Computerized Topo Maps, Part II Ease of use

Computerized Topo Maps
How Good Are They?

Part II: Ease of Use

By Dr. Brad DeLong
Author of 4-Wheel Freedom: The Art of Off-Road Driving

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DeLorme Topo USA 2.0

It takes some bumbling around to figure out a lot of the commands in Topo USA 2.0, but there’s a tutorial program available in the Help menu that gets you somewhat used to some of the commands. The manual that comes in the box of CDs is pretty sparse. The help files aren’t bad, but lack detail. The help files can be printed out (HelpDoc) in the Adobe Acrobat format. Tech support is available on the non-800 number, as mentioned above. Once I got through, tech support was very helpful and they were willing to spend all the time required to solve the problem.

DeLorme 3-D TopoQuads

My experience with Topo USA 2.0 helped a lot with 3-D TopoQuads. The programs are very similar, and use essentially the same commands and formats for creating waypoints and routes, drawing lines, and map navigation. I didn’t have any trouble getting going with this program.

This program represents a great advance in studying terrain over a large area. This can require using many, many quad maps. 3-D TopoQuads moves seamlessly through a large number of quad maps covering each region. If you zoom out to the vectorized overview maps, at magnification 9-0 or 10-0, the names of the quad maps appear on the map, along with grid lines indicating the boundaries of each quad map.

It would be helpful if future versions can somehow give the user information which CD they need to run to find a location that is not on the present map. Using the "Find" function to locate a spot not on the present CD yields a message which states: "Map data for the desired location is not available on this CD. Insert the appropriate regional data disc." Each CD in a set has a small picture of the state on it, and an outline of the area covered by that CD. However, unless you are quite familiar with a particular state, it may be difficult to figure out which CD you need.

An index of the quad maps found in each regional CD would also be helpful.

Similar, when you click outside the map boundaries, you get the same message. It would be helpful to get a message that said, "Please inset California North Region 4 CD" or something like that.

Topo!

I would judge Topo! (including the GPS program) as the easiest to use. Each disc comes with a complete manual, and the help files are straightforward. There are a few tricks involved in uploading and downloading to and from the GPS that aren’t altogether obvious, and we’ll cover those in the next installment.

All Topo Maps

The program comes with a manual that covers the map viewing part of the program. The GPS function is part of the downloadable upgrade available on the www.igage.com website, so a manual for using the GPS is not available. The help files are pretty good, and tech support is readily available. The waypoint editor and meta commands take some getting used to, but work very well once you understand them.

The help file on the meta commands, which allow you to draw route lines from waypoint to waypoint and to modify the tags of the onscreen and printed waypoints, is quite long. When you search the help files for a particular command, the program just drops you at the top of the meta commands file, and you still have to search through it for the particular function you need to learn about. A little more specific indexing would be helpful.

Fugawi

I found Fugawi the most difficult to get going, mainly because of the problems I had trying to load the map files. Hopefully, the tips I’ve described above will help. The program comes with a manual that’s good for reference, but I found it to be not quite detailed enough to get me going initially. I had to bumble around at first to figure out a lot of the functions. However, once you get used to Fugawi, it’s easy to use and pretty straightforward. Technical support is readily available by email, and very helpful.

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