Mapping

Viewer | TopoView

Viewer | TopoView

USGS has a new historical map downloader that provides easy access to historical maps that includes GeoPDF, GeoTIFF, and KMZ versions. Pretty darn sweet.

Northing-Easting

Do you think Northing-Easting / UTM will eventually replace latitude and longitude for coordinates on all printed topographic maps?

One could argue that Northing-Easting is harder to write down, hard to remember, and you have to make sure you set the proper the proper zone in your GPS before using.

On the other hand, latitude and longitude usually aren’t square on maps, because of projection issues. You can’t project latitude and longitude for maps (WGS 84) without significant distortions.

Google Maps usesΒ Northing-Easting internally, but uses latitude and longitude for their user interfaces, including scripting. It works, but is a lot of internal conversions to make it work.