I'm having trouble with MapMaker Gratis printing. It won't print, and
usually crashes. The people at that firm are very helpful- one guy spent a
long time on the phone with me trying to get it to print. Apparently the
problem is with my XP OS.

We here in Mass. now have excellent aerial photography- the state recently
released their GIS orthophotos. I now have all of western Mass. on 2 CDROM
in SID format. MapMaker can't read SID format- so I first load the images
into "Mr. Sid Geoviewer"- then export the needed acreage to a GeoTIFF file
which will contain the georeferancing info. Then that can load into
MapMaker. Apparently the commercial version of MapMaker will interface with
GPS so that you can then upload the pinned corners of the property and lay
out cruise lines and then pin the cruise plots on the image- then download
them to your GPS. I'm hesitating buying the commercial version until I can
fix the printing problem. I like the way MapMaker can bring up the image to
any scale you like.

I also have Terrain Navigator- nice program, but as you say, you can't print
to any scale. I've been having fun with my Meridian Platinum, pinning the
corners of my vast 3 acre lot and hiking around the surrounding hills, going
to friend's houses- then bringing those waypoints up on TN.

Since I can't get MapMaker to print, I'm printing the images from within Mr.
SID Geoviewer- then using a drafting pen to lay out bounds and preliminary
stand mapping. But using that drafting pen really sucks! It's messy, you
have to clean the pen after each use- and it's archaic.
--
Joe Zorzin
http://www.forestmeister.com


"Geoff Kegerreis" wrote in message
...
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.