+Search1128 Posted March 29, 2003 Share Posted March 29, 2003 I have been using USAPhotoMaps all along and printing map pages from that and then taking those with us in the car. I just discovered that I can take my laptop in the car and with the interface cable to my Garmin Legend, hook that up to the comm port on the lap top and then -- here's the exciting part --- select the option to show current postion. Bingo! I have a big screen photo realisitic GPS display in real time in the car. No need to buy exensive CD's for MapSourse. Does anyone else do this? It sure makes it nice for driving to the Waypoints I have on the map. I think I am going to have to send money to Mr. Cox for his wonderful software and its interface to the terra server. Thank-you Mr Cox. Kirk out. Search1128 Quote Link to comment
+RB_Nielsen Posted March 29, 2003 Share Posted March 29, 2003 The same capability of hooking your Gamin to your notebook so you can see where you are in real time exists in ExpertGPS, Mapsource, and I believe EasyGPS. I am certain there is yet additional software capable of doing real-time tracking. Quote Link to comment
geoStrider Posted March 29, 2003 Share Posted March 29, 2003 Thanks for the great info Search1128. I'll give it a try. When the maps are downloaded to your notebook in advance for use on the road as you describe, is there a way to specify the boundaries of the aerial map you want or is there some default area downloaded? Veni, Vidi, Cachi ... Quote Link to comment
+maleki Posted March 29, 2003 Share Posted March 29, 2003 WoW! Never realized it did that. Thanks - a new toy!!! Quote Link to comment
+Team GPSaxophone Posted March 29, 2003 Share Posted March 29, 2003 I just downloaded the trial version of ExpertGPS. What a neat tool! I'm exploring my trip to DC last December. It's interesting to follow my route from the airplane. I might have to buy the real version. (My wife doesn't understand, she's not a geek) Quote Link to comment
+Search1128 Posted March 29, 2003 Author Share Posted March 29, 2003 Geostrider, I started downloading maps at the 64 meters (farthest out in space) view and selected to download map data fill entire screen, I stared with my house as the center of the screen and worked my way out in a spiral until I had the entire state of Utah on my drive (took about a week to do and over 1 gig of space on my drive). I then did the same thing with the lower res 8 meters (closer to earth serface view). For the 8 meter res photos, I did just the cities and other specific areas, not the whole state. I never specified any real boundries. I just had a paper map at my desk also that I referred to when looking at the arial photos. I could recognize major interstates, I-15, and I-80, as well as well known lakes such at the Great Salt Lake and Utah Lake, Yuba Res, Lake Powell, etc. I was able to approximate the state lines from what I compared to the paper map and the landmarks I saw on the arial photo downloads. I did this all on my desktop and then following the instructions in the advanced.txt readme file in the usaphoto folder on my drive, copied the mapfiles to a CD (well only partial since it didn't all fit on the CD), I put that CD into my loptop and read the maps directly from the cd. Worked like a charm today while caching. Drove right to the cache (within about 50 feet). Now I don't have to waste all my printer ink. But now my GPS is constantly turned on when we are driving to our goal, but AA batteries are much cheaper than ink cartridges. Quote Link to comment
+phantom4099 Posted March 30, 2003 Share Posted March 30, 2003 You can set it up to download a selected area. You need to give the cords to the upper left corner, and the lower right corner (I think its that way). Then it will download that rectange area. I have been useing this software quite a while and I really like it (uh yeah you can also download 1:24,000 topo maps). Wyatt W. The probability of someone watching you is directly proportional to the stupidity of your actions. Quote Link to comment
+ProStreet Posted March 30, 2003 Share Posted March 30, 2003 I also have played with this option in USA Photo maps, "my" only problem with this is talking my wife into letting me get a laptop!!! Quote Link to comment
+Poindexter Posted March 30, 2003 Share Posted March 30, 2003 Yes, been doing this for while also. I also use Microsoft Streets and Trips for planning the order of which caches to do for the day and getting directions to them. Also check out GEM which will give you more up to date color aerial photo's. You know, if you have an OnStar system in your vehicle, you can tap into that for input to your laptop if you don't want to use your handheld GPS. Ain't this fun Quote Link to comment
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