Computerized Topo Maps
How Good Are They?

Part III: Downloading Tracks from your GPS

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

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All these programs allow you to connect your GPS to the computer, and actively reproduce the track you’re following on the topo map program that you have up on your screen. We’ll look at active tracking. From a practical standpoint, however, active tracking is difficult to use, because it requires that you somehow make room for the laptop computer in your vehicle and keep it from bouncing onto the floor while you’re lurching along a bumpy trail.

It’s more practical to use your GPS to track your route, then load it into the map program later. Please look at the first installment of this series for a discussion of the difference between routes and tracks. You can establish routes in your GPS by inputting a series of waypoints as you travel along, or you can just let the GPS automatically record the track you’re following. In either case, you can download the track, the route, or just the series of waypoints from your GPS into your map program later. We’ll show how to download a track from the Garmin GPS II+. Choosing to download a route or waypoints instead of a track is simply a matter of making the proper selection as the downloading screens or menus come up.

Turn on the GPS unit at the start of your trip. Go to the "Map Page," or the equivalent in your GPS, and clear the track log, so you start with a clean slate. My Garmin GPS II+ will input 1021 points in a track log. It’s not a bad idea to input waypoints manually along the way, in case the GPS runs out of memory and doesn’t record part of the track.

After you get back home, connect your GPS to your computer with a serial connection cable, available from your GPS manufacturer. Bring up your map program, and follow the menus to setup communications between the map program and the GPS.

DeLorme Topo USA 2.0 and DeLorme’s 3-D TopoQuads

The procedures for downloading a track is the same in these two programs. We’ll use 3-D TopoQuads to demonstrate.

Go to the "Interface" screen of the GPS. In the case of the Garmin, the protocol should be set to "GRMN/GRMN, HOST." You don’t have to have the Interface screen up on the GPS once you set the parameters. You can have any screen up on the GPS.

Connect the GPS to the computer and start 3-D TopoQuads, using the appropriate CD to cover the region in which you were traveling. This map covers a part of the San Francisco Presidio. Click on the GPS tab, and choose either "Auto Detect GPS" or "Edit GPS" to make the sure the parameters are correctly set. Make sure the proper Com port is chosen. Click "Done."

Select "Display Position Off," because you don’t care at this point if the GPS shows the position of your house on the computer screen, and you may be far away from the region you’re displaying on the map. Click "Start GPS."

Click on the "Navigate" tab, click "Exchange," and click "Track."

3-D TopoQuads downloads the current track from the Garmin GPS II+.

The track appears on the map. (Red arrows.)

Click on "New/edit" and type in whatever name you want to give this route. Click on the "Draw" tab and draw in a route, saving it in appropriate "Drawlayers," as described in the second installment in this series.

Instead of downloading a track, you can download waypoints or routes by selecting the appropriate buttons.

The "3-D" of 3-D TopoQuads

Clicking the "3D" tab creates a three dimensional representation of the region you have up on the screen. You can select different degrees of viewpoint and different levels of vertical exaggeration.

Topo! and Topo!GPS

The Topo! procedure for downloading from the GPS is straightforward and works very well. Connect the GPS to the computer, select "GRMN/GRMN, HOST" for the interface, if you have a Garmin GPS II+, or follow the instructions in your manual for other models or manufacturers.

Click on the GPS tool in the toolbar, and select "Import from GPS (download)." Click "Continue."

If you need to test or change the GPS settings, select "Change GPS settings" instead of "Import from GPS."

Select "In a GPS receiver that is now connected to the PC."

In the next window, decide what you want to download – waypoints only, a route, a track as a series of waypoints, or a track as a freehand line. In this case, we’ve elected to download the track as a series of waypoints.

Note also that we’ve selected the map datum as "NAD 27." The tracks are not the same for the two map data, NAD 83/WGS 84 and NAD 27. It doesn’t seem to make any difference to which of these the GPS is set. My practice is to set the Topo! preferences, the GPS (in the NAV SETUP screen), and the download option all to one or the other. In this case we have set them all to NAV 27. I don’t know which setting gives the more accurate representation on the map.

Click "Finish." The program downloads the track points from the GPS.

The track appears as a series of connected waypoints. The waypoints are listed in a separate window at the bottom of the screen.

The waypoints can be saved in a separate *.tpg file.

This *.tpg file can then be merged with the same *.tpo map file in the future, to recall this route again.

The waypoints can be selected and deleted.

The track then appears as a freehand line.

The track also appears as a freehand line if you don’t check the waypoint-track option during the downloading process.

