Computerized Topo Maps, General Comparison of the Programs

Computerized Topo Maps
How Good Are They?

Part III
GENERAL COMPARISON OF THE PROGRAMS

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

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Price:

DeLorme Topo USA 2.0. The entire USA, all 50 states, is covered on 6 regional CDs. Total cost for all 6 CDs is $94.95, 4X4BOOKS.com price. Each regional CD can be purchased for $39.95.

DeLorme 3-D TopoQuads. This program covers a state with all the topo quad maps of that state. DeLorme expects to cover all states by January or February of 2000. The CDs covering a single state cost $99.95, 4X4BOOKS.com introductory price for most states. Several states like California and Texas are split into 2 or 3 areas and cost more for the complete state.

Topo! and Topo!GPS.

Topo! offers Topo!GPS, which covers the entire USA, on large scale (zoomed out) maps, for the 4X4BOOKS.com price of $34.95.

It also offers coverage for a large portion of a variety of states and all of most national parks for the 4X4BOOKS.com price of $44.95 per regional CD. Each CD contains about 100 – 200 topo quad maps. States currently covered include: Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, District of Columbia, Georgia, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, Utah, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, and Wisconsin.

All Topo Maps. This program completely covers several states, providing 1,800 to 3,000 topo quad maps per state, offered on a set of CDs. States currently covered include: Colorado, Idaho, Montana, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming. The CD set for each state costs $99.95, 4X4BOOKS.com price, except for Montana, which costs $108.39.

Fugawi. The basic program costs $85.50, 4X4BOOKS.com price. The USGS topo quad map coverage is provided on separate CDs available from several sources. I obtained mine from the Micropath Corporation and ChartTiff. Each CD covers a block of 1 degree latitude and 1 degree longitude. Since quad maps cover 7 minutes 30 seconds on a side, there are 8 maps on each side of the block, or 64 quad maps on a CD.

The cost is $50 for each CD (1 x 1 degree block, 64 quad maps), from either Micropath or ChartTiff, though 4X4BOOKS.com sells the Micropath CDs for a discounted price of $35. California maps are different from the other states, and the ChartTiff maps have the advantage of loading directly in Fugawi. The California Micropath quad maps have to be calibrated individually as they are imported and loaded.

Fugawi is a good program to use if you need to cover a specific region within a particular state. If you’re trying to cover an entire state or several states, it gets expensive because of the number of CDs required.

Cost effectiveness: DeLorme’s 3-D TopoQuads seems to provide the best value for the coverage it provides. It provides coverage in both "zoomed out" vectorized maps and "zoomed in" USGS topo quad maps, covering an entire state for a reasonable price. All Topo Maps is also a good value, and provides USGS topo quads for the entirety of the states it covers.

Coverage: Both DeLorme’s 3-D TopoQuads and Fugawi cover the entire US. Fugawi would require a large number of third-party CDs to do this, though covering the entire US with 3-D TopoQuads would get very expensive as well.

Overall ease of use: Topo!, including Topo!GPS, is probably the easiest program to use, in terms of ease of installation and learning the program quickly. The help files are well organized and straightforward. The program suffers somewhat from not being able to zoom in to as much detail as the other programs.

Versatility: Fugawi has the useful feature of being able to download the Micropath or ChartTiff maps from the CD to the hard drive of your computer. If you have the room for this on your computer, the programs will run faster. All the other programs require that a specific CD be in place while the program is running.

Control: All Topo Maps, in my opinion, gives you the most control over what appears on the maps through its "Waypoint Editor" window. The labels of the waypoints can be adjusted easily and the mega codes allow the easy creation of route lines.

Printing: Topo! is probably the easiest program from which to print maps, in terms of predicting exactly what will appear on the printed map. However, the other programs, DeLorme’s 3-D Topo Quads and Topo USA 2.0, All Topo Maps, and Fugawi are all straightforward in their printing function.

GPS handling, creating waypoints and routes: The programs all handle these functions in different ways. I don’t think any of them has a clear advantage over the others.

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