check out my nifty map!
 

From mapmart.com (the great site I'm always pushing above terraserver) I got an identicle shot of one my sites in topo and aerial. I merged the two in PS and came up with a pretty cool understandable site that can help for scouting, etc. (IMO). What do you think?

RE: check out my nifty map!
 

Sweet map, bscofield!

However, you have my stand in the wrong spot...I want to be closer to a water source. We can work out the details later.

RE: check out my nifty map!
 

hunter25, you should be fine... your right on that creek bed..... see? ;)

RE: check out my nifty map!
 

You're a good man...thanks!! Should see plenty of action there.

RE: check out my nifty map!
 

I like that map - great idea to merge the 2. I don't know why I never thought of it.

RE: check out my nifty map!
 

Not to look dumb but how did you do this. Being a first year G.P.S. user I have been trying to transfer waypoints from my handheld G.P.S. to a printout of an airial and I am about to go crazy. If you have any pointers you could let me in on it would be appreciated. Also if you could also tell me how you did your map. Thanks great job

RE: check out my nifty map!
 

skidmark, I don't have a GPS so I wouldn't know how to do it with one. What I did was opened to sessions of internet explorer. and put both of them on mapmart.com. I moved to the location of my hunting site. This site uses certain map positions and size that it will default to if your just click to zoom in. Since the topo and the aerial defaulted to the same size, I downloaded them both.

Next is where photoshop comes into play. I took one image and placed it onto of the other one (the topo is on top) and made it 34% visible thereby letting the other bleed through and seeing details on both. There are more programs than just photoshop that do this but I'm not sure what other ones there are by name.

RE: check out my nifty map!
 

Wow...I'm humbled by your genius [8D]

That's a great idea, I think I need to go check out that site now...

RE: check out my nifty map!
 

Thanks for the help bscofield. While you're here you know anything about Paris County as far as the hunting. Accually its right below there just can't think of the County. I met a property owner a few years ago and gave him a call and he said come on up. Upon further investigation I needed to have a permit. I don't know if you've ever called the local agency in your home state but I knew more than they did. But come next year I'll have my act together and hope to come see what these bucks look like in person I've been hearing about for so long.

RE: check out my nifty map!
 

skidmark, not sure about that county. I actually just moved here and this is my first year hunting in Illinois. I moved over here from Missouri and went from good to better (as far as the areas I hunted were concerned).

RE: check out my nifty map!
 

Nice Map bscofield,
This is my hunting map, It's 4X6 miles & has all of the property on it I hunt. I had to compress it to get it on here, that's why it looks like crap! I made it using my graphics pro, I've got many.. many.. hours in this map, I used arial photos & many trips afield to complete it. All of the fields are accurate w/the corn/beans & such. I also made little icons for my graphics program to use to mark when, where & at what times I observe deer movement. It's still not quite done as you can see but, it works for now. The lower portion is a crop of the actual size of the map, I can make it bigger if I like.
Good Luck, Phil B.

RE: check out my nifty map!
 

Here is the Arial photo of the same area.

RE: check out my nifty map!
 

bs - did you put the locations on the map at the mapmart site? I have been looking for a site that does that to enter in GPS locations.

RE: check out my nifty map!
 

doughboy, when I got to mapmart.com I click on aerial photography on the top right menu system. Then I click on Begin Search under the U.S. Aerial Photography section. After that you have your map to begin browsing. Then if you click on "Display Coordinates" on the bottom of all the toolbars on the left then the coordinates (longitude/latitude) will be displayed on your mouse when it's on the map. I think that's the closest thing to using the coordinates that I know of.

RE: check out my nifty map!
 

Sweet map and even sweet piece to hunt. I look at that map and drool.:D

What are the contour intervals?

RE: check out my nifty map!
 

adams, what are contour intervals?

RE: check out my nifty map!
 

The distance in elevation between each of the lines on the topo map. They are usually 10 or 25 or 50 feet between each line. I was just drooling over you woods. The grass is always greener(just look at those funnels!)

RE: check out my nifty map!
 

being a beginner could one of yall please help me. I have my airial pulled up with coordinates. on my GPS they read N 30 degrees 32.130, on the mapmart it reads 30.536. i know its probally a dumb question but how do you read these #'s. Thanks

RE: check out my nifty map!
 

Sniper,

You totally rock! I was looking at aerial and topo maps on TerraServer.com, but MapMart is so much better. I like the way they highlight things like roads and rivers on the aerials.

I also like the way you combined the two. I was sitting here just looking at one, then the other and it was tough as you know what. I'm going to try and super impose them over each other like you did tonight!

I know I've got deer on my land, and I suspect BIG deer judging by the tracks and countryside. Heck, the biggest deer in the State was harvested just in the county beside me.

Maybe y'all can help me look over things and decide where I should be hunting.

I'll let y'all know more...

RE: check out my nifty map!
 

That's what I've done too! I've got the maps down to 1.06 miles. Is that about what you had?

Now this is where I'm lost. I've got Photoshop on my PC, but I've never really used it. I've got the two pics in seperate files. The topo is one bmp. The aerial is another bmp. What I can't figure out how to combine the two. I can't figure out how to add a layer, that menu is grayed out to me. Can you help me bscofield?

RE: check out my nifty map!
 

alabama dan, try and save one of the files (the aerial is what i'd use) as a PSD (that's the type of file that photoshop uses). Once it's saved as a PSD file, on the right side of the screen there should be listed the "layers" section. In that section click on the new layers button at the bottom (looks like a sheet of paper). Then it will have placed a new transparent layer on top. Then open up the other bmp (the topo) and highlight the image and cut or copy the image. Go back to the PSD file and make sure that the new layer is selected and past the image. Then above the layer list there is an option called "opacity." Change that to 34% (that's what I use). If that doesn't work than I'm not sure what version of photoshop your working with:eek:

Still doesn't work
 

I saved the aerial as a .psd file and PS still won't allow me to add a new layer. I Knew what y ou were talking about, but couldn't get it to wrk.

RE: check out my nifty map!
 

bscofield, you said you merged the two in PS. Don't want to sound stupid but is PS refering to PhotoShop and is it easy to overlay those images? I've been looking for a better way to do my topo maps and aerial photos. What I've been doing is printing the aerial photos and topo maps and then photo copying the topo maps onto transparent overhead projector sheets. This ways I can overlay the topo maps onto my aerial photos and get a better perspective of the terrain features. This has been working pretty good for me but it would be easier if I could combine them onto one sheet of paper the way you did.

RE: check out my nifty map!
 

I haven't had any luck doing this either, but I'm bound and determied to figure it out. The season's almost over and I plan to do some scouting this year.

I've just gotta learn how. I figure a good map is the 1st place.

RE: check out my nifty map!
 

Sorry for the delay GSP... yes PS is photoshop. It is actually really easy. All you have to do is put each pic on a layer and then make the topo transparent (so long as it is the layer on top). I wish I had a better way to tell people.

RE: check out my nifty map!
 

i found a really cool site , that with the click of a key , changes from topo to aeiral

www.jdmcox.com

it has by far more maps than any other place i have been too, plus it works with gps, plug it in , and download waypoints, or you can put waypoints on the map and load them to your gps, the waypoints are loaded to both types of maps.