In this image, the right-hand track (double yellow arrow) results when the GPS, the Topo! preferences, and the downloading option are all set to WGS 84. The left-hand track has NAD 27 settings (single yellow arrow).

It doesn’t seem to make any difference whether the GPS is set to NAD 27 or to WGS 84 during the actual data collection.

All Topo Maps

Running All Topo Maps in Windows NT 4.0, I had some initial problems downloading data from the GPS. Tech support from iGage came up with the solution. Windows NT 4.0 assigns certain priorities to the programs running at any given time. If the GPS transfer program happens to have been assigned a low priority, it won’t download the GPS.

The solution is to force a higher priority to the GPS transfer program. Open "All Topo Maps" and "All Topo GPS." "All Topo GPS" is the program you receive when you download the upgrade to All Topo Maps from the www.igage.com website.

With these programs open, put the mouse cursor on a blank portion of the Windows NT 4.0 taskbar at the bottom of the screen and right click. Select "Task Manager."

Windows NT Task Manager will usually come up in the "Applications" screen. Select the "Processes" tab. Scroll down until you find the "All Topo GPS" program, which is "ATMGPS.exe." Note that the priority is normal. You will change that to "Realtime."

Right click the mouse on "ATMGPS.exe," select "Set Priority," and select "Realtime."

Make sure the priority has been changed, and close Task Manager.

Set the Garmin interface page to "GRMN/GRMN, HOST." Open the quad map showing the region where you want to enter the track. This is the Orofino West quad. Maximize the GPS screen. Select "GPS receiver" in the "Load Coordinates From" section. In the "Load Coordinates From" window, select "Track" and click OK.

The waypoints of the track unload into the "Edit and Select Coordinates to Save" section of the All Topo GPS screen.

Click outside the All Topo GPS screen to minimize it. Press "F8" to bring up the Waypoint Editor. Make sure it’s an empty file.

Maximize the All Topo GPS screen. If you accidentally deselect the waypoints, select them all again. I couldn’t always get the buttons in section 3, "Save Selected Coordinates To," to function, but that didn’t matter. Put the cursor in the list of selected waypoints. Right click in the list of selected waypoints. Click on the "Copy" option to copy all the waypoints onto the clipboard.

Go the Waypoint Editor and select "Edit." Select "Paste from Clipboard."

The waypoint list appears in the Waypoint Editor.

Click on "Reannotate." The waypoints appear as small yellow diamonds.

To connect the track waypoints with a route line, enter the following metacode at the beginning of the waypoint list: "<L ON RED 4>." See the Second Installment of this series for more on the use of the Waypoint Editor and metacodes.

Save this waypoint list to a "*.hwp" file in the "User" subdirectory of "All Topo."

Fugawi

Connect the GPS to the computer. In the GPS "Interface" screen, set the protocol to "GRMN/GRMN, HOST."

Open Fugawi. For this demonstration, we’re using the ChartTiff San Francisco, CA – East CD, the San Francisco North quad.

In the "Settings" menu, select "Program."

Set the appropriate parameters for your GPS.

Click on the Garmin "On/Off" button to turn on the GPS/Fugawi communication.

In the "Track" menu, select "Download from GPS."

The track downloads, and displays on the map.

Save the track by exporting it to a *.txt file in the "Track" menu.

In the future, you can recall the track by selecting "Import" from the "Track" menu, and selecting that file. The track will appear on the map.

To download waypoints, use the "Waypoint" menu, select "List" and select "Download" from the "List" window.

In this case, we’ve gone to the map page of the Garmin GPS II+, selected "GoTo," and selected "Tracback." The track has been copied to 16 waypoints. We have then downloaded these, and they have appeared on the track.

You can save this list of waypoints by selecting "Export" from the "Waypoints" menu and saving them to a *.txt file. Be sure to pick a different name than the file to which you saved the track. Otherwise, you’ll overwrite the track and won’t be able to retrieve it.

A track will be more accurate than a route created from waypoints, because a track will usually have more points defining it. Here is a comparison of the route (in red) created from the waypoints of the "Tracback" route, and the track itself (in blue).

Next

Computerized Topo Maps Home Page
Part I: Introduction | Basic GPS w/ Terms | Interfacing with GPS | Contour Interval & Scale | Detail & Quality
Part II: Introduction | Installation and Technical Support | Ease of Use | Entering Waypoints and Routes
Part III: Introduction | Downloading Tracks from your GPS | Actively Tracking from your GPS | Printing Maps
General Comparison of the Programs

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Topo USA 2.0 | 3-D TopoQuads | Wildflower TOPO! and TOPO! GPS | TrailSmart | ALL TOPO MAPS | Fugawi

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