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What's with topozone


johndavidjr

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As often the case, I may be simply in the dark, but it seems like Topozone.com is sold to some site that wants money to look at maps.

 

Can anybody recommend a similar site that's free?

 

Why doesn't USGS put their stuff on line for free?

 

GoogleEarth is interesting but I need USGS

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As I understand it, topozone was sold to another website which I won't mention here. The switch-over occurred about a week ago, with no particular warning to topozone users. It is an unfortunate situation; now, there is no Canadian coverage, no placement of the cursor at a particular locale, no switching between the various lat/long/utc formats, and of course you have to pay to get the much reduced utility. I sent them an email asking about some of this stuff & didn't get a reply. Speaking only for myself, I won't be subscribing, and I'm in the process of removing topozone links I previously placed in some of my images & galleries. I have heard that bivouac is removing their topozone links as well..

 

Topozone was a great website...

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Yeah.... The USGS is in the public domain but USGS does lousy job of making stuff available free. The "National Map" I linked above seems to be it.....Horribly complicated. .Designed by IRS tax accountants and computer geniuses...AND SLOW.

 

90% of the features we'd want are inaccessible, unaccessible or who knows???? It's designed so every freaking obscure bit of science may or may not be available....if you care and know which button to push.

 

Topozone maps though, were sometimes dated from 1940s...

 

Yeah to hell with whoever they were acquired by...

 

HEY that Acme Mapper seems like it might be really good !!! THANKS

Edited by johndavidjr
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UW has all the USGS quads scanned and available online:

http://rocky2.ess.washington.edu/data/raster/drgclip/index.html

 

You can’t really link to them or anything, but they may come handy if you want to print the whole quad.

 

This is great, but it stops at the Columbia. I primarily use my Topo! maps for both areas, but is there anyone at UO or OSU that has done something similar?

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The USGS also has USGS maps for download via a user friendly google inspired map browser.

 

Just go here (different and WAY better for our purposes than that other interactive map BS they have):

http://store.usgs.gov/locator/?store_url=http://store.usgs.gov/scripts/wgate/zww20119d47dc/~flNlc3Npb249UFJEOklHU0tBSENJR1NTQVAwMjowMDAxLjAwMjkuYWYxY2ZkMWIuNTZhYyZ*aHR0cF9jb250ZW50X2NoYXJzZXQ9aXNvLTg4NTktMSZ*U3RhdGU9MjAwOTQuMDAxLjAyLjA1====?~okcode=SESH

 

...now all I need is access to the print shop at work...

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Free is always nice, but if you really want what you want, when you want it - I recommend Terrain Navigator. Drop some cash and get the whole state with the software to view all USGS maps seamless, shaded relief and all. Upload/download GPS tracks and way points, etc. Print out maps on waterproof paper with UTM or Lat - Long grids and/or rulers to scale and be on your way. I can’t say enough about it. I got the Pro version for work and it downloads the most current aerial photography or satellite images too.

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This open source GTK program viking is a decent basic map browsing client that supports a number of different web-fetched formats including USGS and Google. It has a neat layering scheme that supports semi-transparent overlays. It's not a finished product and I'm not sure about Windows/Mac support.

 

USGS topo overlayed on USGS aerial, auto-downloaded/displayed in 'browse-time':

3936.jpg

3936.jpg.4737f802de5b746c569ecac924b3cd7d.jpg

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