Mystery map. Where is this from?
 

I've been searching for a very detailed map of Mauritania. Even in my travels and visits to government offices in Mauritania I have not found a map like this on. Someone uploaded this on a website. I suspect that this is some sort of French military map. If anyone could point me to the source of this map, I'd appreciate it. I'd like to get a copy of it.

http://www.mi4x4.com/ficheros/mapas/mauritania/

Thanks,
A

Too big for me to download at the moment, but these look like the ubiquitous Russian maps.

As for finding a copy – you already have!

Otherwise ebay or Touratech etc. if you want an 'official' CD. I suspect the original cartographers don't receive a royalty on these expensive CD's, so I'd have no scruples about downloading the thing.

These are French IGN 200,000s - a very nice series from the 1960s and 70s and as good as it gets for the former French Saharan territories (ie, not Libya, etc).

No longer easily available off the shelf as colour paper originals, you can buy them printed off in unsatisfactory black and white from IGN in Paris. However most people would sooner settle for the free digital copies of the colour originals that you have found and print off sections if necessary. Available as a bootleg CD and what you get would add up to a few hundred pounds in paper.

>>>...I suspect the original cartographers don't receive a royalty on these expensive CDs

Actually it was a whole lot of tedious scanning and spot translations done after obtaining a license by the guy at QuoVadis (since bought out and improved by TTech). This explains the price - plus the knowledge that they will eventually be copied anyway. The original cartographers would simply have employees of the former Soviet state.
Soviet era maps at 1:1m are used as faint background maps in Mauritanie au GPS (see: http://www.sahara-overland.com/books/bx-guide.htm)

In the Sahara the more readable IGNs in various scales are unlicensed bootleg copies but IGN does not seem to lose much sleep over it as long as they are not used in print media.

Chris S

More in Sahara maps here:
http://www.sahara-overland.com/maps

My mistake! Finally managed to download some of these – and yep they're the IGN's, a good resource.

The price gripe on the TTQV Russian maps comes partly from the fact that they can only be accessed with the TTQV PC software - all in all an expensive and often unecessary package, especially if you just want to print the maps or use them in another navigation package. Worse still if you use a Mac.

Seems a little much to restrict access to a nation's maps in order to flog £120 + PC software. Effectively, to legally print even a single sheet from the Russian Mauri maps means a total payment of £160+ to TTQV.

Not ultimately a good business plan if they want to discourage bootlegging!

more on the maps
 

Hi,

I visited the National Institute of Geography yesterday in Mali. They were selling the same map for 5000CFA (8Euro) a sheet. :) To this day they still use French colonial area maps. It's mindblowing to me. However they had no electricity in the building yesterday so I couldn't get it printed.

Does anyone have any idea where I could find the Mali sections of the same maps online?


Andrew

www.Daerr.at sell all of the maps (geo ref'd) on CD. Each country costs around £60-70. These can work on TTQV or Fugawi software. The Fugawi world mapping software cost around £100. I run it all on a laptop linked to a garmin etrex (£90 ish new). Used in the Tunisian desert and it got me out of trouble a couple of times.
Take a look on my website for a couple of screen shots.

Russian Maps with Oziexplorer
 

Hi,

I run the Russian maps with OziExplorer. Workes wonderfully !

Regards,

Noel

www.exploreafrica.web-log.nl

Noel, do you mean you've made a Touratech/TTQV/Darr map CD work with Oziexplorer?

If so I'd love to know, I have three Touratech/DArr map CD's full of specially locked .PNG files which can only opened using TTQV software (another £100+ to read maps I already paid for grrr). There is demo software on the CD but it won't let me save or print the files in a different format to use elsewhere.

If you know a way to crack them, or if Ozie can somehow open them directly - please tell, I've tried every piece of graphics software under the sun and those files are locked.

Richard,

I've been told that the old TTQV version - 2.50.8 - 2.50.26, unlike later versions, can apparently export the whole map as a BMP and the calibration file *.cal separately, which can be then converted by OziMapConverter to *.map. The Old TTQV may be included on the maps disk. I've not done this but maybe it's worth trying.

Which TTQV maps are you going to convert?

TTQV, Fugawi, OzieExplorer
 

RichardK:
A while ago, I managed to take a look at (into) a copy of a fugawi CD with it's dedicated and calibrated maps. On these Cd's the maps are named *****.fx3, these *.fx3 files are nothing more than renamed *.PNG files, when you don't have the Fugawi program installed on your computer and you try to open them nothing will happen. You can change these extensions by hand, replace *.fx3 by *.PNG and you can open these files in your favourite photo or navigation program.
When you do not see any extension, you have to change a setting on your computer; view > folder options > view > uncheck -hide file extensions for known file types-.
The maps on these Fugawi-cd's (Mauritania) are infact the same ING maps scanned by Daerr as found on the internet, only some of the names are changed a little (same names the ING gave them).
I never had a change to look at (into) the TTQV maps/cd's but I pressume these are also renamed with a 'special' extension only readable by TTQV (*.PCX5 ?).
I suggest to take a look into these cd's with windows-explorer, browse the folders found, copy one or two huge files (between 5 and 12Mb) and try some different extensions *.jpg, *.png, *.bmp and see what happens.
The only minor drawback is you propably have to calibrate the maps yourself
(*.cal, into *.map).
Succes, keep us posted.

regards

Hi,

Sophie-Bart, thanks for the suggestions. Renaming/copying the files unfortunately has no effect. I work with graphics and use software to deal with obscure file formats - none of it is any use. The map files have the extension .PNY which seems to be a Touratech-specific version of .PNG. Use looks to be restricted to TTQV software, which is something Touratech fail to point out on their website. Bad Touratech.

Roman, there is a demo version of TTQV2.5 on the discs but the option to print the files either physically or digitally as a bitmap is disabled. I'm also hampered by the fact that I don't own a Win PC and am surrounded by MAC users!

I have these CD's:

Marokko 1:250,000 (Maroc map)
Mali 1:200,000 IGN (copy, shared purchase)
Mauritania 1:200,000 IGN

Packed away somewhere, I think I also have the 500k full continent Russian CD, But I'm more interested in the 200k maps, particularly Mali (– these are the IGN's not Russian as I previously thought).

If anyone has 'open' versions of the Mali maps or a copy of TTQV I can borrow to export the maps as image files to print or self-calibrate for MacGPS or Oziexplorer CE – I'd be happy to swap for the 3 CD's.

I'm afraid your stuck
 

Sorry,
I was just suppossing..., I'm afraid I was wrong (and gave some false hopes) or ... (did you ever tried it on a windows PC)

Tried googling and just come up with same answers Roman suggested (in a french-forum) and a post from you Richard on this Hubb, dating a year ago.

regards

Yep, returning to an old problem, I'll probably give up in a day or two and end up trying again next year!

Hi Pete, the system won't let me email you, but I've sent a PM
cheers, Richard

russian maps in OziExplore!
 

Hi Richard,

I am surely no computer crack but i just had to copy the maps from the CD in the "MAPS-folder" of OzEx and it worked!? I certainly do not have an official set of TTQV CD's so maybe I have an older unlocked version. I have no idea why it works with me. If you give me your e-mail address I will send some maps from my MAPS folder for you to test.

Regards,

Noel Di Pietro
www.exploreafrica.web-log.nl