Neil
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In order to find slides in the ADK's I have found USA Photomaps to be very useful. USA Photomaps can be downloaded fromthis site.
Here is a quick tour of the simple method that has worked for me.
Once you have installed the program and opened it you will be faced with a blank screen.
To get started you need the coordinates of a known location. Using the base of the Nippletop Slide as an example click on Goto at the top of the screen and then click Lat/long on the dropdown menu. You'll have a choice between entering lat/long coordinates and UTM. I always use UTM. In fact, click on View > lat/long and select UTM right now. (the program uses the WGS 84 grid)
Enter 593824, 4882469 and 18 in the easting, northing and zone fields respectively. Click OK.
You still have a blank screen, right?
Click on Zoom and select 2 meters per pixel (you can press + or - and change the zoom that way too)
Press "F" on your keyboard and watch as the aerial picture tiles download.
You should be looking at the Nippletop slide. You can check by toggling USGS Landmarks by pressing "L" on your keyboard. The word Nippletop should show up over the summit.
Now, suppose you want to put a waypoint for the slide's base into your GPS. With the mouse click on the slide's base. Fill in the fields(GPS name, comment). You should see a green dot which represents the WP. (You can configure the size and color of the dot under File > Preferences ).
You can change the zoom level but you may have to press F again to download new picture tiles.
Connect your gps to your computer and select GPS > Waypoints > Send.
You can draw a route and upload that as well. Select route > create and follow the on-screen instructions to create your route. When finished you must name your route and decide where to store it on your computer. Next, click on GPS > route> send. You will then select the route from the file list hit OK. The route will upload to the gps. A waypoint will be created at each point where you clicked the mouse in creating the route. The WP's will have peculiar names.
I highly recommend reading the help files. The program is not file-centric like National Geographic Topo! but rather, it is object-centric. Object meaning routes, waypoints etc.
It can be very useful to toggle back and forth between aerial photo mode and USGS topo map mode. Click View > map type in order to do that or use the keyboard shortcuts. You will have to hit F again in order to download the topo map tiles.
You can download elevation data and toggle the contour lines on and off but that is up to you to figure out.
There is a lot more to the program but this little tutorial should get you started. Post right here on the thread if you encounter any errors or problems.
Here is a quick tour of the simple method that has worked for me.
Once you have installed the program and opened it you will be faced with a blank screen.
To get started you need the coordinates of a known location. Using the base of the Nippletop Slide as an example click on Goto at the top of the screen and then click Lat/long on the dropdown menu. You'll have a choice between entering lat/long coordinates and UTM. I always use UTM. In fact, click on View > lat/long and select UTM right now. (the program uses the WGS 84 grid)
Enter 593824, 4882469 and 18 in the easting, northing and zone fields respectively. Click OK.
You still have a blank screen, right?
Click on Zoom and select 2 meters per pixel (you can press + or - and change the zoom that way too)
Press "F" on your keyboard and watch as the aerial picture tiles download.
You should be looking at the Nippletop slide. You can check by toggling USGS Landmarks by pressing "L" on your keyboard. The word Nippletop should show up over the summit.
Now, suppose you want to put a waypoint for the slide's base into your GPS. With the mouse click on the slide's base. Fill in the fields(GPS name, comment). You should see a green dot which represents the WP. (You can configure the size and color of the dot under File > Preferences ).
You can change the zoom level but you may have to press F again to download new picture tiles.
Connect your gps to your computer and select GPS > Waypoints > Send.
You can draw a route and upload that as well. Select route > create and follow the on-screen instructions to create your route. When finished you must name your route and decide where to store it on your computer. Next, click on GPS > route> send. You will then select the route from the file list hit OK. The route will upload to the gps. A waypoint will be created at each point where you clicked the mouse in creating the route. The WP's will have peculiar names.
I highly recommend reading the help files. The program is not file-centric like National Geographic Topo! but rather, it is object-centric. Object meaning routes, waypoints etc.
It can be very useful to toggle back and forth between aerial photo mode and USGS topo map mode. Click View > map type in order to do that or use the keyboard shortcuts. You will have to hit F again in order to download the topo map tiles.
You can download elevation data and toggle the contour lines on and off but that is up to you to figure out.
There is a lot more to the program but this little tutorial should get you started. Post right here on the thread if you encounter any errors or problems.
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