Posted by Maurizio on 02 Oct 2006 | Tagged as: Maps
We thank everyone for the understanding and numerous offers of assistance.
Posted by Maurizio on 27 Sep 2006 | Tagged as: Maps
Once more the server hosting South African 50k and 250k maps is down.We do not know the nature of the problem, last month all SA data was deleted, what about this time?
We do not know what to hope for. One fact is certain: we cannot afford to upload every month >10Gb of maps, not with a 3Gb cap.Fortunately website proper and 500k Russian maps are on a different server which is not affected.
Watch this space for updates on the server status.
Comments Off
Posted by Maurizio on 24 Aug 2006 | Tagged as: Maps
Thanks to Mike of Global Mapper (www.globalmapper.com) the South African raster maps (250k and 50k) are back on-line for free download.
We never stop to be surprised by Mike: not only he has developed a brilliant piece of GIS software but his efficency and response time in crisis is unmatched by any standard. While some of us are busy thinking of ways to solve a problem, Mike has already found and implemented the solution.
Please report any problem in file download. Particularly “file not found” messages. Some file names will need to be corrected so that they are compatible across both Windows and Linux platforms.
Finally: some users have been quite distressed by the non-availability of free downloads. We remind everyone that this is a free service, financed by no-one but ourselves. It would be nice to hear a “thank you” from time to time. Impolite e-mails are definitely out of place and do not deserve any reply.
Comments Off
Posted by Maurizio on 22 Aug 2006 | Tagged as: Maps
For the last few weeks the server hosting the SA maps has been the target of a hacker. Unfortunately yesterday he/she eventually managed to get in and actually deleted everything that was hosted on that server.Our compliments to him/her for proving to everyone how stupid he/she actually is. Most of us learn during our childhood that to break is very easy, that the challenge is in building not in breaking. I guess some parents have not been succesful in putting this point across and as a parent I feel sorry for them, my 6 year old son has understood this … is the hacker maybe younger than 6?
From a practical point of view it might take some considerable time to re-upload the 9Gb of SA data.
On the bright side: the deletion only affects the sgSA250k and sgSA50k mapset, the MadMapper website and other data (e.g. Russian 500k maps) are not affected by the “deletion” since they are hosted on a different server.
We will do our best to reload data as quickly as we can.
Comments Off
Posted by Maurizio on 04 Aug 2006 | Tagged as: Maps
Soviet military maps were regularly updated until the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s and remain still among the best available maps for Africa. The Military Topographic Directorate (V.T.U.) was probably the most comprehensive mapping organization in the world. It is estimated that 35,000 to 40,000 cartographers worked for the Russian mapping program in 1996 - a time when the program was hardly at its zenith. The program extended to a number of African countries including Angola, Mozambique, Somalia and Libya.
In the quest for “African GIS data accessible to all” MadMappers have released for free download the topographic 1:500 000 scale map collection covering the whole African continent. The 515 maps have been re-projected to geographic (lat/lon) WGS84 and collar clipped so that a continental mosaic could be compiled. Files are geo-referenced and in the compact ER Mapper ecw format characterized by wavelet compression and indexed zoom levels which result in fast loading and low random memory requirements.
We have divided the maps according to the hemisphere:
Northern Africa: 334 maps
Southern Africa: 181 maps
Also available: a Cyrillic alphabet chart, a list of Russian map terms, a Map legend and a DVD set.
Comments Off
 |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |
 |  | ||||||
| By N2H | |||||||