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IGN France offline map management?

Martin M shared this question 3 years ago
Answered

Hi all,

I have a subscription for the IGN France topo maps. Overall I find the handling a bit suboptimal.

  • How do I get to my subscription so I can download a map? There's no way via the map menu it seems, only like 20 menu items deep in the account purchase history... is there a faster way?
  • Is there an easy way to see which areas were downloaded already (except for selecting that zoom level and scrolling around to find the borders - which takes a long time on zoom level 15)
  • How is "extend SQL map" in the downloader supposed to work? I tried this a few times and it seems that downloading a new area (like zoom levels 5-15) in addition to an existing one does not really work. Are there combinations of areas/zoom level (like overlapping or not) that are known to work/don't work?
  • Can I download let's say the complete country up to level 11 and select areas up to 15?
  • The zoom level display that is shown in the dashboard seems to be different from the levels you can select when downloading. For example, level 15 corresponds to 16 (or 14, not sure) in the dashboard display.

Thanks!

Replies (6)

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Dear Martin,

thank you for your post. To your questions:

  • you can download IGN map like any other online map: Menu > Maps > tab online > IGN France > options for Topo > download
  • you're right such feature is really missing. The only workaround is mentioned option " Supplementary download (SQL)"
  • Supplementary download (SQL) - downloads only map tiles that are missing in the selected map (downloaded sometime earlier). You can test it: Download any area as a new map. After that start downloading again and select an area that overlaps the previous one. Choose option "Supplementary download " and select map downloaded earlier. Tap on the "Refresh" button (see the screenshot below) that summarize how many tiles are already downloaded and how many tiles it's needed to download.
  • /37559668b66cffaf0fe8342279080de1
  • There is an advanced option download map by country (on the first screen of download dialog). But I would simply suggest selecting the area that approximately covers the Country. BTW: please consider if you really need to download the whole country. It'll be time and memory consuming process.
  • I'm sorry but the zoom levels are the same in top panel and in the downloaded or online map. Please check it and feel free to post a screenshot if there is any difference.

Regards

Petr

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Peter,

thanks for the detailed response. I quite understand your explanation on "supplementary download (SQL)".

For example, I first download area A with levels 7-13.

Then, can I do a supplementary download of area B which is completely outside A with level 15?

From your explanation I'd say no. However, if I tap "refresh", it shows the full tile count and if I download the tiles, it takes some time and increases the "downloaded tiles" counter, which means LM actually does download tiles. However, these are not visible on the map. There seems to be however a grey area where they used to be instead of "no map available".

Different case: Can I download area B which is within A with higher zoom levels (eg. 15)? I am not sure from your explanation.

Thanks, Martin

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And there's something wrong with the zoom levels. Let's focus on the 25k IGN maps. I know how those look like because I have many of them in paper form. Basically, from other sources (like mytrails https://maps.frogsparks.com/define_map.jsp) I know these are zoom level 15. Also if I download level 15 in LM, I get the 25k maps. However, if I view the IGN France online maps in LM, zoom 15 shows the magnified 50k map and zoom 16 (!) shows the 25k map.

I'll try to add some screenshots...

The following two are online IGN. Zoom 15 shows the magnified 50k image:

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(The zoom level 15 is visible as dashboard item in the bottom right, small number above 428m altitude)


Zoom level 16 shows the 25k image:


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Now I downloaded an offline map around Orpierre with only level 15 selected. At zoom 15, it shows a weird image:

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This is the 25k map, but small.

Switching to zoom 16 gets the following:

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which is again the 25k image, but larger.


So online/offline zoom levels seem different.

Judging from the online map zoom display, I would think that I have to download level 16 in order to get the 25k image. However this is incorrect, as the correct zoom level is 15.

In fact, it would be a huge waste, as level 16 quadruple the tile count (over the already huge count of level 15 tiles, adding up to gigabytes quickly).

Regards, Martin

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To you questions:

>Then, can I do a supplementary download of area B which is completely outside A with level 15

Yes, you can. But you have to zoom-in to level 15 to display the area B. As I mentioned in your second topic - Please use the same range of zoom for all supplementary downloads to avoid some complications.

The example with supplementary downloads (that I described in the previous post) expected that you use the same area and the same range of zoom levels.

Regarding the zoom-level and 25k map. The zoom-level value in your dashboard can be misleading. Please change the top panel to display the "Map" info. To change the top panel simply tap on the title "Locus Map pro" and select the "map" option. (see attached screenshot)

The size of the map can be influenced by pinch-zoom so it's difficult for me to guess what steps you performed. Anyway, the 25k map is used for ZL 15.

Thank you

Petr

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Dear Petr,

nice trick using the top panel. I wonder how many more secrets are hidden in the UI...

Anyway using the online IGN France topo map, if you press the + loupe button a few times, at ZL15 it shows the 25k map (as you wrote). Top panel shows "15/200%".

The dashboard zoom entry (bottom right) shows 16. A bit misleading... see screenshot

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Regards, Martin

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Hello Martin,

sorry for a small confusion with the zoom level. I'll try to explain this system a little bit.

Locus Map no longer internally uses these values, so value 16 visible in the dashboard is something like "how current map may feel to use". Top panel than display real used map value, so it is visible that is really is zoom level 15, but thanks to your device resolution, it is scaled to 200% for better readability and performance.

Menion

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Dear Menion,

thanks for the explanation and I suspected exactly that.

Suggestion: The primary use for the ZL display seems to be the offline map downloader - to determine which ZLs to download. Add an explanation how to find out those in the manual in the downloader section. Mention the trick with the top panel and not the dashboard.

Thanks! Martin

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