[champy1013]

Taking a week long GIS/GPS course through CCC here in Auburn. Amazing how powerful the technology can be to us trail/waterfall junkies in making really accurate and amazing maps. This was done in about 5 minutes through ARCGIS:


Since I'm going to be teaching this as part of my curriculum, I am thinking that having my students make maps complete with trail designations, lengths, scales, and titles would be good for a few of the local parts, and then exclusively have them available from NYFalls.com - with us providing them to the smaller parks with maybe a blurb about the site.

Also - a great website is http://www.everytrail.com for downloading garmin data right to google earth or the national topo filles

[Matt]

sounds awesome. In college ArcGIS was relatively brand new and I only tinkered with it. I still get and read ESRI's newslettter and the stuff they can do with that software is amazing. I do have a copy of ARCGIS (Desktop) but don't have it installed.

[hobkyl]

Where can the best GIS maps be found? I was fortunate enough to have a friend thats in the process of trying to sell his home and land this year allow me to hunt that. Next year I am going to need to find somewhere else. Which means knocking on doors and asking for permission. However, I dont want to do that blindly-I would like to know what the potential property offers both acerage wise and to be able to see an aeriel view before going around asking people permission.

Ontario Countys GIS/Tax maps are easily accessible...however I am having problems locating this information with the other counties in the area.

[Matt]

the USGS is the best place to ask... since they probably supply it to governments who can't afford the good stuff..
I get a nice GIS magazine each month... when I get the next issue I'll check the adverts for map suppliers. Probably in the thousands as far as cost if you want anything better than what's out in google.

Right now... Bing's Bird's Eye is the best... but it's not flat.

[hobkyl]

I love Bing's Bird Eye but that doesnt give tax information I dont believe? Ontario county's ONCOR is awesome, it has an aerial view, tax id # (used to determine owner and address), acerage, and a clear defined property boundary. This is what I would need before blindly knocking on doors.

[George]

Depending on what you're looking for and what software you have, try looking around the New York State GIS Clearinghouse at
http://www.nysgis.state.ny.us/

Also the list of tax map information that's available online is listed by county at
http://www.orps.state.ny.us/ref/asmtdat ... ources.htm

Good luck!

[Kelly]

I'm not real tuned in to most modern technology. If you buy a GPS thing, do you have to pay a monthly fee like a cell phone - or does it just do its thing once you buy it?

[hobkyl]

You only pay extras for features like live updates...like traffic updates. Otherwise it's ready to go out of the box. Different maps like trail maps are a flat fee for the software which you download to the unit.

[HaloGirl]

We love our GPS and don't regret buying it, but we did have to adjust to the fact that they're not perfect. Our address isn't in our Garmin, even though the street and house had been around for four years when we got the GPS. The Boston Big Dig wasn't right either, which would have caused us problems if we hadn't been riding with locals. Sometimes an address is on the right street but not the right house (notice this mostly on residential).

What I see as the biggest down-side to GPS units is that map updates can cost nearly as much as just buying a new unit. However, I expect this to change in the near future with smart phones (especially the iPhone) getting GPS software that's as up-to-date as the web. Actually, our plan is to buy iPhones this summer (when the new models come out) and purchase GPS software. If it works as well or better than our Garmin, we'll sell the Garmin on eBay.

The one thing I would highly recommend is getting a GPS that speaks street names (not just "turn right/left").

[hobkyl]

Smartphone technology is great. I just got a Droid, and have yet to use the GPS apps, but have used Google Maps for directions and it worked great. The neat feature of having it in your phone is you get everything in one, vs. having a ipod/mp3 player, phone, gps....you get all of that in one easy to use device. As well as live weather updates. However, you have to pay a monthly fee to use it-but in my eyes it's worth its weight in gold.

[L_G_D]

The problem with most address searches, at least along residential streets/roads is that most use a road feet system to guess the address. By now, all addresses in the USA are on road feet with the 911 system. How they determine your address is by how many feet your house is along the road from where the road begins. They then assign a number every 50 feet or so. Any of the GPS or mapping software uses the same idea, but depending on how accurate the map they use is, the address they take you to can be very far off from where it actually is on the ground. I know when I looked my address up in Google earth, it was a mile away from where my house actually is.

City addresses don't have the same problem for the most part. Shorter streets that are mostly stright lines opposed to sub urban or rural roads that have lots of curves that can be hard to calculate the distance if the math and maps used isn't accurate enough.

[Kelly]

Thanks for the replies! A smartphone does sound like the way to go. Right now I just have a dumbphone.

[hobkyl]

Well I got a chance to put my Droid to test today. Eh. I didnt have 3G coverage in Sheldrake or most places south of Ovid...so no GPS. I dont know about Iphone...but this was very disappointing to me.

[HaloGirl]

Well I got a chance to put my Droid to test today. Eh. I didnt have 3G coverage in Sheldrake or most places south of Ovid...so no GPS. I dont know about Iphone...but this was very disappointing to me.

Were you using Google Maps or an app? Who's your service provider?

[Matt]

i have an app for the iphone that caches the maps. So I cache them before i go out in case there is no reception. I think the app is MotionX GPS.