Mentioning the availability of online scans of USGS 7.5'-series topographic maps is not news - they've been available at http://terraserver-usa.com/ , http://www.topozone.com/ , etc., for years, and are apparently also available at http://seamless.usgs.gov/ , though I can't seem to get the right layer to show up - until just now, I knew of no location that had scans of the *entire maps* for the whole series nationwide, marginal information included, which is important in tracing the history of road locations, since the margins give the year or range of years to which the map information corresponds (the respective collection at the Ohio government website includes margins in the scans, for example, but that of Michigan does not). It's at the same website as our old standby, the Internet Wayback Machine:
...or, if you know the map's code (involves lat/long plus a grid of combination 1-8 and A-H: see the 7.5' zooms at http://catalog.maplink.com/usgs/USMap.html , for example), you can go to
Free downloads of full-sheet images aren't new, either. They've been available from the US Department of Agriculture for several years, and their collection is more complete and up-to-date than the archive.org version (which has a lot of maps, but is certainly not the "entire maps for the whole series nationwide"). The topo maps are only one of many free datasets that can be searched for and downloaded at the NRCS Data Gateway site, at http://datagateway.nrcs.usda.gov
> Free downloads of full-sheet images aren't new, either. They've been > available from the US Department of Agriculture for several years, and > their collection is more complete and up-to-date than the archive.org > version (which has a lot of maps, but is certainly not the "entire > maps for the whole series nationwide"). The topo maps are only one of > many free datasets that can be searched for and downloaded at the NRCS > Data Gateway site, athttp://datagateway.nrcs.usda.gov
> - Ed
> Ed McNierney > TopoZone Map Guy
Now, when will all of the historic editions of each 7.5 minute quad across the country be available on the internet? I still have to trudge to the nearest university map collection when I do my research on the history of highway routings. Sure would be nice to be able to do it all from my computer....
> > Free downloads of full-sheet images aren't new, either. They've been > > available from the US Department of Agriculture for several years, and > > their collection is more complete and up-to-date than the archive.org > > version (which has a lot of maps, but is certainly not the "entire > > maps for the whole series nationwide"). The topo maps are only one of > > many free datasets that can be searched for and downloaded at the NRCS > > Data Gateway site, athttp://datagateway.nrcs.usda.gov
> > - Ed
> > Ed McNierney > >TopoZoneMap Guy
> Now, when will all of the historic editions of each 7.5 minute quad > across the country be available on the internet? I still have to > trudge to the nearest university map collection when I do my research > on the history of highway routings. Sure would be nice to be able to > do it all from my computer....
Well, how much would you pay for that service? There are lots of people interested in historic topos, but acquiring them and scanning them is a very expensive proposition. I don't know of anyone who thinks that it's economically feasible to spend that much money to set up something that perhaps a lot of people want but that (we think) very few people would actually pay for. Just as a ballpark figure, even if you acquired all the map sheets for free you would probably spend around half a million dollars just to get high-quality, georeferenced scans made.
> Free downloads of full-sheet images aren't new, either. They've been > available from the US Department of Agriculture for several years, and > their collection is more complete and up-to-date than the archive.org > version (which has a lot of maps, but is certainly not the "entire > maps for the whole series nationwide"). The topo maps are only one of > many free datasets that can be searched for and downloaded at the NRCS > Data Gateway site, at http://datagateway.nrcs.usda.gov
I don't see how to get to the topo data. It's behaving as though you have to have a user account to get beyond zooming and panning the overview map.
--
Ciao, Paul D. DeRocco Paul mailto:pdero...@ix.netcom.com
> > > Free downloads of full-sheet images aren't new, either. They've been > > > available from the US Department of Agriculture for several years, and > > > their collection is more complete and up-to-date than the archive.org > > > version (which has a lot of maps, but is certainly not the "entire > > > maps for the whole series nationwide"). The topo maps are only one of > > > many free datasets that can be searched for and downloaded at the NRCS > > > Data Gateway site, athttp://datagateway.nrcs.usda.gov
> > > - Ed
> > > Ed McNierney > > >TopoZoneMap Guy
> > Now, when will all of the historic editions of each 7.5 minute quad > > across the country be available on the internet? I still have to > > trudge to the nearest university map collection when I do my research > > on the history of highway routings. Sure would be nice to be able to > > do it all from my computer....
> Well, how much would you pay for that service? There are lots of > people interested in historic topos, but acquiring them and scanning > them is a very expensive proposition. I don't know of anyone who > thinks that it's economically feasible to spend that much money to set > up something that perhaps a lot of people want but that (we think) > very few people would actually pay for. Just as a ballpark figure, > even if you acquired all the map sheets for free you would probably > spend around half a million dollars just to get high-quality, > georeferenced scans made.
> - Ed- Hide quoted text -
> - Show quoted text -
I don't doubt that it's expensive. I'd be willing to pay something like a hundred bucks/year subscription fee for it, but don't know how many others would.
Seems to me it is something that USGS should do as a public service at some point. But I'm sure it's not super high on their list. They MUST (translate that as "better") have some sort of project to digitize all of their historic topos simply to preserve the information for their in-house historical archives, even if they don't ever make them available to the public via the net. It would be a dereliction of duty for them not to.
robcar wrote: > On Feb 20, 8:45 am, e...@topozone.com wrote: >> On Feb 20, 2:38 am, robcar <robc...@msn.com> wrote:
>>> On Feb 18, 1:13 pm, e...@topozone.com wrote: >>>> Marc - >>>> Free downloads of full-sheet images aren't new, either. They've been >>>> available from the US Department of Agriculture for several years, and >>>> their collection is more complete and up-to-date than the archive.org >>>> version (which has a lot of maps, but is certainly not the "entire >>>> maps for the whole series nationwide"). The topo maps are only one of >>>> many free datasets that can be searched for and downloaded at the NRCS >>>> Data Gateway site, athttp://datagateway.nrcs.usda.gov >>>> - Ed >>>> Ed McNierney >>>> TopoZoneMap Guy >>> Now, when will all of the historic editions of each 7.5 minute quad >>> across the country be available on the internet? I still have to >>> trudge to the nearest university map collection when I do my research >>> on the history of highway routings. Sure would be nice to be able to >>> do it all from my computer.... >> Well, how much would you pay for that service? There are lots of >> people interested in historic topos, but acquiring them and scanning >> them is a very expensive proposition. I don't know of anyone who >> thinks that it's economically feasible to spend that much money to set >> up something that perhaps a lot of people want but that (we think) >> very few people would actually pay for. Just as a ballpark figure, >> even if you acquired all the map sheets for free you would probably >> spend around half a million dollars just to get high-quality, >> georeferenced scans made.
>> - Ed- Hide quoted text -
>> - Show quoted text -
> I don't doubt that it's expensive. I'd be willing to pay something > like a hundred bucks/year subscription fee for it, but don't know how > many others would.
> Seems to me it is something that USGS should do as a public service at > some point. But I'm sure it's not super high on their list. They > MUST (translate that as "better") have some sort of project to > digitize all of their historic topos simply to preserve the > information for their in-house historical archives, even if they don't > ever make them available to the public via the net. It would be a > dereliction of duty for them not to.
Many map repositories are just that, places where old maps are stored in drawers. I've been to the New Mexico map repository, and that's all it was. There were no large format scanners either, though you could copy an 11 by 17 inch part of a map at 10 cents a page (probably more now, it's been awhile), black and white.
On the other hand, The University of Nevada (Reno) has color scans available over the Internet of the current topo maps for Nevada. I think those topos are free to download (no I don't have the URL, that PC died recently), but I don't know if older quads are available.
