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Reviews > Software > Topographic Mapping > National Geographic Back Roads Explorer > Kelli Wise > Field ReportNational Geographic Back Roads Explorer - Field Report October 17, 2004 Personal biographical information: Computer used: genuine Intel processors - Pentium III, Pentium 4 Email: ciyd@comcast.net Backpacking background: Field information: Washington state. Product Information: Features: The maps are scanned USGS photo quality maps. Levels 1 & 2 are USA maps from National Geographic World Atlas. Level 3 are 1:500,000 USGS national map series. Level 4 are USGS 1:100,000 maps with up-to-date roads and streets. The National Geographic web site also has a page called mapXchange where users download maps and routes. There are currently no files for Back Roads Explorer on the site. Field Report: Another change from my Initial Report to note is that I recently replaced my old Pentium II computer with a brand new Pentium 4 running Windows XP Home Edition. This is the computer on which I currently have the Back Roads Explorer software installed. Now that I have a machine with a new software build installed, I can state that National Geographics has certainly put in the effort to debug their program. This program is rock solid, very stable and has not 'stopped responding', locked up, or acted oddly. I would just like to go on record and give National Geographics a big 'Thank You' for taking the time to develop a stable program. Even on my old computer, which was growing more unstable with every passing month, the program ran without incident unlike many of the other programs I had installed. As I noted in my Initial Report, the toolbar of Back Roads Explorer, which is built around the TOPO! Software engine, is quite a bit different than most Windows compatible programs and this has taken some getting used to. First, there is no 'undo' function. Like most experienced computer users, I usually start monkeying about with the program before I read any of the instructions. Since there is no paper copy of a user's manual included with the program, I had a built in excuse this time. But, I finally opened up the help file and did a quick search on how to edit a route I was drawing in and found that right clicking and moving the cursor back along the route acted like a pencil eraser. Further exploration in the help file has proven useful an informative. I have found the search function to provide useful tips and instructions and everything question I have had seems to have been addressed. The program allows me to print out the maps to my printer or to a disk file, with several file formats available. For this report, I printed the maps to a jpeg format and then edited them, only for size, in my photo editing program. You can see from the examples that the map information includes the coordinates, the date printed, true North (noted as TN) and the local declination (marked MN), and the scale. These images are identical to the hard copy printouts from my printer. Other file formats available include BMP, GIF, TIFF, EPS and PCX. Printing requires opening the printing tool and selecting the area to be printed. The printing tool shows the printing area, shown in a red outline, vs. the sheet of paper, shown with a dashed blue line. Different scaling and magnifications can be used. I've used this a lot and I have found that it is generally easy to use but there is one issue I have: When I maximize the printed area to fit the dashed blue line, the image is cropped usually losing a great deal of the map scale and coordinates. The dashed blue area is misleading since it would include all of the header, scale, and coordinate data that the program adds to the print out and not just the map area that I am selecting. A little bit about the maps that are used in this program. The sources for each level of the maps are different; they are not simply magnifications of the previous level. The most striking example of this is the area around Mt. St. Helens. Here are examples of maps in all 4 levels and a level 4 map of the town of Randle, located near Mt. St. Helens, which shows off the road data that is such a big feature of Back Roads Explorer. Levels 1 and 2 are pretty unremarkable and look much like an atlas. Level 3 is distinctly different from level 2 and has some of the topographic data. Level 4 shows much more topographic detail. For the area around Mt. St. Helens, the USGS information includes details on lava flows and other pertinent information regarding the blast zone. This is the only area on the map that I have seen this kind of detail at level 4. The level 4 map of Randle is more typical. The roads are shown as are many of the local trails, but I would recommend getting one of the programs with level 5 maps to get real hiking maps.
Fig. A - Level 1 Map
Fig B - Level 2 map
Fig C - Level 3 map
Fig D - Level 4 map of Mt. St. Helens
Fig E - Level 4 map of a city One problem with the road data is that many of the smaller roads are simply labeled as 'unnamed road' and this includes most of the forest service roads. Major arterial streets, highways, and interstates are all labeled. I can access the road name by moving the cursor over the road and a text label appears with the road name. If I magnify the level 4 map, I notice that the road data seems slightly offset from the USGS map. The road data appears to be an overlay onto the USGS maps and I believe this is responsible for the offset. The road data can also be turned off via the toolbar.
