I came across an outstanding piece of mapping software that I wanted to share with you all. If you are like me, we spend a lot of time on Google Earth (GE) researching hunting areas and doing "desktop scouting". Its a great way to find out which side of a creek would be easier to walk up, or if you are going to get cliffed out on a certain side of a mountain. GE is a pretty good tool but it lacks in some areas like the naming of creeks and mountains, or outlining the boundaries of parks and preserves. The topo overlays for GE are pretty good but they can be slow to load.
Enter ESRI ArcGIS Earth, free to download here: http://www.esri.com/software/arcgis-earth
ESRI ArcGIS Earth is a free mapping software program (a lot like GE). The first thing you will notice is how much it works and feels like GE, which is nice because it greatly reduces the learning curve. You can zoom in, search for places, and even re-orient to north just like GE. When you zoom in tight to an area the map will update with a higher-resolution basemap that is equal to, if not better than, Google Earth. Here in Alaska it has more detail in more areas than GE, and you don't have to mess with "turning back the clock" on GE to find a non-winter image.
On top of this, if you look at the tool bar on the top left and click on the box made up of four smaller squares you can choose between one of 12 basemaps. Included in the 12 basemaps are USA Topo maps, USGS National maps, a native Topographic map, Terrain with Labels, and Imagery with Labels. And all the basemaps load quickly and easily. One HUGE advantage that ESRI ArcGIS Earth has is that it labels streams, mountain peaks, park and preserve boundaries, National Forests, and more. Turning on the "Terrain with Labels" basemap and being able to identify every creek in a drainage by name is really nice. There are other handy features where like where you can save the screen image so you can print it out onto rite in the rain paper for your hardcopy backup map when your GPS dies.
So check it out, ESRI ArcGIS Earth.
-Flydaho
Enter ESRI ArcGIS Earth, free to download here: http://www.esri.com/software/arcgis-earth
ESRI ArcGIS Earth is a free mapping software program (a lot like GE). The first thing you will notice is how much it works and feels like GE, which is nice because it greatly reduces the learning curve. You can zoom in, search for places, and even re-orient to north just like GE. When you zoom in tight to an area the map will update with a higher-resolution basemap that is equal to, if not better than, Google Earth. Here in Alaska it has more detail in more areas than GE, and you don't have to mess with "turning back the clock" on GE to find a non-winter image.
On top of this, if you look at the tool bar on the top left and click on the box made up of four smaller squares you can choose between one of 12 basemaps. Included in the 12 basemaps are USA Topo maps, USGS National maps, a native Topographic map, Terrain with Labels, and Imagery with Labels. And all the basemaps load quickly and easily. One HUGE advantage that ESRI ArcGIS Earth has is that it labels streams, mountain peaks, park and preserve boundaries, National Forests, and more. Turning on the "Terrain with Labels" basemap and being able to identify every creek in a drainage by name is really nice. There are other handy features where like where you can save the screen image so you can print it out onto rite in the rain paper for your hardcopy backup map when your GPS dies.
So check it out, ESRI ArcGIS Earth.
-Flydaho
