When Meriwether Lewis launched his first expedition West, he was equipped with some of the most advanced navigation technology of the day: two sextants, a chronometer, a compass, crude maps, plotting instruments, and collapsible iron-frame boats to lug it all around. These instruments, coupled with some hastily acquired scientific skills, managed to guide him through the uncharted territory from North Dakota to the Pacific coast.
Cartography and navigational tools have come a long way since Lewis' 1803 expedition, and with recent developments in computer mapping software, even the casual weekend hiker will soon be able to navigate the gnarliest terrain with relative ease.
Using detailed US Geological Survey topographic maps, several software companies, including Wildflower Productions and Maps on Disc, have developed digitized maps of (primarily) the Western United States that are now available on CD-ROM. When used in conjunction with relatively inexpensive (US$250-$300) global positioning system devices - which use satellites to provide latitude and longitude readings - the maps promise hikers unprecedented freedom in navigating remote areas. By year's end, Wildflower's software will interface with PCs, and users will then be able to download and upload data to and from GPS devices, rather than manually plotting coordinates.
"When you're in the back country or snowy areas, you can use custom reference points to check against satellite data, which tells you where you are at that moment," explained Matt Heller, a founding partner of Wildflower Productions. "Most of the consumer software is designed for using a laptop and a GPS together, but we're designing this more for planning a trip or plotting where you've been when you get back," said Heller.
Having automated the process of digitizing maps, Wildflower is now focusing on developing interface features that give users a more interactive experience, Heller said. Currently, the toolbar on its Topo software offers features like the "traveling tool," which replaces scroll bars and lets the user navigate in any direction, drawing routes and measuring distances from one point to another. The longitude, latitude, and elevation changes are shown in real time as the user moves, and point-to-point elevation changes can be graphed, revealing percentage grades over specific distances. Zoom-in tools will display portions of maps at five magnification levels, and maps can also be customized - with route points, symbols, and notations - and printed out before and after trips. And since Topo builds the raster graphic-based maps dynamically - reading only the data necessary at a particular time - 4 MB of RAM is sufficient to run the program, said Heller.
"GPS has exploded of late and sales are upwards of a million units per year," said Michael Hodgson, technical editor of Outdoor Retail Magazine. "There is a tremendous increase in the number of outdoor people, the bark eaters and granola crunchers, that now have Net access and a familiarity with computers."
Maps on Disc, a Berkeley, California-based company, is using Java to enhance its interface, which it expects will open up all kinds of new possibilities.
"We'll create a Java toolbox with whatever you'd like, and it will allow us to add in features as we go.... Having a 3-D viewer is only a matter of time," said company founder Jim Malloy. "We also want to tie in other things to the maps, maybe radar or space imagery, and historical information," he added.
With California and Colorado ranking as the two most popular states for hiking and outdoor expeditions, the companies have thus far focused their mapping efforts in those states. But later this year Wildflower has plans to release a boundary-waters map, and will work its way east from there.
Heller said engineering firms, land surveyors, and a variety of other people call with suggestions for maps and features, and the potential for new applications seems boundless. When a marijuana-eradication officer called recently, asking for maps of remote parts of Humboldt County, in Northern California, Heller said he didn't think there was a big enough market for the maps. To which the officer replied, "Believe me: Between the pot growers and us, there's a market."
