Posted by Ross-O on November 30, 2004 at 17:49:49:
In Reply to: Let's see if this works posted by scubabum on November 30, 2004 at 17:15:56:
Go download USAPhotoMaps. It goes through the "backdoor" at Terraserver, downloads photos, tiles them together, and allows you to overlay GPS waypoints. It's a far nicer front end to terraserver than the money grubbing website.
After that you should go check out the Office of Coast Survey's historical marine navigation charts.
http://historicals.ncd.noaa.gov/historicals/histmap.asp
Their format of choice is LizardTech's MrSid. MrSid produces beautiful beautiful images but apparently LizardTech has some sort of weird licensing scheme so it won't work with my GIS package of choice (meaning that it's hard to overlay your waypoints or position on a MrSid image). To see the MrSid images you'll need the viewer or browser plugin.
http://www.lizardtech.com/download/dl_options.php?page=viewers
If you have a few extra bucks (or know where to look) you should check out Garmin Bluecharts. It has up-to-date nav chart info with contours, depths, etc. It has the best user interface and waypoint management of any of the electronic nav chart programs I've fooled with.
If you truly have obsessive-compulsive disorder and get addicted to messing with this stuff, the step after that is a GIS program. Using it, you can overlay photos, waypoints, bathy data, and whatever else you can get your hands on.
Cheers,
Ross-O