+Rockin Roddy Posted July 13, 2009 Share Posted July 13, 2009 (edited) As I am coming up on a trip, I decided I would try to set up a route with TOPO 8, one I could then load to my PN-40 and follow without fear of the unit not routing properly etc. I wasn't sure just how to do this and at first found it impossible to figure out...I still haven't figured out how to plan the route on the computer. I can put the points on the map, but having it do what I wanted was not so simple. However, as I was thinking about how best to tackle this problem, I thought maybe I would let the PN-40 choose the route, then load it from the unit to the computer and work it all out with TOPO 8. While not done yet, I was amazed at the ease this approach has been...and how wonderful the tools available with TOPO 8 are! It took almost a minute for the PN to calculate the route which will be more than 500 miles one way, I then connected and sent the route to TOPO 8, opened my route options, added the info required and VIOLA, I had the info for my trip right in front of me! Amount of gas needed? $26 or so (I can't recall exact), stops required to refill? 3 (that's figuring I leave home with a half tank). I know where I will be stopping for fuel and where I will be stopping for camping the first night! I still need to go back and make sure the roads are what I want to be on (I'll be riding my motorcycle and would rather not be on too many dirt or back roads), but it looks good so far! I will finish the route and then transfer it back to the PN (hopefully lol)...we'll see how this goes! I have changed one road so far, I can't wait to see how this works out! Do I sound proud of my simple project? You bet...I'm far from techy here and am even slower when it comes to planning. I figured I would be pulling my hair out while begging for help (still could happen lol), but it's been a cakewalk so far! And, I'm slowly learning more about TOPO 8 in the process! Edited July 13, 2009 by Rockin Roddy Quote Link to comment
+coggins Posted July 14, 2009 Share Posted July 14, 2009 (edited) Fantastic! Great to see you advance your user skills and have fun doing it. Have a safe trip and take plenty of photos. I would also recommend gpicsync to geotag said photos. Edited July 14, 2009 by coggins Quote Link to comment
+TotemLake Posted July 14, 2009 Share Posted July 14, 2009 I just exported a route to my PN today as well in prep for this month's hike. For the fun of it, I converted it to a GPS log and watched Topo8 do a fly by of the route. Cool stuff. Quote Link to comment
+Team CowboyPapa Posted July 14, 2009 Share Posted July 14, 2009 I just exported a route to my PN today as well in prep for this month's hike. For the fun of it, I converted it to a GPS log and watched Topo8 do a fly by of the route. Cool stuff. 10-4! Aerial photo imagery in 3D? http://mapshare.delorme.com/Consumer/V.aspx?p=f4pr3kwj Quote Link to comment
+Entropy512 Posted July 14, 2009 Share Posted July 14, 2009 Other than the address search being kind of wonky (seems to usually happen when a municipal district has multiple post offices but only a single town government - e.g. Martinsville, NJ has a post office but is part of Bridgewater), Topo USA's road routing is pretty good and quite usable (unlike DeLorme's on-device routing, that's a whole other story.) Back in 2006, my family used Topo USA 6 on my laptop + a Lowrance iFinder H2O for caching in the Moab, UT area. Unfortunately, I appear to have forgotten to log any of my finds from that trip (no net access at hotel, so waited until I returned home and then forgot.) Prior to that we used another version of Topo (can't remember what version) on my father's laptop for caching in Anza Borrego Desert State Park. We'd use the laptop to road-route to the cache, and a Garmin eMap + Kyocera 6035 Palm-based cell phone the rest of the way. Quote Link to comment
+Team CowboyPapa Posted July 14, 2009 Share Posted July 14, 2009 ....... Anza Borrego Desert State Park. ..... Roger that! http://mapshare.delorme.com/Consumer/V.aspx?p=dv253jv8 Anything else? Quote Link to comment
