Maps and formats

My son is off on his D of E Gold expedition soon. He spend some time working out his route and his school using memory map. This is a good program which I also use.  We have jusr recently upgrraded our system to use the 2012 1:50000 and the 1:25:000 maps. For walking the 1:25000 maps are excellent. I like memory map since it will use height data to create  virtual fly through of the route which gives an excellent idea of the steepness of the hills.
Different versions of the software use slightly different formats mno files.

We do some geocaching and the files of these locations is in loc format. The GPS we use, The Garmin 550t, uses gpx format.
Now my son was trying to get a good idea of where he was going. Google Earth provided some excellent views of the terrain and showed photographic images of all the paths. I have also started to subscribe to getamap from the Ordnance Survey. This uses Microsoft Silverlight to display 1:50000 maps on the screen and another type of zoom-able map (without contours).

So what is my problem.  The OS maps on getamap are excellent but I am not allowed to put a track on them (or at least if I am I haven't yet found a way.) THe Memeory map at my sons school was a different version to what we have at home, so the mno files were upgraded  (no going back). The files here brought home gave an idea of the route but needed improving to fit the tracks on the map. All the routes he brought home were inaccurate - I guess from an older map and students not being able to or careful enough to record the tracks correctly. To view this on the arial photographs using using Google Earth we needed to change the format of the mno files to gpx, and there it was the track brought into Google Earth - but it wasn't quite in the right place the maps and the ariel photographs di not line up. Google Earth would not allow us to edit the gpx file. That could only be done in memory map - which looked ok but didn't line up with Google Earth.

Once finished the route was loaded up into the Garmin. Its maps doesn't correspond either.

So I have lots of different types of maps and toys. They don't speak the same language. They don't line up. They don't share the same file formats. An easy job becomes difficult.

On there own they are great pieces of software, together ... they are hard work. I didn't think that I wanted to do much.

Probably the best solution was me buying the Active map (a plastic coated map) of the area and my son drawing a line over the route. It is simple effective - fits on the map in the right place and works.