? RE: etrex vista; mapsource, etc.

[Guest WARPHEAGLE]

I got my first gps for Christmas (etrex vista) and had my first caching trip (we found it!) this past Sunday afternoon. I plan to use my gps for hunting, geocaching & traveling, and am interested in the downloadable maps, both road maps and topo. Does anyone know how much space it takes to download both the Mapsource topo CD and the Road & recreation CD? The vista has 24mgb. I don't want to buy both if they will not both be usable. Any input would be appreciated...

[Guest blscearce]

quote:

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Originally posted by WARPHEAGLE:

Does anyone know how much space it takes to download both the Mapsource topo CD and the Road & recreation CD? The vista has 24mgb. I don't want to buy both if they will not both be usable. Any input would be appreciated...

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The MapSource maps are cut into chunks. You can pick and choose what you put in.

 

I don't have Roads & Rec, but for MapSource MetroGuide, the map chunks are around 1-2MB each. How much area they cover depends on how many streets and businesses there are in the area. To cover all of Alabama, it takes 30 map chunks and about 25MB.

 

The Topo maps are cut into smaller chunks -- usually around 200-250K. To cover all of Alabama, it takes about 130 maps and 30MB.

 

You can mix and match the maps you put in. If you have Topo and MetroGuide maps that cover the same area, the eMap displays the MetroGuide maps by default, but you can temporarily turn them off and display Topos instead.

[Guest gstrong1]

Welcome,WARPHEAGLE. Mapsource Roads & Recreation takes up a lot less space than topo. R&R for the whole state of Alabama takes about 10 mb. of memory. So if you wanted to spend the money,you could load R&R for the whole state & topos for maybe half the state in the alotted 24 mb. But with the Mapsource program, it takes very little time to load up the gps with whatever you're going to be needing for that day or weekend.Hope this helps.

 

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Gary "Gimpy" Strong

Rochester,NY

[Guest gstrong1]

Welcome,WARPHEAGLE. Mapsource Roads & Recreation takes up a lot less space than topo. R&R for the whole state of Alabama takes about 10 mb. of memory. So if you wanted to spend the money,you could load R&R for the whole state & topos for maybe half the state in the alotted 24 mb. But with the Mapsource program, it takes very little time to load up the gps with whatever you're going to be needing for that day or weekend.Hope this helps.

 

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Gary "Gimpy" Strong

Rochester,NY

[Guest LarsThorwald]

Hey there, I've got the Vista as well. Purchased both Topo and Roads and Rec, and haven't been able to come close to using the available space. Took a trip from southern California to the bay area - pretty much the whole state. Loaded both the Topo and Roads and Rec for the whole trip and only hit 7% of available memory. I can't think of needing more...

 

By the way, I love the Vista, and like both software programs. Toto is no substitute for a real 7.5 topo, but in most cases it's good enough. When you're hiking, you probably want the 7.5 as well, anyway...

 

Good luck!

[Guest peter]

y street intersection. Finally, it will calculate routes for you on your PC that you can transfer to the Vista. I find it to be well worth the extra price over R&R.

 

BTW, the previous poster was a bit optimistic about the memory usage. Maps for a Southern CA to SF Bay trip will fit in the Vista, but they'll take most of the 24 MB. Note that the Vista's 'Memory Gauge' is measuring usage of a separate internal memory for tracks/waypoints/&routes and is not looking at the 24 MB map memory at all.

[Guest Alan2]

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Originally posted by peter:

If you want to get both Topo and a good road/street combination, I'd recommend getting the new MetroGuideUSA rather than Roads & Rec. It costs a little more, but road detail and accuracy is quite a bit better and it's much more up to date. It has lots of restaurant/store/hotel/museum/theater/etc. listings that are very handy when traveling. And you can search for locations by street address or by street intersection. Finally, it will calculate routes for you on your PC that you can transfer to the Vista. I find it to be well worth the extra price over R&R.

 

BTW, the previous poster was a bit optimistic about the memory usage. Maps for a Southern CA to SF Bay trip will fit in the Vista, but they'll take most of the 24 MB. Note that the Vista's 'Memory Gauge' is measuring usage of a separate internal memory for tracks/waypoints/&routes and is not looking at the 24 MB map memory at all.

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Peter, THanks fot the heads up on Metroguide. But how much memory will it eat up? Won't I be limited to the geographical area covered by street info though with Metroguide because of the extra info and how much do you figure I'll lose. I live in NYC and have Topo and Roads. Roughly I store in my Vista about 150 by 150 miles both in Roads and topo in 24 meg.

