices only”)
- improved support for printing maps and organizing data
The program will ship with the 24k and 100k DVD topo products and current owners of the Topo2008 will be able to download a free version of BaseCamp. Garmin indicates it will be available on both Mac and PC in the first quarter of 2009.
Questions this raises:
- What is the GPS device compatibility list for the new product?
- Will there be any official Garmin support for Oregon and Colorado 400t owners to view and use their maps in BaseCamp? The press release indicates you still need to buy the DVD maps if you want to view your maps on a computer. This doesn’t make sense if you’ve already paid for them on the unit.
- What about raster map support in BaseCamp? I was expecting we might see an announcement from Garmin at CES along these lines. When I saw this press release I was sure that this must be it, but there is no mention of it in the release. I’m still guessing that this utility might be the path forward to raster map support on the Oregon and Colorado.
- Why not just update Mapsource — that makes me wonder what features will be missing. Will you still be able to autoroute and view City Navigator in this new product for example?
As pictures and details become available I’ll post them here.
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January 14th, 2009 at 8:22 pm
“Why not just update mapsource” — well, it may well be just an updated, renamed mapsource.
But if you’ve ever worked in software development (and it sounds like you haven’t), you know how crufty old codebases can be. Mapsource is verrry old. Often, it can be easier to scrap it all and start over than shoehorn advanced stuff in.
MapSource was getting pretty crufty and it showed. A new start is good.
January 15th, 2009 at 12:18 pm
I just updated the post since GPS Business News is reporting that that the 1:24K Topos will be made available as 4 regional DVDs for $99/each.
@benh57, I understand the starting from new arguement (been doing s/w development for 20 years) but there is also a cost to maintaining multiple utilities unless Garmin is planning to do away with Mapsource which is hard to believe.
My suspicion is that BaseCamp may either be distributed under a slightly different license and may not have certain features that Mapsource does (it obviously will have features Mapsource doesn’t as well). If so, that’s a pain because that means I have to install and maintain two tools instead of one.
January 15th, 2009 at 1:50 pm
And of course us poor souls in Canada are left out again. Garmin sells CND Topos, out of date as they may be, but no support. I guess Great Britian is out to, and Garmin sells their topos too.
Mapsource is ou of date, it doesn’t support some features of the Colorado or Oregons and I suspect the Edge series too.
My $0.02CDN worth.
January 16th, 2009 at 2:52 pm
[...] will be available this quarter for around $130. Garmin made some confusing statements in their BaseCamp press release earlier this week about the US 1:24k Topo maps on DVD, but hopefully this will [...]
February 7th, 2009 at 10:38 pm
[...] 2009 in GPSMAP 60CSx, Garmin Colorado, Garmin Oregon, Garmin eTrex About a month ago when Garmin announced BaseCamp, they also hinted that the Topo U.S. 24K maps, currently available only in microSD format, would [...]
March 16th, 2009 at 8:39 am
[...] Given that Garmin has announced geotagging support in their forthcoming BaseCamp software it would make sense that these new units will have built in geotagging support. Note [...]
March 30th, 2009 at 7:47 pm
[...] Garmin BaseCamp 2.0.4 Released Mar.30, 2009 in Garmin Garmin has released the first public version of BaseCamp for PC platforms. BaseCamp is Garmin’s new outdoor-centric mapping software. Similar to Mapsource you can view your Garmin maps (as long as they include DEM) on your computer and do things like view 3D terrain, plot tracks, and analyze elevation profiles. I’ve downloaded BaseCamp to try it out with Topo USA 2008 and while the 3D views and elevation plots are interesting it is very slow on my laptop and I’ve managed to crash it several times. I haven’t tried the geocaching support, trackdraw and geotagging features which Garmin promised when BaseCamp was announced. [...]
April 3rd, 2009 at 10:33 pm
Thank you for contacting Garmin International.
The 76s would not be compatible with the 24K Topo maps. You would want to use a color unit with these maps anyhow to access the features it has to offer.
With Best Regards,
Shawn V
Product Support Specialist
2nd Shift Outdoor/Fitness Team
Garmin International
Brad, thanks for your suggestions, I’ll be happy to forward them for you to engineering and cartography suggestion box. The 24K maps on DVD will work with your 76s, the ones on pre programmed data card will not work unfortuantely.
With Best Regards,
Brock A
Product Support Specialist
Outdoor/Fitness Team
Garmin International
interesting emails
I hope the DVD I ordered will work.
the GPS system as a whole is not going to change for some years so GPS accuricy will not change much, so not to compete gps makers are going to improve other stuff like there maps which are mostly pretty poor.
there are so many improvements I would like to see.
maybe some day garmin will have a system where users can update maps and the gos will have a user map layer in it.
brad