Software Requirements

Back in 2002-2003 I tried different products available on the market and came to the conclusion that the most convenient, fast and easy to use program was Topo! State Series made by National Geographic, in our case Topo! Mid Atlantic and Topo! Pennsylvania and New Jersey.  Topo! Mid Atlantic has scans of all 7.5 min (1:24,000 scale) maps for VA, MD, WV, DE, DC in the seamless form, while Topo! Pennsylvania and New Jersey, obviously, has the same for PA and NJ (in one package).  It can download traces and waypoints from many GPS units and upload waypoints to them.  It has a lot of useful features and a very good tutorial, explaining all of them.  After purchasing the software make sure to read and understand the tutorial and install all the updates available from the website, which is: http://www.natgeomaps.com/topo_state.html.   Over the years I read reviews and worked a little bit with other programs, but they still are no match to Topo!.  The only one that came close was from MapTech and that went out of business.

National Geographic makes another program covering the whole US with the 1:50,000 scale and the same interface as Topo! State Series.  It's called Topo! Backroads Explorer.  It's great to have it for states you only plan to visit a handful of times.  Price is only $50.

Topo! software has some of limitations.  The major one is the inability to transfer a trace back to the GPS (it’s only possible to transfer the waypoints and the GPS routes).  This feature is available in a freeware called “GPS TrackMaker (*.gtm files)” available here: http://www.gpstm.com/.  Unfortunately, this program has only overview maps of the US, so it is recommended to use it only for storing traces.   The files for this program are not edited - they are exactly what came from the GPS Receiver.  Use these files if you want to upload the trace back to the GPS.  Also use this program when you have a paper map that you can scan.  You can insert the scan into this program and overlay the trace on top of it.  This is what we did for the trip to Ireland.  GPS TrackMaker stores the elevation from the trace points of the GPS, while Topo! erases them and substitutes this date with it's built in elevation model.  Finally this program has full support of the *.gpx format, while Topo! imports *.gpx with all the data, but only exports *.gpx with waypoints.  This program allows to send traces or parts of them to the Google Earth.

The topographic software made by Garmin is Called Map Source: http://www.garmin.com/garmin/cms/site/us/maps.  This is the only commercial software that allows maps to be uploaded to the GPS.  Garmin also allows to create custom maps and work with them, but this is a grass-root project that I don't have much experience with.  These maps are made of vector graphics, as opposed to the raster graphics of Topo!.   That means less space on the disk and easy editing, which is great.  Another advantage of the Map Source is that it is sold for pretty much any place in the world, not just the US, as is the case for Topo!.  There are packages for Hiking, Boating, Driving, Satellite Photos all with the same interface.  Regretfully, this interface is not that great.  Given an option, I prefer not to use it on my PC.  Still, having maps on the GPS is a great thing.  Mop Source now offers maps with the 1:24,000 scale - same as Topo!  Needless to say, Map Source only works with Garmin GPS units and some new features are only supported by the new units.

I have been very disappointed in Topo! in the last few years.  National Geographic is killing the product by not providing updates and improvements and by not supporting more GPS units.  While this is happening, a universal tracking format emerged that is based on the *.XML and called *.GPX.  All consumer mapping programs now support this format, including Google Earth and all programs mentioned above.  Due to the sad situation with Topo! and the universal availability of *.gpx, I am planning to convert all my *.tpo traces into *.gpx.  The utility I will be using is GPSBabel - a great free program for converting between formats and getting data to and from the GPS.

In the last few years several web services emerged that allow you to download the trace from your GPS, store it on their servers, write description and share it with others, often along with the photos from the trip.  All of them are based on Google Maps and all of them operate in the *.gpx format.  I put the links to them on the Links page.  I can't say I am a big fan of these sites other than as a repository of traces.  They all allocate a very small amount of screen space to the actual maps, since they are supported by flashy advertisements.  They have very poor tools to draw traces and waypoints, which is what I would like to have to prepare for a hike.  They don't have 7.5 min. map overlays, except for one that I know. Yet, as I said, they are great to download maps of unique locations.  I found traces of complete Tour du Mont Blanc in Europe and hikes on Cape Verde in Africa in them which were not available anywhere else.

Finally, not rally related to traces, but since I am writing about the software, I want to mention three more products.  The first one is GeoSetter.  It is a freeware that allows to georeference photos, meaning to put longitude, latitude, and elevation inside the photo files.  Then the actual locations where these photos were taken can be seen on Panoramio, or in the GeoSetter itself.  All you need to do is take a photo of the GPS screen with the time display to adjust the time of the camera with the GPS later, or set the camera time to the atomic clock (gps) before taking photos.  Also, the GPS should record the trace, while the camera is taking pictures.  The program does the rest with all the photos at the same time.  The other program is also free and is called JAlbum.  It allows to create different kinds of photo albums.  I know quite a lot of programs that allow to create photo albums in a very sophisticated form with many features, but I wanted something very simple with as little Java as possible to be able to edit the albums easily and post them on my web site without too much trouble.  JAlbum, even though it has an option of creating sophisticated albums, lets you make very basic albums as well.  Clearly, when locations where the photos were taken are not important, it's best to post them on photo album sites, such as http://smugmug.com, http://picasaweb.google.com or http://www.webshots.com.  The last program is called WonderWebWareScreenRuler.  It allows to measure the distance on the screen and position anything in the screen in a precise place.  I use it to make sure my elevation profiles are the same size.  It's free as well.