(1808 posts)
Nov 22, 2008 8:02 pm
National Geograpic TOPO! software
Planning most of my backpacking adventures thus far goes something like this:- Research places on the Internet that sound interesting[/*:m:lpbqjsli]
- Find someplace that looks appealing[/*:m:lpbqjsli]
- Figure out what US Geologic Survey maps to order[/*:m:lpbqjsli]
- Order maps, wait a week[/*:m:lpbqjsli]
- Maps arrive[/*:m:lpbqjsli]
- Manually figure waypoints[/*:m:lpbqjsli]
- Enter into program to upload to GPS[/*:m:lpbqjsli]
- Load waypoint list into Google Earth to view terrain[/*:m:lpbqjsli]
The frustrating part about the USGS maps is they are frequently old and out of date. Not a couple of years, but decades. The first trip we took, the map was edited in 1984. Not too bad. This last trip, the base map was last edited in the 1950's. Ouch. Granted, the topography probably hasn't changed much, but geesh.
Well, enter my latest toy. National Geographic has several software packages, one of which is called TOPO! and is typically purchased for a single state at a time. Downside? It's $100 per state. I am, shall we say, frugal with money.
A place I bought a map years ago sent me an e-mail, and there's a buy one get one free going on in November & December. Well, that's the kind of deal I can go for, and I did. Not only was the software on sale for $20 off retail, but because the order is over $75 it's free shipping. Print the coupon out, fill it out, mail it to National Geographic with your receipt and the UPC code from the box and they ship the free one to you.
The New Mexico edition is a total of 9 CD-ROM's, one for the program and eight for data. The program can automatically download updated software, but maps are a manual process for a limited area. National Geographic also has a website for exchanging map information, which can download and interface directly into the software.
The install portion went flawlessly, though the system didn't play well when it downloaded it's software update. The processor went to 100% and stayed there, and the program could not be killed through task manager. Only a reboot fixed the issue. When I started the program after the reboot, it finished installing the update with no problems.
The interface is very simple to use. I read through the 84 page Adobe Acrobat manual, but for the most part it's largely unnecessary. The interface itself is very intuitive, but some of the advanced features (like elevation modeling) would be a little tricky to find.
The software can deal with two coordinate formats, latitude/longitude and UTM. If you're an outdoors person and don't use UTM, please visit with me about it. It's based on the metric system, and takes about 2 whole minutes to learn. And it's super simple to take GPS coordinates and translate them to the map to pinpoint your exact position. It's also easy to read the map, plot the coordinates and manually enter them into a program to upload to the GPS.
You can print your own maps, which eliminates the need to buy them from the USGS. The program can also talk directly to my GPS, which eliminates the need for two other programs I was using.
Probably the neatest feature is the 3-D fly through. The program can fly you along your route, with all the terrain in 3-D. You will have a good idea what the terrain looks like from this alone. But, the program also has the ability to generate a line graph showing elevation gain/loss over the entire route.
I'll still have to get my start by looking at things on the Internet about which sites to visit, but after that the planning process just became a lot more streamlined.
If anybody wants a look at it, let me know. I installed it on my wife's laptop, simply so I'm not stuck hosting discussions about where to go.