[Jelf]

Instead of scanning your own topos, overlaying them on Google Earth, then loading your GPS tracks, it might be quicker/easier to simply display your GPX files with Gmap4. In addition to topos for the USA and Canada, Gmap4 also displays the standard Google map views.

For example, this link displays a GPX file on a high resolution topo map:
http://www.mappingsupport.com/p/gmap4.php?t=t4&q=http://sites.google.com/site/gmap4files/p/helpfile/Johnson_Ridge.gpx

To display your own file on hi res topos:
1. Put your file online almost anywhere
2. Change the above link so the q parameter is the full URL pointing to your file instead of pointing to my file
3. Paste your link into a browser bar

OK, full disclosure time. I'm the developer of Gmap4 which is showing you the topo maps. The homepage has a FAQ and examples to quickly get you up to speed.

Want to click the map and save your work as a GPX file? Yup, you can do that and more. Check out the features under the Menu button.

This project is part of my way of 'paying it forward'. Translation: Gmap4 is free for non-commercial use.

Gmap4 homepage: http://www.mappingsupport.com/p/gmap4.html

Enjoy!

Joseph, the Gmap4 guy

[Doug G]

Update - I got some free GPS maps off that GPSfiledepot.com site: Oregon topo, and Northwest Trails. Really good for free, looks as good as the circa $100 Garmin programs. Which is to say, a little funky. Will be good to ease GPS use, and extend it's use.

[bergbryce]

Scanning topo maps and overlaying tracks???

This website can convert almost any GPS file type and output it about a dozen different ways including a topo map.

http://www.gpsvisualizer.com/

[klaus]

[bergbryce]

No, never tried that.
There are cameras that shoot geo-tagged photos. In fact I think it's kind of common now. But how to integrate that into a track, I'm not sure.
I'm willing to bet someone has figured that out for a .kml format.

[klaus]

[Sawyer]

You can throw your geotagged photos up on a site such as panoramio, which after a review process of a day or less posts them (assuming they don't have people in them) to Google Earth. You can download a kml of the photos which will be updated constantly.

Throw your tracks into Google Earth if you haven't already and you will have photos overlaid on your GPS track. Copy the track and the photos into a folder in your my places on the Google Earth sidebar and then just right click the folder and save it as a location, which will bring up a dialogue to save it as a .kmz, suitable for sharing if you so choose.

I use EveryTrail on my phone to make EveryTrail guides and though I initially used the phone to take the photos, I eventually elected to shoot a phone photo and then get a shot with my SLR and just retroactively geotag the photos in Lightroom (for posting on Panoramio and for reference purposes) and if I'm making an EveryTrail guide, I geotag them online while making the guide.
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[Chamonix]

sawyer wrote;

[chemman]

I bought my first Garmin GPS 45 back in 1995 it had a serial port and I would connect it to my laptop running Delorme Street Atlas. It was great back then. Graduated to the Garmin Emap and was able to leave the Laptop at home, the maps were not so great, roads ok but topo sucked at 1:100000 or something.

Bought a Delorme PN-20 about 6 years ago. The SD cards are handy and cheap for a huge amount of storage. I use TOPO USA 9.0 and can get unlimited downloads of 1:24,000 USGS Quads, 10m sat photos, 1m aerial photos, and NOAA nautical charts. It is easy to put any of it you want on the SD card or multiple cards for different locations. Setting up routes are a breeze on the home computer and then shoot them to the GPS. It works great for me when I go rock hounding etc,: Find a mineral or mine on mindat.org , get the coordinate location, slam a way-point, calculate the route, shoot it to the GPS. Take off trekking, when you get close switch the GPS display to the aerial photo or Quad and the tailings or landmarks are usually very easy to find.

There are a few other cool things like playing back the track of your trip on your desktop and checking out the altitude profile, speed at any time and any geotagged digital photos you shot along the way.

The new one even has a satellite communicator.

Don't mean to sound like an advertisement but the setup does a lot of stuff, maybe to much.

ps. the gps design does leave a little bit to be desired though.
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[skibum]