BackCountry Navigator

Mobile Outdoor Maps
Enter Keywords:
Friday, 05 December 2008
Main arrow Forum arrow The Softwarearrow Future Featuresarrow Importing other maps
News
SMF - Just Installed!
Home Help Search Register
BackCountry Navigator Forum  |  The Software  |  Future Features  |  Importing other maps « previous next »
Pages: [1] 2 Print
Author Topic: Importing other maps  (Read 3312 times)
Nathan
Administrator
Hero Member
*****
Posts: 504


View Profile
« on: November 08, 2005, 09:18:41 PM »
BackCountry Navigator uses Topo Maps and Aerial Photos from TerraServer USA.

Frequently, we have requests to use other maps, either to cover places outside the US, or to use a type of map that is not available in the program.   

So far, we have found out a few things.  BackCountry Navigator is well suited for displaying raster maps, but they would need to be calibrated and tiled.

The Pocket PC doesn't have much image processing power, compared to your desktop device. It does rather well with the Terraserver maps because they are imported in small tiles. To perform as well. large images should be broken up into small pieces for display. This would probably require a desktop utility.

To aid in our planning, members can post on the following:
  • Sources of maps for other regions of the world
  • Format of images and calibration information that people would plan to use
  • How they have typically calibrated maps (ie picking points, etc)
Logged
rlridgeway
Jr. Member
**
Posts: 58


View Profile
« Reply #1 on: March 07, 2006, 05:23:02 PM »
An admission, I currently use Outdoor Navigator but...If I did not have it already installed I would us BN.(I have tested it the trial version of BN) Outdoor Navigator is no longer being made and I have recommended Backcountry Navigator as a low cost mapping software. Not only is it low cost but it is user friendly.
One of the best things about Backcountry Navigator is that the user doesn't  have to go through the converting, calibrating,and tiling  mess only to have the map be off by a couple hundred feet. With BN the  map shows up accurately and simply.
Back Country Navigator will serve many people's needs quite well. (If BN had the tracking option some other mapping software programs would dissapear.)
Logged
daiichi
Newbie
*
Posts: 31


View Profile
« Reply #2 on: March 07, 2006, 10:35:21 PM »
Another thought is that if you could have a PC (desktop) application that allows us to graphically edit a .BMD file--it would have sooo many uses!

For example, I was at Disneyland the other day and I pulled up BN and thought "wouldn't it be neat if this graphic had all the rides?"  with a desktop app, I could manually annotate the aerials with notes and stuff, then put the .BMD back onto the IPAQ for travel.  That would be sweet.

Of course it would be better to be able to manually annotate on the pocket PC, but I realize that with the meager computing power, it might be beyond the capability.
Logged
moyer369
Newbie
*
Posts: 6


View Profile
« Reply #3 on: April 14, 2006, 06:02:02 PM »
Quote from: Santos Discar on March 07, 2006, 10:35:21 PM
Another thought is that if you could have a PC (desktop) application that allows us to graphically edit a .BMD file--it would have sooo many uses!

For example, I was at Disneyland the other day and I pulled up BN and thought "wouldn't it be neat if this graphic had all the rides?"  with a desktop app, I could manually annotate the aerials with notes and stuff, then put the .BMD back onto the IPAQ for travel.  That would be sweet.

Of course it would be better to be able to manually annotate on the pocket PC, but I realize that with the meager computing power, it might be beyond the capability.

Yes I very much agree that a PC based editing tool is needed, it would be very cool if I could download a map of a 20 by 20 mile area and cut parts out on the PC and dump the useful stuff onto my PDA.  Memory cards are cheap so that is not really a issue to me.  Another problem I have encounred is that My PDA disconnects from my PC when I download large files at one shot, which is another reason I would like to download to the PC then dump it to my SD card. 

And a breadcrumb feature would be killer. 

Overall the software is very cool I just need to find a solution to downloading large files.  I bike a lot and sometimes the trail is 60 plus miles long so having a edited map would be a must.

If you get all that working you will have the entire market to yourself.

Keep up the great work this is amazing.
Logged
L.P.
Jr. Member
**
Posts: 98


View Profile
« Reply #4 on: May 15, 2006, 07:56:04 AM »
As far as maps it would be nice to have Canada.  Living up in PNW, camping in Canada sometimes, it would be nice to have Backcountry.  By the way, I love this program and the ease of map loading.  The tracking feature would be great!  Right now I just use a lot of waypoints. Roll Eyes
Logged
Nathan
Administrator
Hero Member
*****
Posts: 504


View Profile
« Reply #5 on: May 15, 2006, 06:59:37 PM »
We haven't found a good source of public domain maps in Canada yet.

We have a person looking into NASA landsat images. This is not quite the resolution you would get in the US, but it covers a lot of the world to a 1:15m resolution.
Logged
DeanONH
Newbie
*
Posts: 3


View Profile
« Reply #6 on: June 30, 2006, 04:50:54 AM »
ExpertGPS displays & downloads the TerraServer Topo & Aerial maps & stores them on my laptop which I then take on my trips.  A viewer that could access & export sections of those downloaded maps to BN would be great.

