gps software...

[ScottyLee]

have any of you guys played with the garmin birdseye maps on your GPS unit to know if its worth a cuss? also is there any sets of maps that you have found that are just hands down above others?

i currently have SE US topo, MS topo, and contemplating purchasing birds eye.

next question would be, IF you have purchased maps have you figured out how to crack the software so you don't have to purchase for every device you have?


just an fyi, IF you are running basecamp software or mapsource software you can go to gpsfiledepot and download most any map software for FREE. you can even download mapsource if you, like myself HATE basecamp.


thanks

[greenheadgrimreaper]

I don't know, I guess because I made myself learn it, I like Basecamp more than I do Mapsource. They still have kinks to work out of Basecamp, but to me with every update the software has surpassed Mapsource in the realm of being more interactive.

I have birdeye, it's ok I guess. For $10 I guess it will do. I have so many custom maps that I have made on my Garmin that the birdseye really gets turned off more than ever. If you have one of the big Montanas then I would imagine the imagery would be of better quality, but my Oregon it is lacking. The real reason is the raster imagery used is so low quality. With all of the quality raster imagery that we have nowadays, I find myself asking why in the world would Garmin use such low resolution imagery. Don't be fooled, it looks fine (google earth) on your mapping software on the computer, but when transferred to a unit it is less than stellar. Long story short- it hasn't helped me one bit, and in fact, it stays disabled on my unit more often than not.

I am sure with some piddling you could figure out how to get it on more than one unit, but I don't know that I'd even care to take the time. If I am really concerned with raster imagery, as far as finding duck holes and such, then I would just overlay a higher quality raster image over a program like google and georeference it.

Mississippi's Maris website has some good data you can download, although you will need software that will open the data and allow you to manipulate it. Topofusion.com has a lot of good stuff, their free mapping software is ok, but from all reviews, I see their paid version is pretty solid. I am still running ArcMap from a free student version I have. I may buy the ArcMap for personal use in the future when this runs out, but the TopoFusion works pretty well for DIY, regular joe stuff- like most of us use.

Here is a link to a page with all of the USGS maps of Mississippi. You'd need to know what quadrangle the area you're looking for is in, but when you find that out right click on the TIFF file save target as save as whatever you want then just about any mapping software can be used to fiddle with it. These are what I prefer because they are the USGS topo maps. And if you're careful when georeferencing them, they can be well within the accuracy of handheld recreational GPSes in terms of showing where you are actually at. http://libremap.org/data/state/mississippi/drg/

Link to a nice online software with a lot of data:http://www.gis.ms.gov/Portal/viewer.asp ... =Microsoft Internet Explorer

There is so much mapping software and freeware out there now that Garmin has a list of recommended places to get it. it ain't even worth fighting that fight anymore for them. I wanted to try the birdseye, but I won't be renewing my subscription unless they get some better imagery on there, it is simply not worth it.

[CW]

I'm nowhere near as educated as the post above. I've got a Garmin Montana and Birdseye and I like it. I have not tried to get maps elsewhere.

[4dawgma]

Bing maps and an iPhone

[ScottyLee]

Bing maps and an iPhone

idk where you hunt, but bing maps and an iphone only work with cell service. i don't have service in hardly any places that i hunt.

grim,

thanks for some input. i just upgraged from a 60cx to the 62s and its awesome!!! think i'm gonna hold off on the birdseye for now. i found a feature on mine that allowed me to see a sample birds eye and you are exactly right about the resloution not being worth a dang. on the plus side, that prolongs me from having to use basecamp a little while longer

[greenheadgrimreaper]

GPS'es are far and above more accurate, more reliable, more interactive, more applicable to outdoor activities than cell phones.

Go camping (real camping) in a national forest for 3 or 4 days hunting tom gobblers and you're going to be in trouble when it comes to battery life after day one with a cell phone.

A landowner that lets me hunt on his land wanted some posted signs put on his part of a slough that borders public land. All I did was georeference his property boundary then loaded it on my gps. From there it was quick and easy to just paddle his line and put up the signs. It would have taken twice as long with a compass and tape, over water, reading the legal description. You can't do that kind of stuff with a cell phone. They have their place, and the imagery you can get on cell phones is much better- that is the only upside cell phones would have over a gps unit. But here soon GPS units will have the same feature.

[deltadukman]

I tried the garmin birds eye for my 62st and i could never get it to work properly, or if I did, every time I changed a place I was hunting, I had to unload the map and reload another one. Too much schitt for a nickle if you asked me.

[ScottyLee]

I tried the garmin birds eye for my 62st and i could never get it to work properly, or if I did, every time I changed a place I was hunting, I had to unload the map and reload another one. Too much schitt for a nickle if you asked me.

i just ordered a 16GB sd card for mine. how much space do those birdseye maps take up? what's the resolution like on that unit?

also give me a few pro's and con's. i've played with mine for just a couple days, so still learning it.

