Hi, I'm copying a message from Derek Tribble that he posted to various succulent forums. I've tried them, and they work like a charm. I used a different viewer, however, called ExpressView that works as a plugin for IE or Firefox. It may be found at: http://lizardtech.com/download/dl_options.php/… Much easier than driving around the back roads of Cape Town to find the map office, and the digital versions take up a lot less room. As an aside, Google Earth seems to be getting better and better with regards to navigating South Africa. For most of the country, the satellite photos went to hi-res about a year ago (meaning you can see individual cars on the roads). Recently a group called Tracks4Africa has added extensive road (and off road) information, right down to notes about locked gates and whatnot. --Roy Still in mourning for dozens of choice corydalis that were eaten by deer. And tulips. And crocus. Sigh. _________________________________ Date: Sat, 21 Apr 2007 12:39:35 +0000 From: "derek tribble" <derek_tribble@hotmail.com> To: cacti_etc@opus.scs.agilent.com Subject: Digital Maps of South Africa Message-ID: <BAY112-F3330C2808E00B5F8F470498B550@phx.gbl> Hi Folks, I thought you might like to know that digital maps for South Africa are available for free via the Internet (thanks to the SA government's generous policy of easy access to spatial data). It is great fun to pan along known routes and re-live old memories! My thanks to Prof. Andy Young, who found that individual maps can be downloaded from: http://www.madmappers.com/ Visit Raster Maps in the top left and drill down to find free downloads for South Africa. [Other countries and other map types are not free, as far as I have explored]. However, the maps are in Mr Sid file format, so special software is needed to view them. You will need software that understands the associated metadata files, so that map images can be correctly "tiled" next to each other, or other layers added over the top. The most commonly used free viewer is ArcExplorer, but I use the free GIS (Geographic Info System) software, DIVA-GIS ( http://www.diva-gis.org/ ) (for Windows only). This powerful program can also plot species distribution maps and analyse them against downloaded datasets (biomes,climate, geology, topography, etc.). However, it does have a quirky user interface and is intended for use by professional scientists - it comes without online help, just a .pdf manual! The 1:250,000 maps (need 590Mb of free hard disk space) from the SA Chief Directorate of Survey and Mapping will probably give enough detail for most people. However, enthusiasts will be pleased to get access to the very detailed 1:50,000 maps (2.5Gb for about half of the maps), but they take a lot of downloading! If you are already using digital maps, perhaps then you can help me! Are any detailed digital maps available for Namibia? Anybody got SA geological overlays? Vegetation overlays are freely available from SANBI's BGIS web site: http://cpu.uwc.ac.za/ . I am happy to help with any queries about using DIVA or these fascinating digital maps. Best wishes, Derek Tribble, London, UK