MadMappers

It is with great satisfaction that we announce that MadMappers has become a distributor for the finest, easy-to-use GIS software in the world: Global Mapper.
GlobalMapper virtually combines in one suite what otherwise requires 2-3 other programs  to achieve. It is suited both to the beginner (if you are not sure about map projections, you will learn about it as you experiment) and to the GIS professional (NASA project engineers are the most active on the Global Mapper user forum). Price? let’s say we consider Global Mapper essential part of any MadMappers toolkit and so it is at a promotional price. Read more in the “GIS Tools” section.

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It was an exciting week! Virtually without any publicity, the website recorded more than 7000 hits (from 17 countries on 4 continents) in the first 24 hours. That was sufficient for our ISP, Fujitsu, to take notice of us, deciding to increase bandwidth and give us a chance. As a result, in the next few days we should start making available the first sets for free download. We will start from the South African mapset scale 1:250.000 and follow then with the South African series 1:50.000 by Province. We do have limitation in data storage, so we will rotate provinces weekly. Please remember: the objective is not to have everyone download indiscriminately everything, if you want a set rather purchase data on CD, cost will be a fraction of the connection cost.

We continue to seek sponsorships for the website: the end of the financial year is near, is everyone’s company in a tax loss position? Please spread the word around.

We are adding some pages which should address the many issues for which we received enquiries during the past week. One question we received repeatedly: where are the prices? If there is no price, then although the set is stored in the archive, it is not ready for public distribution yet. Reasons may be diverse: the set might have been priced, or it is not ready for distribution, or the author has not given authorization yet or … the set is not intended for public distribution at all. In the next few weeks the database will be modified to give reasons why some data is not yet available. Please be patient. MadMappers is a non-profit project based on voluntary work, please keep it in mind.

We also intend to start a new section “download of the week”: we will have there super-special stuff, keep your eyes open. In the meantime do not miss the “Gallery” where we are exhibiting interesting images: please contribute, show the world what MadMappers can do.

Finally: we have no experience on e-commerce. If you do please contact us for some advise. Some mapsets cannot be distributed unless we are able to collect some royalty fees.

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Lot of work has still to be done both on the website and on adding of data. Yes, there is more. Possibly what you’ll find now is only slightly over 50% of the MM collection. In addition to aerial photography and satellite imagery there is the whole vector section which still needs to be added! For an overview of the currently available MM collection click here.

There are many MadMappers in the closet out there: if you have created ANY map please contact us. If it is unfinished we will help you finish it. It will be added in the Raster Maps MadMappers section giving you full credit for your work.

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 Most MadMappers are Oziexplorer users. Why? Simply because it is the best value for money GIS software on the market. Ozi, as we call it, can handle both raster digital maps and vectors, it can be connected to your GPS for uploading and downloading data and it is an excellent moving map software. Furthermore updates are free and support magnificient

Madmappers have acquired distribution right for OziExplorer: a way to help MadMappers survival is to purchase the Oziexplorer licence from us (particularly if you have an illegal copy). Price is the same as from the software developer and in addition you get a value packed CD with 70 maps of the South African map series scale 1:250 000 and Gtopo30 Digital Elevation Data which you would spend hours to download on your 56k modem.

We are likely to be criticised for supporting certain software packages rather than others. We support what we use. If another MadMapper does not agree with our choice he is welcome to support on this forum anything he likes. We will listen, judge and hopefully be convinced. But please, do not avoid price comparisons! The Madmappers motto is “GIS data accessible to all”. The word accessible has been chosen for this exact reason: data must be suitable for use in software we can afford.  Sustainable Development cannot be based on cracks and illegal software!

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After a long development period www.madmappers.com goes live!
We are indeed disappointed for not having been able to secure a sponsored data server.
Many prospective sponsors have panicked as soon as they realized that the amount of download data would run in the order of hundreds of Gibabytes.
Hopefully by going live we will be able to spread our plea for one or more sponsored server.
We are particularly disappointed because we have been granted web distribution rights for South African data: we had planned to release for free download the topographic series scale 1:250k (70 maps) and 1:50k (over 2000 maps).
This would have been a first for the African continent and put MadMappers on the global map, next to the U.S. Geological Survey.
Our motto is “African GIS accessible to all”: isn’t out there anyone who shares this vision and does not wish to receive global exposure by associating its name with this ambitious project?Until further notice www.madmappers.com will supply data on media only (i.e. CD or DVD) and only in exceptional circumstances by controlled download.We would like to extend a particulat thanks to Louis Cretier (Turin, Italy; mail: clovis@libero.it): he has dedicated many months of volunteer work in developing the Meltemi map search and management system which, in our humble opinion, is superb both for provider and user. For this project Louis had to develop from scratch many innovative ways to do “web things” so that web users (i.e. ourselves) could become “web providers” without knowing how.
Without Louis the MadMappers project would have never been.

Lot of work has still to be done both on the website and on loading of data.  For an overview of the currently available MM collection click here. As we write we have 12651 maps in archive!

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