They both have their place. Those pics are to small for my eyes to read them but, there are times when a topo is only good for marking info obtained on. Still they show locations of things like roads and water holes and even a stripped mined topo will show changes in elevation. I have a computor program that will build a profile of an area. Put in the route,or it can take it off a gps, and it will give you the changes in elevation, it will even let you "fly by". After I got it and built some of the places I've beenI said to myself "no wonder that was so tough".

Topo programs of Ohio, Indiana and Michigan all for 79 bucks. It's a great tool.