Garmin TOPO US 2008 vs Google Terrain Map


Garmin's latest TOPO US 2008 map with terrain shading is a definite
improvement over the previous vesion of the topo map. But I've been
wondering about the following:

1) Why didn't they pull the street location and name from the City
Navigator maps? The accuracy of the street locations in the topo
2008 map are not that great.

Get the contour lines and elecation information from the topo data,
but the streets and locations from the much more accurate city
navigator maps. This is how Google terrain map over lays the map data
and it's much better.

Come to think of it, they can probably combine the topo and the city
navigator maps into one. If routing can take into consideration
terrains, and avoid the steep hills in san francisco if I chose to,
all the better!

2) I find the google's terrain map view gives me a better sense of
what my surroundings are than the Garmin's contour shading topo
view. Garmin's contour shading is a nice touch, but seems to be
less useful than google's terrain view.

For example, look at Yosemite valley. In google terrain view, it's
really like a photographic view of the terrain and I can clearly see
the valley from the surrounding mountains. In Garmin's topo view, at
medium detail level, 3 miles zoom level, the contour lines disappears,
but the shading isn't s harp and doesn't reveal as nice a picture as
google does. At 2 and 1.5 miles zoom level, I see all those fancy
contour lines, but it doesn't really help me to apprehend what the
area is like.

The contour lines are useful, I am just saying that the average user
will likely find google's terrain much more useful to get a sense of
what the terrain of an area is like than Garmin's map is. Maybe it's
different if you are actually lost in the mountain and trying to find
a trail back, but this is what I feel after comparing the two... ;)

Anyway, I just think Garmin should combine the map and produce a City
Navigator with topo data. Otherwise, I might as well use my iphone and
the google map. ;)

Raymond
.

Relevant Pages

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