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Arizona Topo

Started by HuntGSP, March 19, 2010, 07:49:43 PM

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HuntGSP

Has anyone used the new version of Arizona Topo (2.0) that just came out? I use a 60csx and had very good results with version 1.25. My only problem with the 1.25 version was that many major roads showed as trails, depicted as faint dotted lines. Very difficult to see on the small screen of the 60csx. Version 2.0 did not cure the problem of major roads being shown as hiking trails. Also, in version 2.0 most street and road names have only the first letter capitalized. It is virtually impossible to read those names. I tried increasing the size of the name characters (via the map setup), but it did not help. Fortunately, I still had the installation file for V 1.25, so I uninstalled 2.0 and went back to 1.25. I am curious as to what results others have had.

Boyd

#1
Quote from: HuntGSP on March 19, 2010, 07:49:43 PMAlso, in version 2.0 most street and road names have only the first letter capitalized. It is virtually impossible to read those names.

I have never used this map so I don't know what the issue is with roads vs trails. But the road name issue is a known bug with cgpsmapper - the compiler used to make most of the maps on this site. For some reason, if you use lowercase characters in road names, they will not display correctly on the 60csx (and probably other older models also). For example, if a road is named "Main Street", on the 60csx screen it will say "M--- S---" where dashes are substituted for the lowercase characters.

Unfortunately, there is nothing you can do about this. The mapmaker must use all UPPERCASE characters in street names when creating the map, or it won't display properly on the older GPS'es. The same map will display correctly, with mixed case names, on the Nuvi, Oregon, Colorado and Dakota GPS'es.

I think this is a bug in the compiler and not a limitation of the 60csx personally. For example, if you compile the exact same MP file using Mapwel (another map compiler), then upper and lower case names will work fine on the 60csx. Also, Garmin's own map products work correctly on the 60csx.

Unless the mapmaker wants to provide another version of the map with all uppercase names, or unless you want to buy a new GPS, I'm afraid you're out of luck...  :(

-Oz-

I wasn't aware of the lowercase issue so when I push out a new version I will make sure to capitalize all the letters.

I just type the roads according to what the census bureau  says they are. If you give me specific roads and coordinates I can look into why specific roads are typed wrong.

Did the road names were correctly in version 1.25?  If so it is just a fluke that the census bureau changed their naming convention so I didn't have all caps anymore.
Dan Blomberg
Administrator - GPSFileDepot
GPS Units: Garmin Dakota 20, Garmin GPSMap 60csx, Nuvi 255W, Nuvi 250W, ForeRunner 110, Fenix 2, Tactix Bravo, Foretrex 401
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Boyd

There are a couple other threads on this topic somewhere around here. Nobody seems to know of a fix other than using all UPPERCASE for street names. In 2010 that is kind of ridiculous IMO... it was fine when I was writing FORTRAN programs on an IBM 360 with a teletype ASR-33, but not anymore.  ;D

GPSMapEdit has a utility somewhere in the menus to convert everything to uppercase. There's also something odd that happens in the GPS and mapsource where it will do "auto caps" - it capitalizes the first letter of each word. Not sure what triggers this, but it can be annoying when you want something to use all caps. For example, I use the abbreviation WMA for "Wildlife Management Area" and it comes out as "Wma".

HuntGSP

In V 1.25 road names were all caps. No problem. That is why I went back to V 1.25.

The trail vs. road has nothing to do with naming. It has to do with the line showing the road. Generally freeways are shown as red thick lines. Other major highways as solid brown lines and jeep or hiking trails as dotted lines. In AZ Topo, many roads that should show as solid brown lines are shown as dotted lines. Seeing a faint dotted line on the map, one would assume it is a rough jeep trail, but that is not always the case in AZ Topo. One perfect example is the road from Carefree to Bartlett Lake. This road shows as a solid brown line between Carefree and the turnoff to Horsehoe Lake, which is accurate. But beyond that point it is a dotted line, giving the inpression it is a 4wd dirt trail, when in fact it is a well maintained black top.
I only bring this up as a point of accuracy because for me it is only a minor annoyance, not a major disaster. Before venturing into an unknown area I rely on more than one source of information. I check actual USGS maps, Google Earth, reports from people familiar with the area, etc.

maps4gps

The Census TIGER files have over 67 million line segments.  Not all are streets/roads/trails, but the majority are.  The coding of these segments are not as good as it should be.  I have even noticed a few Interstate highways coded as residential streets, and some streets coded as Interstate - and all combinations inbetween.   Remember that this data was never meant to be used for creating maps for GPSrs.