+Searching_ut Posted July 14, 2009 Share Posted July 14, 2009 I just exported a route to my PN today as well in prep for this month's hike. For the fun of it, I converted it to a GPS log and watched Topo8 do a fly by of the route. Cool stuff. 10-4! Aerial photo imagery in 3D? http://mapshare.delorme.com/Consumer/V.aspx?p=f4pr3kwj Hey, I remember exploring that area back in the late 80's when I was spending a couple months in the San Berandino area. We were coming back from scoping out the trailhead and area surrounding Mt Whitney, which I hadn't climbed yet, and just puttering around checking out the area. I recall the canyon being as how it was named the same as one of the more scenic canyons by the same name I had explored years earlier in Utah. (That one is about 50 mile long though, so I'm not sure why the 9 mile name) To the best of my memory, it's a paved road, and most off roading in the area was restricted so I didn't end up doing in 4 wheeling. Lots of fun exploring though, which would probably have been even more fun had I had my neat GPS toys back then. In another post you mentioned playing with your tracks doing flybys and stuff. Have you ever played with TOPOFusion? Re-playing your tracks can be a lot of fun with that. Quote Link to comment
+Team CowboyPapa Posted July 14, 2009 Share Posted July 14, 2009 In another post you mentioned playing with your tracks doing flybys and stuff. Have you ever played with TOPOFusion? Re-playing your tracks can be a lot of fun with that. No, not TOPOfusion. Better Google it and check it out. Up to now I just go to the 3D view on the left pane and play with the virtual joystick once in a while. It's nice up there, we go every summer for a weekend. The USFS campground is right on the river and the kids play in the water all day. In that area the elevation is about 6,000 feet so we are in the mixed Jumiper and Pinyon Pine forest so common to Utah at similar elevations. Twenty more miles up the road and there are camps above 7,000 feet in the Ponderosa Pine forest. Quote Link to comment
+Redwoods Mtn Biker Posted July 15, 2009 Share Posted July 15, 2009 FWIW, I <3 both Anza Borrego and TopoFusion. ;-) Quote Link to comment
+TotemLake Posted July 17, 2009 Share Posted July 17, 2009 (edited) Ok, watching a hike on a flyby is pretty funny. I'm going to have to find an inexpensive way to capture the video. It was fun to see where our rest breaks were today. Edited to add I have a short clip processing on Utube now. Edited July 17, 2009 by TotemLake Quote Link to comment
+TotemLake Posted July 17, 2009 Share Posted July 17, 2009 The pauses are actual rest breaks taken. The changing orientation is a mix of the trail and twisting to check on my wife. Quote Link to comment
+Rockin Roddy Posted July 17, 2009 Author Share Posted July 17, 2009 Yep, you guys are way more advanced than I, THANKS for the videos and tips! My trip is coming up slowly, so I am still making plans and screwing with the TOPO 8 in prep, will post any info as I can. Being a rain day, I got to sleep in this morning and then worked on it a bit more, heading to work now. My trip will be by motorcycle, so making this cycle friendly is my priority...no singletracks for me unfortunately, maybe next time! Should be interesting to take the bike over the Mackinaw Bridge though... Quote Link to comment
+Searching_ut Posted July 17, 2009 Share Posted July 17, 2009 Yep, you guys are way more advanced than I, THANKS for the videos and tips! My trip is coming up slowly, so I am still making plans and screwing with the TOPO 8 in prep, will post any info as I can. Being a rain day, I got to sleep in this morning and then worked on it a bit more, heading to work now. My trip will be by motorcycle, so making this cycle friendly is my priority...no singletracks for me unfortunately, maybe next time! Should be interesting to take the bike over the Mackinaw Bridge though... Seeing where you've been is the main way I "Plan" my road trips. We're heading out on a 3 day one in just a few minutes now. Haven't decided which direction we're heading in, but this time around we're taking the car instead of the 4X4 so my "Shortcuts" are out of the question, and we'll probably stick to paved, or maintained dirt roads. We've pretty much explored everything within a few hundred miles of here in the 15 years I've lived in this area so we'll take the freeway for 3 or 4 hours then break out on whatever strikes us as looking interesting. Regarding Totem Lakes playback: I really like that. I've been using TOPOFusion to do virtually the same thing for 5 or 6 years now, but from looking at the video, it looks like this may be a little better graphics wise. I'll have to try it when I get back. Great job with the video Quote Link to comment
+TotemLake Posted July 18, 2009 Share Posted July 18, 2009 Rockin Roddy, It really isn't that advanced. It has to be done from the Right Page, but I right clicked a track and created a route, then right clicked and saved it as a gps log. You can do this with draw lines and trail layers too. Then you just replay the gps log. It's very easy. The program I found to capture the video is a donateware open source program called CamStudio. Quote Link to comment
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