Clark's Download of the Week - USAPhotoMaps

[Clark Gilbert]

With all the recent talks around the Chit-Chat Forum and in the past about aerial and topo maps of the United States I decided I would do a little search for a program that could do better than the websites.

The best thing I found is called USAPhotoMaps, it's available on www.download.com and it's powered by the Microsoft Terraserver website.

Publisher's Description
USAPhotoMaps enables you to automatically download USGS 1-meter and 8-meter aerial photos, and 4-meter topo maps from Microsoft's Terraserver Web site, and creates a contiguous map from them. You can scroll it, view it at 4 levels of magnification, mark way points, center the map on any way point or latitude/longitude, see the distance and direction to a way point, and see the current latitude/longitude. You can make as many maps as you want. If you have a GPS, you can see your current location (updated every second), and transfer way points, tracks and routes to/from it. New version has been changed to an installable version of USAPhotoMaps.

My thoughts:

This program is great! You can create
LARGE aerial jpeg images, add text, and create overall images as large as an entire state (or bigger). It also can sync with some GPS units, and way points and routes can be added.

See the developers website http://www.jdmcox.com/ for more plug-ins, updates, and info.

To see an example click the link below. Warning I think it's like 2mb.

Purdue University Example This was all made from one image in the program. I did not crop and paste a bunch of smaller images in paint to make it.

[Tytus Gerrish]

WOWH!, now i need to learn Cartography

where can i find tie Lat-Long for aDRESSES?

[Clark Gilbert]

Here's what to do to make a new map.

Go here and do "Search Terraserver" (upper left corner) for a location. Next click on the aerial location of the place you want. Next click the Info button. Then go into USAphotomaps and do File-->New Map File... In the Lat Lon boxes enter the info for the corresponding "square" you want. Click "OK" (remember to name your map!)

Next you will need to download the map by pressing the F button(this could possibly take very long on a slow internet connection!).

Use the arrow keys to scroll around, and the - or+ to zoom out or in. Every gray square is a non-downloaded part of the area, just scroll to that area and hit F. If you do this enough you can eventually load a whole city, or driving directions to something.

Note: I havent tried entering the upper left N and the lower right W to get the whole picture that terraserver will show.

To make the big maps you'll need to download BigJpeg 2.4 from the developers website that I posted above. Just read the directions and you should be able to figure it out.

[Raven_Writer]

I'm pretty sure that the example was of Detroit, no?

If not, it sure does look like it

[Clark Gilbert]

Originally posted by Raven_Writer
I'm pretty sure that the example was of Detroit, no?

If not, it sure does look like it

I'm really freakin confused

Detroit? It's Purdue, notice how it says "PURDUE" on the football stadium?


---still confused----

[Raven_Writer]

Originally posted by Clark Gilbert
I'm really freakin confused

Detroit? It's Purdue, notice how it says "PURDUE" on the football stadium?


---still confused----

Oooooh, I still don't see "PURDUE", nor the stadium, but I believe you.

Sorry about that (it looks like the Detroit maps that the news shows for the weather and traffic).

[Nick Seidl]

I can see how he can be confused. As a native Metro Detroiter and a current Purdue student, I'm well experienced with the layout of both locales. There is a street that runs northwest/southeast on the Purdue campus called Stadium Mall Drive. From the map it should appear as a divided road. Don't be fooled. While this may look like Woodward Avenue from this perspective, it is one lane in either direction, rather than up to five. Purdue is also frequented by the orange barrel fairy, much like the roads in the Detroit area.