Online maps of Australia that could be used for flying?

[Ken_NZ]

Are their any decent maps of Australia available online that one could use for a basic guide when flying? I know in NZ we have a decent topo online website (http://www.nztopoonline.linz.govt.nz/ - choose map in top left corner), but haven't found anything similar for Aussie. Ideally I'd like a good map for Tasmania as that's where I am flying at the moment. Best I've been able to come up with is from a site called 'multimap', which at different zoom distances has some different maps of the same area. Hopefully the following link shows the same as what I see.  (scale showing 5km, GeoScience Australia map - this particular map only shows at this zoom level).

http://www.multimap.com/maps/?&t=l&map=2.616667,98.816667|16|4&loc=ID:2.616667:98.816667:16#t=l&map=-42.83116,147.74121|12|4&loc=AU:-35.3499:149.042:8||Australia

The main reason for asking is because of these new freeware airports. Some of them are on maps (eg. Lagoon Bay, near Hobart) which makes them much easier to locate, and I assume that in real VFR flying you'd probably consult a map before starting out, so I consider this a sensible use of resources. The other thing is that if one does find an unmarked airport, they could then mark it on themselves for future reference.

[teecee]

These are fairly big..but worth the D/L..if you just want Tas it is called YTas3346 there are also other Tassie ones..look for Mhbvtc and mltvtc also mhbinsert and mltinsert. Teecee.

[Ken_NZ]

Thanks for your response Teecee,

Any pointers on where exactly I am supposed to be looking for those maps you mentioned.

I don't mind things being big. The idea that "Good things come in small packages" is for ladies (eg. Diamonds). For men I think it's the reverse. Good things come in big packages (eg. cars, boats, planes...).

[marc_eddn]

Hi,

I recently found the website of Geoscience Australia, where you can download all Australian Topo 250k maps, which is the basis of the data in your link. The best is that those maps are all in Lat/Long projection, which means they are fully FSMMM / FSMAP ready. I downloaded Tasmania so far (4 maps) and use it with FSMMM (after calibration) via FSUIPC on FSX. It's a great add-on to FTX, finally I know all the places by name ;-)

You have to create an account at Geoscience Australia (free!), and you can only download 5 maps a time (but over and over again!). The quality of the maps is amazing!

The official site is http://www.ga.gov.au/mapconnect/index.jsp , here you can download MapSheets in ECW format. These can be viewed with a good map SW ("Global Mapper" trial version is good enough to view) and converted to JPG with IrfanView. For calibration I used FSMMM with the map open in Global Mapper in parallel to get the corner coordinates.

As far as I understand the licence, it is allowed to share the newly calibrated maps (I think of AVSIM or such). Bit I will ask Geoscience Australia first, as I have no interest in violating other countries' copyrights by accident.

Or did I miss some place where all that's already available and I can save a lot of work? Is anybody interested in getting those maps into a moving map sw for our FS?

Best regards,

Marc

[Ken_NZ]

And where were you when I needed you? 

Thanks for that, wish I'd known a looong time ago though. I had come across that link once before but 1) found the quality of the PREVIEW map low and assumed that's what they were all like. I see how wrong I was now. 2) The whole 'order' process - sounded costly, I now see that it is entirely free. 

What I ended up doing was stiching +150 odd screenshots together, from that map viewer in the top link i provided, to make one big map of tassie. it took ages. result is not too bad but a bit pixelated. however the maps you have directed me to now are higher res, and will make life soooooo much easier 

If you do find out how to get them into FSX, preferably without having to buy additional software, I'd be curious.

Thanks!

Ken

[John Venema]

Is anybody interested in getting those maps into a moving map sw for our FS?

Best regards,

Marc

Marc, I think this is great idea. If you'd like to explore the ways to get the GeoSciences moving maps working, Orbx will be more than happy to release the solution as a freeware addon. Let me know how we can help you with this.

[marc_eddn]

@Ken: Stitching tiles together was what I did for the US (until I found the US Sectionals on AVSIM - just after I had created a Perl script to grab everything automatically). I have done almost all of Canada that way, but the (tiled) maps are much worse than the Australian ones, although already in lat/long projection. But I already know where to get free maps that are better... ;-)

In general, most parts of the world are readily available if you use more professional SW like Global Mapper, which can also re-calculate projection to Lat/Long, which is needed for most moving maps programs. Wrong projection is what makes the positions so fuzzy, and you need many, many calibration points to get it - almost - working. But the only clean way is to use lat/long projection from the start.

@John: I have a (manual) workflow running to create moving maps for FSMMM/FSMAP already, and I will see if it can be made more automatic. It's already been tested with Tasmania and the Newcastle area, and I am starting the process of getting AU Blue covered. Answer of Geoscience Australia is still pending (and I did seem to get the eMail address wrong in the first try), but feel free to just ask them yourself  for written permission to re-distribute the maps in a FS-friendly form. I would be happy to supply the maps for distribution as freeware packs on the FTX homepage.

It would be great to mark all Australian airports currently present in FS(X) on the maps though, because they put every small airfield on the maps, and when flying around the north western Tasmanian coast anti-clockwise yesterday night, I found that only a very small fraction of the airfields visible on the map are in fact present. Anyone know of a list of FSX airports with long/lat coordinates and possibly Name, ICAO code, runways, and the like, or how to generate one?

