What's It For?
On one level, The National Parks of Great Britain is a cheap way of getting 1:50,000 scale Ordnance Survey maps for your PC a lot cheaper than you could by buying them, and then just print out the bits you need as and when required.
At the other extreme it’s a route planning and transfer system for combing with a GPS and tracking your position live on-screen. It comes with all the software to create, edit, customise save and transfer routes between computers and mobile devies as well as sharing with other users .
If you like the Harvey’s series of walker designed maps, Anquet’s the only one of the main digital mapping platforms where you’ll find them in digital form, but it’s got a few other features to try and persuade you to use their software. Anquet’s route editing options have long been cause for a loyal following and V06 keeps their reputation intact with a wide range of options
The Techy Bits
Basically if you can run XP or Vista you have the hardware you need. With an internet connection you can make use of the download service to keep your software up to date as well as purchasing new maps and sharing routes with other users.
Like the other major digital mapping applications you won’t find a Mac version, it’s a Windows only program. The mobile requirements follow the example of the main version in still running on older devices.
When it comes to import and export of routes you’re pretty limited with GPX as the only alternative to Anquet’s own export format for computer use, though a variety of other formats are available for direct transfer to a GPS device..
The download system provides access to the full series of compatible maps, including OS, Harveys and Aerial mapping at a choice of resolutions. Once you’ve got the software you automatically get an online account during registration, and even a selection of free maps to go with the samples of different scales
How It Performs
If you’re just installing the single DVD, installation is straightforward and registration and unlocking works pretty seamlessly. Unlocking is essential to access some of the essential options, including printing and transfer to a mobile device, but the Map Manager automates much of the process. Adding new maps by download is a simple process, and as with the other main competitors you can get a selection of pre set maps and custom defined areas, but adding new maps from DVD can be a more problematic process with the software constantly wanting to reinstall.
Anquet needs the maps installing to your hard drive, rather than running from DVD directly and the whole system links with the online account to check if it’s locked or not. Boot up takes a few extra second more than Memory Map and on first use you may think it’s crashed as the initial Flash screen disappears and you may just miss the application launching in minimised form.
Once you’ve got the application loaded the interface is pretty intuitive. Like Quo Pro and Memory Map a single row of icons is the only distraction from the main map, and a quick way into a complex array of options. All the usual route, track and waypoint tools are there, but with a bit more of a choice for customising the way things appear on screen. As with Memory Map and Quo the software packages all the user information together into a project, and uses its own proprietary file format alongside the GPX format.
Unlike some of the competition, however, you get the option to set preferences on a global scale as well as to individual routes. Standard options such as average walking speed, line width and label display can be selected from a single window to apply to all routes created in any project, while individual routes and waypoints can still be edited with different properties.
Most actions are intuitive with Anquet’s interface, with left click and drag to move around the map and right clicking on an object to access its properties. Right clicking and selecting properties launches the Data Explorer, which is the equivalent of Explorer in Quo and Overlays in Memory Map. From here you can change the system of waypoint numbering to something more meaningful that the default WP**** alphanumeric system, along with setting labels, line widths and transparency levels.
The Data Explorer can also be accessed from the top left hand corner of the icon bar , and on initial launch it takes over the whole of the left hand side of the screen. Initially this can seem intrusive, but you soon realise it’s useful to view both screens simultaneously – with a waypoint highlighted on the map being highlighted in the Data Explorer.
3D is a big part of digital mapping these days, and Anquet uses it’s own Virtual Landscape engine to display maps and aerial photographs in 3D detail. Unlike Memory Map the 3D view doesn’t open in a fresh window but Anquet gives you the option of a split screen with the standard map on one side and the 3D view on the other.
The controls for the 3D engine are a bit rudimentary, and don’t have the same smoothness that Memory Map has although the virtual fly-through works well. As with the other popular digital mapping applications you can integrate aerial photography with the 3D engine, and Anquet makes 10metre resolution mapping available free by download. It’s not quite Google earth, but for a rough representation of what you’ll see on the ground it’s not bad.
What makes it different
Anquet has traditionally offered a few extra features compared to Memory Map, and has built up a very loyal user base over the years. One of Anquet’s plus points is the way it treats the printed output and takes it into account when laying out routes and symbols. You get full control over text fonts, colours and transparency levels along with width what’s printed on your Route card – from basic through to including linked photographs.
For some reason the competition doesn’t seem to have picked up on the way Anquet allows you split a route into separate tracks – perfect for mapping long distance routes and breaking them down into manageable parts.
Pocket Anquet is the mobile version, and works with PDAs and mobile phones running Windows Mobile 2000 upwards. Setup and transfer is simple enough and you can check your hardware compatibility before purchase at www.anquet.co.uk/hardware-check.aspx . Many of the handsets and GPS receivers have been specifically tested with the software rather than just assuming the hardware and operating system will be compatible – something you realise the importance of when having to play around with port settings.
Quibbles
It’s hard to find something to criticise about Anquet’s software, and taken in isolation it does pretty much everything you could want it to to do, it’s only when you look at the competition you can spot a few tweaks.
The preferences give you a reasonable choice of settings, but not quite as nailed down as Quo’s when it comes to fine tuning estimated trip times. The other bugbear is the need to install all your maps on your hard drive, rather than have them accessible from DVD as and when required – though pre-installation does make zooming in smooth, especially as it changes to the best scale map available as you zoom.
Maps are more expensive than Quo’s too, and you haven’t got the marine charts you can get with Memory Map. Harvey’s Maps are a definite plus for those who want them, but on the other hand they only cover Great Britain whereas Quo now has Slovenian maps and Memory map is useable throughout most of North America and a part of Europe.
Verdict
Anquet’s National Parks of Great Britain gives you exactly what it says on the box, and takes the middle ground between making everything automatic and giving a range of customisable features. The OS maps are pretty much indistinguishable from the same maps used by other leading applications, but that’s more a statement of universal quality than a criticism.
The central preferences that apply to all routes are more convenient than setting individual attributes for each route as with Memory Map, but doesn’t quite offer the same degree of fine tuning that Quo 2 does. Route editing is probably the most intuitive of all the applications, and offers the useful extra of splitting routes where desired.
As with the competition, printing’s well catered for with a choice of items displayed as well as landscape/portrait and print to scale options. The mobile version, Pocket PC, is simple to set up and use, and one advantage of running maps from the hard drive is transfer times between PC and PDA.
Although the national Parks DVD has mysteriously disappeared from Anquet’s website it’s still widely available both online and in-store in certain areas, and street price is around £16 making it the cheapest of the major PC based releases – and at that price you can’t go wrong.
Overall it’s a great way of getting all the maps for Britain’s National Parks, and is probably the easiest digital mapping application to pick up and use as a newcomer. The feature set will more than satisfy most people, but even the slightly lower street price doesn’t quite compensate for the cheaper additional maps path and added features of Quo 2 .
