People say that the US military doesn’t do much for the average American citizen. I point out that they invented #GeoPackage is which is vastly superior to Shapefiles which has made many Americans who make maps lives better.🌐
Honestly, I think much more effort on the military part should go to research and development and not just for defense purposes but advancing the general welfare of the public. Often what is good for the public is good for the country’s defense too. 🌎
US Topo Map Pro is the $8.47 program that I use on my Smartphone for this purpose. The free version of this program lacks the ability to cache maps for off-line use and does not have the ability to import GPS tracks.
The circle with the red dot (when in “My Location” mode), shows your current location on the map. Here I was overlooking Hell’s Gate at Schodack Island State Park.![Screenshot_2015-05-09-15-56-05[1]](https://andyarthur.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Screenshot_2015-05-09-15-56-051.png)
Earlier this week, I posted 62-county based files (zipped together) containing the source data except for the KMZ version with boundaries.
Google Earth KMZ (individual files, 12 KB – 3 MB): https://andyarthur.org/data/lands/kmzbounds/
Google Earth KMZ Without State Land Boundaries — better importing into some GPS (25 MB): https://andyarthur.org/data/lands/kmznobound.zip
GPX Tracks — trail data in GPX tracks format for GPS, contains no style data or facilities details except name (15 MB): https://andyarthur.org/data/lands/tracks.zip
GPX Waypoints — asset data in GPX waypoints for GPS, contains no style data or asset details except name/type (250 KB): https://andyarthur.org/data/lands/waypoints.zip
Here are screenshots showing the process for loading these files into US Topo Map Pro.
First unzip the file and copy it your GPS device.
Open up US Topo Maps.
Click the three lines, then click tracks or waypoints (depending which you want to load).
![Screenshot_2015-05-13-15-18-47[1]](https://andyarthur.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Screenshot_2015-05-13-15-18-471.png)
The second round button from the left is the import button.![Screenshot_2015-05-13-15-24-15[1]](https://andyarthur.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Screenshot_2015-05-13-15-24-151.png)
Click the county you would like to load. Sometimes you need to load multiple counties when the locations you plan to explore cross county lines.
Click tracks or waypoints to load the track then click import.
Then select the track and click show on map.
The tracks should appear on the map.
Then add the way points. You can click on the waypoints to get the name and feature description.
Tapping on the balloon (waypoint) brings up a menu that lets you Go To (navigation will appear on the screen directing you to the balloon), share the location, or edit the location.
I was going to write a python plug in for the QGIS modeling I was doing but the Processing Modeler is a much easier alternative. You can drag and drop the options you need and pull them down from a menu or call the whole process from a plugin.
This seems to give a good overview of how to script QGIS processing filters, from the Windows command line rather then as a plugin.
While I haven't tried this yet, this looks like the code I would need to run GRASS (and other porcessing) filters automatically against my data in QGIS. I saved this webpage and will have to take a look at it the next time I have some time to play with it in QGIS.
New York State has LIDAR high-resolution elevation coverage for most of the state, except for the Western Adirondacks and part of Cayuga County.
