Buying Advice Google Earth Pro

[Rod in Forfar]

Don't download the 7 day trial of Google Earth Pro until you have some heavy lifting to do, because when the seventh day ends and your screen goes blank, you'll feel like Aladdin when they took away his magic carpet. It costs $400. to get it back for a year.

So why am I mentioning this on a tractor site? In the last week I mapped every field on the farm, calculated the acreage of each, and wrote a legal description from point to point using bearings and Lat and Long points, correct to 1'. I also generated a 25.5 Meg Photoshop map to illustrate the property for years to come, and all in a couple hours. When I got down to work with it, having those GPS points on tap was like having access to that other great mythical tool, the sky hook.

Work that would have taken a survey crew quite a while and cost a lot of money was completed for free in an evening in the kitchen. I dictated the property description to my wife as I ran the boundary lines and noted the heading and length of each.

So if you want to do some mapping of the back 40, you might want to try Earth Pro on a 7-day trial.

 

[jake98]

Where did you get the description, from the deed? I plotted mine on a CADD program and sometime ago they began requiring a zero closure error, so there was a second description. In the origional they used the stone border walls for most of it, and when I plotted the second with their tweeking for zero closure error it showed my property about 15 feet short of the wall along the longest border, saying I had something like a third of an acre less land. Seemed to me that the hundreds of tons of stone must be right, but it's a legal battle just waiting to happen.

 

[Redneck in training]

I am using GIS site of our county. Can't tell how it compares to Google Earth Pro but it is free.
Beacon Home

 

[Skyco]

My remote property location in the mtns has never had a decent Google Earth image, lower resolution than more populated areas nearby. Maybe the "Pro" version is better?

A few weeks ago I used Google Earth to generate a map with 2 points marked with lat/lon for purposes of importing it into another program to make a field map for radio direction finding equipment. I found Google Earth's lat/lon displays to be off quite a bit in the field..again maybe the "Pro" version is better but I sure wouldn't rely on the free version for any accuracy. BTW Delorme Topo USA was dead on.

 

[Dmace]

If you want real good GPS accuracy and decent aerial photos, try USA Photomaps. It's a FREE program that a retired pilot created and it uses aerial photos from Microsoft's Terra Server. It's easy to use and incredibly accurate.

The link is at this site: JDMCOX Software (He also has TONS of other FREE and very useful tools)

Here's the direct link to download the .exe file: http://jdmcox.com/USAPhotoMaps.exe

Sample screen shot: http://jdmcox.com/Sample.jpg

 

[Ford tractor]

The JDMCOX map data is old (1996 ish) and not very close zoom. My 160 acre at max zoom is a full screen. Is there any newer data and tighter zoom?

 

[whistlepig]

My remote property location in the mtns has never had a decent Google Earth image, lower resolution than more populated areas nearby. Maybe the "Pro" version is better?

A few weeks ago I used Google Earth to generate a map with 2 points marked with lat/lon for purposes of importing it into another program to make a field map for radio direction finding equipment. I found Google Earth's lat/lon displays to be off quite a bit in the field..again maybe the "Pro" version is better but I sure wouldn't rely on the free version for any accuracy. BTW Delorme Topo USA was dead on.

Can you tell me a bit more about Delorme Topo USA? I have read a little about it but I am not familiar with it.

 

[Rod in Forfar]

So if you want to do some mapping of the back 40, you might want to try Earth Pro on a 7-day trial.

My son set me straight on the software. Turns out the free version of Google Earth will do the same things I value in the commercial version. So I get to keep my magic carpet/sky hook. Cool.

 

[Skyco]

Can you tell me a bit more about Delorme Topo USA? I have read a little about it but I am not familiar with it.

Here ya go-
Topo North America 9.0 - DeLorme

 

[Dmace]

The JDMCOX map data is old (1996 ish) and not very close zoom. My 160 acre at max zoom is a full screen. Is there any newer data and tighter zoom?

It depends on the area, check the Microsoft site (MSR Maps) to see if anything better shows up there. That's where the program gets the imagery.