Trail data

[+CacheHord(e)]

I'm looking for a good source of trail data. Geocaching is great at leading me to trails I've never heard of.

 

I have Delorme Topo USA 4 and I was surprised how few foot trails it has in its database for my area. I know there are other databases with far more trails, but I don't want to pay for them (again) only to find out they really don't cover much.

 

Is there a site where users can upload their route/waypoint files to add to some public database? (If not, I think I'll create one.)

 

Phil

 

Team Hord

[+Gimpy]

I don't know of any such site, but I too was a little bummed out when I received DeLormes Topo 4.0. I could have returned it within the prescribed trial period for a refund, but kept it anyway. I then followed the advice of another fellow cacher, here on the forums, & checked out Maptech Terrain Navigator mapping software. You can find it here: http://www.maptech.com/land/LandSurvey/index.cfm

I got the New York/New England region set, on 17 cds', and use it often for planning my journeys.

The level of detail for established trails & other land features is really great. Topo 4.0 does not even come close. You can download, from their site, a sample section of the Apalacian (spelling?)Trail, and check out the detail. It's pretty expensive stuff, compared to the price I paid for Topo 4.0, but worth every penney. I spend a lot of time, up here in New York state, in the 6 million acre Adirondack Mountain State Park, & there are trails on the Maptech maps that you would never find without the aid of this stuff. I am very impressed with the package. Now, if I could only load some of the maps into my Garmins, life would be good.

 

"Gimpy"

[+Gimpy]

I don't know of any such site, but I too was a little bummed out when I received DeLormes Topo 4.0. I could have returned it within the prescribed trial period for a refund, but kept it anyway. I then followed the advice of another fellow cacher, here on the forums, & checked out Maptech Terrain Navigator mapping software. You can find it here: http://www.maptech.com/land/LandSurvey/index.cfm

I got the New York/New England region set, on 17 cds', and use it often for planning my journeys.

The level of detail for established trails & other land features is really great. Topo 4.0 does not even come close. You can download, from their site, a sample section of the Apalacian (spelling?)Trail, and check out the detail. It's pretty expensive stuff, compared to the price I paid for Topo 4.0, but worth every penney. I spend a lot of time, up here in New York state, in the 6 million acre Adirondack Mountain State Park, & there are trails on the Maptech maps that you would never find without the aid of this stuff. I am very impressed with the package. Now, if I could only load some of the maps into my Garmins, life would be good.

 

"Gimpy"

[mtnsteve]

I have a few map programs, and my favorite seems to be Topo, by National Geographic..they have a service called "MapExchange" that lets users download their own trails and trail updates to a data base that you can use to install new trails on your system. Like Terrain navigator, it is expensive compared to TOPO 3/4.

 

http://maps.nationalgeographic.com/topo/searchnew.cfm

 

I use my TOPO 3 for more updated info on the roads, rather then trail info and topo info.

MapTech is also a great program, but I do find myself using Topo more and more. One interesting thing between Topo and MapTech, they use different years of maps, I found things on MapTech that aren’t on Topo and vis a versa.

 

I like your idea of starting a data base for TOPO 4, let us know how it goes.

 

____________________________________________________________

It's not about the mistakes we make, it's about what we learn from them....

[+jonboy]

I was also dissapointed to find out how poor the trail data is on most of the commercial mapping programs. I use Map Tech and Topo, and I too find myself using topo more and more. I created my own trail data base my own NY/NJ Metro region and I have posted some of them on mapxchange. They are very slow to post a submission, it takes about a month, and many of them are not so much maps of trail systems, as "Look what a neat trip I did." things. The NPS has posted some trail data, and I was very dissapointed how inaccurate it was. Trail data is dynamic, it needs to be updated as trails change and errors are found. I do it in two ways. One is by walking trails with a GPS on, laying them out on a map and tracing them over to correct the anomalies that occur when sattelite coverage is lost. I have only done this in a few local areas. The other is by drawing the trails freehand onto a map file, using other maps, from the ATC or the Trail organizations. This is quicker and I have done this for my whole region, but errors are more frequent. Whenever I hike, I have my GPS tracking, I lay the track out on the trails I have drawn freehand and make corrections. I have spent hundreds of hours on this project, and my efforts are far from perfect, but I'm working on it.

[+brdad]

Ever since I bought my GPS I've been doing a similar thing to what jonboy has for trails in my area, especially ATV trails. I now have a map that has not yet been duplicated, even the ATV club maps I've seen are not as complete as mine. One thing that helps give an idea of the major trails are the satellite maps at terraserver, or better yet using USAPhotomaps at http://jdmcox.com

It can take a lot of time but it was worth it to me. Any hard to find trail I want to go to now, I just load it from the computer to my GPS, head out and the GPS tells me every turn to make.

 

[This message was edited by brdad on August 01, 2002 at 05:54 PM.]

[+brdad]

As far as the waypoints go, there are at least 2 places that have databases of waypoints. One is Topografix and the other I can't remember or find in my bookmarks

 

At Topografix, you can download a loc file for your entire state, the file is not compatible with EasyGPS though; you have to use their software. I have found some of the waypoints not as precise as I would like, but they are plenty close to know what's around you. Just select the waypoints you want and load into yourt GPS...

[+brdad]

As far as the waypoints go, there are at least 2 places that have databases of waypoints. One is Topografix and the other I can't remember or find in my bookmarks

 

At Topografix, you can download a loc file for your entire state, the file is not compatible with EasyGPS though; you have to use their software. I have found some of the waypoints not as precise as I would like, but they are plenty close to know what's around you. Just select the waypoints you want and load into yourt GPS...

[+CacheHord(e)]

Wow... that's a lot of waypoints at topografix.com. I don't think I'd even want all that data in my Palm software -- its waypoint manager sucks.

 

I see a lot of *.tpo files, though, and this new *.loc file is binary too. Is there a standard file format somewhere? Are there data conversion utilities to go between different packages? Or is everything this proprietary?

 

Team Hord

[+OzzieSan]

Take a look at http://www.geobuddy.com/

[+brdad]

Yes, there are over 23,000 waypoints listed for my state, a little more than my GPS can handle. But with the software you can search by type, distance etc., and narrow down the list. I have a default file I made by narrowing down the list to the most common around me, and the major points in the state (big mountians, lakes, etc.). Then I just load that set of waypoints into my GPS. If I'm going out of town, I just reload the big file and load my GPS with points close to where I'm going.

[+CacheHord(e)]

I looked at GeoBuddy before. I contacted the author about letting me write an adapter for the Palm, but he never wrote back. I hadn't thought about it for file format conversions, though. I'll add it to my radar. -- thanks.

 

Team Hord

[+CacheHord(e)]

I found www.travelbygps.com, which is sort of what I want to do, but it's more moderated and "copyrighted", though I don't believe you can copyright waypoint data. Anyway the data there is too small and not user fed enough. It's a good start, though, and it may be useful for some of you.

 

Team Hord