IndyJpr

Montana Topo mapset finished! The first version of the Montana Topo mapset has been completed, the website is here: http://www.miscjunk.org/mj/mp_mttopo.html Version 1.00 of the mapset contains the following features: - Interstates, highways, railroads, county, local and forest roads - High resolution water data (lakes, rivers and streams) - Land use, metro areas - Elevation contours (40ft intervals) - Points of interest (summits, mines, falls, dams, cemeteries, towers, populated places, etc.) Thanks,

Hi Pete, Here are the contour settings I use in GM: Resoultion (what GM defaults to based on data) X: 0.000104605841386575 arc deg Y: 0.000081169112836251 arc deg Interpolate... checked Smooth... checked Simplification 0.50 I also use the "Export Contours Directly to Package Files..." option so it's going to be hard to do any meaningful comparisons on the file size. My biggest (compressed gmp) files for western Montana are about 20 MB (1/2 deg by 1/2 deg). Another way you could compare is load into GM and compare the vertex "density" - kind of crude but will give you an idea of detail. I ususally zoom into 1:5000, hit Shift-V and take a look: As for road data it varies. I usually check the DOT and GIS organizations for a state to see if they have any road data. If so I'll compare it to the Tiger/Line data and pick whichever is "best" (based on accuracy, coverage, name attributes, road type attributes, etc.). I need to send you my latest SQL files (for NHD, GNIS) - I'll try to get that done today. Thanks,

Montana Update 40ft contours have been generated. Source data: 15.4 GB DEM (compressed) Processing time: 39 hours Resulting data: 1.4 GB shapefiles (compressed)

That's definitely true in some cases. I try to find the best road data available which becomes very subjective: do you use a road layer that is very accurate but has no street names or do you use another layer that is not very accurate but has street names, etc. For Colorado I used data from CDOT which (from memory) didn't seem based on the Tiger data, Wyoming was Tiger since I couldn't find any alternatives, Utah was a Tiger based set that appeared to have been cleaned-up by the state.

You can show/hide entire mapsets - in the menu where you are turning on/off each element hit the Menu button again and there will be a menu to Show/Hide each mapset. See below for some screenshots: http://www.miscjunk.org/mj/mp_mapset.html

Hi FoolishGPS, The current zoom/level settings that I use for contours is: Major contours come on at Level=20 (MapSource scale = 2 mi) Inter contours come on at Level=22 (MapSource scale = 0.5 mi) Minor contours come on at Level=23 (MapSource scale = 0.2 mi) The MapSource detail is medium for the above numbers. I don't have any GPS info handy... Hope that helps,

Hi yogazoo, I got both your original package and the update package on Friday... I'm currently going through all of the CA & MT discs and I'll try to post another update once I've went through it all. Thanks, PS: I also got your email re: hunting districts and I'll try to look at the info you sent this weekend - thanks.

Hi Oz, To add a custom style (or to change an existing one) on a mapset that has already been installed you would just need to create a custom installer (same thing that installs your map but smaller). This installer would only contain (and install) two files: - the TYP file with your custom style(s) - an updated TDB file The installer would also add the TYP registry entry that points to the TYP file. I don't know how hard it will be - I haven't tried it yet - but I'm going to try to make the installer present a "menu" with the following options: - remove all styles (return map to default) - install style A - install style B etc. The installer should be very small (< 50K) and could be updated when needed for people to download and use... Just an idea...not even sure how many people will want or use the styles...

Hi yogazoo, I did get your email but I haven't had a chance to try it out yet. It looks good in your shot from the Colorado and I'm interested how it looks on something like my 76Csx... Is this something you used pre-Colorado and how did it look? In the end the maps will probably default to what they are now but there will be an additional (small) download to add the custom style to all maps if wanted...

Hi Tiny dancer,Following these steps to install a mapset: - close MapSource (if open) - double-click on the installer executable that you downloaded - an installer should start to install the mapset - once the installer is done open MapSource - in the View menu select the Switch to Product item - within the resulting list select the name of the mapset you installed (for example, Colorado Topo Maps) - if Colorado you should see an overview map, if Utah or Wyoming you will have to zoom in to start seeing the map detail To download the maps to your GPS you do it like any other map - use the Map Tool to select the tiles that you want to transfer and use the Send to Device function to transfer. Let me know if you have any problems or have any other questions.