[deltadukman]

I never used a card so that may have been my issue, but with the size of the screen I couldnt see it being very good. Honestly I got really really frustrated and gave up on it. I may try to get a card and try that because its a real good idea, but a complicated process.

[greenheadgrimreaper]

On Basecamp you just use the birdseye tool to "crop" in the area you want to get birdeye imagery on, then transfer the imagery to your unit.

The birdeye maps are big in terms of file size, adding an sd card will help a lot if it is running slow. I have heard to not go over 16gb on the sd cards, folks are haing problems with their units performing correctly with the 32gb cards.

[Imbred_Goldfish]

I used to use my Iphone but after running into reception issues I sprung for an Oregon 450 and birdseye view and I have really enjoyed it. It takes maybe 5 minutes to locate, crop, and add an area of interest and I was able to add all the rivers, wma's and corp spots that I regularly hunt in under an hour. It can be rather difficult to see in detail on such a small screen unless you really zoom in but it's getting me a lot closer to holes in timber in the dark than my phone ever could.

[stang67]

GPS'es are far and above more accurate, more reliable, more interactive, more applicable to outdoor activities than cell phones.

Respectfully, I don't find this to be the case at all, comparing an iPhone and a Garmin 60cs. Have handheld consumer units come that far in 5 years? I used to be quite "up on the times" with handhelds and was blown away when I saw what cell phones could do about 3 years ago. With Google maps showing ownership parcel boundaries on phones, the comparison is even more lopsided. Is there any way to get this data on a Garmin? Display resolution, time to acquire are other areas where my iphone is making my Garmin collect dust.

Now battery life is another issue entirely.

[DanP]

For hunting purposes I use my Iphone and PDF Maps (thanks to DUCK-HUNT), i create geo-referenced maps and save them to my phone so there is very little battery draw and I'm not relying on cell phone service at all.

For work/data collection purposes I use a Garmin 78, but will soon be switching to an Ipad mini in a life proof case. There are apps now where I can build shp files and attribute tables from my phone or tablet in the field and export directly to my PC and GIS software and attach photos and/or voice memos.

A traditional GPS has its place but they are lagging behind in technology.

[quackhead04]

PDF Maps is a great program!! No cell service needed, but it does require the user to create and upload the maps beforehand.

[greenheadgrimreaper]

GPS'es are far and above more accurate, more reliable, more interactive, more applicable to outdoor activities than cell phones.

Respectfully, I don't find this to be the case at all, comparing an iPhone and a Garmin 60cs. Have handheld consumer units come that far in 5 years? I used to be quite "up on the times" with handhelds and was blown away when I saw what cell phones could do about 3 years ago. With Google maps showing ownership parcel boundaries on phones, the comparison is even more lopsided. Is there any way to get this data on a Garmin? Display resolution, time to acquire are other areas where my iphone is making my Garmin collect dust.

Now battery life is another issue entirely.

Yes they have, not in casual user terms, and not in terms of useless tools on the unit like calculators, wherigo, etc. But in terms of freeware/software development then yes, applications for handheld units are far more advanced in terms of map applications and especially data collection in gis applications. Also, the newer units, in terms of accuracy and signal gathering, are far better from 5 years ago. Technology in 5 years has increased at an increasing rate ( I know you know that, just saying), and GPS units are no exception. I know most folks will not use units for data collection, but if you were to look at a gps user's device and then at their waypoints, 95% or more of said waypoints are marked for spots that they already know how to get to. So that brings the question of why do most folks have a gps? Well for one, people like to know where they are at, and we are only a 50 years removed from crapping in a dirt hole, so we like electronics.

I would say I have over $100 worth of map/gps apps on my phone, not including the dozens of free apps, and I am not saying I don't use my phone when I am outdoors because I do- I did today. I kept hearing birds quacking in another area and used my phone's far superior imagery to get a fix on where they were at. But the hole they were in was one I already knew about and how to get to, I just needed to know if they were in that one or one of the half a dozen in the same proximity. If we are just riding in the boat, then I have my phone out using the imagery to look at spots we want to check or spots that I have been curious about, but I always have the tracking on my gps on so if we need to navigate back in there in the morning, I have a trail to backtrack on that I know is accurate when a couple feet could mean a minefield of cypress knees. But even so, most spots are preloaded from my computer, usually, and are almost always on my gps and in my mind from past visits. So how can one really justify needing an expensive GPS? Data applications and mapping. The raster imagery is the only strong point that a phone has over handheld units for now. But I am saying that will- and is- changing. In fact, I have a few spots that are tricky in the dark at 3 AM overlaid with birdseye imagery on my unit. That's really helpful when slipping in under a tom gobbler in the dark through a creek run infested swamp. If you know how, you can load almost any map onto a unit, in multiple layers. And knowing how will continually become easier and easier to do in the form of more user friendly software.

