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Source for Topo Maps


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Just found an interesting source for topo maps. I wanted a better map for the local lakes that I fish in and didn't want to pay the price for the Garmin inland lakes package since I only go to 3 or 4 lakes. Reading in the forums I found about OziExplorer and the ability to take bitmaps etc and create custom maps. I went to the local Wal-Mart looking for paper maps of the lakes I wanted to scan as a starting point. Found a couple of those but also found something called Mapcard.com. $10 for a 1 year membership of unlimited topo maps. They go in scale down to 1:12,500 and you can save them out as either bitmap or jpeg files. The really intersting thing is that they have a moving cursor with lat, lon readout and you can mark waypoints with this that then show up on the saved maps. That makes it real easy to calibrate the map in Ozi. The package is primarily geared to lake maps but you can scroll around and they seem to have at least the topo maps for most of my area.

 

I've got a trial lake done in Ozi, now all I have to do is figure out the translation into a Garmin readable map.

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Just found an interesting source for topo maps. I wanted a better map for the local lakes that I fish in and didn't want to pay the price for the Garmin inland lakes package since I only go to 3 or 4 lakes. Reading in the forums I found about OziExplorer and the ability to take bitmaps etc and create custom maps. I went to the local Wal-Mart looking for paper maps of the lakes I wanted to scan as a starting point. Found a couple of those but also found something called Mapcard.com. $10 for a 1 year membership of unlimited topo maps. They go in scale down to 1:12,500 and you can save them out as either bitmap or jpeg files. The really intersting thing is that they have a moving cursor with lat, lon readout and you can mark waypoints with this that then show up on the saved maps. That makes it real easy to calibrate the map in Ozi. The package is primarily geared to lake maps but you can scroll around and they seem to have at least the topo maps for most of my area.

 

I've got a trial lake done in Ozi, now all I have to do is figure out the translation into a Garmin readable map.

Check out this thread. It will help out. custom topos

Here is another link of someone scanning a golf course and using ozi then using gpsmappedit and such to get it to the gps. A combination of these two should do the trick.

ozihelp

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Just found an interesting source for topo maps.

 

Check out USAphotomaps from www.jdmcox.com.... it sounds like it does the same basic thing as mapcard.com, except the software and data is free. Uses topo map data from terraserver.com, also free...

The maps and topos on MapCard are much better quality then either of the free sites, plus MapCard has different tools to use on the maps.

 

I think the OP should go back and read the info again, unless he's seeing something I'm missing, the $9.95 they mention on the site is to buy large, laminated, printed aerials and topos from another company. As far as I know MapCard has a $19.95 membership and a $29.95 mempership.

 

I am going on my second year with MapCard, and for the 8 cents a day it costs me I find it well worth it.

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Thanks, those threads were the ones that put me onto the idea of making custom maps in the first place. My post was pointing people to a different source of topo maps online. Thanks again for the suggestions.

If you use oziexplorer I believe that you would have to use the trace function in order to transfer any paper maps to the gps. So you would have to trace bodies of water or contour lines. I could be wrong but when I looked into this route that is what I figured out.

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The maps and topos on MapCard are much better quality then either of the free sites, plus MapCard has different tools to use on the maps.

 

I think the OP should go back and read the info again, unless he's seeing something I'm missing, the $9.95 they mention on the site is to buy large, laminated, printed aerials and topos from another company. As far as I know MapCard has a $19.95 membership and a $29.95 mempership.

 

I am going on my second year with MapCard, and for the 8 cents a day it costs me I find it well worth it.

 

Nope, the cost of MapCard at Walmart is $9.95 for a 1 year membership. Just bought the card with registration number yesterday. When I got to their site I saw that it was $19.95 but apparently Walmart did to them the same as the do to everyone else and made them lower the price.

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Thanks, those threads were the ones that put me onto the idea of making custom maps in the first place. My post was pointing people to a different source of topo maps online. Thanks again for the suggestions.

If you use oziexplorer I believe that you would have to use the trace function in order to transfer any paper maps to the gps. So you would have to trace bodies of water or contour lines. I could be wrong but when I looked into this route that is what I figured out.

 

That depends if you want something routable or not. All I'm looking for is a more detailed background picture that I know is to scale. The outline of the lake and all the depth gradients are part of the "picture" that the gps positions me above. It's the same thing as using an aerial photo as a background for a map.

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Thanks, those threads were the ones that put me onto the idea of making custom maps in the first place. My post was pointing people to a different source of topo maps online. Thanks again for the suggestions.

If you use oziexplorer I believe that you would have to use the trace function in order to transfer any paper maps to the gps. So you would have to trace bodies of water or contour lines. I could be wrong but when I looked into this route that is what I figured out.

 

That depends if you want something routable or not. All I'm looking for is a more detailed background picture that I know is to scale. The outline of the lake and all the depth gradients are part of the "picture" that the gps positions me above. It's the same thing as using an aerial photo as a background for a map.

Are you planning on putting these maps on the gps though? If so then I think you will have to use the tracing feature to get them there.

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That depends if you want something routable or not. All I'm looking for is a more detailed background picture that I know is to scale. The outline of the lake and all the depth gradients are part of the "picture" that the gps positions me above. It's the same thing as using an aerial photo as a background for a map.

Are you planning on putting these maps on the gps though? If so then I think you will have to use the tracing feature to get them there.

 

From what I've read in the other threads on the topic if all I want is an accurate background picture I don't need to do that. That's the next step, now that I have OziExplorer .map files from the mapcard maps that I have scaled by putting known waypoints in them is to use gpsmapper to translate them into .img files that can go into the GPSr. Hopefully someone that's already done that can chime in with how well the process works.

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That depends if you want something routable or not. All I'm looking for is a more detailed background picture that I know is to scale. The outline of the lake and all the depth gradients are part of the "picture" that the gps positions me above. It's the same thing as using an aerial photo as a background for a map.

Are you planning on putting these maps on the gps though? If so then I think you will have to use the tracing feature to get them there.

 

From what I've read in the other threads on the topic if all I want is an accurate background picture I don't need to do that. That's the next step, now that I have OziExplorer .map files from the mapcard maps that I have scaled by putting known waypoints in them is to use gpsmapper to translate them into .img files that can go into the GPSr. Hopefully someone that's already done that can chime in with how well the process works.

For a backround map it will work. Now if you are going to try to put this backround map on the gps then as far as I know you will have to use the trace feature. That is what I thought you wanted to do from the beginning. Anyways that is why we download the data etc to make our own custom topo maps. You can't simply calibrate a map and put it on the gps. You will have to trace features etc to get this done. Unless someone else has an idea but everything I have read leads to this.

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