Sounds like something one should see a doctor about... (sorry, couldn't resist) Hi snowfleurys, Yes, that's by design... I initially had the maps covering the whole state plus some extra (the extra because the maps where cut as a square when they were not a perfect square). This would cause two adjacent states to overlap slightly. Unfortunately I've had a handful of people report that when they had multiple maps (states) loaded to their GPS they were having an issue where some states would not show up in the mapset show/hide menu... My testing seems to indicate that this issue is caused by the overlapping maps... I've been going back and forth on a solution but finally decided on cutting states to the 100K quad (or half quad). Where states (that I've created) are adjacent, the state with the most data in that quad will "own" the quad... That probably doesn't make sense to anyone but me - the short answer is that the "missing" CO section will be part of the Utah mapset. It's not ideal but it causes minimal disruption with my workflow (and I'm assuming if someone is interested in that part of CO they will probably also have the UT mapset). Thanks for the information. I don't have a lot of knowledge in this area so I tend to miss things like that... My first instinct after reading your info was to make them intermittent but I just did a google to find out what they were - basically "cuts" in the terrain interpreted to be streams... So I don't know...anybody with more knowledge have an opinion as to whether these are useful on a map? I get a lot of feedback saying people like them and want more/better versions of land status. I've been experimenting with custom styles to 1) make a distinction between different types and 2) to also make them unobtrusive... Unfortunately I'm not having much luck with custom polygons - the color mapping is not well defined and what looks good in MapSource comes out as purple blotches on the GPS... Thanks again for the feedback!

Hi allgolfedout, There is a wealth of information on the subject - google and the search feature here are your friends. Here's a little information to get you started. Tutorials / Info: http://home.cinci.rr.com/creek/garmin.htm http://www.gpsinformation.org/adamnewham/a...1/gpsmapper.htm http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=146955 http://cypherman1.googlepages.com/Creating...hMapSetTool.pdf Software / Tools: http://www.geopainting.com/en/ http://www.mapman.org.uk/ http://www.mapwel.biz/ Hope that helps,

Cool, have you picked out another state yet?... The track logs and POIs are for backcountry roads/forest roads/4wd trails/... Here is test I did with some of his early data: Original Updated With the custom line styles it makes a really good "trail" map...

One big thread for the upcoming work on CO, MT & CA. Colorado Update I've released a new version of the Colorado mapset, the website is here: http://www.miscjunk.org/mj/mp_cotopo.html The release information is: Ver 1.30 - 10 Mar 2008 - New: Added high resolution water data - New: Added more detailed land status data - New: Added an overview preview image for MapSource - Fix: Split tile size in half to help with performance - Fix: Tuned zooms/levels to help with performance This update was done in preparation of adding an extensive set of track and POI data which is being generously shared by n0wae. I will be releasing incremental updates to the mapset as I finish each quad... Montana Build Yogazoo (and friends?) have be collecting and processing data with gusto and I've been told the CDs are in the mail. California Build I've received the DVD/CDs from Marky and Barrikady and will start processing them this week.

Hi snowfleurys, Thank you for the kind words. I did notice that a lot of the trails appeared to be in there but I never did get around to comparing them with some old tracklogs from years past. Hopefully next spring I'll be able to check them out first hand!

Hi, There are numberous threads discussing this question, you can do a search with the following terms: +mapsource +topo +hard +drive One of the results is this thread: http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=180957 Hope that helps,

Thank you Oz for sharing - your info got me up and running very quickly... I just wanted to share a few tips/tricks in case others are using this. If you have several different fcodes with different ftypes you can simplify the query from this: UPDATE area SET mp_type = '0x3b' WHERE fcode = 36200 OR fcode = 39800 OR fcode = 45500; to this: UPDATE area SET mp_type = '0x3b' WHERE fcode IN (36200, 39800, 45500); If you have several different fcodes with the same ftype (meaning the first 3 numbers of the fcode are the same) you can simplify the query from this: UPDATE area SET mp_type = '0x49' WHERE fcode = 33600 OR fcode = 33601 OR fcode = 33602; to this: UPDATE area SET mp_type = '0x49' WHERE FLOOR(fcode/100) = 336; Thanks again Oz!

Whoops, sorry about that! Thanks - glad you like them.

I'm assuming - please let me know if I'm wrong - he is talking about the topo mapsets I created, specifically the CO one. The website for CO (and WY, UT) is:http://www.miscjunk.org/mj/mp_main.html MT, CA and AZ are currently being worked on by myself and others... There's also an set for Canada: http://www.ibycus.com/ibycustopo/ There's also commercial versions for CO and WA - google for Above the Timber... Hope that helps,

Hi nvsteve, Thank you for the feedback and the kind words. I went back to the source data and was able to find the stream you referred to. It was classified as not major/intermittent and because of a concern for performance I did not include that subset of streams in the first release. During the next revisions of CO & WY I'm going to be doing some testing/fine tuning of the zoom/levels and will also perform some tests with all of the stream data included. If that goes well than the plan would be to add those minor streams to the next revision of each state... Thanks again,

Hi Oz, What version of GM do you have? I've been doing a lot merging and haven't seen any errors.

In the case where there are obviously missing segments, what number of segments is listed if you load the maplist back into MapSource? How does it compare to the number you sent? Just curious...

Hi CallawayMT, Thank you for the feedback. Adding state boundaries is on my to do list and I hope to get it done during the next revision for each. Thanks,

Hi wingnut182, Thanks for the feedback. I'm glad to hear you like the maps. I'll be doing some more testing with the NHD data to see what works/doesn't work... Thanks,

Hi Oz, I'm using Manifold System. It's kind of an odd thing and I'm not sure I would recommend it to anyone...