Thread: Garmin Topo France v2 (Mapsource)

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Originally Posted by Ballebar

@zuzu07

This thread is by 100% certainty providing the "Garmin TOPO France v2" map. Claiming anything else is pure nonsense.
It's listed as v2.00 within the "Map Product Manager". Furthermore if you look inside the "TOPO France v2.gmap\Info.xml" file you will also see TOPO France v2 & DataVersion 200 (meaning v2.00).

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and finally the Garmin map viewer link accompanied by a picture ...

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TOPO France v2 or what??? LOL !

I confirm this is something different (and better) from previous Gps topo France.

The first issues were developed by a company called gpstopo and included only one region. There was GPS topo 1 for the Alps, Gpstopo 2 for the Pyrenees and so on.

So, if you wanted to have all France you had to buy 11 separate regions (10 for continental France and 1 for overseas).

The new version (called Topo France) is distributed by Garmin France and covers all continental France (but not the overseas territories, such as Reunion Island, Martinique and so on). The same distributor has also issued 4 separate tiles covering 4 regions that you can buy separately.

This issue is not called version 2 by the seller, because this is the first release of TopoFrance, but it is definitely a new version.

This version includes routing ability (to a village or a peak) and has a much more user friendly aspect. For instance, forests are marked in green instead of a hatched that was difficult to understand. The GR paths also are marked with a much more visible line.

The overall impression is that you have switched from black and white to full colour television.

I would say the only shortcoming of this new version is that it does not cover the overseas territories. If you are interested in these ones, you still have to go for Garmin Mapsource Topo France GPSTopo 11 v1.02 Outre-Mer (MapID 776), that you can find here :

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Other than that, this version is really great.

I can add some more info about this issue after having used it on an Oregon 450.

The quality of the maps is really far better than the previous issue, where it was impossible to tell where were the woods and the peaks. Now, everything looks more like a real map and it is much easier to recognize the geographical points of reference.

This version has auto-routing, but you should be careful about it. If you want to go from one peak to other peak that is only distant 200 m, it may take you down to the valley and then up again, for the simple reason that it only knows a way up to each peak from the bottom of the valley.

For calcs on roads, the results can be surprising. First it includes all paths on the calculation, so a route takes ages to be generated. On some long routes, my Oregon is just unable to go to the end.

Then it tends to take you offroad if it considers that it is a shortcut.

On my last trip to France I went to Meribel (in the Alps) and the proposed route made me go around the village in a spiral for more than 100 km. I had activated both TopoFrance and Navigator, but the information for the route seemed to be taken from the Topo.

If you desactivate the Topo France and have other routable maps (say Navigator) the routes are straight as expected.

I have not been able to reproduce on the computer the snail-like route, but the attached can give a hint of how things can get wrong.

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TopoFrance proposes not to take N90 (running North-South) which is clearly the best option. It proposes instead a trip on the mountains taking small roads or paths. TopoFrance will not propose to follow a highway or a big road if there is an alternative, even when this alternative means adding hundreds of kilometers.


Finally, when I use it in my car, I turn off TopoFrance for any calculation of route and turn it on once the route is defined. If you do not deviate from the route, then everything goes OK and you have both roads and land information.

I would say the only possible use is to find itineraries off-road between POIs. You should however not follow blindly its indications. Otherwise you may get lost in the forest or the snow and the weather is chilly these last days.