During a recent flight I noticed a considerable difference in depiction of streams, canals and rivers between Belgium and France for example. Flying back from Calais, I noticed some very prominent blue lines on the charts that were in reality very small ditches, easily jumped over. On the other hand a canal 30meters wide near point N for EBKT is not even shown even if it is a very prominent landmark and very useful for navigation.
You can notice that most of the blue lines on the chart in the NW corner of France stop at the border.
The geographical data for France and Belgium doesn't seem to come from the same source.
I want just the bare essentials on the maps (my preference). Highways, canals and navigable rivers, railways and larger cities. The aeronautical information is prominent of course. I would also like to get rid of the 'information balloon' next to destination and departure airports since this is now redundant with the new style info in the vertical view.

Yes! I second getting rid of the (now redundant) information balloon. For information that is not available in the little airport briefing window, there could just be an "i"-button in the window which would bring up the old information display.

-- Chris.

Data for streams and rivers comes from every individual country, via one source. They collect data from the official cartographic agencies of each country who are responsible for providing it to a set standard. Unfortunately, as you have observed, the countries do not always do this. Some countries tell us the width of rivers, some do not. Some provide information on navigability, many do not. Some categorise them according to a national hierarchy, some do not. We have spent many hours (days, in fact) improving this for today's chart release but no doubt it still isn't perfect. Do let us know about any rivers which seem really bad (ditches appearing as major rivers) with exact coordinates for reference, and we can look in to them.

I suspect today's improvements will help a lot. The watercourse running through the reporting point you mentioned does now appear, for instance.

The information button on the map doesn't really serve the same purpose as the Airfield Brief. They're available all the time, for a start, whereas the Airfield Brief only appears for your destination airfield and only when you're getting close to it. I suspect if we removed the information buttons many people would complain.

Tim, I understand the difficulty with the rivers/canals/streams. If you look on Google Maps they are quite accurate. I would only bother with major rivers and canals. Also locks and bridges make good reference points.

But, as I said before, I want as little geographical information as possible not related to flight safety. Then the important things stand out better such as safety altitudes, airspace structure, navaids, reporting points (IFR and VFR), airports.

I looked at the new charts for this area (EBKT and surroundings). There is way too much small streams shown. Only the navigable rivers and canals are of interest to pilots and air navigation. 

We also have a lot of pilots clamouring for "more detail" (whatever that means) almost constantly. It's all very well saying you only want "major rivers" but there is no standard flag for whether a river is "major" or not. I have generally argued that most scenery information is not relevant at all for flight safety, but in the face of constant demand we are gradually adding more details. We try hard to do it based on zoom level, so the 500k chart gets no more cluttered than it has ever been, for example.

I was hoping I would not have to point out that Google probably have quite different resources available to them for their mapping.

I note that you did not comment on the improvements we have made in today's chart update.

Tim,
I, for one, believe your charts have improved significantly by switching the provider. The option of loading more detailed elevation data is also welcome when flying in the Alps. Roads appear to be depected better, too. All in all, a good step forward.

That said, there will always be inconsistencies between countries how they report different features. Clearly it is an ongoing process to smooth out rough edges and work toward more consistency in the map's underlying database. This will take some time, I understand.

Regarding having more or less details: SD is geared toward VFR flying. As such, its maps are used to navigate and relate observed features to specific map points. You are a pilot yourself, and I assume you have a good feeling for what is useful for navigational purposes and what isn't. And treating their individual visibilities based on the current zoom level helps to reduce clutter and focus on the important parts.

Greetings, -- Chris.

At 500K scale the waterways depiction seems just right now in my area.Railways are nice too. A minor addition would be to show the stations with a small rectangle. Another wish for Christmas would be to keep route data such as reporting point names, navaids, etc always in the top layer with the magenta line underneath or more transparent. Reading waypoint names on an IFR route can be difficult. I can send a sample of a recent flight to EDMA.
Another flight IFR/VFR into EDFE really showed SD at its best, switching to the VFR mapping after leaving Frankfurt TMA.

One more wish, to be able to fade the rivers,roads,railways etc to 50% or less while keeping aeronautical data untouched.

I have SkyDemon 3.4.1.0 on a PC running XP. The only chart I use is for the UK. No canals appear on this in either Plan or my SD Mobile.