Public lecture on topo maps (and new georeferenced maps?)

[Wintertime]

Mark DeMulder, Director of the National Geospatial Program, will speak at the USGS offices in Menlo Park on Thursday, Dec. 10th at 7:00 p.m. His topic will be, "A New Generation of Maps: Topographic Maps for the 21st Century." This talk is part of the USGS Evening Public Lecture Series, so you won't need a geomatics degree to understand it! And it's in honor of the 125th anniversary of USGS topo maps. Happy birthday, topos!

 

More information at:

 

http://online.wr.usgs.gov/calendar/

 

I plan to go; any other local benchmarkers interested?

 

If you don't know how to get to the USGS Western Region office, I happen to keep in my set of basic waypoints the location of the benchmark in the flagpole circle right outside of Building 3. In geocaching format, it's 37 27.377, -122 10.242.

 

Here are my photos of the flagpole circle and its benchmark:

 

http://www.wintertime.com/OH/GC/USGS-MP/USGS.htm

 

Also note this comment on the lecture web page:

 

"Starting December 3 the new US Topo maps will be available free on the Web at the USGS Store: http://store.usgs.gov. Each USGS Topo quadrangle is constructed in GeoPDF format from key Layers of geographic data found in The National Map."

 

I thought those georeferenced PDFs had been released a year or two ago, but I use DRGs myself so haven't really been paying attention. If you're interested, visit the store and see what the story is.

 

Patty

[tosborn]

As you say, USGS has been providing free GeoPDF's for the past couple of years from the USGS store. When they say "constructed in GeoPDF format from key Layers of geographic data found in The National Map", it makes it sound as if the "new" maps might contain vector data instead of scans of existing quadrangles (e.g. raster data). If so the maps would be take up much less disk space, transfer quicker, would be much sharper, and would be easier to work with. Let's hope.

Edited December 3, 2009 by tosborn

[+jwahl]

The "geopdfs" I have downloaded for the 1:24K series maps were simply the usual DRG's in PDF format. In fact I convert them to jpegs and use them as such all the time.

 

My impression of the National Map data is that it seems to me like it came from 1:100K mapping based on the themes provided.

 

So the mystery continues.

 

- jlw

Edited December 13, 2009 by jwahl

[Wintertime]

The "geopdfs" I have downloaded for the 1:24K series maps were simply the usual DRG's in PDF format. In fact I convert them to jpegs and use them as such all the time.

"jwahl" are you sure you downloaded the most recent maps? I haven't tried the USGS GeoPDFs before, but I don't recall seeing a discussion of them having layers. I had the impression that they were simply georeferenced scans of the paper maps.

 

I'll post more notes from the talk if I get a chance, but meanwhile, be sure that you're downloading the maps referenced on this page: http://nationalmap.gov/ustopo/index.html . I just got the Half Dome quad (18.3 MB), and it definitely lets me turn various layers on and off in Adobe Reader.

 

Patty

[tosborn]

If you go to the USGS store and click on "Download Topo Map Free!" on the right it will bring up the graphical map locator. If you then click on the orange bar below the map that says 'Show US Topo and "Digital Maps - Beta"' you'll have access to and be able to see the extent of the new generation topo maps that have vector layers.

 

The "US Topo" maps have a recent color orthophoto background overlayed with vector coutours, water courses, etc. The "Digital Maps - Beta" are maps that are in progress to becoming "US Topos" and currently missing certain layers such as contours.

 

Coverage at the USGS store is very spotty currently. Most States have no "US Topos" or "Digitial Map - Betas". The only State that currently has "US Topos" available from the USGS Store is Kansas.

 

I've looked at a few "US Topos" and it seems that some information shown on paper quads and DRG's, such as PLSS Section lines and forest cover, is simply missing. I guess I hoping for fully-blown vector layers for all the information that has traditionally been shown on 1:24000 quadrangles.

Edited December 13, 2009 by tosborn

[+jwahl]

We must all be doing something different.

 

I go to this page: USGS US Topo

 

Then I select from the menu on the left: " Download Maps" Map Store. I then follow the directions to the right of the map, navigate to where I am interested, zoom in until I get the map outlines, put a little pin in it, and click it and a list of all the USGS Raster maps that exist are show available for download as a PDF. The 1 24K, the 1:100K and the 1:250K

 

As far as I've been able to tell it is about as complete a coverage as you can get anywhere.

 

Perhaps there are some kind of 'layers' when you use the special GeoPDF view which I haven't done. They show up as identical to the DRG's in acrobat.

 

- jlw

[tosborn]

Jerry:

 

You must not be clicking at a location where a new US Topo maps is available yet.

 

Before you navigate anywhere on the map, click the orange button below the map window that says 'Show US Topo and "Digital Maps - Beta"'. The US map will then be overlayed with yellow and red areas. All the red areas are in Kansas and are the US Topos. The yellow areas are just the Betas (no hydrology or contours). Zoom in (for example to Topeka, KS) and put a little pin inside one of the red areas. You'll then get the list of maps you can download which will include all the raster maps as well as a new US Topo for that area.

 

It also appears that vertical and horizontal control marks (e.g. benchmarks and triangulation stations) are not going to be shown on these "maps."

Edited December 13, 2009 by tosborn

[Wintertime]

BTW, USGS is in the process of digitizing a quarter million historic maps. They are being converted to the same coordinate system used in the new ones so that you'll be able to overlay them and have them matched up. There was even some mention of a timeline bar you could drag to transition from map to map to see how a particular area has changed over the years. I fear, however, that that latter capability may only be available with TerraGo's add-on tools, which are only available for Windows. UNIX users arise!!

 

Patty