Customer Reviews

National Geographic TOPO! Mid-Atlantic Map CD-ROM (Windows)

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(9)

 

 

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.

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.

I wanted to use TOPO to map the trails in the parks around South Eastern VA. by importing the GPS tracks obtained from walking/riding the trails. TOPO would almost do what I wanted, but its disappointing lack of editing and viewing tools made it impossible to accurately draw or display the routs.

If I import the tracks as individual waypoints, the waypoints are displayed as HUGE diamonds on the map that overlap and make it impossible to follow the track. The max zoom is insufficient to clearly display the tracks, but the magnify option zooms in nicely. The only problem is the magnify option also magnifies the waypoint icons, so they still overlap. For the Mid-Atlantic map, these waypoint diamonds are about 200 feet corner to corner.

If I bring the tracks in as complete routs, there is no way to make small changes to fit the track to the minor inconsistencies in the elevation map. For example, when the GPS shows me walking a mostly flat section and TOPO has me descending into a ravine; if I remember navigating around the edge of the ravine, it's obvious the track in that area needs to be tweaked to miss the ravine. I might be able to draw a new track if the lines of the existing track were a little thinner, but as with the waypoints, at max magnify the lines are very thick and obscure the topo lines. When I try to start a new track, the draw tool functions as a track selector over the existing (too thick) track, so I can't correct what is already there. The only option is to delete small sections of the map and try to redraw them from memory or a print out. This process might work, but I think I could do it a lot faster in a paint program.

There doesn't seem to be any way to turn off a waypoint or track display completely, since all the waypoints are ultimately displayed in the "All Waypoints" master list which won't turn off. Strangely, if I delete a waypoint in a custom rout, the waypoint is also deleted from the master list, so once a waypoint is added to a rout it can't be removed without also removing it from the entire map.

Overall it's a nice program and probably works fine for mapping out long, straight paths. It's useless for my purposes, though. They need to add some better editing and viewing features, such as interactive rout editing with drag handles on the waypoints, and some control over how and when the waypoints are displayed.

This is a 'must have' software if you hike, bike and recreate outdoors. The software interface takes a bit of getting use to, but once mastered it provides simple navigation and a lot of information. I do a lot of mountain biking in Northern California and this software lets you 'preview' a trail by mapping it (you draw a line on the trail) and the software then calculates distance travelled and the cumulative vertical ascent. This is very helpful in determining how long a ride will take, and how much physical exertion will be required. It also helps you to track your condition level - as you get in better shape you will be able to do more vertical in less time ...

Once you have created a route you can send it (via e-mail) to friends, or post it on the Topo website to share with others. Other neat features are a 3 dimensional viewing package (sold separately fo $20) and the ablity to send waypoints to handheld GPS units.

There really aren't any 'cons' to the software. Some things you should be aware of though are that Garmin (maker of many handheld GPS units) promotes its own topographical software. This is a pain because Garmin only allows you to send waypoints form the 'Topo' software and you can't upload the detailed maps into the handheld GPS unit. I own an Extrex Vista and the inability to load maps without buying the Garmin software is an irratant. The only other comment is that some of the maps in the software are dated so they don't always show the latest information in terms of roads and buildings. This you just get used to. Similar to other posts - When hiking or biking in remote areas don't rely on a handheld GPS exclusively, bring a printed map, and have some familiarity with a compass and know generally the area into which you are going - also let other people know where you are going (send an e-mail of your route ...). This is common sense that will save a lot of headache.

Overall this software is 'a good thing' and I highly recommend it to people who enjoy spending time outside, and it is particularly good for the mountain biking community.

Love the backcountry? For those of us who love the backcountry in Utah, this is an outstanding tool for the modern wilderness traveller. Combine this with a GPS and a large-format printer, and you've got the sweet system for customizing, then printing out maps you can use in the field. This has saved me SO MUCH MOOLA over buying (and wrecking) 2 or 3 quads for each weekend's adventures.

It's pretty simple. You can trace routes and add text annotations, measure the length of routes and construct an altitude profile; define a printer area and print it out. It works much better to drop the print output (Tiff) into Photoshop and adjust it for your printer. Printing on 8-1/2 x 11 paper doesn't get you much, but printing on 11 x 17 or 13 x 19 makes really nice maps. The Topo "Scan" is not as fine as it would be "really nice" to have, but is about the information you can see (unaided) on a standard Topo map.

