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Idaho Topo Released


-Oz-

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I've just released my next topo map... Idaho.

 

Idaho Custom Topo Page

 

This map has the most trails out of any. On top of including the trails from the NW trails map that were in Idaho it also includes all the national forest trails from their clearinghouse. In addition; two 100k quads have 20ft contours rather than the 40ft throughout the rest of the state because the area was flatter. This is also the first map where coverage actually stops at the border of the state.

 

Topo map features:

  • Roads - Interstates, highways, roads, limited unpaved roads (Tiger 2007)
  • Railroads
  • High resolution water data - lakes, rivers, streams, marshes, and washes
  • Federal Land Usage - Wilderness area, national parks, and military bases/ranges, native american reservations, some state parks
  • Borders - County and state boundary lines
  • Elevation contours - 20ft or 40ft intervals (equivalent to 24k)
  • GNIS Points of Interest - summits, mines, falls, dams, cemeteries, towers, populated places, etc.
  • Trails - trail coverage inside of the national parks/forests as well as all trails from the NW Trails map.
  • Parks POI - trailheads, camping sites, forest service huts within the national parks/forests
  • 100k Grid Segments - no segment larger than 8mb means most older GPSr's can use this mapset

Screenshots

A few screenshots so you can see the quality:

1224353050.jpg

 

And a comparison:

1224352579.jpg

 

Any issues or questions let me know.

 

Idaho Topo Map Download

 

Also, I released a map of Wyoming that is great for hunter. Its the Wyoming Land Usage/Ownership map to tell you what type of land you're on. I believe Oregon will be next on my list as well as maybe a few updates with trails to Arizona and New Mexico.

 

Any questions, suggestions, errors, etc just post them here.

Edited by -Oz-
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OZ,

 

You Da Man! I am downloading them as I am typing and should have them loaded within the hour. Soon as I get them loaded I'll give you my 0.02. I have been using Topo 2008 but have been less then impressed, the detail does not compare to my old Deloreme Topo USA 2.0! 24K maps will be great and I will get to try them out next weekend elk hunting.

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Thanks so much for all your efforts. The detail is great! The only problem I found so far is that Lake Pend Oreille has these large blocks of pale green over a lot of its surface instead of the blue it's supposed to have. In fact one of these green blocks extends over my house about .25 miles from the lake. Maybe some mis-compiled polygons?

 

I just noticed that the map looks fine in mapsource; it's just on my Colorado that the green blocks appear. Could I be doing something wrong?

 

I've added the location of the edge of one of the blocks to help you narrow in on what I'm seeing. The coordinates are: N48 15.304 W116 32.627.

 

Hold on, I've just discovered another thing: if I turn off the "land cover" feature under map setup the green blocks disappear and the lake looks as it should. Seems to be something to do with the Colorado's handling of land cover. Any idea why only portions of the lake are affected?

Edited by milos6058
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Just a comment

 

MBT removed most of the Forest clearinghouse trails from the NW trails project due to a lack of quality. There seemed to be large issues with trails not really existing or trails far from the given position. Might be something to think about as far as acuracy.

 

I had heard that in my forums as well. I may actually remove those maps since it appears NW trails covers all the forests as well. It would definitely give better quality.

 

Thanks so much for all your efforts. The detail is great! The only problem I found so far is that Lake Pend Oreille has these large blocks of pale green over a lot of its surface instead of the blue it's supposed to have. In fact one of these green blocks extends over my house about .25 miles from the lake. Maybe some mis-compiled polygons?

 

I just noticed that the map looks fine in mapsource; it's just on my Colorado that the green blocks appear. Could I be doing something wrong?

 

I've added the location of the edge of one of the blocks to help you narrow in on what I'm seeing. The coordinates are: N48 15.304 W116 32.627.

 

Hold on, I've just discovered another thing: if I turn off the "land cover" feature under map setup the green blocks disappear and the lake looks as it should. Seems to be something to do with the Colorado's handling of land cover. Any idea why only portions of the lake are affected?

This is most interesting. I will check out that area on my 60csx. I'm wondering if the lake is part of the national forest or state park or whatever and thus the thing is accurate but on all units prior to the Colorado series the lake has a higher draw priority. It is definitely something to look into.

 

Also, very interesting that I don't see any green blocks in mapsource at that location.

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I have an Oregon 400t. I have also noticed problems with Lake Pend Oreille. Some of the lake area just south of Sandpoint is missing. I think that the ground cover is overriding the water. Please note: Some of the map data may be based upon maps which were created before the construction of Albeni Falls Dam. The dam was constructed around 50 years ago. Many shallow areas of the lake and the Pend Oreille River have been covered with water since the dam was constructed. Possibly the ground cover data was taken from maps which were pre Albeni Falls Dam.

 

I have noticed that if I turn off the ground cover on the Oregon, this problem goes away.

 

John

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Oz,

 

First of all thank you for your efforts to get this Idaho Map out to the public. I do have one suggestion, The landowner information is not the best available.

 

Here is a link to a shapefile with a highly detailed layer of all the public land in Idaho. I can break them up by owner if you'd like so you could add them seperate allowing for the custom TYPing of different colors to represent owners. I find this the most valuable information about the Montana Map especially for folks who use the outdoors and are trying to find public land to recreate on. The link ->> Hi-Resolution land ownership Shapefile.

