‘’ 2010 ‘’ June

Archive for June, 2010

Garmin Basecamp Revisited

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in Garmin, GPS and GPX. 4 Comments

It’s been a bit more than a year since I first looked at Garmin’s free Basecamp software, and wasn’t terribly impressed. I did say, “Hopefully future versions will be snappier, and add more features.” I just did a GPS presentation to a local hiking group, and in preparation for that took a full look at the latest version of Basecamp (3.05). In short, it’s a major improvement over the first release; it’s now better than Garmin’s classic MapSource program for uploading/downloading/managing data. It’s so improved that it wouldn’t be a bad basic choice for creating data for use with non-Garmin GPS models; just export the data to GPX format, then use a program like EasyGPS to send it to your model. As an added bonus, it’s available in both PC and Mac versions.

Probably the most important addition is an associated tool called MapInstall, that lets you upload Garmin-compatible maps to your GPS unit. Prior to this, the only complete tool for doing this was Garmin’s MapSource program, only available if you purchased a Garmin mapset, or Garmin’s Trip and Waypoint Planner software, sold for $30. If you wanted to use free mapsets like those available at the GPS File Depot, you were out of luck; now, you’re not. MapInstall isn’t as good for uploading and managing maps as MapSource, but it should be good enough for most people:

mapinstall

But there are lots of other useful new features:

Faster and less buggy than earlier versions
Tiled (poster) printing of installed mapsets
Support for Garmin Custom Maps and Birdseye Imagery
Better route management
Conversion of tracks to simplified routes
Better waypoint, track and route management
Better export to Google Earth
Ability to import mapsets pre-installed on some GPS models

Still some issues left, some kind of weird:

Import of KML files is iffy
Help file is still incomplete
Only supports USB-interface models; older serial models are out of luck (though you can still export data and use EasyGPS to upload it
There are features listed on the update/download page that don’t seem to exists, e.g. “Added printing of USGS Quads and other public land survey areas.”
Be nice to be able to simplify tracks and still keep them as tracks; now, you can only save a simplified route.
Basecamp insists on exporting waypoints to GPX, Google Earth format with a timestamp even if you’ve created them in the program (and don’t want a timestamp).

I did some Basecamp demo videos as a reference to what I presented at my talk, and have put them up on YouTube; not terribly exciting, but maybe you’ll find them useful.

GPSBabel Hits Version 1.40

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Leszek Pawlowicz

in GPS. Closed

Via SlashGeo comes word that the multi-platform GPS format converter and GPS unit data uploader/downloader GPSBabel has hit version 1.40; unless I’m mistaken, this is the first official release in close to two years. (with lots of beta releases in between). Most obvious change is in the interface, which moves to a common Qt base for the Windows, Mac, and Linux versions. It’s not hugely different from the old interface in functionality:

Old Interface

gpsbabelold

But the new layout is far cleaner and easier to figure out:

New Interface

gpsbabelnew

The previous version of GPSBabel probably supported the largest number of GPS-related formats of any program, and version 1.40 adds even more; it’s so strong that some commercial programs use it as a base for their format importation. One commercial company even uses it despite not releasing the necessary information to let GPSBabel interface with some of their GPS units (rhymes with Flagellan). Clicking the “Options” button brings up data output options for the selected output format:

gpsbabeloptions

And you can filter/modify data before writing/uploading it:

gpsbabelfilters

Lots of additional features and power, but requires an effort to learn it all. No documentation up yet for Version 1.40, but there’s online documentation for version 1.36 still available, and you can download a PDF manual for version 1.35 from scribd.com. Information about the new formats and features can be found at this link.

Archive Of Old GPS Firmware And Software Updates

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Leszek Pawlowicz

in Garmin, GPX and Magellan. 1 Comment

If you ever feel the need to roll your GPS back to an older version of the system firmware, you likely won’t find it on the manufacturer’s website; they typically only have the latest version. The Garmin Software Archives has a pretty extensive collection of older firmware updates that covers most Garmin units released over the past dozen years, as well as some for other makers as well (Bushnell, deLorme and Magellan). The collection is most comprehensive for handheld units (need an update for your 12XL?), but includes some marine, aviation and automotive units as well. The archive also had older software updates for Garmin programs like MapSource, Basecamp, WebUpdater, POILoader , nRoute, even the old USB programmer for Garmin’s proprietary memory card format. Some programs (e.g. MapSource) don’t let you downgrade to an older version, so you’ll need to uninstall your current version, then install a valid older version from one of your map discs before using one of the updaters from the archive.

Almost forgot: there’s a link at the archive to a great Garmin PDF from 2005 on using your GPS with paper maps; also includes a page of map tools that you can print on a transparent sheet and use with USGS 1:24K topo maps (map grid for UTM and compass rose, and two scale rulers).

