Archive for the 'maps' Category

Google Earth Hiking Trails

Published on April 16, 2007 in Geek Stuff, Web Sites and Apps, hiking and maps. 4 Comments

Well, it figures.

Google Earth comes out with a brand new viewing layer devoted entirely to hiking trails, and my company’s IT department decides to completely cripple my work machine, removing all the programs I use for this site and limiting my internet access to Internet Explorer 6. Blech.

That said, I probably shouldn’t be doing this stuff at work in the first place, but I don’t go on smoke breaks - or leave for lunch most of the time - so I should be allowed this.

Anyway.

Google Earth has a brand new layer, courtesy of Trimble Outdoors and the venerable Backpacker Magazine.

It looks pretty robust, too. Clicking on trailhead icons will get you a detailed map, GPS coordinates and - if you’re lucky - some pictures and a paragraph description. If you’ve got a GPS phone, you can even have the maps sent straight to your gadget. Although if you’re going on the trail solely trusting a phone as your guide, then I hope you won’t be straying too far from civilization.

That said, it looks like it could be pretty cool, eventually. I don’t know about your home area, but right now the map’s Los Angeles hiking trail map looks pretty dang barren.

The trail difficulties seem a bit arbitrary, too. A boulder-hop down the Arroyo Seco is rated the same difficulty as a 12 mile trip up Mount Baldy with almost 4000 feet of elevation gain.

OK. I’m a little jealous. But know that - at least for now - Modern Hiker is your number one source for all things hiking in Los Angeles. Maybe not all. But some. And my write-ups are longer than a paragraph.

So go fool around with Google Earth, but make sure you come back ’round here, alright?

via Besthike.com, via Lifehacker.

Google Maps for Everyone!

Published on April 5, 2007 in Geek Stuff, Web Sites and Apps and maps. 1 Comment

Earlier today (or yesterday, depending on when you’re reading this) the Great Google opened up their Google Maps application to everyone.

While it’s not necessarily news - Mountain View’s offered up its Google Maps source code for a long time - you had to be a serious code junkie to get under the hood and do anything useful with it. Now, Google’s made it streamlined, slick, and easy enough for anyone to use.

The new feature’s called MyMaps, and you can see it as soon as you hit up the Google Maps homepage. Right away, you can see some examples of just how versatile this thing is.

It’s very, very easy to make your own pushpin photoblog … just a few clicks and some descriptions, and you can make yourself a nice phototour of the Googleplex:

You can also overlay your own shapes, shading, and information, like this example of the state-by-state results of the 2004 Presidential election:

… and if you want to start getting fancy - and I know you do - each form can be customized with a built-in rich HTML editor, so you can make a self-contained travel-blog, with pictures, audio, and all other sorts of web goodies.

When you’re done, you can save your map as a static HTML file and link to it like a regular web page, or download it to your computer as a Google Earth KML file. If you make your map public, Google will index it and serve it up on searches.

Pretty neat. And it’s free.

Now you technophobic hiking bloggers have no excuse to start offering up Google Map visuals for your treks.

But if you want to have a bit more control over your data and presentation - or maybe don’t trust Google with all your data - Modern Hiker recommends Cyberhobo’s Hobomap Wordpress plugin. With a little know-how, it’s pretty easy to get running. And his new version 1.0.1 is even more powerful and simple than the earlier builds.

Name That Mountain

Published on March 6, 2007 in Geek Stuff, Web Sites and Apps and maps. 2 Comments

I love taking friends on hikes to mountain peaks. Partially because I’m a legitimate peak-junkie, but also because I like to look smart and outdoorsy by pointing out the other named peaks in the area.

Hey, we all like to look knowledgeable.

And now there’s a better way to learn the peaks than diligent map-studying (which I’m not opposed to, either) — it’s called Hey, What’s That?

It’s one of the most comprehensive Google Maps mashups I’ve seen. You can choose from a preselected number of peaks and views, or take the time to enter your own location on Google Maps. After doing a little calculating, the site will give you a 3-D panorama of the view from that location, with all the named peaks marked and labeled. It’ll also give you your latitude and longitude, elevation, and a horizontal profile of your line of sight.

The site will also show you your line of sight on a Google satellite map, along with all the info on nearby summits, like their bearings, distance from you, and elevation.

If that’s not enough, you can download all this information in a GPX waypoint file for your GPS, see it in full 3-D in Google Earth, print it out, or get the lists sent to your email or phone.

And if you’re really particular about planning your outings, you can turn on a “Visibility Cloak” that will shade all of the areas of the map you’ll be able to see from your location. Just note that it doesn’t take smog into its calculations.

Via GPS Tracklog.

All Map, No Magazine

Published on February 24, 2007 in maps. 1 Comment

Most hikers spend a lot of time looking at maps when we’re on the trail - one of the Ten Essentials, they let us know where we’re going, put us into perspective, and occasionally give us a glimpse into the history of the area we’re in.

For those same reasons, some of us even like to have maps around us when we’re not outside.

I’m a big cartography junkie. Always have been. Which is why I was thrilled to learn the venerable National Geographic Society has joined up with Maps.com to reprint a huge collection of their trademark maps, dating all the way back to 1891.

Even if you’re not buying, most of the maps are zoom-able on their website, and they’re still great to look at. Consider it your one-stop-birthday present-shop for map nerds with extra wall-space.

Map Test

Published on January 2, 2007 in maps and site news. 0 Comments

After much fiddling and poking around in code and stylesheets I’m probably not qualified to be doing, I seem to have gotten a Google Map - geo mashup working. Sometimes, at least.

I can currently view the map perfectly in Firefox, but Internet Explorer shows me just a glimpse before telling me it can’t show me the page anymore.

If you can or can’t see the map, please drop me a line or comment and let me know what browser you’re using. Also, if you know how to fix this, please tell me.

Thanks!