Cool: all the USGS maps for the United States: free, downloadable.
http://libremap.org/data/state/washington/drg/
The quality is comparable to the "TOPO!" series maps or what you get at TopoZone (not that I would ever use TopoZone unless desperate). On the down side, the time to download is ~ 10 minutes at work, where the connection is pretty speedy. It's only a 30 MB file, so I'm guessing that the server is sluggish... Other minor problems: the images were scanned from paper maps, so there are obvious folds in the maps, and there isn't any sort of UI to find the location you're looking for.
For example, if a friend says, "hey, you should check out Mt. Chiwawa - it's a great hike", you need to first figure out which map ("quad") Mt. Chiwawa is in. Most guidebooks tell you which quad the hike is in, but if you don't have a guide book, then a bit of hunting online is in order.
TOPO!, on the other hand, allows me to type in "Chiwawa" and specify the state I want to search in (since I have three states installed) and voila - it shows me where it is on a map... then I can zoom into the appropriate level, and then annotate and print to my heart's content. It also ties in some handy, if not perfect, GPS functionality.
The first picture is from TopoZone (which is nearly identical to the picture from the libremap website), the second from TOPO! Although you don't get any more detail from TOPO!, it's certainly easier on the eye.
TopoZone allows you to search by placename, but then the map navigation process is slow and painful; the map display shows only a small area at any one time. The map quality is similar to TOPO!, but without any smoothing applied, it's less pleasant to look at.
Since I already have the TOPO! maps for Washington state, I will definitely stick to using them. But if I were a starving student or ever without access to the TOPO! maps or travelling to a state which I didn't have TOPO! maps for, I'd be all over libremap.org. (Which reminds me... I'm going to Reno this weekend and New Hampshire next month... :)
http://libremap.org/data/state/washington/drg/
The quality is comparable to the "TOPO!" series maps or what you get at TopoZone (not that I would ever use TopoZone unless desperate). On the down side, the time to download is ~ 10 minutes at work, where the connection is pretty speedy. It's only a 30 MB file, so I'm guessing that the server is sluggish... Other minor problems: the images were scanned from paper maps, so there are obvious folds in the maps, and there isn't any sort of UI to find the location you're looking for.
For example, if a friend says, "hey, you should check out Mt. Chiwawa - it's a great hike", you need to first figure out which map ("quad") Mt. Chiwawa is in. Most guidebooks tell you which quad the hike is in, but if you don't have a guide book, then a bit of hunting online is in order.
TOPO!, on the other hand, allows me to type in "Chiwawa" and specify the state I want to search in (since I have three states installed) and voila - it shows me where it is on a map... then I can zoom into the appropriate level, and then annotate and print to my heart's content. It also ties in some handy, if not perfect, GPS functionality.
The first picture is from TopoZone (which is nearly identical to the picture from the libremap website), the second from TOPO! Although you don't get any more detail from TOPO!, it's certainly easier on the eye.
TopoZone allows you to search by placename, but then the map navigation process is slow and painful; the map display shows only a small area at any one time. The map quality is similar to TOPO!, but without any smoothing applied, it's less pleasant to look at.
Since I already have the TOPO! maps for Washington state, I will definitely stick to using them. But if I were a starving student or ever without access to the TOPO! maps or travelling to a state which I didn't have TOPO! maps for, I'd be all over libremap.org. (Which reminds me... I'm going to Reno this weekend and New Hampshire next month... :)
Labels: Outdoors
posted by Susan at
2:14 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home