One of our recent customers to purchase our South American Topographic Maps Series 2 which covers almost all of Brazil (as well as most of Peru and parts of Bolivia) had a few questions for us after downloading the 124 maps from the OverlandResource.com client download center (you can do the same by purchasing the maps here). The following is a transcript of the emails (edited for clarity):
Hello. I have just purchased the South America Topographic Series 2 and I am having a few problems. I started to download what appears to be part 1 of 3. I had to stop part way through and when I tried to continue it went straight to part 2. I have now successfully downloaded part 2. Do I need to download part 1 and 3 as well or are they the same as I've already got? My second problem is that I don't have any index to the maps or any software with them. I've also tried opening the .MAP files but my computer doesn't recognize them. Please can you help with this?
What the Maps Cover and How to Use Them
The customer purchased Series 2 of the South America map series so there was no need to download the other Series 1 and 3.
- Series 1 covers latitudes 12 North to 4 South
- Series 2 covers latitudes 4 South to 22 South, (this is the one he purchased)
- Series 3 covers latitudes 22 South to 56 South.
To index the maps you need to have software such as OziExplorer (http://www.oziexplorer.com) or Fugawi (http://www.fugawi.com). But really, as I've noted in previous posts, download and get to know OziExplorer. The .map files are created by and for OziExplorer. They are really just text files that contain all of the information to place the images of the topo maps in the correct coordinate space.
This software will read the .map files and georeference them, index them, and make it easy to navigate, view, and zoom between the maps. It will also add GPS capability to them (only useful when you're actually in South America.)
Back to the Title: Who Needs Topo Maps of Brazil?
I received a final email, and here is what he said:
Thank you very much for the very quick response. I've been living in Brazil for the past 3 years, visiting here for 6 years altogether, and it's almost impossible to get a decent map. I'm trying to run a paragliding guiding business so I'm hoping these will be very useful.
According to Steve, it is hard to find good detailed maps of Brazil. Hopefully the packages we sell are use to him. I took a look at his paragliding website, and wow does it ever look like fun! So on a side note, if you're going to Brazil, check out his site and look him up.
Steve can be found running his paragliding business XCBrazil.com in Bairro de Lourdes, Brazil.
