- Platform: Windows 98 / 2000 / Me / XP
- Media: CD-ROM
- Item Quantity: 1
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Product Description
Amazon.com Review
Look up obscure country lanes, view 3-D topographical maps of national landmarks like the Hoover Dam or Mount Saint Helen's, and navigate the complicated roadways of America's biggest cities with Topo USA 4.0, a seven CD-set that puts the whole country at your fingertips.
Designed to be compatible with GPS devices and handheld computers like the PalmPilot, Topo USA 4.0 can work out routes for road trips, locate obscure locales within the U.S., and even find hiking trails before you embark on a walking tour. For those with fewer gadgets, the program is still useful--you can build your own maps, customize them to an extraordinary degree, and print them out for trips and outings.
It takes a bit of work to learn the ropes with Topo USA 4.0, and some of its GPS features are available only as extras from the software manufacturer, Delorme. With a bit of practice, however, users will find the program runs smoothly and without glitches, providing topographical and two-dimensional maps of every portion of the United States, at a high level of detail. Add to this the ability to filter out any information that isn't of interest, and the updates to the map database that are available on the Web, and the result is a powerful interactive atlas, a thoroughly useful guide for getting around the USA. --Alyx Dellamonica
Amazon.com Product Description
Topo USA 4.0 delivers amazing versatility and highly detailed topographical maps of the entire U.S. New with this release is split-screen viewing that lets you look at 2-D and 3-D maps side by side. Hover your cursor over the 2-D map and see its position echoed on the 3-D map. Linked drawing tools mark both maps simultaneously, while the zoom level of each split-screen image adjusts independently. Add your own trails and road routes--a DeLorme exclusive. Draw in trails or roads anywhere on the map and they become part of the routing network--it's that easy. Plus, you receive a free color satellite imagery download.
A range of features makes Topo USA 4.0 a must-have. Newly added trails and roads are listed directly in the program's search engine, making searching simple. It also includes GPS tracking in 3-D and easier waypoint management. Track your position on both 2-D and 3-D maps using your laptop and DeLorme's Earthmate GPS receiver. Its waypoint wizard downloads tracks from Garmin, Brunton, Magellan, and other compatible handheld GPS receivers. Topo USA 4.0 also makes it easy to load other DeLorme data sets and more than 300,000 miles of updated trails, including those of national parks and ranger districts, from its database. Enjoy instant elevation profiles of routes, roads, trails, and other features; 29 new map symbols; and complete printing capabilities that let you print 3-D mural maps and much more.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
48 of 50 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Very good software,
By
This review is from: Topo USA 4.0 (CD-ROM)
I was somewhat surprised to read the reviews of a minority of malcontents. No, this product does not have the detail of USGS topographic maps, but it never claimed that it did! The trade-off is that it covers the whole country. Yes you can buy detailed maps on CD-ROM from Maptech, DeLorme and NGS Topo but it would cost you a couple thousand dollars to cover the entire US. I have not had any problems with displaying maps in 3-D either, it works fine. I have been using DeLorme products for many years and I can also vouch for their product support.However this is serious software for people who like maps, cartography, GPS and navigation. It has many capabilities that require buyers to make sure that their computers meet the minimum requirements and spend some time to learn how to use it. This is definitely more capable software than Street Atlas or Streets and Trips.
31 of 32 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Great promise, but doesn't deliver,
By
This review is from: Topo USA 4.0 (CD-ROM)
I purchased this direcly from Delorme based on the information on their website. While the software promises a lot, it doesn't really deliver. As a side note, I have the version with the whole country on 1 DVD, instead of a group of CD-ROMs. I believe, though, that the dataset is the same between the two products.First, this program is difficult and confusing to use. I have used a number of mapping products for many years - including ones that do similar things to the Delorme product, and all of them were easier to figure out than this one. As another reviewer here has said, it feels like a version 1 release, as opposed to something that has gone through a number of revisions. The second, and much more significant problem for me - is that it is very innacurate. Now, I certainly can't speak for the whole country, but in trying to plan a number of outdoor activities here in the San Francisco Bay Area, I found dozens of innacuraces, especially in the placement of roads. Now how does that matter - you may ask - when planning hiking and other outdoor activities. Well, some of the road locations are off by a significant amount (for example the map has a road on the North side of a hill, when it is actually on the South side of the hill), and a number of the smaller roads aren't even on the map at all. It seems clear that they used some sort of automated procedure to put the road layer into the software, because in many places that I've looked closely, the roads don't even connect to each other, or they connect in a way that is obviously wrong to any person that looked at it (groups of dead-end roads connecting only ot each other, roads branching off in bizarre ways, etc.). And that leads the the problem. One of the features that I was keen on using this software for was to create routes on my desktop and then download them to my handheld GPS as navigation tools for my hike. Well, if the roads are in the wrong places, and the trails don't connect properly to them - the routes either won't be accurate, or can't be created at all. That's a real problem for me. While it's pretty easy for me to look at a map and figure out that the roads are incorrect, it leads me to question whether any of the data in the program is correct - which is of course a much larger issue if your using the software for anything beyond 'just for fun.' I certainly wouldn't trust it to produce GPS routes and have those as my only means of navigation. So, clean up the interface (important), and clean up the data (very important), and you'd have a great product. Version 4 just doesn't cut it.
21 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Functional and Fun,
By Eric B Bowman (Santa Fe, NM United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Topo USA 4.0 (CD-ROM)
I was really surprised to find the average review of this product to be so low. I would have paid the full price of this software for just the 2-dimensional maps of the country and much more when the GPS, 3-dimensional, trip planning, printing, profiling and other features are added in.I use a Garmin 12XL GPS and have had no trouble loading routes from the computer to the GPS, or downloading from GPS to computer. Unlike another reviewer, I have not had to use third programs, text files or any computer expertise at all. The vector nature of the maps gives them far more functionality than other programs, which use scanned GIF or JPG images as the maps. The maps are seamless and virtually all features, from streets to trails, mountains to lakes etc. are clickable for more information. I found no trouble adding trails that I've found which were not mapped and Delorme has responded to my e-mails about additions quickly and courteously. In conclusion, I've found Topo USA to be useful, a good value and a product I will continue using well into the future.
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