WA maps
One of the few things I didn't expect to be different when planning walks in WA was maps.
I'm used to the Land Information New Zealand topographic maps. They're clear, readable 1:50000 and 1:25000 scale maps. They clearly differentiate between alpine tops, forest, and clear land. They mark watercourses clearly and with a reasonable indication as to their size. They mark significant areas like slips, cliff edges, and private property boundaries, but aren't overloaded with unimportant detail.
After an expedition to the map shop here in Perth, I found out that there's apparently just no such thing available for WA. There are some 20-year-old 1:25000 scale maps of some areas that're quite readable and nice (if very out out of date), but they're print-on-demand from iffy quality scans for $35 each. Ow.
The only other maps available are 2007 CALM firefighting maps at 1:50000 scale, which are usable and informative but very cluttered. They're not easy reading even if you're pretty used to reading topographic maps, since they're designed to convey a huge amount of information, much of which you just don't care about when bushwalking. Sigh.
For those folks interested in the bushwalking plans: I've picked up a couple of the CALM maps for the Bells Rapids area and will have to grab a few others for some of the wider Perth area parklands later. At least they're well printed and very reasonably priced, though they take some decyphering. I've also grabbed an obscenely expensive CD full of ok-quality raster scans of the older 1:25000 scale maps for the full wider Perth and southwest strip, since the original maps are nigh-unobtainable now and the overpriced print-on-demand ones are from the same scans as on the CD. Sigh. At least the CD maps are in ECW and OZF formats for compatibility with common GPS tools ... though the omission of TIFF or PDF is disappointing, and will require some conversion work.
Now I need to see how long it'll take me to write a program for my Nokia N95 (phone+GPS) to convert latitude and longitude from the built-in GPS into CALM firefighting map references. It'd be nice for quick'n'easy confirmation, as compass nav can be "interesting" in really open flat landmark-free terrain and a re-check is nice anyway. Not that there are any plans for much off-track stuff in the near future, but I like to be prepared anyway.
Should try to write a program to view the maps with simple zoom and position-following on the phone screen, too, if there isn't one out there already. Anybody know of one?
NTS: It looks like ECW is a compression as well as container format. See this reference.. See also GISUser.com. ECW appears to be mostly used with ER Viewer. There is a Java ECW SDK so J2ME might be the way to go on the viewer.
If anyone knows of a source for reasonably current 1:50000 and/or 1:25000 scale maps of the Perth hills and the southwest, in decent quality A1 or A2 print form or in high quality electronic form (preferably vector PDF + various GPS mapper formats) I'd be delighted to hear about it. I'm not holding my breath, though.