We are excited to announce a new, premium Map Source in partnership with AccuTerra.
Accuterra is already well known on the iPhone and is the same data offered on Magellan GPS
Compared to other free sources for the continental United States, these maps offer better contrast, better shaded terrain, and more up to date roads and trails.
PLEASE NOTE: Some users reported missing overlay tiles in East Tennessee and surrounding areas. You can now get around this by activating the AccuTerra Data Scale Setting in 4.5.3.
This is a multilayer map source, the first one of its kind in BackCountry Navigator. The three layers are:
- Land: topographic contour lines, water features, and colored according to type of land.
- Terrain: 3D like shading based on slope.
- Data: Roads, trails, boundaries, and other linear features drawn on top of the terrain.
No need to worry about what you get with this map source. With your tablet or desktop computer, you can preview these at
PLEASE NOTE: the app can zoom farther in than you will see on the web based DEMO. This is a limitation of ERSI web map technology that does not exist in BCN.
This setting is for those who experienced X's instead of trails in East Tennesee, etc.
This is the legend for land and water features:
This is the legend for data:
Comments
60 comments
Am I missing something about the POI"s? All have the same icon and no labels. They just show where a POI is. Nothing about it. Is there something to do to get more information and different icons on the maps? Thanks
Thanks Nathan. I will try USA Topo Maps. I was able to set Storage Root to my external SD, don't know why I couldn't find it before. How will BCN handle the maps on already on the default location? Also, I assume I can zoom out quite a bit for the Accuterra maps (for $20) so that should make downloading easier. Now, I have a 64 GB external SD, is that capable of holding a whole state, if not more? I move around a lot within the state and it would be helpful to have it all (New York state).
It might fit. I do expect it will be somewhere from 20 Gigabytes, depending on card cluster size. You can zoom out far on the AccuTerra maps, and level 7 or so is a good place to see state boundaries
That size of a download will take some time. Make it an overnight on wifi.
Thanks Nathan. I downloaded the USA Topos and they work great!. BCN is working great!!! I will give the Accuterra maps a try in the future. Is there a way to buy just 1 state?
Nathan, thanks for continuing to find new sources for maps. I tried the AccuTerra, and I think the aggressive shading will be nice for my next destination (slot canyons of Zion/Escalante). I also like how it shows land management agency boundaries (BLM, USFS, etc.). On the down side, there is a lot of information shown on USGS topos that doesn't appear on the AccuTerra maps. I find I really miss things like place names and all the detailed notations. My impression is that AccuTerra might be a good choice for a phone with a small screen where those details would be hard to see anyhow. I want it all, but at least we have choices. Great to see my favorite app continue to improve.
I'm using Backcountry with the AccuTerra map on a Samsung Galaxy 10.1 Tablet and I've noticed the POI's identified (ie. waterfalls, trailheads, etc.) on the website http://mobiletopomaps.com/ appear to be not available on the tablet app. Is there a way to turn on these POI labels for the app? Searching with the app did find a waterfall in Vermont called 'Lana Falls" even though a POI label was not visible for it.
Thanks
the POIs are an add-on and have to be purchased seperately.
Thanks Gerry. I missed that the first go around. All set now
I decided to get the POI add on and it works fine, but is there a way to turn some of them off? I don't care about RV parks nd in some placesit can be hard to read when there severalnvery close together.
I just tried to purchase accuterr map source and I received back the messages"Download of accuTerra map source unlimited failed" "down load of accuterra points of interest failed"Im using a droid razer maxx with android 4.0 your program loaded fine.
There is not a way to turn off some of them at this time.
Bruce, don't give up. There doesn't appear to be a server problem. Try the button marked "restore purchases" to try again. It is better if you file a ticket if you need more help.
I've got a LG G2x and I just purchased BC Nav and AccuTerra maps, but all I see is X's...I live in Oregon
Wow, this thread is getting long.
Scott, sorry for the trouble. I just got word from AccuTerra that they restarted the server and everything works again.
Awesome. Thanks for the quick response and yup, it's working!
Accura Terra Terrain map downloads always hang up and stop for me at various percentages... even as far as 99%. Using storage card setting, and selecting small areas of my state. Downloading lots of data by unsuccessful retries. Tried using both wifi & via a solid 4G connection.
MapQuest Open Aerial was successful though. It downloaded 2959 tiles.
Samsung GS3.
Paul,
1. You should switch to USA Top Maps. MyTopo, as stated, doesn't work, so it is falling back to that anyway. You can zoom out farther and therefore download.
2. If you can find the path to your external storage card (not as easy as you may think), you can select it in Storage Root in settings. If that fails, the device manufacturer may have made an idiotic decision that only certain apps can access that card, and you should take your device back to the store.
3. You should not attempt to download whole states at full resolution. That's not a problem with the software - the maps are just too big to fit. You can download an entire national forest, though.
My version is 4.6.5.
I think that I have resolved my problem. I finally realized that the POI's are way points and can be configured
Just purchased accuterra; however, all I get is the X. What am I doing wrong?
I;'ve notified AccuTerra and they are working on some server side problems. They've generally gotten things like this fixed within a few hours.
Thanks Nathan. Working now.
When will AccuTerra be available for my Kindle Fire? I can not purchase it through my Backcountry Pro program.
Is AccuTerra having problems again? I'm getting large areas of "X" in Montana south of Billings.
I've recently installed the Accuterra maps, hoping to enjoy "offline" mapping on my Android phone. To test it on a recent bike ride, I highlighted the area I would ride (25 square miles), downloaded it....which took FOREVER. That should have clued me in on something, but I didn't look past it at the time. The mapping works great, love the program, but there's a huge cost to this feature. The SD card was filled with almost 25,000 tile files now.
Every time the card is USB mounted, or the phone boots, it "checks" the SD card for errors that normally takes a second or two....and it's taking 5-10 minutes to check the card. Why? 25,000 tiny little files. Remove that directory, and pow the card works great again. This is just one small area of what I'd like to have on the card, but there's no way that's gonna happen with this kind of functionality.
I don't know much about programming, but I know that other mapping programs for GPS work like gaming systems in that they self-contain their files in .cab files...and when you download a map section it's by quadrant not a scalable selection tool that grabs thousands of individual tiles. Is there something I'm missing, or is this just how the program works?
There is someone working on the packageable maps. We have trialed several formats that have not worked out.
Nonetheless, that does sound excessive for the area you downloaded.
The media scanner *should* be leaving our folders alone.
Compact maps can be created on the desktop, but Accutterra is not one it can use at this time.
http://support.crittermap.com/entries/20095422-importing-maps-of-various-formats
Once you purchase the Accuterra Map source, can you load/view the maps on multiple devises like you can with Back Country?
I was a little disappointed after I purchased Accuterra to find out that it doesn't show old logging roads and old railroad grades like the USGS topo maps. Attached are 2 maps of the same area. One Accuterra and the other USGS. Notice the missing logging road on the Accuterra Map.
Accuterra.JPG
USGS.JPG
Also notice Accuterra is missing the old railroad grade in the maps I posted above.
John, you can use them on multiple devices that have the Google Play Store.
Craig, please try the new map packages for better results:
Using Map Packages
Joe K, it has been reported that Accuterra doesn't have all the old logging roads and railroads. Not everyone wants Accuterra, we have information and a preview so you can determine what is right for you. We hope to show some combined views to have the best of both worlds.
This thread is too long, so I will have to prune it back. Do contact me through a ticket if you have more questions.
Article is closed for comments.