Lowrance and I have a habbit of playing Ping-Pong of sorts. They do a system upgrade, I find a way to maximize the capability, in which case they do a system upgrade, and I find a way to maximize the capability. Behind the scenes this has happened many times in my journey to bring various devices to the off road industry. I do realize that from the outside, it doesn’t seem like i’ve gotten much done but behind the scnes, I’ll make your head spin.
For many years the Lowrance systems have had support for a maximum SD card card size of 32GB. and before that there was once a 2GB limit. 10 years ago the 32GB limit was great, but times have changed. It’s put me in a situation where if I were to go through the grueling process of making a large map beyond that limit, It woldn’t be supported. However, There was a recent software update to HDS Carbon, Live, and Pro as well as Elite FS that now seems to be (exact details to be verified) support SD Cards of atleast 256GB. Being the techy nerd that I am and what I know about this type of technology, the support implemented for 256GB should grow with technology for a long time to come. Latest sd card sizes becoming available right now are up to 1TB! My sd card supplier has a 1TB sample card on the way. I level up and make larger gps maps, one of the servers that I use for processing map data is getting a significant hard drive upgrade which are being onboarded as I write this. The first goal will be to cram imagery of the entire state of AZ on one card. With a few clever computer tricks, math and magic, I should be able to get this done.
However, there is one more big question. The trail data on top of the Imagery.
I need feedback from you. I’ve gotten feedback about how awsome my high detail gps maps are, however, they are very time consuming and a ton of work… very frustrating at times. It would be unreasonable to expect that same type of attention to detail for every road / trail in the state or country.
My question is, is that ok? Have I been going overboard on my other offerings? Clearly I can’t run every road in the state myself but I can do some basic edits and correction to official data. Some guidance would be much appreciated. Ultiamtely I need to produce something that is worth my time but also is something that makes my customers happy.
Please drop of feedback in the comments below.
Thank you
-Steven Lutz
10,749 thoughts on “Massive Lowrance Satellite GPS Maps – The ball is back in my court, Finally.”