i use mappingsupport.com and/or wenthiking.com topo maps using the "mytopo" layer to map most of my trips and/or hikes.

i recently picked up a sony ereader prs 350 (pocket edition). i can screenshot the maps in my web browser and print to pdf, put them on the ereader and zoom in and out and pan around. it works great!

however. making a huge image (gif/png) of a topo map at a given zoom level is time consuming (i stitch them together in gimp).

anyone have a way to do this quickly? i can get a bit bigger by upping the resolution on my laptop and panning around in a huge browser window, but this usually doesn't get big enough either.

i'd love to find sources of the raw gifs/jpgs of mapping quads and use those. if they are good resolution and have smooth contoured lines.

even better would be a tool to just view the area of my hike (even if it's tough to follow), then "export at zoom level n", or similar. probably a pipe dream right now.

kyle meyer? :-)

thanks all!

I don't know if this will help completely, but http://libremap.org/ has high-quality tiffs of all the USGS quads for free - which might be a good start.

Peter

Let me know if you find something that works.

I bet spent at least an hour between downloading (Hillmap.com - MyTopo) and stitching together (Print Screen button to MS Paint to PS CS5) a 7220x8656 (62MP!) topo of a section of Seki NP for an upcoming trip.

I've streamlined the process and think it wouldn't take as long if I had wanted to do it again, but it would be much slower on the low res screens that most people use. I used a 27" 2560x1440, so the base tiles were about 2300x1200 (pretty sure I stitched together at least 24 such tiles to make my map). The end result is pretty awesome between the level of detail and scale (it covers roughly 17mi x 14mi), but it sure would be great if there was a faster/better way.

If anyone wants a copy, I could probably upload it somewhere (be warned, it's a pretty big file - 65mb JPEG) - the four corners are Case Mountain (SW), Florence Peak (SE), Josephine Lake (NE), there isn't really a good landmark in the NW corner - Jennie Lake, maybe? The map stretches a little bit further to the west.

Edit: Peter's link is pretty great - The individual maps appear to have the same level of detail, but are a bit higher resolution. MyTopo is based on the same USGS maps, so not really a huge surprise, although I do miss MyTopo's shading. Also, you'd still need to stitch the maps together, but downloading a file is more convenient than the Print Screen button.

Edited by Dianoda on 06/17/2011 13:44:40 MDT.

http://www.usgsquads.com/index.php/free-map-and-gis-data

http://store.usgs.gov/

Edited by diggity on 04/06/2012 20:49:19 MDT.