Joe,

I have also been screwing around with mapmaker gratis and found it to be a
pretty nice program (although very commericalized as to practically forcing you
to purchase the pro version). I have been taking the GPS tracks, uploading them
to maptech terrain navigator, changing the colors on the tracks, etc. and then
exporting them to my desktop as a .tiff file, opening them up in photosuite,
modifying them and saving them as a .bmp image in an internal file folder, and
finally calibrating them using the distance/known point system in the bitmap
calibration, and then loading that final file as a bitmap (raster) file. I
still have not been able to find out how to use their calibration ratios, but
instead adjust the pixel-meter ratio until the screen size is the proper scale
on the map & on the screen and then when it is printed. I have also witnessed
some technical glitches with this program. I do not believe that Arcview can do
anything more that would be practical for us (consultants) than mapmaker can.

Some main problems with this system... #1 is that Maptech's terrain navigator
will only allow certain zooms for their topomaps, therefore trying to put in
cruise points on a scale of say 3 x 3 chains is not practical. Ideally, it
would be nice to be able to scan in a platmap, an aerial photo and a topomap and
then start creating drawings on your live layer and then upload that to your CE
machine and start painting and cruising, but I don't know of anything that does
that yet - we're not far away though... If current technology maintains the
speed it has been going for the last 2 years, we should see something from
someone by next year or in another 2 years.

Ideally, a program that does all these things should not be more than $500 per
state.

Joe Zorzin wrote:

I just posted the following in comp.infosystems.gis.
******************************

I'd really like ArcGIS (I'm a forestry consultant) but can't afford their
outrageous prices. So, I'm considering either MapMaker or Manifold. I've
downloaded the Gratis version of MapMaker and I'm having a problem getting
it to print- but I'm sure I could solve that problem if I really tried. I've
spoken to the company and they've shown an interest in helping to solve it.

I was hoping that Manifold had a similar stripped down program, but no luck
with that. Basically, I'd like to bring up ortho photos for a base map- use
GPS on property corners, then upload those to the photos- then layout cruise
plots which could then be downloaded to the GPS- use the software to do
stand typing, acreage calculation, etc.

I'd also use the GPS to track trails, etc. I don't think I really need
ArcGIS, other than it's the standard software and it would be nice to have-
it would almost certainly be overkill.

Any comments will be appreciated.