[pct-l] GMAP4 + Halfmile's KMZ file == wonderful interactive map

[David Lippke]

I couldn't find a reference to this via a search of the list archives.
Please forgive if this is nevertheless old news.

As I plan our hike/bike tour, I've found a great resource in Joseph Elfelt's
free site http://www.mappingsupport.com/.

Combining that with Halfmile's KMZ file gets you an enhanced Google map that
not only has all of Halfmile's track, POIs, and waypoints (fully labeled),
but also lets you quickly toggle back and forth between Google's
terrain/satellite views and scanned topographic maps.   It has tons of other
features too like optional UTM grids, declination, and a good bit more.   I
love maps and I've got to say this is pretty danged fabulous and doubly so
since it's free.

It's super easy to set up your own maps, but here's an example URL that
zooms in on the Campo area in terrain view:


http://www.mappingsupport.com/p/gmap4.php?q=http://www.pctmap.net/pctdownloads/halfmiles_pct_tracks_waypoints.kmz&ll=32.600807,-116.469514&t=t1&z=14&label=no&coord=latlng

Left click on the POIs or waypoints to see their name and comment info.

Basically, to do this, you just take GMAP4's starter URL (documented on the
site), add the URL to the source data file (in this case Halfmile's KMZ),
and then go from there -- the application lets you easily export URLs once
you've zoomed in / moved around to where you want to go, etc.

White Jeep says "Check it out!"  :)

/David

p.s. first the map will come up but then it may be a few moments before the
KMZ gets loaded and processed -- give it a short bit for the track and
waypoints/POIs to show up.