Working with the Etrex GPS unit is easy. Mark waypoints on the computer, upload them to the handheld unit.

Overall, it works really well and is easy to learn and use. It requires a bit of an investment up front, but for the serious off-trail traveller, it is money well spent....

If Topo maps still cost $2.50, I never would have purchased this product. Now that they cost upwards of $8, this product pays for itself fairly quickly.

I like setting the waypoints on the map and then uploading to my Garmin eTRex (serial) GPS. I do not go the other way from GPS to map. The quality of the map printouts is good, and scaling is good although I wish you could set the variable manually instead of using the preset values.

The paper is expensive but very durable. Best to make test prints on regular paper until ready to print for real. The paper size is a limitation (unless one has a large-format printer).

If you want to just use this to browse topos, it's not a great tool. It's much better to have a larger format topo, say 1:25000 to get a rough idea of your route, and then use Topo to scan a small area. The screen real estate of a computer monitor is tiny, and really does not lend itself well to casual map browsing, especially at 1:24000 scale where it takes 8 screens to pan a map, whereas a real map can be panned by the naked eye.

Anyway, I'm happy with the tool as long as the limitations are understood. This is for the PC version on W2K for Topo California. I just bought a Mac (yes!) and I hope the conversion utility works!

I've used TOPO! for eight years and it's the best there is for mapping software. I own software for 10 of the western states and use the program almost daily. I use the program in my laptop and when hooked up to my GPS, I have what amounts to a super detailed car navigation system with a 17" screen. As new maps become available, you can download them free into your computer as needed and it's a very easy procedure. Also, free upgrades are available on-line and that's an easy procedure too.

To make the state series most useable, you need to add Back Roads Explorer, which gives much more detailed up-to-date street and street name information.

The only caveates with this program is that you need a relatively fast computer and lots of memory so you can copy the whole program to your hard drive so you don't have to constantly change cd's. Also, expect to take some time to fully get to know this program.

If you look on the cover of the box of the TOPO California you will see a picture of a Garmin etrex GPS handheld reciever. One would think with a picture of the exact same GPS handheld that one owns that it would work. It does not. The latest Garmin etrex uses an USB port to upload / download data to the PC which is not compatable with the TOPO software that uses the com1, com2 etc. ports. I wrote an email to TOPO asking how to correct this problem and they indicated that I could buy the expansion pack for the State series for about $20 and then it would work with my GPS reciever. So I went to their website to buy the expansion pack and it was priced at 24.95, and it is not availabe at this time. So it looks like I will be using Garmin's Mapsource product for all of my uploads to the PC. The problem with Mapsource is the level of detail. Its scale is 1:100000 vs. TOPO's 1:24000... But at least it works.

I won't repeat the complaints by the other reviewers but I will agree with them. I have a new Garmin eTrex Vista C GPS, which is a good product. But, Garmin wants you to buy their poor quality MapSource software. Poor quality because of the scale. National Geographic TOPO software is somewhat clumsy to use, but it will produce a fine map and does a good job for large scale use, as in hiking, etc. The problem is that Nat. Geo. deliberately misleads in its cover blurb by implying that TOPO will work with "most popular handheld receivers." It won't. So, if you want to produce a topographic map, with a route marked on it, and measure distances, develop elevation profiles, etc., then NatGeo TOPO is useful. If you want to upload waypoints from TOPO to your handheld GPS, be careful!

This piece of software is what I have been hoping for for since I bought my machine. It is the most elegant and detailed mapping system that I have used. With the Garmin Vista Cx it works flawlessly. You can download any or all of the map data from the disks into the "Topo" file and it runs very well on my powerbook G4. It will upload all waypoints, and routes. It will download all waypoints, routes and tracks! The maps are gorgeous! The interactive web feature is cool but young. It has a geocaching feature. The 3d maps are sweet! It downloads updates and new map layers almost perfectly (had to manually download the software update). I only wish that waypoints symbols would transfer to and from my unit but I can easily live without them. Load the Mapsource maps to your device (Garmin "x" series saves to swappable memory microSD cards) and use Topo! from your laptop.