MnGCA

KC0GRN · Past MnGCA Board Joined: 22 Feb 2004 Posts: 1424

Playing around with USA Photo maps. It has an option to upload tracks from your gps, then overlay them on a satellite image (aquired from terra server I believe). The result is as follows.

towlebooth · Posted: Mon May 10, 2004 6:43 am Post subject:

That's really cool - please give us a bit more "how-to"!

Cool

Marsha and Silent Bob · Past MnGCA President Joined: 02 Sep 2003 Posts: 6261

s4xton · Posted: Mon May 10, 2004 9:23 am Post subject:

This isn't an exact route, but Silent Bob and I plotted out our team-deadhead trip on Saturday. I'll keep this url up a few days so you can see an example... this was generated by gpsvisualizer.com, edited in Photoshop:

http://s4xton.com/caching/SaturdayDeadhead.png

Having this map before we went out paid off *big time.* We also used similar maps for doing the Presidential series in the Eau Claire area.

-Aaron

KC0GRN · Past MnGCA Board Joined: 22 Feb 2004 Posts: 1424

Interesting on the GPS visualizer, I'll have to try that sometime.

With USA Photo Maps, it's pretty simple. Go to this site and get the program (about a 300k download, setup is simple as well).

http://jdmcox.com/

After you've installed it, run the program, it'll ask you for a set of starting coordinates, I found using my house coordinates works good for a starting point. Remember to enter the coordinates in decimal form (ie 44.55555 -93.44444) in the first fields. I'd change the location name too, unless you want to see Puerto Rico listed at the top of the page all the time.

Next you'll see a plain grid on your screen, press the "F" key to fill the grid with the satellite image (aquired from terraserver), you can also fiddle with the settings to choose a Topo map instead. Zoom in and out with the page up/page down keys, or the plus and minus keys on the keypad. Scroll around with the arrow keys. Also you'll notice wherever your mouse pointer is, the Lat/Long coordinates for that point are listed in the menubar of the program, useful feature.

To aquire data from your gps, click on the GPS menu, Set your Comm port, Baud Rate, and Protocol (Garmin for Garmin, NMEA for any others). Then click on Tracks -> Receive. It'll ask you for a file name, so name one, then the download should begin (unless the communications aren't set right, took me a couple minutes to get the right settings). After it's complete, Click on GPS -> Tracks -> Display, find the file you named, and it should show up, assuming you're looking at the right area of the Map. If not, locate the right area, then you'll see it.

With a little more tinkering, you can download your GPSr's waypoints, and display them as well. Save the image by going to File -> copy to 'screen01.jpg'. The resulting file is placed in the USAPhotoMaps directory under Program Files.

Wheew, it sounds more complicated than it is though.