Fig. F The offset of the road data overlay (dark red) and the USGS map roads (black) can be seen in this screen capture of a Level 4 map with 400% magnification For those who own one of the level 5 map packages, in my case it is the TOPO! for the state of Washington, the road data does not appear on the level 5 maps. This fall, I made a trip to Yakima, WA for a tour of several of my state's fine wineries. I've never been to Yakima before and I had my choice of routes to take. I opened Back Roads Explorer, went to level 2 and chose the Interstate 90 route over Snoqualmie Pass. I then went to level 4 and drew the route in with the drawing tool, making note of the distances to each of the different roads I would have to take. I then went to an internet mapping site and checked their data for the trip and made note of their distances and they were nearly identical to the mapping software data. On the drive to Yakima, I compared my odometer readings to the distances from the Back Roads Explorer route and the variation was less than 2%. For fun, I built an elevation profile of my drive, shown below. The software lets me mark waypoints, with GPS coordinates, and those waypoints will show up on the elevation profile. The route itself, some of which is shown below, is in red, but the tool lets me select the color, line width, and solid or dashed lines. The color selections are very limited, though, and no customization is possible.
Fig G - Elevation profile
Fig H - Section of a route drawn in red I've told the software what GPS unit I'm using and when I create a waypoint, it knows how many characters my GPS will allow in the waypoint name and it formats the waypoint data to be compatible with my GPS. Loading waypoints into my GPS is easy and is done via one of the toolbars. On several hikes this year, I loaded my start and stop waypoints into my GPS and checked them at the trailhead. My GPS, with the tree cover at most of the trailheads I used this year, showed an accuracy of about 27 ft (8.2 m) and the coordinates I had selected from the software were only off about 20 ft (6.1 m). Not bad for the level 4 maps. Using the Back Roads Explorer for getting around in the city is not helpful as I would like it to be. The map data doesn't include information like one way streets or exit numbers and the street names are fixed graphics on the USGS maps. If I'm printing a section of the map where the street names aren't visible, I either have to add text to the map to note them or go without. Using the Back Roads Explorer to find a destination, given only the address, is not as simple as the internet mapping sites. There is no search feature for street names so I have to have some idea of where I'm going first before the software is useful. In town, I found it simple to plot a route to a county park but I had a general idea of where the park was located and it was a simple matter to look at the map to find it. It was clearly marked on the map. I've also found that the software allows me to find alternate routes around town so that I can explore neighborhoods I've never seen before. The topographic data is nice if I'm thinking of traveling by bike; steep hills are to be avoided and routes can be compared to find the one that is the most bike friendly. When geocaching, I enter the coordinates of the geocache and the waypoint is highlighted on the map. From this, I can print a useable map to find the cache. There are good and bad points when using the printouts for driving. The maps print in standard USGS colors, primarily green with the topographic elevation lines and grid. When the ambient light in my car is low, this makes the map almost impossible to read. The program does not allow modification of the colors and I have actually modified the settings on my printer to print lighter to try to make the maps more readable at lower light settings. This has helped some, but not as much as I would like. Summary: Are the maps easy to handle? With a standard letter size sheet of paper, yes. I can keep the maps handy and flip from one to the next rather than wrestle with a large format folding map. Are Forest Service roads labeled properly? Yes and No. Some are, some are labeled as 'unnamed street.' How useful are the maps in a big city? Useable, but not as readable as I would like. The big advantage that Back Roads Explorer has over a standard road atlas or a folding map is that I can print out the city streets of every small town in the state. Most atlases and maps only have the major roads of the largest 2 or 3 cities in each state. This was useful for my trip to Yakima and my explorations around my own city. The editing features are pretty good and, if you take the time to read the instructions in the help files, easy to use. I would like to see more color choices for the draw tools so that I can improve the contrast of drawn routes with the background colors of the maps. The software is generally easy to use, stable, accurate. I'm sure that there are still a few features that I haven't dug up and tested and I will continue to explore the software in depth. I'm looking forward to mapping out driving routes to snowshoe areas where elevation and elevation profile data will be handy when driving on snowy roads. I'll also be doing more geocaching and I plan to continue to find more of the hidden spots in town. I would like to thank Back Pack Gear Test and National Geographic for the opportunity to test the Back Roads Explorer software. Read more reviews of National Geographic gear Read more gear reviews by Kelli Wise Reviews > Software > Topographic Mapping > National Geographic Back Roads Explorer > Kelli Wise > Field Report | |||
