GPS Tracklog » Software

National Geographic TOPO price slashed in half

Rich Owings — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 14:16:23 +0000

National Geographic has announced that they have cut the price of their TOPO State Series product in half, to $49.95, giving you every USGS topo map for your state or region for a pretty amazing price. IMHO, this is the best product out there for producing printed maps showing your waypoints and tracks. It’s essential that you carry a paper map when entering the backcountry, and this software allows you to layer the same data that’s on your GPS and focus on the exact area you plan to traverse.

I’ve written about this program several times before, most recently in my Routine GPS backcountry prep post, where I discuss my workflow prior to outings, from finding tracks of trails to printing the NG TOPO map with a UTM grid overlay to allow me to quickly locate my position on the map.

Garmin intros HomePort marine planning app

Rich Owings — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 18:24:03 +0000

Garmin has announced a new marine planning software desktop application dubbed HomePort. After the introduction of this and BaseCamp, perhaps we’ll see a new auto trip planner in the near future. Full news release after the jump…

Garmin International Inc., a unit of Garmin Ltd. (NASDAQ: GRMN), the global leader in satellite navigation, today announced the introduction of Garmin HomePort – a new application that allows mariners to plan and manage trips, routes, tracks and waypoints and transfer them between a PC computer and applicable Garmin chartplotter, making it easier than ever to plan and review all of your on-the-water adventures.

“HomePort is the planning and data backup solution our marine customers have been waiting for,” said Dan Bartel, Garmin’s vice president of worldwide sales. “This desktop application is the complete trip planning package with capabilities specific to the mariner. And best of all, HomePort utilizes the charts mariners have already purchased for and use with their chartplotter.”

Whether you’re planning a journey or coming off the water, HomePort enables the use of existing BlueChart® data from a preloaded Garmin chartplotter, or preprogrammed data card to help plan ahead on your PC – no additional charts are needed. Once the chart data is uploaded to HomePort, the user can begin to manage and catalog waypoints, routes and tracks, and use the application to help predict fuel usage, tides and depth profiles. With HomePort, mariners can also plan a route to avoid hidden underwater hazards, and can plot a course that keeps their vessel away from shallow or rocky shorelines. HomePort also allows the user to measure distance and bearing between waypoints, and will even help calculate speed and determine an estimated time of arrival.

For even more convenience, the HomePort application lets users create trip files so that they may save and profile trips for future use on their PC. Once you’re finished working in HomePort, you need only to transfer the planned route back to the chartplotter via the micro SD™/SD™ card, and enjoy the journey.

Planning on HomePort can be made on either traditional navigation charts, or on fishing charts and is compatible with BlueChart g2 Vision®, BlueChart g2 and BlueChart data. HomePort is expected to be available in November 2009 for a retail price of $29.99. This new planning application will be available for retail purchase, or as a download from www.garmin.com/homeport. To learn more about HomePort and Garmin’s compatible BlueChart offerings, go to www.garmin.com.

Transferring features from a PDF map to your GPS

Rich Owings — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 10:00:34 +0000

I learned the other day about a new 10,000 acre tract of public lands near me. There are no trail maps of the area and I am dying to explore it (once all this rain stops). I’ll probably do another post on prepping my GPS for exploring there, but this one aspect warrants its own post.

A quick search turned up a PDF map of the area. This gave me a map of the boundary, but I wanted a way to place that boundary in mapping software where I could create waypoints, layer tracks, and transfer it to my GPS.

It turns out that TopoFusion has a “user calibrated maps” feature. It will only accept .jpg, .png and .bmp files though, so the biggest hurdle was converting the PDF. If you don’t have Photoshop or something similar, you can use a free online converter.

From there it was amazingly easy. One more tip before you get started – it’s best to size the TopoFusion map view as closely as possible to the area covered on the PDF.

If you’re following along with TopoFusion, you can get to this feature by going to Window > User Map Library. Once you add the map, you click on Calibrate Point 1. You can pan and zoom the map as needed. Find a point (I chose a benchmark in the upper left portion of the map) and click on it. The user added map goes away and you can then click the same point on the underlying TopoFusion map. In this case it was a USGS 7.5’ topo. Repeat for points two and three, spreading them apart as much as possible (I try to use points near opposite corners of the map).

With that done, I was able to use the track tool to trace the boundary lines and transfer those to my GPS. You could use this same process to trace trails shown on a PDF park map (though I’d search for actual GPX track files online before taking that route).

I’m sure you’ll be hearing more about how my Rocky Fork trail mapping goes. In the meantime, download the free demo version of TopoFusion and check it out. Get the Pro version, as this feature is not found in the basic version.

Ten reasons TopoFusion rocks