We’re happy to announce the release of version 3.74 of TopoFusion Pro. Atop the feature list are new and improved Canadian Topo maps. TopoFusion was one of the first mapping apps to include downloadable topographic maps for all of Canada, and now we’ve gone a step further with these new maps, available courtesy of WMS-Toporama on GeoGratis (official public announcement of this new server hasn’t even been made yet).

Example image:

click to enlarge

Here’s what the old ones looked like:

click to enlarge

Quite a difference in clarity and added info. Perhaps the best addition is that of elevation labels on the contours (which were absent on the old maps). Check them out by downloading the latest TopoFusion Pro, or for registered users, check your purchase email for download instructions.

For other additions and fixes, see Revision History.

The AZT 300 (race site) starts Friday, April 10th at 9am. It’s a self supported 300 mile race along the Arizona Trail. This year you can follow all the action using a new SPOT tracker, right here on TopoFusion.com.

The link is here:

http://topofusion.com/tracker-azt.php

SPOT units (official site) are a combo GPS unit and satellite messenger. They send out a GPS point every 10 minutes, to be collected, analyzed and presented on our web tracker, all in real time. It should provide some entertainment for those not fortunate enough to be out there on the trail with us (TopoFusion author Scott Morris will be participating in the event).

TopoFusion is proud to be a sponsor of the 2009 Cascade Cream Puff 100. The Cream Puff is one of the oldest and most challenging 100 mile mountain bike races in the country. We’ve taken care of the course mapping for this year’s event. Here’s a sample of a color aerial overview map:

TopoFusion author Scott Morris raced the CCP back in 2001, placing 9th. “It was one of the most brutal days I’ve ever had on a bike.”

For more course maps (including printable with full directions and an
awesome 3D map) head over to the TopoFusion Event Mapping page:

http://topofusion.com/race.php

Mike Curiak set off earlier this week to ride the 1,100 mile Iditarod Trail to Nome, completely unsupported. He’s carrying a SPOT GPS/satellite tracker.

We here at TopoFusion are pretty excited about his trip and have set up a tracking page to track his progress:

http://topofusion.com/spot.php

We’ve leveraged some TopoFusion technology to compute distances and speeds, all computed on-the-fly, as the SPOT points come in. You can see his track history, distance traveled, speeds and all that good stuff.

We’ll be continuing to develop the SPOT tracker as his trip proceeds. We’re also looking at adding SPOT tracking to the TopoFusion application itself. We’re hoping to see a lot of these features go into tracking self supported events as the Arizona Trail 300 and Tour Divide (the Tour Divide crew have been pioneers of SPOT tracking, and we are working with them) later in the year. If you’re interested in advanced SPOT tracking for your own event or trip drop us an email or get in touch with the Tour Divide folks. We’d love to see this technology used on other cool trips / events.

Finally, we’ll be posting text updates supplemented with TopoFusion generated maps, charts and playback videos over at Mike’s blog: http://lacemine29.blogspot.com