Mac OSX Lion compatible topo software

[vdeal]

Another update for those still running Topo!. My copies of NG Topo! are running perfectly fine on two MacPro Towers running Mac OS X 10.9.1 (Mavericks). No problemo. Of course the problem now is that NG has abandoned Topo! and the state series maps are hard to find. I'm looking for the Kentucky or Kentucky/Tennessee set right now.

This brings up another issue. I know that most of the development today is on mobile devices and that's fine and all but nothing beats a large screen. There don't seem to be many computer topo programs around that aren't web-based. I know of DeLorme's Topo North America 10 and Terrain Navigator. Both are Windows only I believe. There is Garmin's Base Camp but the map resolutions aren't that great - even the downloaded topos. There's also MacGPSPro. I don't think Macgpspro does seamless tiling and you have to know the exact name of the map you want to open and if you buy their maps they're just letters and numbers. What I'm really looking for is the one functionality that Topo! has that I haven't seen anywhere else - freehand route drawing. In Topo! you click on the pen icon and start drawing a route wherever you want and it can turn it into a gps route. No messing around with marking a gazillion little waypoints and linking them or any of the other tedious methods - simple and to the point - the way you should be able to draw a route. Not sure if the two Windows programs can do this. Any input?

 

[boo471]

Im running Routebuddy on my Mac and it works great. Maps are pricey but it does everything i want it to do and its fast.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[takesiteasy]

I use Mac GPSPro on a laptop in the truck and am very happy with it. I use a simple usb puck receiver on the dash plugged into the computer. USGS maps self-select from the library and tile as needed. I like that you can choose what scale maps to use- 1:24,000 for trails or 1:100,000 for long trip planning. It does real time tracking and track saving. One big advantage is you can load any map in pict format, even hand drawn maps and if they are to scale and can be geo-referenced, they will work. I have scanned and loaded detailed county road maps and once geo-referenced they track perfectly- very useful.

 

[vdeal]

I have MacGPSPro also and had high hopes for it but you cannot freehand draw a route with it. Also, working from home on a map requires you know the exact name of the file that contains the map. Topo! loads a map of the US and you drill down from there. Easy-peazy. Really, it should be this simple. Not sure why folks put up with inferior methods except for the fact that the developers know they will.

 

[robgendreau]

I'd take a look at Trimble GPS Hunt & Fish and/or Trimble Outdoors. They both are apps for iOS (dunno 'bout Android), but also include web-based planners. The full features of the planners is only available by subscription, but it was pretty cheap when I signed up. I liked the fact that I could freehand a route over a topo just like I did in TOPO! (on the Mac, before Wildflower sold it to Nat Geo). You can also split and merge routes, upload or download them, etc. A cool feature I don't think TOPO had is that while drawing a route you can switch between the three modes: freehand (draw anywhere like a pencil), follow route (the route snaps to nearest road, including dirt roads), and point-and-click (essentially laying down discrete waypoints with straight lines in between). It's the bomb. And it does overlays of sat maps, or weather.

The maps are quite up to date, and it includes the more recent USFS topos, which have enhanced info over what was in TOPO. It has a separate layer for USFS roads, which you can throw over say a sat photo. It has all the numbers, so it makes navigating in tricky areas with closures like Mammoth easy.

And of course you can export, import, etc.

I have MacGPS, and the TOPO NG maps (which I haven't been able to get to work for years; PM me and maybe I can send you some of the disks which might be useful, if I still have them). The Trimble thing is the easiest for me to use on my Mac. I like it better than the iPad in some ways, although with GaiaGPS the iPad is pretty cool, even if you have to tap out waypoints (and after all, the freehand method is doing that anyway).

But with the Trimble, Motion X, and Gaia apps you get to choose from a giant selection of maps. I look at MacGPS and RouteBuddy today and see that are charging oodles for maps you can get with a $5 app. And they have a super limited selection of maps and map types. And they don't even do layers. No weather, no integrated tides or other ancillary data, no sat images in some cases. It's like the Stone Age by comparison. The most important thing is the ability to get the right map for the right activity at the right scale, and those albatrosses can no longer do that. That's probably why Nat Geo isn't in the business anymore, and I'm surprised these other guys are surviving.

 

[vdeal]

robgendreau,

Thank you for the suggestion of Trimble Outdoors. I'm trying the trial version right now and it looks good, and yes, you can do freehand routes, yeah! I'm also testing Caltopo which works much the same and also does freehand routes. Each offers a few things the others don't but I will probably start using these more.

 

[vdeal]

Okay, to keep this thread up to date for those who still care. NG Topo continues to run for me on the latest iteration of Mac OS X 10.10 Yosemite - no problems. As long as the major underlying code isn't changed I see no reason for the software to not keep running. I still use it but supplement with Caltopo and Google Earth. Gaia for my iPhone.

 

[vdeal]

Topo! is still working on Mac OS X 10.11 El Capitan. I hear the Garmin Basecamp is not.

 

[sickchilly]

Topo! is still working on Mac OS X 10.11 El Capitan. I hear the Garmin Basecamp is not.

Where'd you hear that? I've been using Basecamp (4.5.1) since the first El Capitan beta was released to developers. It has worked fine all the way up to the final release version.

I did have some crash and database corruption issues with Basecamp 4.5, but it always recovered and they were unrelated to El Capitan as it happened on my other (pre-Cap) machines as well.

 

[vdeal]

I saw it listed here. Are you using the actual public release or a beta?

 

[sickchilly]

Public release on one machine, the next beta (10.11.1) on another machine. Both are running Basecamp and quite a few apps on that list just fine including Skype, Microsoft Remote Desktop, Little Snitch. Many of the versions on the "not working" list in that post are old. Of course some old versions of software won't work and nearly all the updates are free, so there's no excuse for not updating.

 

[sickchilly]

It is mistaken. 4.5.1 is available here:
http://www8.garmin.com/support/download_details.jsp?id=4449
or here:
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/garmin-basecamp/id411052274?mt=12

 

[vdeal]

Just another update. NG Topo continues to run on Mac OS X 10.12 Sierra. Just tested today. Double-clicking to zoom was a bit flakey but a right click brought up the zoom levels and that worked. Didn't test any more but seemed fine. I'll test on High Sierra soon. Not sure if machines that go to AFPS will be an issue. I don't use it often anymore but it's still the best for freehand route drawing. Yeah, you can do it in Caltopo but it's still a bit of a pain.

 

[vdeal]

Final note to this long saga. NG Topo crashes on loadup with macOS X 10.13. I have deleted it and moved on.