Downloading and Installing the Maps

7-Zip#

The data download links include an option to download a smaller version that is compressed with 7-Zip. .7z files can be half the size of .zip files, but you need to have 7-Zip installed on your computer. You can download 7-Zip from their website: www.7-zip.org.

Free data vs subscription data#

Our cadastral maps are available as a subscription service, as explained in the previous chapter. We provide a free sample that rotates to another province every week, so that you can try before you buy. In the above example, North West Province's cadastral map is available as a sample.

With an active subscription, your download page will look similar to the following:

It is recommended to download the first subscription link, which combines all of the provinces, with a country-wide street map and the administrative boundaries.

If you are only interested in one province and don't want to download such a large file, please note that the cadastral maps work better in combination with the SA administrative boundaries map. You can choose to omit it, and whenever Planet asks about locating it, select No, but you will also miss out on the Google Earth (and other) available backgrounds, though it is possible to add those yourself.

Downloading#

Once you have clicked on one of the links, the file should start downloading. You may have to go through the This file is not commonly downloaded process if you are using Edge. As described in the software download section, you may need to click Show more information and then Download anyway or Keep.

While the file is downloading, you will see the download progress in the top-right corner of your browser window. When complete, you will see the following (or similar, depending on your browser). If you have been doing other things while waiting, you may have to click on the Downloads button first:

The downloads button may also have disappeared, in which case you can access your downloads through the browser's menu:

The user interfaces of Chrome and FireFox look similar, and simpler.

Extract all files#

It is a common mistake, when using other methods to extract the files, to omit some of them. PlanetGIS requires all the files in the downloaded zips to work correctly, so ensure that you extract everything from the downloaded zips.

7-Zip#

If you downloaded a 7z file, you can extract it similarly by right-clicking on it. (On Windows 11, you may have to first click Show more options.) Then click 7-Zip and then either Open archive or Extract files....

Where to place your map files#

Windows or your unzipping software may suggest to extract the files in a subfolder in the Downloads folder with the same name, e.g., World. This is OK, but a better place would be somewhere where you will find it easier and not accidentally delete it. A good option is to create a folder for your map that isn't inside your Documents or Desktop folders, but these places are OK if that is how you normally work. We suggest creating a folder in the root of your C: drive, or another drive where you normally keep your data, and call it something like PlanetGIS maps, with subfolders for each map.

Whatever you choose, do not place the files anywhere inside C:\Program Files. Folders inside C:\Program Files are normally set to read-only for applications, which will cause similar errors in PlanetGIS as opening the map from inside a zip.

Relative locations of multi-maps#

When working with multiple maps that refer to each other, for example a cadastral map in addition to the administrative boundaries map, the cadastral map will look for the administrative map in a location relative to its own location. A freshly downloaded cadastral map expects the administrative map to be in a folder which is one level higher than itself, because that would be the best way to organise the maps if you have more than one province. You do not have to stick to this structure. If it makes more sense to you to have everything in one folder, which is certainly preferable if you only work with one province, you can tell PlanetGIS to look for it in another location, and Planet will remember it the next time you open the cadastral map.

Let's take the example where you've placed NW into D:\PlanetGIS Maps\:

(Note that if at this point you don't see the blue earth-and-cursor icon, it means that you still need to install PlanetGIS Explorer.)

If you now double-click on NW-cadastral, causing it to be opened in PlanetGIS, this is what will happen when Planet cannot find another map that it refers to:

PlanetGIS is looking for SA-administrative.db in the parent folder. If you don't care about the administrative boundaries (and background images), you can click No and keep using the cadastral map without it. You can also, at this point, download the administrative map and extract it to that location. You would have to either click Yes and locate it, or (a quicker way would be to) click No in order to carry on, close PlanetGIS and reopen the map so that it will open the administrative map automatically.

If you prefer a different location for the administrative map, for example in the same folder as the cadastral map, then once you have placed it there, click Yes and go through the process to locate the SA-administrative.db file.

Hidden extensions in Windows Explorer#

The examples above show what Windows File Explorer looks like with its default settings, which hides extensions of known file types. PlanetGIS project files have a .db extension. Once PlanetGIS Explorer is installed, Windows knows that such files are of type PlanetGIS project. However, .db is a fairly common file extension, and another application that you install in future, may assign the extension to itself.

It is a terrible way to go through life, relying on Windows to show you what your file types are based on what it knows. Additionally, since PlanetGIS creates other files with the same name but different extensions, we will refer to the extensions often in this documentation. It will be confusing if you never see the extensions in Windows Explorer.

