mvum motor vehicle use maps- for your phone or Google earth

[kylepeterson]

I just uploaded some mvum maps, for areas around bham.

these kmz files can be viewed in real time (with your location down) on your phone, or fly through them via Google earth.

if you have a park map you would like georeferenced just holler, it only takes s few minutes

https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=19hGJyPh0o3ikmnZme-hbW-e8OVvNXarG

pretty handy things to have...

[Gam]

What about county road maps? I have all  the Alabama county maps in PDF's,  it was some time ago when I did this...but it seems like I had to rasterize the map, change the back ground to some color..like a neutral gray, and it was a major pain to get it located correctly on google earth, but it had transparency. Is there an easier way to do this?

[kylepeterson]

1 What about county road maps?

2 I have all  the Alabama county maps in PDF's,

3  it was some time ago when I did this...but it seems like I had to rasterize the map, change the back ground to some color..like a neutral gray, and

4  it was a major pain to get it located correctly on google earth, but it had transparency.

5 Is there an easier way to do this?

this is going to feel like info overload, bear with me...

1 any image can be georeferenced, take a picture with your GPS camera, phone camera, download it, or import a map image. you can literally georeference an image of a Ferrari into your map if you like. the only requirement for my way is that it's in JPEG format for the Android application called X2IMG PRO to convert PDF images to JPEG. it takes about 45 seconds for a larger 19mb PDF to convert. smaller PDF usually are done before I push the button. there are Macintosh and Windows  programs that after faster/better, buy I wanted to have a mobile solution for everything.

2 cool, depending on their resolution it would probably take a   minute per road map.

3 I don't set the transparency while I'm creating the kmz overlay. that transparency option has a slider for more/less opaque in the mapping application in using. (locus on Android)

4 yes, totally agree. I hate how Google earth stretches and skews the entire image. every single move changes the whole image slightly. it becomes a game of stretch and recenter. annoying, time consuming, poorly thought out. this process is done in the application, using reference points...
a) drop a waypoint on the image
b) pick corresponding spot on the map you want it referenced to, and drop a waypoint there
c) after 4 out more points are referenced, let the application stretch And skew the image to fit.
this video shows how. sorry for the poor quality and quick movements, you can pause it to see what is going on.
http://youtu.be/iOImCN3LMYA

5 I think this is easier, but it means :
using an Android tablet phone
learning a mapping application called locus


both of those steps have steep learning curve at first... BUT they are totally portable.  you can literally take a picture of a map at the trailhead, reference it, then display it right now on the GPS device right now.

for others that aren't familiar, here is a screenshot to show what this is all about. this is the bankhead map (not the mvum) overlaid onto the USGS Topo.