Google Maps Adds Measuring Tool

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Leszek Pawlowicz

in Google Maps. 2 Comments

The main Google Maps page now has a distance measuring tool. It’s not turned on by default, so you’ll have to click on the green beaker at upper right (the Google Labs symbol for experimental features):

Then enable the Distance Measurement Tool in the window that pops up:

dmt

A ruler icon will now appear in the lower-left of the maps; clicking on that will put you into measurement mode. Clicking on the map will now draw a line:

mapline

And the pane at left gives you the total distance (metric or English):

pane

The entire Labs section is worth a look, as it offers several other useful options (as well as some useless ones, like adding the “Beta” title back to Google Maps).

A “Drag N Zoom” button that lets you select an area to zoom to (finally!).
LatLng Tooltip brings a little pop-up window near your cursor that always displays the latitude/longitude.

fullscreenlatlong

LatLng Marker lets you right-click on a point, and place a marker there with latitude/longitude. You can select the coordinate text with your cursor, copy the coordinates directly off the marker, then paste them elsewhere to save them.

droppedmarker

US Wildfire Data

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Leszek Pawlowicz

in data and GIS. Closed

As you may have heard, there are three wildfires burning close to Flagstaff, Arizona where I live, the largest being a monster blaze on the east side of the San Francisco Peaks. Data on the extent and coverage area of the fire has been hard to find in local media, so I did a hunt on the Internet for the data. A lot harder to find than I thought it would be, especially in GIS-friendly format. Here are some of the resources I found:

Active Fire Mapping Program: A US Forest Service site. Lots of promising links, but none of them were fully up-to-date, the WMS links were all dead, and the “Interactive Fire Detection Viewer” was inoperative (thanks, ArcIMS!).

SSD Fire Detection Program Viewer: From NOAA’s Satellite Services Division. Somewhat more useful than the previous link; has a working map viewer with multiple data layers, including smoke plumes and up-to-date fire locations.

ssdviewer

But there doesn’t seem be an easy way to export the data in GIS-friendly format. There’s a download button, but it only gives the options of graphic and text data export, and the text data is in a very-unfriendly non-standard format.

GeoMAC Wildfire Information: Geospatial Mult-Agency Coordination Wildland Fire Support site, put together by the Departments of Interior and Agriculture. By far the best site I found for current wildfire info. Note: You may need to enable pop-ups for this site.

First off, it has a working map viewer with understandable/relevant data layers. Here’s the current map viewer, with a more classic map-layer approach:

geomacviewer

The beta viewer offers more background map layers, including satellite imagery, street maps and topo maps:

geomacviewerbeta

There are also links to GIS-friendly shapefiles, Google Earth KML files with current fire perimeter boundaries:

schultz621

And a Quick View Active Perimeters buttons for a fast fire map, with legend:

Schultz-6_21_2010 (1) legend

HT to Dan Garcia for the GeoMAC site.

UK Coordinate Converter

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Leszek Pawlowicz

in coordinate conversion and GPS. 3 Comments

The UK’s Ordnance Survey has a free high-accuracy coordinate converter for transforming from GPS coordinates (latitude/longitude/WGS84) to OSGB National Grid (eastings and northings):

UKcoordconverter

In addition to this single-coordinate-set converter, there’s an online batch converter, and additional converter options for coordinates in the Irish Grid (good for Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland). There’s supposedly a free Windows stand-alone converter that you can download after filling out registration info, but the registration form doesn’t like my US phone number, so I couldn’t check it out. The OS provides both a set of equations/parameters, and a free DLL, if you want to incorporate the coordinate converter in your own software. And there’s a page with more information on coordinate systems used in Great Britain, including their free “Guide to coordinate systems in Great Britain“.

Other free services at the Ordnance Survey website include a RINEX data server for GPS post-processing, and several searchable databases of assorted geodetic control points:

900 GPS reference marks
750,000 benchmarks
21,000 horizontal control stations

HT to Malc.

Where Americans Are Moving

Published by

Leszek Pawlowicz

in data and Web apps. Closed

Forbes Magazine has an interactive US map showing migration patterns between counties in the US for the year 2008.
Click on a county, and lines connect that county to other counties where 10 or more people have either moved to that county (black lines) or away from that county (red lines):

migrationmap

Mouse over a colored county to see the inward/outward numbers, and average per-capita income in both counties:

fullscreenmap

At least 10 people have to move in or out of a county for data to show up.

Via Kevin Drum’s blog.

Historic Maps At The Maps ETC Site

Published by

Leszek Pawlowicz

in cartography. 1 Comment

The University Of South Florida’s Educational Technology Clearinghouse runs the Maps ETC site, a collection of 5,000+ historic maps available in JPG/GIF and PDF formats; maps are also viewable in Zoomify windows (Flash interface to zoom in and out of map views). Maps are divided by continent, plus special sections for the United States and the world as a whole. According to the license, up to 25 maps can be used for non-commercial/education purposes; more than that, or commercial use, requires written permission. Although most of the original maps are out of copyright, ETC says they did a lot of cleanup work on them, thus converting them into derivative works under a new copyright; I’ll leave it to lawyers to parse that interpretation. As with any such collection, you may or may not find what you’re looking for, but it’s fun to look: