Survival Arts

Slick (and free) GPS map display software

Forwarded with permission by Steve Pegram on behalf of a friend of his, who has asked to remain anonymous. - ed

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"Go here and download USAPhotoMaps.

It is free and is one of the absolutely slickest little GPS map display programs I have come across. It does NOT have a lot of features (like route planning or any of those fancy functions) but it will give you a taste of what is possible and you will see what satellite imagery maps look like and you can also display USGS topo maps of your chosen area. What it does is download aerial photos (satellite imagery) and USGS topo maps from Terraserver and creates a scrollable, zoomable, GPS enabled moving map with your position located by a dot in the center of the screen.

Find out what your GPS coordinates are and load them into the set-up screen. On command, (if you are connected to the internet) the screen will automatically download and fill up with your choice of A) 1-meter satellite imagery or B) USGS topo map imagery centered on the coordinates you entered. Once downloaded, you can instantly swap out the overlayed satellite imagery with the topo map.

You do NOT need a GPS receiver to make this work. Also, even on a dial-up internet access, the process is not too painful if you are not too greedy and try to slurp up too big of an area. You can shut off the download anytime you like just by clicking on STOP DOWNLOADING.

Again, this is one of the slickest, cutest and easiest to use GPS moving map display software programs I have yet come across and best of all it is FREE.

It has very few features, but what it has, it does WELL and is SUPER EASY to use. If you know the GPS coordinates at the center of the area you want to look at and enter them, it automatically accesses TerraServer and downloads the satellite imagery you want.

TerraServer imagery offers just barely good enough resolution to see a vehicle on the interstate or a car parked in your driveway. Its resolution falls far short of being able to follow a path in the woods, but in sparsely vegetated areas you can pick out an individual tree. My property is heavily wooded and I can see my house and driveway clearly in the imagery as well as a large drainage ditch along one side of my property. Best of all, you can also download the USGS topo map of the same area.

You DO need a GPS receiver if you are going to locate yourself on the screen and have the maps scroll around as you drive along.

If you do have a GPS receiver with a data output connection on it, you can plug it into your laptop and USAPhotoMaps will automatically put a little colored do on the screen where you are. As you drive around, the software keeps putting little dots down every 10 meters or so and leaves a track record as you move along.

You can get your GPS latitudes and longitudes from the TerraServer address given at the top of the start-up screen or get them from your GPS receiver.

At the start-up screen, just make up and enter a name for the map area you are going to start with and enter the lat and long. You can leave the UTM Northing, Easting and zone blanks empty for this purpose.

I bought a 12-volt power supply for my laptop so I can use it for extended periods in my vehicle when I am driving around in back country roads or trails. Ahead of time, I download both the satellite imagery and the topo maps of the entire general area where I will be prowling around and store it all on the harddrive. USAPhotoMaps makes this super easy to do.

I have several GPS receivers and they all work well, but for certain applications, the 14 inch super-high resolution screen on my laptop makes all the difference in the world. Like most laptops, the major drawback is that it is hard to see in bright daylight. I rigged up a sun-screen-hood for it out of cardboard and duct-tape which helps a lot.

Just recently, a couple of laptops have come out which have the new style REFLECTIVE color screens. Very nice in bright sunlight! In fact, the brighter it is the better these screens show up. Unfortunately, these new reflective display screens on laptops are pretty expensive and not available in the larger screen sizes yet. Twelve inches is the biggest (that I know of) at the moment. Next year, maybe.... Until then I will just have to make do with the 15 inch hard-to-see-in-the-sunlight screen on my Dell Inspiron laptop."

Posted by Russell Whitaker at February 4, 2003 07:32 PM | TrackBack