Free Maps !

[Motabobo]

Sorry, not much infos I can give you here…actually trying to find some suggestions, hopefully it'll benefit to everyone

I'm looking for free maps (it can be usgs quads preferably but I'm open to other maps, from other sources) on the web, it can be anything; topo, roads, geological features, etc…Everyone knows topozone, google maps but I'm looking for other, but similar servers.

Also, is Topozone Pro worth it ?

Thanks

 

[DougPaul]

Free USGS topos (DRGs)
Libre Map Project: http://libremap.org/

Doug

 

[Jay H]

Maptech has some old historic Quads on their website, at least I knew they used to cause I was checking them out..

www.maptech.com

I'll see if I can find them again and post a direct link..

Cool, I have a bookmark:

http://historical.maptech.com/index.cfm

...and not historical:

http://www.maptech.com/mapserver/index.cfm?CFID=793647&CFTOKEN=75208819

Jay

 

[marchowes]

http://docs.unh.edu/nhtopos/nhtopos.htm <--Historic USGS maps New England/NY

For Maine Maps:

http://apollo.ogis.state.me.us/catalog/catalog.asp?state=2&extent=24k click DRGCLIP then click NEXT Select which quad you want and hit Show Data and download the file A Grid of the topos can be found here: http://www.topographicalmaps.com/24k.mgi?state=me&USGSCode=45070-a1


Another thread is out there showing the Maine maps as well as others:

http://vftt.org/forums/showthread.php?t=16358&highlight=maine+maps

 

[AMF]

This link has a lot of info nationwide, but some of it may be out of date.

http://www.doylesdartden.com/gis/

 

[nartreb]

Acme Mapper

Easy to use (WAY better than topozone). Combines roadmaps, satellite images, and topos. Complete coverage in the U.S., no topos anywhere else that I've found.

The current version is based on Google Maps' engine and uses their data for roadmaps and satellite photos. If you want to save your maps, or re-use maps and photos without worrying about the chance of Google asserting a copyright, you can use the previous version: Acme Mapper version 1

 

[JOD]

Free Maps courtesy of yourself!

Well it's your tax $$ at work. the government has all kinds of free stuff. I use this site geodata.gov you can download tiff files from the "USGS DRG" section.

ps. I didn't see that OP isn't from US, so it isn't his tax $$ working here. I'll let you use the maps anywho!!

 

[Motabobo]

Ok thanks for all the valuable info guys. However, what if I want to retrieve all the benchmark's datasheets around say Mt Washington summit ? I'm not able to retrieve FID or PID in batch. Anyone knows how ?

 

[Jake]

New York Maps

New York Maps can be found on-line at:

http://www.nysgis.state.ny.us/gateway/mg/

 

[nartreb]

There is at least one site that lets you enter a position or name, and see all the benchmarks nearby (with clickable links to their datasheets). I don't remember the URL offhand, but it (along with several other sites that might interest you) might be in one of these links provided by the USGS

Edit: with a couple more clicks, that page led me to this benchmark datasheet search tool

 

[Motabobo]

Edit: with a couple more clicks, that page led me to this benchmark datasheet search tool

This is the site I used but there is no easy way to do it in batch. For now I imported all NH benchmarks coordinates (web programming helps ) in a db for test purposes and we'll see where that leads me. From what I see it's impossible to retrieve both FID and PID from a coordinates. Thanks

 

[Papa Bear]

I use Google Maps for my benchmarking. It's possible to use any custom map overlays out there (such as Acme does) with Google Maps. This is a roll-your-own situation where I have written the code to implement what I want from the Google Maps API. I use the vanilla Google Maps types (Map, Satellite and Hybrid), plus USGS topos, USGS Aerial and Canadian Topos.

You can too!

Here's a link to Oxford County ME that shows some of my benchnmarks (found and not found):
http://www.stuyvesantcove.org/benchmarking/BM_Display_County.html?county=MEOxford

For any of these links, click on the marker to get infiormation. The big markers are called cluster markers - they represent a number of actual markers that would be too numerous to show in the big picture. If you click on them it will zoom in to the actual markers.

And here's one of "The Highlands" - part of the US-Canadian border that we've all spent some time on:
http://www.stuyvesantcove.org/benchmarking/BM_Display_County.html?county=IBCHighlands

Here's the general link: http://www.stuyvesantcove.org/benchmarking/BM_Benchmarking.html

This is a test version which is still in development. Comments (public or private) welcome. In particular the touchy-feely stuff (like "Benchmark tour of Central Park") are as of now just concepts. But the "County List" from the main page (left panel) works and you will see many counties in the NY metropolitan area and many others in the northern tier of New England which are fully populated with marks. But if comments get to numerous or off-topic, we should start another thread (on or off this site) so as not to hijack this thread.

Next up - maps and routes to secret secret waterfalls (and maybe throw in the 770) Seriously, I fully intend to move my hiking logs, such as they are, to some similar format.

 

[Motabobo]

Here's the general link: http://www.stuyvesantcove.org/benchmarking/BM_Benchmarking.html

Awesome PB, this is a great and simple to use API ! I didn't even know it existed. It will be particularly useful to generate marker arrays server-side once I can populate my db….My problem lies in dynamically populating the database.

It is extremely hard (impossible for free ?) to link for a single summit, all it's related benchmarks, datasheets and other useful infos dynamically. Some searching tools provides some help like Geocaching.com but it seems to me the only to do this is to load all benchmarks coords in a map and overlay them on summit coords…woaaa. Lots of manual linking involved there….

Any other ideas ?

Also, any quick way to retrieve the USGS quad names and numbers for a given coords ?

