We’ve started our expansion into mapping New South Wales, as part of the broader project to map the whole country.
It was always the plan to one day map the whole of Australia, but each state has its own challenges around accessing suitable data, matching formats, licensing, private land designation, data quality etc. NSW has some weird stuff around exclusive use licenses covering some state forests, so we’ll need to sort that out.
As with Vic, we’ll be using a multi-layered combined data approach, to try to make up for the gaps in each dataset. If one source says the road goes left and another says it goes right, I’d rather just give you both than try to guess which is true. How much variation there is … had to know until we get into it.
Version 10 is now on The Map Table for download. Altogether it’s about 71GB representing 1360-something maps in 8132 files with 3 image formats, if you need the whole lot … which you probably don’t.
25k, 50k and 100k series have been updated, as well as the whole of the state at 100k, and each half (East and West) as massive 50k maps, in OZF format. All the standard maps have been sent to Avenza for processing, and should then replace existing maps for those who have older versions already.
The shading has been changed up quite a bit to make deep-layered areas clearer, and make the distinction between tree-cover on private land and tree-covered public land much clearer. Historical location shading has been altered. Walking track representation has been changed, and will be changed again in future to take into account the common case of a track being designated for both vehicles and walking (and often seasonally closed on top of that). The burn history layer was removed because the data density still makes it too unwieldy. We might release it as a separate layer for those who want it.
25k series sample
Bush Huts
Huts and ruins have been updated in the new maps, and are even more up-to-date again in the downloadable POI files available separately (at The Map Table) so you can put them in your GPS or App of choice. This is definitely the most up-to-date and complete dataset of bush Huts of Victoria available anywhere on the web, and incorporates all other public datasets, with information then manually corrected and curated using trip notes, satellite images and field surveys. If we missed any – let us know!
