Welcome

This web-site is all about ...

... maps created from freely available geographical data, compiled for portable GPS receivers (especially those produced by Garmin) and focused on recreation (especially topographic maps).

Most of the data is derived from satellite missions.

As all the data and the software that I am using has been made freely available by their respective creators (see acknowledgements), the compiled data available here is also free (of charge, but without any warranties) for anyone to use and download.

I also intend to be open about the methods I used to compile them so that other like-minded people may help to compile similar maps.

If you find these maps useful please help to contribute towards the development of community supported maps like www.malfreemaps.com and consider supporting a charity like www.worldvision.com.my which has a special child-sponsorship scheme.

ASTER GDEM UK and Ireland v1.00

Coverage: UK and Ireland; and a bit of France

ASTER GDEM Thailand v1.00

Made a discovery which enabled me to automate the map compilation process hence I managed to produce this map quite painlessly

Coverage: The whole of Thailand; most of Laos and Cambodia; portions of China, Myanmar, Vietnam, Malaysia and Indonesia. Includes these cities: Rangoon, Phnom Penh, Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh city and Vientiane, and Bangkok, of course. Approx: N4 E96 to N21 E108.

Thailand is coming very soon

Managed to figure out a way of making the map as a batch. So I managed to compile all 161 tiles of the up and coming Thailand map with very little user intervention but a lot of computing time - seven days just to vectorise the data, for example. This Thailand map also includes substantial bits of the surrounding the countries - for example it includes these cities: Rangoon, Phnom Penh, Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh city and Vientiane.

It's huge - 1Gb.

SRTM South East Asia v4

Have been inspired by Malfreemaps' recent push into covering ASEAN countries. Hope this map will support it.

In order to expand coverage to an entire region, I have had to compromise on detail. Contour lines are only at 50m intervals. I choose not to use the ASTER GDEM as detail is not so crucial and furthermore, there are some distorted patches in the ASTER GDEM.

Coverage: Most of South East Asia (A rectangular block from S15 to N25, E91 to E145). This fairly large block includes parts of India and Bangladesh at the Northwest corner, Guam, Taiwan and Hainan Islands at the Northeast, and Northern Australia (including Darwin). Major omissions include the Northern mountains of Myanmar and Eastern Papua New Guinea.

ASTER GDEM Malaysia v1.00

Malaysia, Singapore, Brunei and portions of Kalimantan and Sumatra

This is my first attempt at compiling the ASTER GDEM. It has been superseded by v1.01 which has finer detail but does not include the blocks covering Kalimantan and Sumatra.

Coverage: The map covers a rectangular (N0 to N8, E99 to E121) including the whole of Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei but also including portions of Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines.

Contours: 10m 100m 500m

Size: 472Mb

Compiling the ASTER GDEM, what I've learnt

Here is what I've learnt during the three steps required to compile the ASTER GDEM into a topographic map viewable on a Garmin GPSr.

ASTER GDEM Malaysia v1.01

Have corrected my recent compilation of the ASTER-GDEM and it is now ready for download. I believe this is the most detailed freely available topographic map of Malaysia available. It is best used combined with other (road) maps as there is not other details apart from the contour lines.

Coverage: The whole of Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei

Topographic Maps

According to the Canadian Centre for Topographic Information, a topographic map is a detailed and accurate graphic representation of cultural and natural features on the ground. In this web-site, I am using a narrower sense of the phrase to simply mean a map with contour lines to depict elevation.

ASTER GDEM v1 to be reworked

I've realised that I used a less than ideal setting for the Level0 setting. I should have used 24 but I used 22. I believe this value relates to the number of bits allocated to addressing points on Level 0 - the level in which the detailed 10m contours reside. 24 bits corresponds to a resolution of 2.4m vs 9.6m for 22 bits. Perhaps this explains why there was a considerable loss in the resolution of the contours after converting it with cgpsmapper.

Will re-compile and upload an updated map soon. Am expecting it to be bigger but with more detail preserved.

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