I said in an earlier post I loaded a landowners property onto my unit and marked his boundary for him. With WAAS capable units like mine enabled and a little time to soak you can get 5-6 foot accuracy and sometimes 3 foot, which is plenty enough to put up posted signs. Far more accurate than smartphones. One thing about smartphones is they are created to do everything, but that comes at a cost because they are a jack of all trades, master of none. The gps receivers in phones are smaller and weaker than stand alone units. There are some phones though that have attempted to address this. But that really doesn't matter to most gps users because they are using the gps to get to a spot they already know. For most users to gather a gps signal, a phone more than meets their needs, but I don't think it has been stressed enough how applicable GPS units can be to outdoorsmen and "data" gathering, and then transferring that data to a mapping program. So what I am saying is from blm.gov to gpsfiledepot.com, the mapping applications to stand alone units are far and above more numerous than on smartphones with greater accuracy.

Most all counties have or are building an online database for parcel and boundary maps. Here is a website with parcel maps for most counties: http://tscmaps.com/ . You can load any of them to a unit with pinpoint accuracy that a phone simply will not give you when you want to know if that big buck you shot has fallen on yours or T Logan Russell's side of the property line.

Again, as of now, the smartphones have a superior advantage over standalone units and that is it, in terms of raster imagery. The standalone units have a far more superior edge in ruggedness, you don't get charged for service to get the feature of knowing where you are at, battery capability (in terms of staying in the field on camping/hiking trips) and mapping applications. As an aside, I am admitting to being biased because there are those of us in geomatics and land surveying and cartography who just flat out like to fool with this stuff. But there is a reason professionals from GIS to Geomatics to foresters are using standalone units and not cell phones in terms of the absolute advantage of applications and data gathering. I am not saying that in the future smartphones won't meet those negatives, but I am also not saying that handhelds won't either. What we will end up is what the surveying/geomatics/engineering community already has in a more affordable unit, and owning a unit like it will be just like my uncle owning a Garmin Montana and having nothing marked but his house and shed: it will be because we like gadgets.

Also, if you want to look at something other than a case for your phone check out liquipel, I hear it is legit. When I upgrade in March I am going to try it and see.

But in terms of striking out for a few days, or all day or making maps and layering them, and fiddling with the stuff, units are better. But if most folks don't think collecting "data" applies to them, then they are wrong. In terms of the outdoors a fellow can go and mark rubs, scrapes, trails, etc and then go back and plug the information in with notes, dates, etc and begin to really see the movements of deer in his hunting area. I have been doing the same thing with water levels and the movement of ducks in a swamp here near my home for a few years, and it has paid off since I have had a chance to put a few years worth of data onto a mapping program. That data, along with memory, has helped me put a pretty good thumb of where, when and what birds are going to do based on the watershed's river levels at my hunting grounds all the way to south of Carthage, which is almost 50 miles away. That, in a nutshell, is gis. A year and half's worth of the data was from a phone, but saving and transferring the GPX files was a pain in the ass, which goes back to units having an edge, for now and for the most part, over smartphones in applying the "data".

What's really fun, to me, is using USGS topo maps. I think the art and science of orienteering is dying, and that is sad because it is fun and engaging. Knowing how to fold a map, take it out and "thumb" it while listening to that gobbler going the other way and using the mao to decipher where he is headed adds an element to the outdoors that a cell phone and GPS won't give you. Plus it gives you the literal "big picture". I have topo maps of duck and especially turkey hunting grounds that read like an old friend with marks and information on them and on the back of them saying what I marked and why. Now, how do you get that ridge where he is roosted in terms of location, pinpointed onto a topo map? Orienteering. Map and compass, and GPS. GPS definitely makes it easier and I do that alot- mark spots, then transfer them to my topo, and when you get those spots onto a paper map you can really see what a critter is doing. But orienteering will teach you how to unfold a properly folded map and look at the UTM lines and read the GPS coordinates from the map in order to plug into your GPS. Is it crucial to know? Not right now. I hope the power never goes out because a few days of camping makes you appreciate Oreos and air conditioning, but if it did, it might be something valuable to know. But really, I don't "do" much else. I pick on a guitar once a month, I will go to a concert every now and then, maybe have a beer once in awhile every night after supper. But for the most part the outdoors is what I, like a lot of folks on here, "do" in life. And using a map and a compass is another element of the outdoors to learn about. I have never really understood how folks can go on a dove hunt once every few years, casually bass fish then deer hunt in the winter and say, " I don't 'do' that." The best thing about the outdoors is you can truly consume (and piss away) an entire lifetime learning and doing (and failing) and it doesn't take much money, contrary to our beliefs.

So what I am saying is GPSes have made my topo maps much more crowded with marked spots. And phones suck and GPS units don't. Except at ruining topo maps.