It's A Map, It's A Photo, It's Waterproof...

There's an interesting looking new product in the pipeline from photographic map specialists PhotoMap in the form of a 1:15,000 scale photomap of the High Peak area of the Peak District printed on a completely waterproof paper.

The map is the first of a PhotoMap Extreme series which overlays Ordnance Survey mapping data from the Explorer series onto carefully calibrated aerial photographs of the area to provide a map which is not only very graphic, but can also be used for navigation in the same way as a standard OS map. The company says that the overlaying of contour lines onto photographs makes it much easier to understand the lay of the land.

There's a double whammy effect as well, with the latest maps being printed on a new synthetic paper which is claimed to be totally waterproof, foldable, lightweight, and tear resistant. If it does what it says on the box, it should be a major advance both on bulky laminated maps and the questionable 'waterproof' paper used by Harveys, which could be charitably described as 'water resistant'...

The new map should be in the shops by next week and we'll be getting one in for a proper look in the next day or so. At 1:15,000 the scale is slightly larger than the OS 1:25,000 ers, but uses the same data.

For an idea of what they look like though, see this example on the PhotoMap web site.