GBVector :Great Britain Map for Desktops and Smartphones
Technical notes
Installing GBVECTOR and sample map GBVECTORPEAK

The map is a vector map which is made up of lines, points and areas together with a Style that determines how these map items appear.

The map is downloaded as a zip file, unzip it and copy the GBVECTOR folder to a disk or USB  Stick.

Inside that folder are the map, its style and a copy of Mobile Atlas Creator . Mobile Atlas Creator (MOBAC) runs on Windows, MacOS and Linux.

To view the map on a desktop of laptop, start MOBAC (.exe file in Windows; .jar for Linux or Mac).
You can zoom in or out with the mouse wheel or the slider at the top and scroll by dragging with the right mouse button.

Your choice is whether to use is in an application that can handle vector maps or extract some of it as a raster map - or both.

To extract a raster map, follow the instruction in the MOBAC Readme but, in summary: 
  • Choose the atlas format depending on the app you are using
  • Draw a box around the area you want
  • Check the zoom level(s) you want
  • Give the map a name and click 'Add Selection'
  • Click 'Create Atlas'
There is a more detailed description here thanks to Boyd.

To use the maps in an application that supports Mapsforge Vector Maps, open the "maps" foilder where you will see "britain.map" and "OS-Style" folder. To use these copy both following the instructions with your application and you will then need to set the "OS-Style.xml" as the map style. Othere styles are available on the web such as "elevate" but these will not handle some items - rights of way, for example - correctly. Applications that handle these maps include Cartograph, BackCountryNavigator (not the XE version) and Orux. Locus also supports these maps but Locus users should buy within the App to benefit from improved map rendering.
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