Computerized Topo Maps, Part III Introduction

Computerized Topo Maps
How Good Are They?

Part III
DOWNLOADING GPS TRACKS AND ROUTES INTO COMPUTERIZED TOPO MAP PROGRAMS, ACTIVE TRACKING, PRINTING MAPS, GENERAL COMPARISON OF THE PROGRAMS

Introduction

By Dr. Brad DeLong
Author of 4-Wheel Freedom: The Art of Off-Road Driving

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In the first and second installments of this series (COMPUTERIZED TOPO MAPS - HOW GOOD ARE THEY? and INSTALLATION, READING MAPS, ENTERING WAYPOINTS AND ROUTES IN COMPUTERIZED TOPO MAP PROGRAMS) we looked at the basic principles of using a GPS receiver and topographical maps. We took a general look at five of the computerized topo map programs available:

DeLorme's Topo USA version 2.0. Vectorized maps which put the entire United States on 6 CDs. For this evaluation we used the Mountain States CD, specifically Idaho.

DeLorme's 3-D TopoQuads. USGS topo quad maps, rasterized, for magnifications greater than 13-0, vectorized for large scale zoomed-out views. I used the Northern California set of CDs for this evaluation. DeLorme plans to release 3-D TopoQuads for all 50 States by early 2000.

Topo! and Topo!GPS, from Wildflower Productions. Containing United States Geological Survey (USGS) DRG (rasterized) topo maps, and currently providing coverage for parts of Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, District of Columbia, Virginia, Georgia, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, and Wisconsin, and most of the National Parks. We used the San Francisco Bay Area for this evaluation.

All Topo Maps, from iGage. Containing USGS DRG maps. The data files are part of the All Topo Map CDs, like Topo! and DeLorme’s Topo USA 2.0. All Topo Maps now provides coverage for Utah, Montana, Colorado, Idaho, New Mexico, and Wyoming.

Fugawi, from Northport Systems. Using 3^rd party CD map files, or map files which you have scanned into your computer yourself. USGS DRG topographical maps are available on CD from several companies, including the Micropath Corporation and ChartTiff , where we obtained the maps we used in Fugawi for this report.

We covered basic information about the USGS DRG topographical maps, scanned for use in computers, and we mentioned that the California and Tennessee maps use formats other than the DRG standard, which makes importing them into some of the programs cumbersome.

We compared map detail provided by each of these programs, and we discussed how to coordinate magnetic bearings and true bearings between your GPS and the computer map program.

In this installment, we’ll demonstrate how to download tracking data from your GPS unit into your computer and into your topo map program.

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