Gaia Questions

pluton

Adventurer
Have you compared the HEMA Atlas with any of the GAIA maps? If so how do they compare?
I didn't like the implementation job the on the Gaia topo maps. They're vector maps, which saves on data storage space, but too much detail is lost too quickly when you zoom out. The ESRI/USGS topos and the HEMA USA Atlas have implemented zooming better, IMO. I don't think that they're vector, but my phone has 256 GB storage, so I don't have to be concerned with large amounts of map data storage. The ESRI/USGS ones are my favorite, but some areas seem to be scanned at lower resolution, which can be annoying.
 

roving1

Well-known member
The Gaia topo layer is the best bet for just downloading huge areas of at a time if you don't know where you are exploring ahead of time from an info vs storage aspect. That and the public land overlay are really all you need for finding campsites. I have half the Western US, Michigan of that layer and google maps on my phone and tablet downloaded.

Sat layers are a double edged sword and as time goes on I find it less and less useful. What appears on a satellite as a usable track may often in person be barely used and in terrible shape or blocked off and closed when you get there. Also some sat imagery is so old it won't have all kinds of tracks that actually exist but are not shown. This is a long way to say I used to be obsessed about trying to download as much sat imagery as I could but now don't really care that much. Sat imagery is also not going to show you info from washouts, snow level/melting etc. Those usually screw things up more in real life then what the track looked like from the sat image. I really find its a luxury I don't need too much.

There is no one source, map, or way to find dispersed sites. That just isn't really how it works.

HEMA in North America I was under the impression was more or less abandonware at this point and was not getting updated. I know the HEMA maps I used a long time ago sucked frankly but I have not used any recently.
 

roving1

Well-known member
I didn't like the implementation job the on the Gaia topo maps. They're vector maps, which saves on data storage space, but too much detail is lost too quickly when you zoom out.

They tweak this all the time. It's a lot better than it used to be. So there is the potential for change there. I do wish you could set some sort of max zoom out detail level to lock in the detail and still allow further zooming out. For the gajillion maps and layers Gaia has very few are good for zooming out and getting some bearing of major roads and nearby cities without losing all the detail.
 

pluton

Adventurer
HEMA in North America I was under the impression was more or less abandonware at this point and was not getting updated. I know the HEMA maps I used a long time ago sucked frankly but I have not used any recently.
I don't know what relationship is between the HEMA in North America you refer to, and this "HEMA USA Atlas" as provided by Gaia. Subject for further research.
UPDATE: When I switch Gaia map display (connected to Gaia on web) from the "HEMA USA Atlas" to "Gaia Topo (feet)", the map appears identical. This doesn't at all look like Gaia Topo the last time I saw it a few months ago. Something's gone wonky, I give up for tonight.
 
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Photobug

Well-known member
For the gajillion maps and layers Gaia has very few are good for zooming out and getting some bearing of major roads and nearby cities without losing all the detail.

New to this software and it was giving me fits finding my way around. I have been playing a with the layers and found adding county and state borders has made a huge difference in being able to pan and know where I am and where I want to go when zoomed out.
 

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