Garmin BaseCamp
Garmin announced a new software program today called BaseCamp. BaseCamp is to the outdoors world as MapSource is to street navigation. Users will be able to browse topo maps, tracklogs, waypoints, and plan trips for their handheld Garmin devices through the software which will be compatible with both Macs and PCs.
Why this wasn’t announced a couple of days ago at CES is a bit puzzling, however this isn’t the only GPS announcement we expect over the next week or two.
“BaseCamp brings a whole new set of features to hikers, hunters, geocachers, and anyone else who wants to maximize their experience with their Garmin GPS,” said Dan Bartel, Garmin’s vice president of worldwide sales. “This new utility lets users view, organize, and transfer their data more quickly and efficiently – allowing them to make the most of their time exploring the great outdoors.”
Perhaps taking direct aim at DeLorme’s Topo USA program, BaseCamp will allow users to view topo maps in 2D as well as 3D views as well as changing the map orientation from the old method that was locked in North up.
Also noteworthy, Garmin mentions the software will be compatible with “TOPO U.S. 24K DVD”, a product which to date has only been available for certain states. The software is expected to be released by the end of March, just in time for your next outdoor adventure.
Typical Garmin marketing. How many newe programs and features have they announced in the past two months? 60-day map guarantee, nuMaps map subcription, BaseCamp, RoadTrip, EcoRoute all come to mind right away. What percentage of owners know about any of them? I’d guess under 10%, and maybe 2% for the newest announcements. If this was TomTom, it would be all over the place. Maybe Garmin should take a page from them and look to former Apple marketing people for a fresh approach.
I’ll be interested in it for geocaching purposes. I’ve often used USA Photomap’s topographical feature to plan my route into a cache site by avoiding unnecessary hills, marsh and water.
im looking for a gps that displays bml lands or the n a software that i can download into a handheld gps
Brett, the DeLorme PN-40 can display BML areas, but it takes a bit of work.
CLUNK CLUNK that about discribes BaseCamp. How can a company that designes such an intotative interface in their GPSs’ put out something like BaseCamp? Crashes, pointers that dissapear when you stop moving the mouse. How about a save button. I was never a great fan of MapSource but this is a giant leap backwards. Looking forward to some major fixes but I’m still looking for them for MapSource.