Your permit-area map, live on your phone
Military installations and state agencies hand out their recreation areas as PDF maps — the hunting-area map on the iSportsman or RecAccess portal you check in and out of, the WMA boundary sheet, the fishing-access map. They are precise, they are authoritative, and on a phone they are usually a pinch-to-zoom picture with no idea where you are standing.
NomadTracks opens that file as a real map with your live GPS position on it — offline, with no signal, deep in the area. Import is free and unlimited, and there is no account to create.
Why the boundary matters more than the trail
On a permit area the line on the map is not a suggestion — it is the difference between the unit you are checked into and the one you are not, between open ground and a safety zone or a no-hunting buffer. A paper printout or a photo of the PDF tells you the shape of the boundary but never where you are relative to it. Opening the georeferenced PDF puts your blue dot on the same sheet the check-in system uses.
Georeferenced files just work
Most agency and installation maps are exported as GeoPDF or georeferenced PDF, which means the coordinates are already inside the file. Open it in NomadTracks and it aligns itself — no control points, no setup. If your portal hands out a plain scan or an image instead, you can georeference it yourself in about two minutes by setting a few control points, with a live accuracy readout in meters.
Built for where there is no signal
Permit areas are exactly the places with no bars. Once the map is imported it lives on the device: your position, the boundary, your waypoints and your track all work in airplane mode. Mark the stand, the gate, the put-in or the truck as a point of interest and navigate back to it in the dark.
Check-in, check-out, and your own record
Portals like iSportsman and RecAccess require you to check in and out and often to report harvest or effort. NomadTracks keeps your own parallel record: the recorded track of where you actually walked or drove, timestamped, with distance and elevation, plus photo-tagged points. Export it as GPX or GeoJSON if you want it somewhere else.
For the people who publish these maps
If you run the portal rather than use it, you can hand users a ready-calibrated map instead of a bare PDF: georeference it once and export a .nomadmap bundle that opens perfectly aligned for everyone who downloads it. No store, no approval, no per-user fee.
Related
- How to open a GeoPDF on iPhone
- NomadTracks for hunting
- NomadTracks for fishing
- Publishing maps to your own users
FAQ
Can I open my iSportsman or RecAccess area map in NomadTracks?
Yes. Download the area map PDF from the portal and open it in NomadTracks. Georeferenced PDFs and GeoPDFs align automatically and show your live GPS position on the map. Importing maps is free and unlimited, with no account.
Does it work with no cell signal?
Yes. Once the map is imported it is stored on the device. Your GPS position, the map, your waypoints and track recording all work fully offline, which is the normal condition on a permit area.
What if the map is just a scan or a picture?
Georeference it in the app: set a few control points against known locations and NomadTracks aligns it, showing fit accuracy in meters. After that it behaves exactly like a georeferenced file.
Is this an official app of the portal?
No. NomadTracks is an independent map viewer and GPS recorder. It opens the map files those portals publish; it does not check you in or out, and it is not affiliated with iSportsman, RecAccess or any agency.