Also, I have not yet checked the exact boundaries of FTX AU Blue and the number of maps that means - your country is huge, and you can build half Europe out of the AU Blue region, I guess ;-)

So what I will do next is buy a license of Global Mapper (300$US... but fortunately I am in the euro zone, so it's buy 2, get one free with the exchange rates as they are ;-) to make things easier (it is possible to do it without, though), and start downloading all necessary maps for AU Blue in parallel. This will take some time, as I am unfortunately not a FSX professional and have to do some engineering during daytime to make ends meet...

As soon as I get official permission, I will make Tasmania available to all as a first step. The permission should be no problem, as the license really seems to imply that it's allowed. But I am not a lawyer, so I'll wait.

Best regards,

Marc

[John Venema]

Holger can clarify, but the Geoscience Australia data is public domain and has no license restrictions, as we use portions of it ourselves on the FTX regions.

[marc_eddn]

If you already use it anyway, and your understanding of the license is the same as mine (Why this complicated license process then? Bureaucracy seems to be a global phenomenon...) I'll pack up Tasmania later today and make it available. I guess I can upload it to AVSIM after work, as it's basically ready for distribution.

Cheers,

Marc

[BennyHill]

Marc,

Checkout fs10.Airports.dat file; its is about 4Mb and it is in the \Program Files\Microsoft Games\Microsoft Flight Simulator X SDK\SDK\Environment Kit\Traffic Toolbox SDK folder.

This is a sample of Sydney: (open in Notepad)

YSSY,-33.946111053,151.177222431,6.4,B,14,0.70,Australia

{

    RUNWAY,13022,148,HARD

    RUNWAY,8292,148,HARD

    RUNWAY,8011,148,HARD

    PARKING,23.0,GATE - plus the rest of the parking gates. I'm not sure of all of the numbers, although the 6.4 is the altitude in metres and the 0.70 referes to the Traffic Scalar.

Every airport in FSX is listed.

ps. -33.9946111053 is the Latitude and 151.177222431 is the logitude in decimal degrees

[marc_eddn]

Checkout fs10.Airports.dat file; its is about 4Mb and it is in the \Program Files\Microsoft Games\Microsoft Flight Simulator X SDK\SDK\Environment Kit\Traffic Toolbox SDK folder.

Thanks a lot, I hoped for this file's existence very much ;-)

Now all I need is set up some scripting, the Global Mapper license (I'll buy it soon), and a little time, to be able to add this info to the topo maps. I found some more free tools for a first version without such information, so I'll start with the "naked" maps first and then release a "1.1" or so including some infos for FS-enabled airfields.

By the way, the Tasmania map is online at AVSIM, readily calibrated for FSMMM. So if you want to have a look and dare to download 40MB, give it a try. Look for "Tasmania, Australia 250K topo maps for moving map SW" in the "Navigation" section of the AVSIM File Library.

By the way, I am downloading all maps for AU Blue, the part west of Adelaide, to make a first "FTX" freeware map package. It's going to be rather big I presume, so if it's going to be hosted at Orbx, maybe I better send someone a CD-R... I have 1MBit uplink "only". And it already took ages to upload 40MB to AVSIM. The good old mail may be faster than FTP ;-)

Have fun!

Marc

[Holger Sandmann]

Hi guys,

regarding the copyright, not all of Geoscience Australia data are public domain (I wish the 100k data were) but the 250k series is. In fact, when you sign in to download them there's a link to the OSDM licence agreement which states, among other things:

4. Grant of licence: OSDM grants the Licensee a royalty-free, non-exclusive, non-transferable licence to:

  a. use, reproduce, adapt, modify, commercially exploit and communicate the Data (including by development and distribution of a Derivative Product); and

  b. sublicense the Licensee's right to use, reproduce, adapt, modify, commercially exploit and communicate the Data, subject to the terms of this Licence.

Thus, you're good to go as long as you add the copyright information as per section 6:

6. End-user notices: The Licensee must include a notice in the metadata supplied to End-users with the Data or Derivative Product, to make End-users aware that the Data was sourced from the Commonwealth and is used under licence and to disclose the nature of any modification the Licensee has made to the Data. The following copyright statement must be displayed with, attached to or embodied in (in a reasonably prominent manner) any Data or Derivative Product provided to an End-user:

[...]

b. where a Derivative Product is provided, including any digital publication:

This product (insert Derivative Product name) incorporates Data which is © Commonwealth of Australia [insert the year in which the Data was published]. The Data has been used in (insert Derivative Product name) with the permission of the Commonwealth. The Commonwealth has not evaluated the Data as altered and incorporated within (insert Derivative Product name), and therefore gives no warranty regarding its accuracy, completeness, currency or suitability for any particular purpose.

Cheers, Holger

[teecee]

Boy, do I feel stupid..I just caught up with this again..this may help..Teecee.

http://www.4shared.com/account/dir/2362590/ff560d8d/sharing.html?rnd=3

[BennyHill]

Those maps at http://www.4shared.com/account/dir/2362590/ff560d8d/sharing.html?rnd=3 are very good scans. Unfortunately there are only 3 VNC's (Newcastle, Coffs-Maroochydore and Darwin), but plenty of TAC's. You can download them and use FSWidgets Map Creator to import them into FSWidget's payware EFB program. So far I have done the 3 VNC's and the Sydney-Canberra TAC. In the real life you have a chart (usually a VNC) in the cockpit and monitor your track during flight. Now you can have it on screen - and yes your aircraft symbol is centred and the chart moves. The nice thing is you don't need the Internet. I'm downloading the Tasmanian chart, because you use a WAC chart for Tassie, and it covers the whole island. I'll see if it can be used in EFB.