 

[Papa Bear]

Awesome PB, this is a great and simple to use API ! I didn't even know it existed. It will be particularly useful to generate marker arrays server-side once I can populate my db….My problem lies in dynamically populating the database.

It is extremely hard (impossible for free ?) to link for a single summit, all it's related benchmarks, datasheets and other useful infos dynamically. Some searching tools provides some help like Geocaching.com but it seems to me the only to do this is to load all benchmarks coords in a map and overlay them on summit coords…woaaa. Lots of manual linking involved there….

Any other ideas ?

Also, any quick way to retrieve the USGS quad names and numbers for a given coords ?

This was not a manual process except in design and debugging.

The Benchmarks can be downloaded by county from the NGS. Then I import them into GSAK (a freeware application mostly used by Geocachers). I use this to track my own finds. Then GSAK writes a file which (with a small bit of massaging by Excel) is an input file for my web app. I got the extensions like the USGS map tiles and the county boundaries from free example code which is out there for the taking.

I guess I can get a county up on-line in about 5 minutes. All the tools were free or readily available (like Excel and GSAK). Putting it all together of course took time. I started working on it just about 2 months ago knowing no JavaScript and now you see it's in reasonable shape.

The hardest part for me was 1) learning JavaScript and 2) debugging and streamlining the process.

I don't do any server side processing. It's all done in the browser & the API, but lots of folks do it from a database on the server. Check this message board: http://groups.google.com/group/Google-Maps-API Tons of folks doing every kind of Map application. Free - yes.

And yes now that I got it where it is, it will be simple to throw up the HH or whatever and link my trip reports to the map. I already have all the pieces.

 

[Motabobo]

This was not a manual process except in design and debugging.

What I meant is I didn't find any automatic way to link benchmarks to a particular summit. There may be many or none at all. I also want to restrict the benchmarks list to the chosen summit only (unlike geocaching where they list with a distance criteria).

Now, I can find benchmarks by county, by usgs quad, station name, etc...but I still have the manual linking of benchmarks X-Y-Z to summit A. I didn't find any other way than to build a list of PIDs for each summit, using overlayed coordinates...Or maybe I'm missing something really important

This proved to be of some use, using Min-Max Lat/Lon but who knows the min-max coords for every summit !

 

[Papa Bear]

What I meant is I didn't find any automatic way to link benchmarks to a particular summit. There may be many or none at all. I also want to restrict the benchmarks list to the chosen summit only (unlike geocaching where they list with a distance criteria).

Now, I can find benchmarks by county, by usgs quad, station name, etc...but I still have the manual linking of benchmarks X-Y-Z to summit A. I didn't find any other way than to build a list of PIDs for each summit, using overlayed coordinates...Or maybe I'm missing something really important

This proved to be of some use, using Min-Max Lat/Lon but who knows the min-max coords for every summit !

I see what you mean. When I do my peakbagging map, it will have nothing to do with benchmarks. I already have lat/long for peaks plus all kinds of data: #31 of 48 etc., elevation, prominance, etc. plus pictures and reports. So i'm just thinking of a scheme to pull all the pre-existing data together. I already have most of the stuff in excel (including links), so it will be easy to write it out as a JS array.

See this list from my website (under the text - the stuff with the thumbnails and various data and links in a table): HH list. The HTML is all driven from an excel spreadsheet, so it would be easy to stick it in a JS array and into the map API.

 

[nartreb]

I'm not sure what you want to use links for.

The datasheets include benchmark coordinates, right? So what other link do you need? Just format the benchmark coordinates as geotags (offline batch script) and let the map API do the work! Any benchmark that appears in proximity to a peak is a benchmark you'd be interested in.

If you really want, you can winnow your list of benchmarks by using a mark-and-sweep approach. Go through your list of peaks (you've got their coordinates already, right?); for each one, find all the benchmarks within X distance (you can approximate by just searching for latitude within +/- X of the peak's latitude AND likewise for longitude); keep only the benchmarks that you find this way.

 

[Papa Bear]

I'm not sure what you want to use links for.

The datasheets include benchmark coordinates, right? So what other link do you need? Just format the benchmark coordinates as geotags (offline batch script) and let the map API do the work! Any benchmark that appears in proximity to a peak is a benchmark you'd be interested in.

If you really want, you can winnow your list of benchmarks by using a mark-and-sweep approach. Go through your list of peaks (you've got their coordinates already, right?); for each one, find all the benchmarks within X distance (you can approximate by just searching for latitude within +/- X of the peak's latitude AND likewise for longitude); keep only the benchmarks that you find this way.

I'm not sure this is adressed to me or to Motabobo. Check the application I put together. I've already done what you mention. The other links are to my pictures, my logs, etc. Check this one and you'll see what it does: Station BUTTERMILK Click on the list of links at the top and you'll see what links I included. Then click on "Current County" and you'll see the rest of Westchester county.

As for peakbagging, as I said above, this will have nothing to do with benchmarks (except as interesting finds on mountains). There will be a map for all the peaks (say the NEHH) which will have links to pictures, logs, history, VFTT threads, Summitpost, who knows what. The list is endless. All this stuff already exists, the map just pulls it all together. To me a map is just a very intuitive index to spatially oriented data. Besides, I like maps.

Oh, I forgot. You mention nearby benchmarks. When you get BUTTERMILK up in front of you (the map), click on "Toggle nearby stations on/off" at the top of the map. This will turn the nearby marks on. Then zoom out a few clicks and you'll start seeing them pop up on the map.

Ain't computers neat?

 

[nartreb]

That was to Motabobo. He said he needed to make links by hand. I'm just not visualizing what he's got in mind.