Posted by Scott Borger on June 27, 2007 at 2:07 PM
From 14ers.com:
"Roger Edrinn, photo book author and owner of www.abovethetimber.com, has created a DVD of 40-foot contour topo maps for Garmin GPS units. If you want CO topo maps for your Garmin unit, this is WAY better than the 1:100,000 scale maps you get with the MapSource Topo products. These maps are 1:24,000 which is the same as USGS Quad maps. So, you get the same major and minor contour lines as a paper quad map, making it much easier to glance from paper maps to the GPS screen. The image files also include roads, peak names, etc."
It was just a matter of time before someone came up with this. Garmin's mapsource software was inadequate.
I've thought about Garmin's software in a different way. Sure the detail was somewhat lacking, but a GPS isn't meant to be a standalone navigation system. It is supposed to go with a map and a compass. Last time I checked, batteries do lose charge and GPS fails to find a signal in many situations. The original garmins (like my eTrex Vista w/24MB) didn't have the ability to accept flash memory, so making the maps take up little space was an important factor in the usability of the maps. Now with 2GB flash cards, its a different ballgame. I think this is a good product, but I wouldn't go so far as to say the 100K maps were inadequate. For me, these maps would be unusable since each 15 minute would probably take up more memory than I have on my still performing GPS receiver.
Anyways, its a cool product and I'm sure it will be very successful.
Mel-
Posted by Scott Borger on June 27, 2007 at 3:11 PM
Mel: a GPS isn't meant to be a standalone navigation system. It is supposed to go with a map and a compass.
Mel, my GPS has both a map and a compass on it. Depending on the trip, I may carry a paper topo and compass as a backup, but until now, it was hard to tell changes in elevation over a small area, especially when you consider how small GPS screens are. I guess your idea of inadequacy depends on how far you need to zoom in and how much of an area you need to see. Considering the fact that the 24k maps have always been available and Garmin chose to not use them, I felt that Mapsource was lacking in a big way.
Like I said, I'm sure the product will be successful. When the eTrex Vista, the 60C, and the other mapping GPS units came out, flash memory was much more expensive than it is today. I don't know why they didn't install CF or standard SD slots on the devices, but the micro SD didn't exist. It seemed short sighted to me back then that a flash memory slot wasn't provided, but they might not have known what format was going to survive. The 100K data that Garmin uses takes up much less space than the 24K data and I'm sure that memory requirements were a big deciding factor when the framework was developed.
I have always been able to determine the lay of the land off a GPS map. I have been able to find navigation checkpoints and features as points of reference. I can honestly say that my GPS has never caused me to get lost.
Finally, why do I say that it isn't meant as a standalone device? Does your GPS charge itself while you are walking? What happens if you drop and break it? Then you have no map and no compass. Just as many people get lost on dayhikes as multi day backpacking trips.
Scott – do you have the DVD? If so, any issues with the software or GPS unit?
Posted by Scott Borger on June 27, 2007 at 9:43 PM
I'm not looking for an arguement here, Mel. I simply wanted to let people know about this new product if they are interested. If you're comfortable with what you already have, great. If you think that it is not necessary, don't buy it. Moving on....
Rene: I don't have the DVD yet. I'm passing through Buena Vista this weekend and I'm going to pick up a copy from Roger's house....otherwise the website says that it will take 3 weeks to arrive. There is a small trial that you can download from the website. You can think of it as another DVD like MapSource, but only more detailed and only of CO instead of an entire region of the US. It opens up the map in mapsource as "trial etc." instead of "Western US." Since it is just opening up in MapSource, I imagine that everything else should be the same as before. Some of my friends over at 14ers.com tried it out and like it. Hope this helps.
Posted by Kalin Wilson on June 28, 2007 at 11:29 AM
Kinda on topic - I picked up a book at Borders last night, "CO GPS Coordinates". I don't have it in front of me so I don't have the author. It's basically a list of lat/long/alt for various categories of locations across the state. It's probably got several thousand coordinates. Categories like basins, summits, lakes, springs, falls, etc looked interesting to me.
I've got TOPO USA 6.0 and the Earthmate PN-20 that I can download 24k quads and imagery to, plus plenty of paper maps. I debated whether I needed a book of coordinates or just use the software or find things manually on the maps. I decided it would be convenient to quickly look up a location, enter the listed coordinate in software or the GPS and go from there.
Others may find it useful too if you didn't know about it.
BTW, I came across the abovetimber maps online when I was researching GPS units. If I'd gone with the Garmin I probably would have picked up a copy of those maps. They look pretty good.
Later,
Kalin
Posted by Mel Ladewig on June 28, 2007 at 11:31 AM
My apologies. I didn't mean to start an argument. Like I said, these new maps will be welcome and I'm sure that they are a good improvement.
