Software Archives - Page 6 of 11

Free waypoint manager: EasyGPS

September 12, 2006 By Rich Owings 7 Comments

Choosing_mapping_software_5 Though it’s not really a mapping program per se, EasyGPS is a great piece of software, especially suited for those just beginning to learn the capabilities of their GPS. You may not be ready to spend money on a sophisticated mapping program yet, but you’re piling up waypoints faster than your GPS receiver’s memory can handle them (many have a limit of 500 waypoints).

Well, EasyGPS is the answer, and it’s free. In addition to handling waypoints, you can also create routes with it. Plus, it’s geocaching friendly, because it handles both .loc and .gpx format files.

Shameless plug — There is a chapter on EasyGPS (and over a dozen other GPS programs) in my book — GPS Mapping: Make Your Own Maps.

NAIP aerial photography

September 11, 2006 By Rich Owings Leave a Comment

Naip_aerial_photo_mendocino

The Map Room recently covered the National Agricultural Imagery Program (NAIP). Now don’t be confused by the Agriculture part of the name, because the NAIP is of value to a much broader audience. NAIP offers very recent, natural-color aerial imagery of almost the entire U.S., at a relatively high resolution. Full county mosaics are $50. For my county, there is a 2006 image with a resolution of 2 meters/pixel, and a 2005 image at 1 meter/pixel. The image at left, of the Big River estuary and Mendocino, CA, is supposed to be 2 meter resolution. The resolution doesn’t look quite that sharp to me, but nevertheless, I can make out recent changes in logging roads in the area I frequent for mountain bike rides. The image to the right below, shows a 3-D view with waypoints, that I created using OziExplorer.

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The color county mosaics are in MrSID format. You can use OziExplorer to work with these files, and the NAIP website lists several viewers. Quarter quadrangles are available in GeoTIFF format. Here’s the latest (2005) aerial photo coverage map for color county mosaics.

Unfortunately, we’re dealing with the feds here, so ordering is a pain and delivery is slow.

Filed Under: Aerial imagery, GIS, Maps, Software

Free topos and aerial photos: USAPhotoMaps

September 5, 2006 By Rich Owings Leave a Comment

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Everybody loves stuff they can get for free, right? Especially if it is way cool and quite useful. Well, USAPhotoMaps fits the bill. Created by Doug Cox, USAPhotoMaps is TerraServer-based, just like TopoFusion. And just like TopoFusion, you can look at aerial photos or topo maps of just about any location in the U.S. For some urban areas, you can even view color aerial photos down to 0.25 meters/pixel (see below left)!

One of the ways I’ve used USAPhotoMaps is to locate newer 4WD roads that don’t appear on topo maps, which are usually much Usaphotomaps_color_urban_aerial older than USGS aerial photos. In the image on the right below, I’ve drawn a track along a logging road. To the left below, you can see how I’ve been able to update a topo map with the hand-drawn track.

One of the other great things about USAPhotoMaps, is that Doug Cox just keeps updating it, adding new features and keeping it current.

USAPhotoMaps does lack some features, but all in all, it’s a great program, and you sure can’t beat the price. I believe it is Usa_photo_3 particularly useful for people new to the world of GPS, who may not be ready to lay out money for mapping software and aren’t quite sure what all they can do with it. If you’ve never transferred your track to your computer, to view it on an aerial photo, you’ve got a treat coming. And now you don’t have any excuse not to!

There is a full chapter on USAPhotoMaps in my book, GPS Mapping – Make Your Own Maps.

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Other posts in this series:

Filed Under: Aerial imagery, Internet applications, Software

Free Garmin World Wide Basemap, Part II

August 31, 2006 By Rich Owings 4 Comments

Following a comment today, and further investigation when I got home, I’m going to retract what I said about the free Garmin World Wide Basemap, at least for the 60CSx. The transfer to my unit appears to have not worked, and I now believe that what I am seeing on the screen is nothing more than the 60CSx’s built-in Americas autoroute basemap.

I have no reason to believe that it would not work in a nuvi, and I have to wonder if it wouldn’t work for any Garmin mapping GPS, if you ran it through MapSource, which requires significant effort. We’re talking registry hacks or the use of GPS Map Manager as described in my book.

On the bright side, my existing basemap does seem to be intact! My apologies if I got your hopes up for something both free AND easy.

Filed Under: Garmin, Maps, Software

Free Garmin World-Wide Basemap

August 30, 2006 By Rich Owings 9 Comments

World_wide_base_map_1 UPDATE: Before you get too excited, read this.

As if my recent posts dissing the nuvi weren’t enough to earn me the enmity of Garmin, now I go and post this. I’ll never get a review unit now!

I saw this thread in the GpsPasSion nuvi forum the other day, showing how to get a World-Wide Garmin basemap for free. Now this isn’t from some file-sharing site; nope, this is straight from Garmin themselves. The page is actually set up to download the Garmin World Wide Basemap for iQue 3600 owners, but I beleive it will work for any Garmin GPS that can accomodate maps. I was able to easily get it on my 60CSx.

