Mapping and travel just naturally go together however in recent years the proliferation of mapping software and digital maps has really taken off. Mapping can take place via a dash mounted or handheld GPS in your vehicle or on your computer. There are dozens of popular software packages for mapping on your computer, most of them PC related however a decent Mac OSX product does exist in the form of Mac GPS Pro. 

The advantages of using mapping software can't be understated if you plan on doing any kind of back country travel in particular. We have logged many kilometers on British Columbia logging, mining and forest service roads and using a laptop with mapping software while attached to a GPS. The mapping software allows you to see exactly where you are at all times which is invaluable considering the maze of backroads that exist in our province. We have created a series of Backroad Guide Books using the mapping software and digital topographic map images. 

When waypoint, track and route data is captured on your GPS you can easily transfer this to your mapping software and overlay this onto the digital topo maps to see where you have traveled. When scouting an area to travel you can create the waypoints, track and route information directly in your mapping software, transfer this to your GPS and once in the area you want to travel your GPS will guide you in the exact way in which you planned your trip on your computer! We have used this to find old hiking trails, logging roads or small lakes that would never have been found unless we had the mapping software and that data uploaded to our GPS.

Mapping software waypoints, tracks and routes can be transferred to Google Earth for viewing in 3D. This would require the Google Earth Plus package instead of the free version. If you have a desire to show your digital maps in 3D without going through Google Earth you can have your mapping software assist with visualizing terrain by including Digital Elevation Model (DEM) data. Georeferenced DEMs together with your topo maps are exactly what you would experience with Google Earth. In fact DEM files are used with GE to represent the height of the land.  DEM files were created from the NASA Shuttle side scanning radar missions which measured the height of the earth below it. This information was made available to the GPS community and is now available on our website here.

We sell the QV Navigator line of PC software in our mapping software producsts section but others do exist such as OziExplorer and Fugawi. As with all of them, they do not come with base maps and are required to view where it is you want to go. Digtal topographic maps for all of Canada are available on our website.