A much better way to work with Windows, in general, is to change this setting:

You may also have to change to Details view (indicated by the arrow, above), or you won't see any useful information about the files at all. Notice in the above example that the .db extension now shows for the NW-cadastral project file.

On older versions of Windows, you might find the setting here (in Windows File Explorer):

Alternatively, look for Folder Options in Windows File Explorer or in your system settings (even in Windows 11, you can search your system settings for File Explorer Options), to get to this:

Preserving your changes#

The first thing to consider is that you may have invested valuable time into your existing maps and that you will lose your changes if you replace your maps with an updated version. If you are unsure, rather create a new folder, perhaps containing the current year in its name, and extract the newer project files there. You can then compare the two, side-by-side, to see what will get lost if you delete your older version.

There are ways to make changes to the cadastral maps that allow them to be updated without losing the changes. That is a rather advanced topic, covered partly in the Working with PlanetGIS section.

Replacing project files#

The downloaded zip files only contain the main database file (.db) and, in the case of the cadastral maps, a .dll file. All other files that you see in the same folder as the .db, are automatically created when they are missing. Depending on the change in software versions, older files may cause problems when the .db is replaced by a new version. It is therefore safer to delete all existing files before extracting the updated maps into the same folders. This can be a bit tedious since you may have to do it for nine folders, one for each province.

This recommendation amounts to the same as is recommended in the preceding section (Preserving your changes), but we mention the specifics here in case you have accumulated other files, like documents related to your work with these maps in the same folders. In such a case, the tedium of deleting project files from each provincial folder, and extracting files into them folder-by-folder, will be worth the trouble.

Unused files from previous versions#

If you are updating your maps by overwriting older versions, the following files can be deleted because the latest version of PlanetGIS ignores them:

• .map - prior to version 6.0, this was the main project file which you would open, but the information in this file is stored in the .db in newer versions.
• .f2d and .q2d - version 5 spatial index files that have been replaced by .index
• .att, .ent and .idx - files from versions earlier than 5.0
• ParcelFindPta_2.dll and ParcelFindCtn_2.dll - these are no longer used; instead the latest cadastral maps have a single ParcelFind.dll for all provinces.

Regenerating spatial indexes#

If you do regular updates, you are unlikely to encounter problems if you simply replace the files with the newly downloaded ones. (Here we'll assume that you are certain that you have not made significant changes to the older maps, or are happy to lose them.) To save time, you can replace the files and then, once you've opened the maps with no problems encountered, do a Regenerate indexes to ensure that your maps are not still using the old indexes that were already on your hard drive.

From File Explorer#

You can double-click on a PlanetGIS project file in Windows File Explorer to open a Planet map. This has a few potential drawbacks:

1. It only works if PlanetGIS still has the file association to .db files. The easiest way to tell, is to see whether File Explorer still shows the blue earth-and-cursor icon next to the file name. The File type columns should also show PlanetGIS project. This association can be broken at any time in future by installing another application that use .db files.
2. If you have multiple versions of PlanetGIS installed, this will always launch the project with the last installed version, which may not be what you want.
3. It is easier this way to end up with multiple running instances of PlanetGIS, each with the same map opened. That can cause problems in certain conditions.

From a desktop shortcut#

You can create a shortcut on your desktop by dragging a PlanetGIS project file to your desktop and hold the Alt key down while letting go of the mouse button. The icon must show the words Create link in desktop next to it, not Copy to desktop. If you really want to copy the project to your desktop, do it in a subfolder on your desktop (i.e., inside the Desktop folder if you're doing it in File Explorer), and make sure to copy all the files, not just the .db.

This approach has the same drawbacks as listed above, but it is possible to edit a shortcut link to specifiy which software executable to use.

By first launching PlanetGIS#

This is the recommended way to open your maps. Planet will maintain a list of all your previously opened projects, so that you can easily select the project that you want from the Quick Start window or the File menu.

If you use PlanetGIS often, we also recommend that you pin it to the task bar. Once you have launched PlanetGIS, simply right-click on its icon in the task bar and then click Pin to taskbar:

Whenever you launch PlanetGIS this way (i.e., not using the methods described above), you will first see the Quick start window:

The list will start out being empty (containing only the Browse for .db... item) and grow as you open more projects in different locations. You can clear the list by clicking on the Clear list button, or remove a single item by right-clicking on it and then clicking Remove from list.

To open a project not in the list, simply double-click on Browse for .db..., or click OK with Browse for .db... selected.