Okay, before you go off and download it, here are a few caveats:

Read the full thread at GpsPasSion before doing anything.
I’m not guaranteeing anything here. You could erase your existing basemap. You may want to change the name of this one before transferring it to your GPS, but I’m not sure that will prevent erasure of the original. (Should have tried that myself!)
This is version 3.01, and it bears a date of April 7, 2004.
It does not appear to be the same product as Garmin’s WorldMap product, which has more detail, at least in some areas. But as you can see in the screen capture, it ain’t bad.

Filed Under: Garmin, Maps, Software

Software for power mappers: OziExplorer

August 28, 2006 By Rich Owings 2 Comments

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I just can’t say enough good things about OziExplorer. When you hit a wall with other software, OziExplorer can usually get the job done. Before we get into the feature list, let me point out that while OziExplorer costs $85, there are two free trial versions that will allow you to check out nearly all its features. But unless you have one-time needs, I’m betting you’ll pony up the bucks after trying it out. It’s that good.

Here are a few highlights:

Free maps. Sure, the program may cost $85 but, after that, you can use Ozi_1_2 many sources of free maps. Often these are USGS maps in digital form, known as digital raster
graphics (DRG). One example is shown at right. This can come in quite handy. I own National Geographic TOPO! for California, but on a recent vacation to Tahoe, I was contemplating a side-trip into Nevada to ride the Pine Nut Mountain loop. I was able to download free maps from a Nevada site and use them in OziExplorer.

Filed Under: Software

Downloading tracks to your GPS for navigation

August 24, 2006 By Rich Owings 1 Comment

Downloaded_track

I returned a couple of days ago from a week long mountain biking vacation at Lake Tahoe and Downieville, California. I had wanted to ride many of these trails for years and since I had not ridden them before, prior to going I downloaded tracks that others had posted online. Most of them came from MotionBased, although I did get a file of the Tahoe Rim Trail from National Geographic TOPO!‘s mapXchange. Tracks from the latter are much easier to use now (even for non-TOPO owners), thanks to the newly minted ability of GPSBabel to convert .tpo track files from TOPO!

So I layered the downloaded tracks and waypoints on maps I then printed with TOPO!, constructed routes, transferred maps and tracks to my GPS, etc. But once on the trail, I was reminded what a useful tool these pre-loaded tracks are for navigation, especially when you are moving fast on a bike. The image at the left is one such track. Notice that I set the track color to blue.

Actual_track_over_downloaded_track
The screen image to the right gives you an idea what this looks like in the field, as my actual track (in red) overlays the pre-loaded track as I progress along the trail. (These are reconstructed images, so the current position cursor is missing; I did not take my laptop on the ride to do screen captures!) With this sort of setup, it’s easy to see at a glance if you’ve taken a wrong turn.

Now I do have a few caveats:

This is no substitute for conventional navigation.
The downloaded tracks are representations of someone else’s experience, and may include a wildly inaccurate track, wrong turns, etc.
Check to be sure that the downloaded track matches up to written trail descriptions and maps of the route that you are planning to take.

Filed Under: Internet applications, Software, Trip report (TR)

Get maps and aerial photos online: TopoFusion

August 17, 2006 By Rich Owings Leave a Comment

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UPDATE: Check out ten reasons TopoFusion rocks.

Today we’re going to look at programs that download maps from TerraServer, a partnership between Microsoft and USGS. With these applications, you can view topo maps and aerial photos, and even detailed color imagery for urban areas.

My favorite application in this category is TopoFusion, which has a long list of advantages. Here are a few of them:

A free demo mode. The full version is $40 and well worth it.
A log book that captures a history of your trips in calendar format.
Ability to switch between topos and aerial photos of a location, or blend the two.
3-D views.
PhotoFusion automatically links photos to where they were shot.

Filed Under: Aerial imagery, Software

CD-based mapping software: National Geographic TOPO!

August 14, 2006 By Rich Owings Leave a Comment

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We’ll start this series off with CD (or DVD) -based mapping software to use with (not on) your GPS. In this category, you typically buy a package that has all the topo maps for an entire state, usually for around $100 retail. This is a great deal for your home state, but could get expensive for those with a serious case of wanderlust! Most of these programs are relatively simple to learn, and most produce great printed maps for field use as well.

National Geographic TOPO!

My favorite software in this category is National Geographic TOPO! (Amazon). It is fairly straightforward and easy to learn, and a number of common features are well designed. One example is that you can construct routes from existing waypoint names. You would think that would be a no brainer for the designers of these programs, but sadly, too many software packages lack this feature.

Filed Under: Software

Choosing the best mapping software

August 14, 2006 By Rich Owings 9 Comments

Choosing_mapping_software Today we’re going to begin a series of posts that look at mapping software choices — a complex decision that can befuddle the most rabid and tech savvy GPS enthusiast.

Much of what I say here will be opinion; I’ll tell you what my favorite mapping programs are, but I’ll also tell you why. It may be because they do an outstanding job meeting everyday needs, implement popular features exceptionally well, or use intuitive interfaces that dramatically reduce the learning curve. I’ll also highlight programs that do what the others don’t, giving you powerful tools for atypical needs.

These programs were all featured in my book, GPS Mapping – Make Your Own Maps, in more detail. Consider this a short course. So check in frequently over the next week or two. I’ll cover a wide range of options that will help you meet your mapping needs.