Reviews > Software > Topographic Mapping > TOPO Streets and 3-D Views > Jennifer Pope > Field Report

This software is an expansion pack for the NGS State Series TOPO! programs. One of the State Series software packages is needed in order to use this program. Basically this expansion pack adds more streets to the maps as well as the option to see a 3-D view of a route. I think it makes the most sense to talk about each new feature seperately and then talk about instances where I used the added features.

More details on this software can be found in my Initial Report.

Please Note: About half way through the field testing period I purchased a GPS. Wherever the use of a GPS is noted, I used the Magellan Meridian Color. The details of the user-interface between the GPS and the TOPO! software is not germane to this review and will not be discussed in detail here.

Streets

So far I have mixed feelings about having the streets on my NGS TOPO! software. There are many annoyances about it. For one, in the Los Angeles metro area there are simply too many streets. With the streets displayed, they pretty much take up the whole map. There are lines and words everywhere (although I can turn off the street names so they only pop up when I move the cursor over the street - see below).

Image: View of streets with street labels off and pop-up labels on

I think the best feature of the added streets is that they're easy to turn off and customize so they’re less obtrusive. There’s a button on the toolbar of the program that completely turns off all the added street features. When I turn the streets on, a popup box comes up giving options about how the streets will be displayed (see picture below).

The biggest benefit I have found so far for having the addition of the streets is in order to orient myself about where a point of interest is. The TOPO! Program has a “find” feature where I can enter the name of what I’m looking for and the program generates a list of places that match that name. For example a search of “Switzer” returns a list including, Lower Switzer Campground, Switzer Camp, Switzer Park, and Upper Switzer Campground. Once I go to the place I’m looking for, I can then find the nearest road to that place in order to figure out how to get there. In the example above I can see that Lower and Upper Switzer Campgrounds are on State Hwy 2 just after the Angeles Forest Hwy splits off (see picture on the left). If I look at the map without the added street view, it’s much harder to find the street names (see picture on the right).

Image: The picture at left shows the map with the roads turned on and the picture at right shows the map without the roads.

3-D Views

So far I really like what the 3-D views have added to the program. I have found them to be useful in determining the overall difficulty of a hike. They are useful in determining steepness as well as giving me a feeling for what a hike will be like (a hike up a canyon, along a ridge, etc). It also gives me an idea about how many switchbacks I can expect to find (which is pretty obvious from looking at a map, but it's nice to "see" it). I've found it less useful for finding good views for pictures, but quite useful for getting the feel of a hike. Overall I think the 3-D feature is more of a bonus, and not really a necessity. But it's cool and I like it.

Field Test (back to top)

Day Hike to Escondido Falls – sea level – 4.11 miles - approx. 70 F (20 C)


I used the NGS Streets and 3D Views on a hike to Escondido Falls in the canyons near Malibu. Before setting out on the trip I downloaded the route from the MapXchange on the NGS website (an excellent resource) to my computer. Then I opened the route on my computer and looked at the 3D view of the route. My initial impression after watching the flyover a couple times was that the trail would be fairly flat, with a rather steep ending. It also looked like the trail would follow the base of a canyon. I confirmed my suspicions about the steepness at the end of the hike by looking at the percent grade of the last steep part, 33%, very steep. Then I downloaded the route and waypoints to my GPS and set out on the hike.

During the hike it seemed like there were several ups and downs that I didn’t seem to notice on the 3D flyover back at my house. I think the extreme steepness at the end of the trail tainted my opinion about what looked steep on the flyover. Other than that, they hike was pretty flat until I got to the end. The end was indeed steep, several times that included getting down on all fours to climb up an extremely steep part. The end, of course, was worth it (see left).

Along the way I also took several pictures of what the terrain actually looked like in order to compare it to the view I got on the 3D flyover. At several points along the hike I took pictures and marked my spot with a GPS waypoint so I could match it to the NGS software at home. Below is one of the pictures I took:

Image: The picture on the left shows the view from the 3D view and the right shows the actual view on the trail.

One thing that I noticed right away was that trees and other vegetation make the view seen on the trail and the view in 3D mode somewhat different (see above). Often what looks like a good view on the 3D mode actually isn’t in real life because there are trees in the way. For me, the software is less useful in picking out “views” and more useful in figuring out terrain.

In this same day hike I also attempted to make myself “driving directions” using the street software. The program does not automatically create these directions. In fact, the only way I’ve figured out how to do this is to draw a route over the streets from one location to another. In this case I drew a route from my house to the trailhead. It should be noted that most of these roads on this route are very familiar to me. The only thing unfamiliar to me was the precise location of the trailhead. Tracing the roads is not the easiest task; it’s difficult to stay exactly on the road. I really don’t think the program is made to serve this function. But I did manage to trace the route relatively well. Once that was done I created a GPS route out of it and had the TOPO! program insert waypoints to match my route (i.e. a waypoint at each turn). Then I uploaded this to my GPS and got in the car. My GPS beeps as you’re approaching a waypoint, so as I was driving along it would beep when there was going to be a turn coming up; sometimes this was a turn onto a new street and sometimes it was just a turn in the road. The next time I attempt to do this I will manually insert waypoints only where I need to turn from one street onto another. However, it seemed to work pretty well. Even though my route wasn’t exactly on target, it didn’t really need to be since I was going to be staying on the road anyway and didn’t need to follow the GPS exactly. So even though it really isn’t practical to create “driving directions” in this manner, it can work if it needs to.

San Bernardino National Forest – 7,000 ft (2100 m) – lows around 35 F (0 C)

This was a weekend trip I took up to the Big Bear area with my husband. The trip consisted of two nights of car camping and one long day hike.

When we left on our trip we had no idea what hike we were going to do so we didn't plan anything. We brought some hiking books with us to get an idea, and we found a couple that we liked that we hadn't done before. We decided on hiking to the top of Sugarloaf Mountain. This was an abmitious hike of about 12 miles (20 km) and around 2500 ft (750 m) of elevation gain and loss. Getting to the trailhead required a fairly short drive of about a mile or so on a dirt forest road. We used the maps on the TOPO! software to find our way there because our paper map wasn't detailed enough. It was fairly easy finding our way there and we made it to the trailhead without a problem. Again we decided that it was much easier to use the program with the roads added in the expansion pack rather than those that came standard with the state series software.

We knew this would be a difficult hike by simply looking at the mileage and the elevation gain. In order to take a more thorough look we decided to do a 3-D fly-over. It was then that we realized that our laptop did not have a sophisticated enough video card because the 3-D flyover didn't work properly. We could still see the 3-D image, but it was white instead of having the topo overlay. Oh well, this did not keep any of the other functions from working properly.

The Good and Bad (back to top)

Good

• Pretty straightforward to use/user-friendly.
• Integrated seamlessly into TOPO! software.
• Provides additional useful information.
• Easy to customize.

Bad

• Streets and street labels clutter up maps.

I want to thank BackpackGearTest.org and National Geographic for giving me the opportunity to test this item.



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Reviews > Software > Topographic Mapping > TOPO Streets and 3-D Views > Jennifer Pope > Field Report