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I asked in rec.backcountry, but got no response in there either.
I decided to splurge and get it. I have only played around for
a few hours but so far it is pretty good.
good points
- the performance is good
- no bugs so far
- the ability to search for a trail and go directly to a map and then
to the trail description is very nice
- the peakbagging stuff is ok
- the ability to print a trail description is nice
bad points
- the gui is a little non-friendly. I had to read the manual in a few
spots
- the ruler functionality is not what I expected. I expected to be able
to click on trails or sections of trails to add up mileage for a
trip. Instead, it does lines between two points which underestimates
the actual distance.
When I have played with it some more, I will write my opinions in more
detail. If anyone wants to see it in ZKO at lunch, send me mail and
I will bring the CD in and run it on my pc.
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I looked at the web page when you first mentioned this. I liked
the story about how the designers dreampt it up. Gee, I wish I
had thought of this. :)
Anyhow, it seemed, from the web site, that the topo maps were just
scanned images. You could zoom in and out, but it didn't appear
that there was any additional detail. Is that true?
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| I have had GeoTrek since the week it came out. It is nice to have
but for that kind of money it should do more than the guide book,
but it doesn't.
To me the look and feel has a real bad case of "Version 1".
It has little to no smarts. By smarts I mean like "AutoMap". With
AutoMap you tell it to map a route from Manchester NH to Jacksonville Fla.
And it gives you severial routes. GeoTrek will not do any even close to this.
With GeoMap you can search for a peak or trail (using their bad GUI). It puts
up
a clickable map. You click on a trail or Peak, and it pops up a dialog box for
you with the text right out of your AMC or GMC guide. The dialog box will not
let
you select the text or save it. But you can print it. You can also display a
scanned in AMC or GMC map for the same trail or peak.
You can see examples of the GeoTrek maps on my web sight
http://thezoo.zko.dec.com/rexford
Clickable "Detail" map (highlighting done in PhotoShop - not by GeoTrek)
http://thezoo.zko.dec.com/rexford/PeakBagger/maps/hut2hut1.JPG
GeoTrek scanned AMC Trail map (highlighting done in PhotoShop - not by
GeoTrek)
http://thezoo.zko.dec.com/rexford/PeakBagger/maps/carters.jpg
I did find one major bug. I entered the peaks I have bagged and the dates but
GeoTrek failed to save it.
I think the second thing I can't stand is the really crappy search engine.
You can NOT search for *any* string. Like search all trails for
"most arduous route" or "dangerious crossing" or "shelter 2".
GeoTrek has a few canned searches like Peaks A-E, F-I, J-M, and so on
or Trail A-E, F-I and so on.
The thinks I do like are.
o Printing out maps, at just about any scale
(they are stored as TIFF images scanned at a high resoultion)
o Having the text from the the AMC and GMC guides
(they are stored in protected ZIP files, one file per trail)
If you are in ZKO and want a demo, send me some email.
Just yesterday I was working on a 5 day trip plan for July,
checking the mileage, how many peaks, the usual. I opened my good
old AMC White Mtn Guide to look up the detail. And I wrote the mileage
and time down on maps I printer out from GeoTrek.
Kim Rexford
[Posted by WWW Notes gateway]
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