I use the Deedmapper maps for my background and even they get quite "busy" looking when mapping a lot of plats in one area over a period of time. For the times I need the greater detail of a USGS topo map, particularly to locate a plat, I print out a transparency of the plat to the same scale as the topo. Then I do the "lo-tech" method of sliding the transparency around on a paper copy of the topo to help locate it or study the individual plat for more details. Margaret ----- Original Message ----- From: "Bill" <bill-good1@attbi.com> To: <DEED-MAPPER-USERS-L@rootsweb.com> Sent: Monday, May 12, 2003 1:08 PM Subject: [DMU] USGS maps > All, > At the USGS website and other sites like topozone.com you view only a > small part of a topo/DRG, you have to save the .jpg and paste/combine > many of them together to make a useable map or to make one USGS > quadrangle. You need to be competent in some type of Graphic program > like photoshop to combine/align their(.jpg) borders. > > DRG= Digital Raster Graphic=Topographic Map > DeedMapper maps are made from DLG's =Digital Line Graphs, Not > topos/DRG's. > > DRG/topo maps have a lot of information on them and many colors. > My experience using them with deedmapper is that it is difficult to see > your plats (especially if you have many plats close together!) on them > because of all the "busy colors & lines" greens, browns, elevation > lines, power lines, roads boundaries national park boundary, etc... all > the "Stuff" that makes topos useful. When you zoom in with deedmapper > the topo image quality also suffers for the simple reason is that they > are scanned images. > > If you use topos as a background image in deedmapper and align you plats > to it, then toggle/switch to the deedmapper maps/DLG's (so you can see > your plats more clearly)your plats will not be aligned to the deedmapper > map. This gets very frustrating ! > > So my advise is choose one map or the other and stick to it. > > You can embark on a mission to teach yourself a whole new area of > computing - GIS, and buy additional software so that you can edit your > GIS information. If you go through all of this you will not need > Deedmapper for platting since you will have spent a small fortune on > other more advanced software. > > > DRG= Digital Raster Graphic and DLG's =Digital Line Graphs and other GIS > dataset downloads are available at very reasonable price's at many > places on the WWW. > > I use two identical projects - one with DRG's, one with > DeedMapper/DLG's. > > So much for my $0.02 worth > > Best, Regards, > Bill > > > ============================== > To join Ancestry.com and access our 1.2 billion online genealogy records, go to: > http://www.ancestry.com/rd/redir.asp?targetid=571&sourceid=1237 >