National Geographic TOPO! New Mexico Map CD-ROM (Windows) Reviews
National Geographic TOPO! New Mexico Map CD-ROM (Windows)
- Includes hundreds of printable National Geographic and USGS topographical maps of New Mexico
- Annotate your maps with trail routes, notes, web links and photos
- Export maps as .gif or .jpg formats of use in other applications
- Easily transfer waypoints and routes with your GPS
- Create, view and print elevation profiles
With the TOPO! map of New Mexico, National Geographic has taken the interactive topographic map experience to a new level. By combining its own standard-setting maps with the high-quality scanned versions of the actual paper USGS topographical maps, the National Geographic TOPO! State Series offers five levels of map detail that is unprecedented in its accuracy. Professional and weekend hikers alike will be amazed at how indispensable TOPO! will quickly become in the back country. Simply load TOPO! onto your PC, and you’ll immediately begin to see the benefits of this award-winning software. With TOPO! you can customize any of the hundreds of state maps available with your proposed routes, notes and even photos. You can also create and view elevation profiles that will help you visualize your planned trek. By connecting to any standard color or black-and-white desktop printer, TOPO! allows you to select the exact area that you want to print, even if it is larger than the screen or cov
List Price: $ 99.95
Price: $ 94.88
Stephen W. Hinch "hiker and author"
October 26, 2011Great product if your expectations are realistic,
National Geographic topo maps are great if your understand their strengths and limitations. First, don’t expect to import the actual maps into a GPS receiver. These maps are raster-scanned directly from USGS 7.5′ topos; GPS receivers use vector-graphic maps that are only available from your receiver’s manufacturer (and they are much less detailed than NG maps). But you should never expect your GPS receiver’s display to completely replace a paper map anyway. It’s too small to show much detail, and if your receiver fails, you’d be out of luck.
Since these are based on USGS maps, they have the same high quality including tons of detail, but since many USGS maps are more than 10 years old, you won’t necessarily get up-to-date information. Since topographic features don’t ordinarily change as frequently as man-made features, you’re usually OK, but keep this in mind.
These maps allow you do a lot of other things with your GPS. You can create waypoints on the computer, either by placing a marker on the map or by entering in the latitudes and longitudes of your points, then transfer them to the GPS. This is much easier than manually entering the info through your GPS user interface. You can also download tracks from your GPS receiver onto the map to see where you’ve been. And you can draw intended journeys directly on the map screen, then measure the distance and elevation profile of the route. The elevation profile is a bit noisy, but you get a pretty good idea of how much elevation change you’ll experience on a hike. The tool you use to draw the route on the screen could benefit from an improved user interface, but with a little practice you can get pretty good at it. If you make a mistake, hold down the right mouse button to erase the error. One thing I like is that you can print out a custom paper map, and if you print using your inkjet on NG’s waterproof paper, you can get a custom color map that really is waterproof.
The major limitation at this point is that the software is not fully compatible with some of the newest GPS receivers. I can’t use the USB cable with my Garmin GPSMap 60CS, but it works pretty well with the Serial cable, other than garbling waypoint names. Hopefully this will be fixed soon.
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|Mark Guzowski
October 26, 2011If you can only afford one, buy national geographic’s topos,
I live in Idaho, and actually, really, go into the wilderness. The level of detail provided by garmin’s u.s. topo offering is honestly not sufficient for accurately setting waypoints. National Geographic’s state series is indeed sufficient (in fact it’s the best for Idaho). Not to be cruel, but being able to download inadequately detailed map source is not nearly as important as being able to download truly accurate waypoints. Buying both packages would obviously be the best solution, but really you can set up all the detail you need (for getting in & out) using just national geographic (whereas you can’t with garmin’s u.s. topo stuff).
Critical note: I strongly recommend not carrying *just* electronic maps if you really, truly, go into wilderness. Electronic toys aren’t foolproof – they break through no fault of your own, they get dropped, can get destroyed if you fall, etc. Paper maps should *also* be carried – ideally ones printed out just for your current trip.
The garmin hardware itself is truly impressive. Their mapsource topo offerings, on the other hand, need a lot of work. It’s as if the people who did them never visited the U.S., and/or never really went into many of the U.S.’s real wilderness areas.
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