Ade Posted January 26, 2005 Posted January 26, 2005 So in theory you can download all those nice USGS maps for free. But only if you know what you're doing. As with any bureaucracy the trick is knowing how to ask the question. You can use the National Map Viewer to zoom around Alaska. In the right hand column turn on Topographic Maps > USGS Quadrangles to see the maps and Topographic Maps > Index/Status to get the names of the individual sheets. Once you have the sheet name goto the Alaska Digital Raster Graphics and download the TIF file for the sheet you want. This comes as a compressed file using GNU Zip. The built in Windows ZIP program doesn't seem to handle this (maybe WinZip does). You can get gunzip.exe for Win32 from SourceForge's GNU utilities for Win32 Project. Download the ZIP. You only need to unpack \usr\local\wbin\gunzip.exe to be able to unzip files. Have fun. Ade Quote
forrest_m Posted January 26, 2005 Posted January 26, 2005 (edited) Ade - Have you tried USA Photo Maps ? A free program that pulls usgs data and automatically stiches the maps together, along with linking to aerial photos? Based on langitude/longitude, interfaces with GPS units, did i mention that it's free? edited to fix link Edited January 26, 2005 by forrest_m Quote
Ade Posted January 26, 2005 Author Posted January 26, 2005 The Photo Maps link is messed up. Its http://www.jdmcox.com/ Quote
markws Posted January 26, 2005 Posted January 26, 2005 About 5 minutes of searching led to WA maps as well: http://duff.geology.washington.edu/data/raster/drg/index.html Quote
Ade Posted January 27, 2005 Author Posted January 27, 2005 Needless to say the sat imagery is limited to only some regions of the US. You can find out what Photo Maps will be able to get images for here: http://www.terraserver-usa.com/ Quote
Chad_A Posted January 28, 2005 Posted January 28, 2005 Holy shit...thanks all for providing hours of future entertainment! Quote
Kelsey Posted January 28, 2005 Posted January 28, 2005 Try WorldWind from Nasa. That program beats them all out!! It just may be the coolest program for maps ive ever used (by far) Quote
forrest_m Posted January 28, 2005 Posted January 28, 2005 Needless to say the sat imagery is limited to only some regions of the US. You can find out what Photo Maps will be able to get images for here: http://www.terraserver-usa.com/ yes, the problem is that to get free photos from terraserver, you have to download a huge bunch of screenshots and stitch them together in photoshop (or pay a bunch of $ to subscribe to terraserver), photomaps automates that for you and lets you toggle back and forth to usgs topo maps. Quote
Ade Posted January 29, 2005 Author Posted January 29, 2005 I agree Photo Maps is better. All I'm saying is that you can use the coverage map on the homepage of the Terraserver site to figure out if it's worth going to the trouble of installing Photo Maps to get photos. It's still a great tool for stitching together USGS maps though. It's like having one big map of the US! I also played with NASA's World Wind program. This also does USGS maps and LandSat images and a bunch of other cool stuff as well including 3D terrain views. Again the issue is data; the SRTM terrain data coverage is patchy for AK. Denali for instance appears completely flat! Both these are really cool applications that make using the USGS and other data much easier now all we have to do is convince someone to fly the space shuttle over AK a few times. Quote
Ade Posted February 5, 2005 Author Posted February 5, 2005 Seems that there isn't anything equivalent for Canada. You can search the map DB and it'll produce computer generated topo maps but there doesn't seem to be anything for downloading the equivalent USGS map data. http://maps.nrcan.gc.ca/search/mapsearch.html Anyone got any better ideas on this one? Quote
forrest_m Posted February 7, 2005 Posted February 7, 2005 have you tried the BC Base Map Viewer ? Only works for British columbia and is a wee bit cumbersome, but has an awful lot of information. Quote
Ade Posted February 7, 2005 Author Posted February 7, 2005 I'm looking for the equivalent of the BC Base Map Viewer for the Yukon. Quote
Ade Posted March 4, 2006 Author Posted March 4, 2006 I ended up buying some maps for the Canadian side of the border. http://www.etopo.ca/ The best free/shareware software for viewing them seems to be Memory-Map: http://www.memory-map.com/ This will also allow you to download USGS maps and load them too. You can stitch together multiple maps and add markers for peaks etc. Quote
sirwoofalot Posted July 6, 2007 Posted July 6, 2007 About 5 minutes of searching led to WA maps as well: http://duff.geology.washington.edu/data/raster/drg/index.html No frigin way! Quote
climbingcoastie Posted October 25, 2009 Posted October 25, 2009 (edited) USGS Store Click Map Locator Follow directions on right side of map Download away Good for entire US I have used maps from this site for many skiing, hiking, and hunting trips. Edited October 25, 2009 by climbingcoastie Quote
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