 

This is an example of custom TYPing of landowners in Montana. 12f3d088-35a2-4e0f-a466-73742ea108f6.jpg

Edited by yogazoo
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OZ,,

 

Good job. I used your Idaho maps last weekend and was very pleased with them. This week I have been planning my yearly elk hunt and the maps much more accurate regarding trials and abandoned logging roads then Gamin's Topo 2008. I am very pleased with them. I did discover one thing you do have to be aware of when your building tracks, your Idaho maps will not return an elevation with a track point. It's not a big deal and the work around I found was to set way-points using your map then switch to Gamin's 2008 Topo to make the track ; that is only if you want to see the profile. I know the elevation isn't all that accurate of the Topo map but when planning an all day hike with gear swag elevation is better then no elevation. You did a really good job with these maps, THANK YOU!

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Oz, I just got back from an elk hunt this past weekend and I want you to know that your maps are highly accurate. I had your maps and Gamin's topo2008 and there was no comparison, your maps was showing roads and trails that Garmin's did not.

 

 

Try enabling both the Topo2008 AND Idaho maps at the same time.

 

yogazoo, no can do when your plotting a course in Map Source.

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Oz-

 

Keep in mind that I'm only trying to help make this a better mapset by offering feedback.

 

I have noticed that the public land ownership data for your Idaho Mapset is full of gaps and errors. I was excited to load the maps onto the field crews GPS's but I'm balking now at the potential for trouble. Say they need to make camp on public land for a few days to collect data in the area, going off the GPS they could end up getting shot!

 

There is a very accurate land ownership shapefile that could be used to update the maps with. The shapdefile download is found here:Idaho Public Land Ownership

 

For an example I will include the following screenshots from MapSource of a few .img files I updated with the new information. I have colored the State and BLM land differently from the standard green but you can still see the vast difference in detail. The difference is even more stark in other areas of the state.

 

Current Idaho Map: 1230662544.jpg

 

Idaho Map updated with current data:1230662575.jpg

 

I do have some idea of the process involved in updating a mapset of this size and I realize it's no cakewalk, but I hope that you might find time over the long cold winter to do so. Thanks Oz!

Edited by yogazoo
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ARizona will be done this afternoon with its updates; nevada is after that (new); then either Idaho or Hawaii; I will include this more detailed file in the update when I fix the roads. Expect in in two weeks I would say.

 

And yes it is a cold winter; neg20oF today...

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Thanks Oz-

 

Just a heads up, take a look at the shapefile table, you may need to remove some private land parcels but not many. If you'd like, I have the data already parsed out (by owner, e.g. BLM, USFS, DOD, STATE) and could get it to you via CD or I could load it on GPSFileDepot.com for you to download. Let me know.

 

I'm sure you are already aware but for the benefit of other, perhaps more amateur map makers, by adding each owner as a seperate shapefile and giving each one a different polygon ID in GPSMapEdit , you will later be able to create a TYP file to generate custom colors for each polygon (see my example above). It's very visually pleasing and is very nice on the GPS screen to tell at a glance which agency owns a certain parcel.

 

Roger Wilco, Over and Out. As always, thanks Oz!

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I think the issue I'll have is that although it is good land ownership it doesn't have names of forests, parks, etc...

 

My 2 cents...

 

For many in the West the most important information is whether or not it's public land and who owns it. The only attributes I can think of that may be useful are USFS district names and National Park Names, and even then, the value of this knowledge is limited. What is really important is "Can we camp/hunt/fish/hike there or can't we?" or in other words what are the recreational activities we can engage in based on ownership. For example, you can't hunt for elk or camp wherever you want in a National Park. Many National/State Parks will have POI's associated with them which will give you a searchable database whether it's in the polygon or not.

 

A TYP file which would colorize the different landowners would be immensly valuable. Here's a typical color scheme found on BLM land use maps:

 

1) USFS - light green

2) BLM, BOR, DOE - orange

3) State - pink

4) NPS, USFWS - olive drab

5) Indian Reservation - light blue/light gray

6) DOD - dark gray

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Oz

 

Are you going to make a topo map for Washington? :D

Yes, but in time. Nevada is being compiled right now (woohoo for finally getting all the water data) and Oregon is in progress. It only makes sense to do Washington after that.

 

That link everyone sent you to is a good Washington map but its not free.

 

Oz-

 

I went ahead and split that land owner shapefile into seperate shapefiles by owners, converted into WGS84, and loaded them all onto GPSFile Depot. Use it or not the data is here GPSFileDepot - Idaho Land Ownership. Thanks Oz for all you do, you da man!

I downloaded it and will be using it. Worse comes to worse I'll just use my brain and name the forests by hand, can't take that long :D Depending on how long it takes to update Idaho I may make a transparent overlay like I did in Wyoming so those that don't need the detail don't have it and you can turn it on and off :D

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I believe Oregon will be next on my list as well as maybe a few updates with trails to Arizona and New Mexico.

Nevada is being compiled right now (woohoo for finally getting all the water data) and Oregon is in progress.

Hi Oz,

 

How is Oregon coming along?

 

Anticipating Oregon, I am getting as anxious as an albino penguin in a bowling alley.

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