 

Your right about the map usage in the Vista. You can tell how much meg you will be using in the Vista by looking at the total posted at the bottom of the map section in Mapsourse on the PC.

 

alan2

[Guest blscearce]

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Originally posted by Alan2:

But how much memory will it eat up? Won't I be limited to the geographical area covered by street info though with Metroguide because of the extra info and how much do you figure I'll lose. I live in NYC

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I just drew a box around NYC with the latest version of MapSource MetroGuide. 24 MB gives you all of NYC and Long Island, and a fair bit of surrounding area. The southwest corner of the box is Etra (almost to Trenton), the northwest corner of the box is Middleton, and the northeast corner of the box just reaches the mouth of Narragansett Bay.

[Guest LarsThorwald]

Well, okay, how DO you get an idea of how much memory is available in the Vista? Do you just monitor the size of the files you're loading?

[Guest Alan2]

quote:

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Originally posted by blscearce:

I just drew a box around NYC with the latest version of MapSource MetroGuide. 24 MB gives you all of NYC and Long Island, and a fair bit of surrounding area. The southwest corner of the box is Etra (almost to Trenton), the northwest corner of the box is Middleton, and the northeast corner of the box just reaches the mouth of Narragansett Bay.

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Thanks for the info. I like the idea that I would be able to find places more easily with intersections, etc. using Metro. But I do use topo a lot and I would probably want to keep most a good part of what you outlined as I use the maps for geocahcing and the topo too. But it looks like Metro eats up too much memory. Do you know if you can combine let's say Metro for NYC and Nassau counties, Roads for areas outside these limits areas and then also use topos for what's left?

 

Tks alan2

[Guest Alan2]

quote:

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Originally posted by LarsThorwald:

Well, okay, how DO you get an idea of how much memory is available in the Vista? Do you just monitor the size of the files you're loading?

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Lars: You monitor in Mapsource on the PC. As you select each Road (by county) or Topo (by 7.5 quad), the area changes background color and is posted in a list with the amount of megs used for each selection. The total is shown at the bottom so you can make sure you don't go over the 24 megs allowed or just to track how much memory is being used for the selections you made. The Vista itself does not keep a total in the unit as far as I know. But if you upload the map set from the Vista to Mapsource, you duplicate the list of maps stored in the Vista on the Mapsourse display with its associate memory used.

 

With 23.8 Megs currently loaded in my Vista I have approx 170 miles x 120 miles of Roads and 100 miles x 200 miles in topo in the NYC metropolitan area.

 

alan2

[Guest blscearce]

quote:

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Originally posted by Alan2:

Do you know if you can combine let's say Metro for NYC and Nassau counties, Roads for areas outside these limits areas and then also use topos for what's left?

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Yes, you can do that. You can even load overlapping map areas with both, say, MetroGuide and Topo. The eMap can't display both at once (between MetroGuide and Topo, MetroGuide is shown), but you can turn off map sections with a little menu fiddling and bring up the Topo sections that way.

[Guest LarsThorwald]

Thanks Alan2. Still figuring this stuff out!

[Guest Alan2]

quote:

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Originally posted by blscearce:

Yes, you can do that. You can even load overlapping map areas with both, say, MetroGuide and Topo. The eMap can't display both at once (between MetroGuide and Topo, MetroGuide is shown), but you can turn off map sections with a little menu fiddling and bring up the Topo sections that way.

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Does Metroguide load by county like R&R? If it doesn't can you load parts of the same counties between Roads and Metro as well as topo and then select which of the 3 in one specific area you wish to view?

 

Tks

alan2

[Guest blscearce]

quote:

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Originally posted by Alan2:

Does Metroguide load by county like R&R? If it doesn't can you load parts of the same counties between Roads and Metro as well as topo and then select which of the 3 in one specific area you wish to view?

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I'm not sure I'm understanding your question, so if this doesn't answer it, it might be simpler to work on my confusion in email rather than on this Forum.

 

I'm not sure what the boundaries are on MetroGuide map sections. They look mostly like rectangles -- big rectangles where the street/business density is low, and small rectangles where the density is high (of course, counties are often rectangular too).

 

You can load as many different types of map as you like. The unit has some kind of priority scheme for deciding which maps get displayed when you have overlapping maps that cover the same area. I have MetroGuide and Topo, and between those two, MetroGuide takes priority.

 

There should be a menu item for "MapSource Info", and it'll list all of the maps in your unit. If you turn off the checkbox for a high-priority map, the unit will show the lower-priority one instead.