National Geographic TOPO! Streets & 3-D Views, Expansion Pack

Long Term Report

Tester Information

Name: Raymond Estrella
Age: 44
Gender: Male
Height: 6' 3" (187.5 cm)
Weight: 200 lbs (90 kg)
Email address: rayestrella@hotmail.com
City: Huntington Beach
State: California
Country: USA 
Date: November 8, 2005

Backpacking Background:

I have been backpacking since I was 14 years old. My style of hiking is to get up early, and hike hard for most the day. I put the miles on, usually 15-18 miles a day.(24-29 k) I like to get to my days destination early enough to enjoy the afternoon. Most of my hiking is in the Sierras. I hike year ‘round, in all weather. I am making a concerted effort to lighten weight everywhere I can. So far in 2005 I have logged 500 miles (800 km) with a pack on.

The product

Manufacturer: National Geographic

Product: TOPO! Streets & 3-D Views, Expansion Pack

Year made: 2004.

MSRP: $19.95 (US)

http://www.nationalgeographic.com/

System Requirements:

Windows 98, 2000, ME, & XP; DirectX version 9 (included); 8MB+ video card that is Direct X9 compatible is required for 3-D views. Also requires at least one TOPO! State Series. (I have California)

Product description

TOPO! Streets & 3-D Views, Expansion Pack is an add-on program for National Geographic’s TOPO! series of map software. It adds 3 dimensional views of the maps you already have in the regular program. It also adds a street overlay function. For a more detailed explanation, please see my Initial and Field reports.

Field Conditions

Since beginning this test, I have hiked from 400’ (120 m) to over 14000’ (4200 m) elevations, in temps ranging from over 100F (38C) by the Kern River, to 13F (-10C) on Shasta. I have encountered extreme desert conditions, snowy alpine accents, and river crossings. I have been from as far south as Palm Springs, to as far north as Mt Shasta, in California. As I do a lot of elevation gain/loss in my hiking the 3-D feature has been useful during pre-trip planning.

Long Term

Since my field report was posted I have put in another 180 miles (288 km) of trails, including 90 miles (144 km) of the John Muir Trail in October. I used the TOPO! software during the planning of all of these hikes. But a strange thing has been happening. My use of the features has reversed itself.

I have found that I am not as anxious to use the 3D feature. I purposely used the 3D feature during planning, one time. (I did use it after the fact for the purpose of this test with all of them.) The time spent loading and the drag on the system has me usually just sticking with the Regular, and Profile views.

Once I have the trip planned and mapped out, I often use the 3D view to show other people the hike though. If my sister or niece wants to “see” our hike, they can get a much better visualization from the moving 3D view, than me walking them through the flat view on a map. That is why I still feel that it makes an excellent teaching aid. I strongly feel that it should be suggested in the selling points of the program.

But what I have come to use more is the Streets function. The small Forest Service roads showing up so well have been very helpful. Here is an example.

Our JMT hike was originally planned for 111 miles. (178 km) Right before we left we saw that there was a weather system forecast to move into the area we would be. We decided to cut the mileage down per day to allow for slower travel in case of snow. Because our ending point was predetermined, we needed to find another put-in spot for the trail. By back-tracking 90 miles (144 km) along the trail I marked where we would like to join it. I zoomed out the view one level, and hit the Streets view. It highlighted all the roads, allowing me to find the closest place to drive in to.

I see myself using this feature more in the future than the 3D views.

The program has continued to be rock solid. It has never crashed on any of the three machines I tested it on. Even when loading more 3D data than my graphics card could handle did not lock it up. It is a very nice piece of code.

Conclusions

I feel that this is a worthwhile investment. It is fun to use, and makes explaining a route on a topo map much easier. It helps teach how to read a topo map quicker. I still feel that a conventional “Streets and Trips” program is better than the Streets view, as stated above I do like its inclusion. I would recommend it to anybody with a computer made in the last year or newer. Older machines may struggle with the 3D portion.

I thank National Geographic and BackpackGearTest.org for allowing me to participate in this test.

The Initial Review and Field Report of this test may be found at,

http://www.backpackgeartest.org/reviews/Software/Topographic%20Mapping/TOPO%20Streets%20and%203-D%20Views/Raymond%20Estrella/