Thx for a great product!

Dean
Logged
bfergus
Newbie
*
Posts: 4


View Profile
« Reply #7 on: July 24, 2006, 07:52:47 PM »
I love the way the terra server maps are loaded- but unfortunately the maps are fairly old version of topo.  Would be great to see the ability to pull topo maps directly from the usgs national map viewer... http://nmviewogc.cr.usgs.gov/viewer.htm   
Logged
devery
Newbie
*
Posts: 1


View Profile
« Reply #8 on: December 10, 2007, 01:52:23 AM »
Any idea of a timeline on Canadian maps for use in BCN?
Logged
andye
Newbie
*
Posts: 17


View Profile
« Reply #9 on: December 10, 2007, 08:11:50 PM »
Quote from: bfergus on July 24, 2006, 07:52:47 PM
I love the way the terra server maps are loaded- but unfortunately the maps are fairly old version of topo.  Would be great to see the ability to pull topo maps directly from the usgs national map viewer... http://nmviewogc.cr.usgs.gov/viewer.htm   

It is interesting to see the differences in mapping. Roads for example, National Road Dataset Labels, New Hampshire Road, and the USGS Raster Graphics (Topo Maps). The NH Roads (BTS) were way off in place, while Census and Topo were closest - the Census layer mostly just updating thetopo correctly.

I think it going to be tough for topos, although another similar (same data) with raster downloads is http://seamless.usgs.gov  but I think there's a ways to go in what is available and accuracy, no matter what you choose. Certainly in my neighborhood.

Andy
Logged
Nathan
Administrator
Hero Member
*****
Posts: 504


View Profile
« Reply #10 on: December 11, 2007, 08:57:07 AM »
Quote from: devery on December 10, 2007, 01:52:23 AM
Any idea of a timeline on Canadian maps for use in BCN?

Two things are in our favor now. We have a desktop version started and I've found some sources of free Canadian maps in Geotiff format.

We still need to decipher the geotiff format and break up the 50 meg images. So I believe it is still several months away.
 
Logged
fearsomeyeti
Newbie
*
Posts: 1


View Profile
« Reply #11 on: June 03, 2008, 10:03:11 PM »
How is development coming on this?  This would be an awesome addtion to an already great piece of software.  I have an awful lot of trouble downloading maps on my phone while I'm out - GPRS signal too weak, etc.

I really hope this idea hasn't died!!  Smiley

Here are some links to Canadian maps that I found.  Some have already been posted in this thread.

Canadian Maps:
ftp://ftp2.cits.rncan.gc.ca/pub/canmatrix/50k_300dpi/  --I think these are tiffs
ftp://ftp2.cits.rncan.gc.ca/pub/canmatrix/250k_300dpi/
http://toporama.cits.rncan.gc.ca/

US maps:
http://home.pacbell.net/lgalvin/drgnotes.htm --links to maps for each state.
http://nauticalcharts.noaa.gov/mcd/Raster/download.htm

Tons of map info:
http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/

Is there anything else we can do to keep this moving along?  Dig deeper for more maps?  Beta test?

Matt
Logged
Nathan
Administrator
Hero Member
*****
Posts: 504


View Profile
« Reply #12 on: June 06, 2008, 08:32:40 AM »
It hasn't died, but it hasn't gotten the dedicated time it needs. 

But there are some very promising oportunities in Canada and other maps. Most promising are some tiled internet sources. There is plenty of work to be done to decipher them and let BCN can take full advantage of them.
Logged
gunderwood
Newbie
*
Posts: 2


View Profile
« Reply #13 on: September 21, 2008, 08:09:59 PM »
I would like to have the ability to import the files from TerraFetcher. The ability to cache files locally and then import those I want for a given trip would be awesome.
Logged
Nathan
Administrator
Hero Member
*****
Posts: 504


View Profile
« Reply #14 on: September 22, 2008, 02:24:43 PM »
Quote from: gunderwood on September 21, 2008, 08:09:59 PM
I would like to have the ability to import the files from TerraFetcher. The ability to cache files locally and then import those I want for a given trip would be awesome.

Although it doesn't do exactly what you describe, have you tried BackCountry Navigator Desktop yet?
Logged
Pages: [1] 2 Print 
« previous next »
Jump to:  

Powered by SMF 1.1.2 | SMF © 2006-2007, Simple Machines LLC
Joomla Bridge by JoomlaHacks.com
Powered by MySQL Powered by PHP Made for Mozilla (Firefox) Made for Internet Explorer

Main Menu
Main
Software Tour
Forum
Trouble Logging In?
CB Login
CB Workflows
© 2008 BackCountry Navigator
Joomla! is Free Software released under the GNU/GPL License.