The 2018 version of
EOTopo Raster Maps were released today for sale (via the ExplorOz online
shop).The 2018 release contains 2 options, either the Standard or Premium mapsets.
The Standard map set contains a collection of map files for the whole of Australia and separate State files in a range of map scales. The most detailed scale in the Standard product is 200K (which is the same scale as previous releases of
EOTopo).
The Premium map set contains all the same map files and formats as the Standard map set but with the added inclusion of maps in the 144K scale.
Both products contains duplicate maps, one set in ECW format, and another set in OZF format.
NOTE
The OZF 144K map set in
EOTopo Premium does not include a single Australia file due to technical limitations with file size. However you just use the 6 State 144K files or the ECW 144K Australia file. Whilst OZF is optimised for use in OziExplorer, the ECW file is also compatible.
What's Changed?
- Release 2018 is a major update which brings street level details into the road network using the latest OpenStreetMap dataset. This however is not a straight data conversion process, the OSM data is seriously lacking regional and outback data and has many metadata issues. A major part of the 2018 release and bringing these data sources together involved a massive task of data conflation (a process to evaluate each data element and a keep/reject or update function was applied to the topo databases). This conflation then allowed the production of a map that contains the best bits from each of the databases. This process also involved addressing metadata issues and dealing with high scale data in a mid scale product. The 2018 product in vector and online formats is being rendered to down to a 1:18K scale with good accuracy with the possibility of getting close to 1:1.1K in our vector based products which we intend to release later in the year.
- In the 2018 release new
places extracts from Dec 2017 were used and a large number of datasources were updated including, ABS Mesh Boundaries, Native Title, Water Bodies, Oceans & Seas, coupled with OSM datasources.
- State, Regions and Suburb data has been obtained from the Australia Bureau of Statistics using a mix of November and December 2017 data.
- Native Title boundarys has been obtained from the Australian Government and in this release is using December 2017 data.