My first 2 GPS devices didn't have mapping capability, so for me, the 100K maps on the Vista were like WooHoo! Finally I could see roughly where I was without having to bust out the map! I only wanted to highlight what I thought was the reason Garmin decided on a lower resolution.
Like I said before, I can definitely see the value in these and I'm sure the software is going to be popular. My Vista is still working well so I probably won't replace it real soon and without replacing it, space is at a premium. This stuff keeps making incremental improvements, so who knows what the next generation will bring.
Finally, I was trying to keep the safety aspect in mind. I trust the GPS to accurately tell me where I am, but I don't trust the GPS. I've had it eat batteries faster than it is supposed to. On a multiple day trip you can't leave it on all the time without carrying alot of batteries and if you turn it off, it takes a while to regain position data.
Posted by Scott Borger on June 28, 2007 at 4:00 PM
No worries, no hard hard feelings, Mel (I did not want this post to get heated like the Jeep post). I have the Rino 530 with the high sensitivity antenna, 14 (really 5) mile GMRS radio, etc. I can understand you're concern for safety. My batteries last 20 hours and I always carry spares. I carry TOPO + compass as a backup, but with 24k I and pre-plotted waypoints, I rarely use the paper TOPO. I just wish I had the new one with the external cards so that I could load the entire state of CO in 24k on my GPS unit...now that would be sweet.
The card slots make the new GPS units really tempting. Trust me, I've thought about it alot. I just can't bring myself to spend another $300 or so on a new GPS. Mine has so little space that I can only load 4 or 6 sections of 100K topos before I run out of space. The vista is supposed to last 20hours on a set of alkaline batteries and normally it does, but from time to time it just eats them. I'm not really sure why. I've tried NiMH and it goes through those really quick too even though I've instructed it that it is using NiMH batteries.
Discussion
10 replies"Roger Edrinn, photo book author and owner of www.abovethetimber.com, has created a DVD of 40-foot contour topo maps for Garmin GPS units. If you want CO topo maps for your Garmin unit, this is WAY better than the 1:100,000 scale maps you get with the MapSource Topo products. These maps are 1:24,000 which is the same as USGS Quad maps. So, you get the same major and minor contour lines as a paper quad map, making it much easier to glance from paper maps to the GPS screen. The image files also include roads, peak names, etc."
It was just a matter of time before someone came up with this. Garmin's mapsource software was inadequate.
LINK: http://www.abovethetimber.com/Features.htm
Anyways, its a cool product and I'm sure it will be very successful.
Mel-
I have always been able to determine the lay of the land off a GPS map. I have been able to find navigation checkpoints and features as points of reference. I can honestly say that my GPS has never caused me to get lost.
Finally, why do I say that it isn't meant as a standalone device? Does your GPS charge itself while you are walking? What happens if you drop and break it? Then you have no map and no compass. Just as many people get lost on dayhikes as multi day backpacking trips.
Rene: I don't have the DVD yet. I'm passing through Buena Vista this weekend and I'm going to pick up a copy from Roger's house....otherwise the website says that it will take 3 weeks to arrive. There is a small trial that you can download from the website. You can think of it as another DVD like MapSource, but only more detailed and only of CO instead of an entire region of the US. It opens up the map in mapsource as "trial etc." instead of "Western US." Since it is just opening up in MapSource, I imagine that everything else should be the same as before. Some of my friends over at 14ers.com tried it out and like it. Hope this helps.
I've got TOPO USA 6.0 and the Earthmate PN-20 that I can download 24k quads and imagery to, plus plenty of paper maps. I debated whether I needed a book of coordinates or just use the software or find things manually on the maps. I decided it would be convenient to quickly look up a location, enter the listed coordinate in software or the GPS and go from there.
Others may find it useful too if you didn't know about it.
BTW, I came across the abovetimber maps online when I was researching GPS units. If I'd gone with the Garmin I probably would have picked up a copy of those maps. They look pretty good.
Later,
Kalin
My first 2 GPS devices didn't have mapping capability, so for me, the 100K maps on the Vista were like WooHoo! Finally I could see roughly where I was without having to bust out the map! I only wanted to highlight what I thought was the reason Garmin decided on a lower resolution.
Like I said before, I can definitely see the value in these and I'm sure the software is going to be popular. My Vista is still working well so I probably won't replace it real soon and without replacing it, space is at a premium. This stuff keeps making incremental improvements, so who knows what the next generation will bring.
Finally, I was trying to keep the safety aspect in mind. I trust the GPS to accurately tell me where I am, but I don't trust the GPS. I've had it eat batteries faster than it is supposed to. On a multiple day trip you can't leave it on all the time without carrying alot of batteries and if you turn it off, it takes a while to regain position data.