CD-ROM maps
4 messages in this thread
These aren't what most of us want in "maps-on-a-disk", but DeLorme produces
town and city maps on a CD-ROM. This company publishes paper copy maps — atlas
— for the states, so far they have many NE and some western states. These are
large format atlases, that are fairly useful. Each book covers an entire state
(except CA which is in two parts) and they show all highways and the main
backroads. For Idaho and the other western states, they have a pretty good
coverage of the backroads. Unfortunately, they do not differentiate between a
main gravel road and a (sometimes barely passable) logging road. All the little
towns are there and many features are labeled. These are quite useful when out
mineral collecting and you don't have the specific topo or forest map.
Unfortunately, they do not show T&R, UTM or lat/lon. Idaho is at a1:250,000
scale, and the contour interval is 400 ft. Forests are shaded green, BLM land
is generally indicated, and the county boundaries are marked.
They now put out a "Street Atlas USA" on CD-ROM which is supposed to contain
"Every Street in the Entire Country!" according to their brochure. The ad also
states that the atlas "…is a complete street map of the entire country…You
can zoom in on every city, town, or rural area in the country–right down to
the smallest backroads. The database gives you instant access to more than 12
milliion street segments and more than 1 million lakes, ponds, rivers, parks,
railroads, and more!" Apparently this has been available for DOS machines for
sometime and has just been put in Mac format. The list price is $169. DeLorme
(Freeport, ME) can be reached at 1-800-452-5931.
Has anybody seen this?
You would think that the topo map data should be available commercially from
the USGS for a reasonable fee, and thus some company could make individual topa
maps (area maps, regional maps etc.) available for a reasonable price. Anybody
interested in starting a new home business that would probably require some
special computer equipment, but could be quite lucrative? Mining companies,
logging companies, and many others may be interested, could be a big market.
Lanny
Wisconsin is one of the states that's had paper DeLorme maps for some time.
They're quite popular. They are a lot like the USGS 1:150,000 maps, except
they're bound into a tabloid size book. Same color, etc. I'd guess they are
directly derived from USGS data, either DLG (digital line graph) maps or the
topo maps. The paper version does include topo markings. I'm sure they've
done immense amounts of data reduction to get the USA on a single CDROM, so
adding topo info would require even more CD space. Lots more – there are more
squiggly topo lines than roads. Once I was out hiking and tripped over a topo
line and took a nasty spill, but that's a story for another time… 😉
Just across the street, my city hall (Jefferson, WI, pop 6,000) has detailed
topo maps of the city in electronic form, as well as all the city plat maps. I
could stretch an Ethernet cable out the window and connect to their network.
I'm sure the USGS is working on (or already has) these maps in electronic form.
I remember seeing my state maps at the local USGS office on a computer CAD
screen, I'm not sure if it was land-use or resource maps, I don't think it was
topo.
As for the DeLorme/USGS maps, I've tried to track down the "quarries" in my
area, as marked on the maps. Some are marked, but I can't see them in real
life. I've found some "quarries" that were as large as my living room,
overgrown with trees, no less.
I have both the DeLorme CD-ROM and several of their atlases.
The CD-ROM, Street Atlas USA, is quite complete as far as streets
and roads go. ZIP code data and phone exchange data is also included. For
example; I can give it the zip code of my home town and the software will
zoom the map to my home town. Same with phone exchange and/or area code.
No contour info on these.
The data appears to be quite old. My hometown on this map has railroads
that haven't existed since the '70's. The Southern California data,
however, only appears to be 5 or so years out of data.
I bought this CD-ROM several years ago. DeLorme now has a new release that
claims to have more up to date data.
DeLorme's Atlases not only seem to be similar to USGS 1:100,000 maps but
are, in fact, identical. DeLorme has just packaged the maps into an
convenient book and added some roadmap type data (like campgrounds,
attractions, etc). These contain contour info in meters. I find the
California atlases very handy.
Mike
John & Mike
The paper atlases are quite handy, but it would be better if they put some sort
of coordinate system (T&R, lat/lon, or UTM). Also, they don't do much towards
different line weights to separate the better main route dirt roads from the
"where is my Hummer" road. Actually they are quite useful, especially if you
have a topo map where your mineral site is the atlas can be great to get you
from the main highway across xx miles of back roads to your where you topo map
starts. Or in the winter when you're thumbing through the geology reports and
come across an obscure mention of "euhedral garnets in a skarn in xx prospect
pit" or a friend calls on the phone and asks "did you hear about the giant
amethyst crystals found on "Out of this World Peak" in Nowhere County,
Washington where you don't have anyother map because you've never had a reason
to go there, the atlas will show the general area where it is so you can dream
about it all winter long.
The new brochure for the CD-ROM states that it is up to date and shows all the
new streets etc. This obviously is only for towns and cities, not the back
woods, but it does say "rural roads".
Lanny