Discussion: OCAD & GPS

Hi all,
I have a Garmin eTrex Venture HC GPS. Yesterday, I went with my coach to a local summer camp to map the area for an event this fall. There is an area of trails which are very very tough to map, so in addition to mapping them, I recorded a GPS track of them.

Being that this was my first time mapping seriously, I do not own the latest copy of OCAD. I own the free OCAD 6 instead. So, when I attempted to download the map file of the camp from an email sent to me by the original mapper, it would not open correctly. I was wondering if this was an issue with OCAD 6 being too old or human error on my part.

I also was wondering if any of you have had experience importing GPS tracks into OCAD 6. It looks like they are compatible from what I read, but my computer doesn't pick up my GPS as a hard drive, so I am unaware of what port to use to import.

If anyone can provide assistance, please let me know. Thanks a million!
Devon

If the original mapper has a later version of ocad, he´ll have to convert it to ocad6 before sending it to you. I think that should solve it.

Im not entirely sure if you can import GPS, but if its a picture file, it should work (?)

But im not 100%

Is there a site or forum where OCAD users converge? I have some questions related to DEM's I would like to have answered.

There is a yahoo group for Ocad users. I think its O-Map@yahoogroups.com

I'm no expert so probably should just keep quite but when I tried to get a gps track into ocad 8 a few years ago I had to use a software program called GPS Utility to do some conversions. You can get a free demonstration version and that may do all you need. Do a google search to find the utility.

You need ocad 9 to import gps (as gpx) tracks into your map. Ocad 10 Professional allows live tracking from a gps while in the field. That's a $1000 (or so) unpgrade from ver 9.

All the (US & other) orienteering related mailing lists that I know of are listed on the Links page of the USOF site.

What you need is the "Junior Mapper's Guide"
http://gaorienteering.org/Education/mappers_guide....
We're still waiting to get a copy of "Ocad for Dummies".

Must not be enough dummies who want to make orienteering maps :)

Or, more likely, people of any intelligence level who want to make orienteering maps.

that guide is useful as the highest level introduction to mapping concepts for someone who has no idea what it takes to make a map. Might be good as a preface section in the "ocad for Dummies" book

If it's a one-off thing, you can download the evaluation copy of OCAD 10 and use the GPS feature. It will expire in 30 days.

I would try to have ALL the work done in the evaluation copy of OCAD 10 before 21 days expire!

I should clarify that I'm only advocating the trial version workaround if this is a little club-level project. If you or the club are going to make any money on the deal, you really should be using a licensed copy of the software (or make do with the free version).

The OP (DGrove) is a member of a large O-Club, which undoubtably already owns licensed copies of OCAD. He is probably just looking for a way to upload GPS tracks using his own computer, rather than hunting down someone with a computer that has OCAD 9 or 10 (legitimately) installed.

For that reason, I would have difficulty considering use of a trial-version, just for this purpose, an ethical breach. However, since he is a junior, his parents have the final say on that!

Of course if files created using it can't be saved, the point is moot.

Focus guys, focus. All he needs is a way to get GPS tracks into OCAD 6, not an OCAD 10 licence. :)

DGrove - since OCAD 6 supports importing DXF files, save your GPS track as a GPX file using....whatever you've got. The Garmin software should do it, or if you've got the GPS coming up as an external drive then they may already be GPX files?

Carlch mentioned GPS Utility, which says it allows you to export tracks as DXF files. There's no end of programs that do GPX/DXF conversion, and some of them even work. If Carl's used this one previously then start there.

I would try to import tracks from the device with the software you got with the gps deveice. Or Gpsbabel of course. And convert tracks to gpx format. Then I'd convert gpx to raster image and inport that as backround raster map to ocad.

As far as I can see importing tracks as vector to ocad doesn't give anything better compared to importing them as raster image. You will have to hand draw tracks anyway to make them look nice and to place them right. For example adjusting tools are far better for raster background than for vector objects.

One might also try importing gps to quickroute - old O map as backround - and place tracks there right. Ans export that as raster image and import that to ocad for hand tracing. One could even import gpx to AP and take screen capture from session data screen with satellite image backround.

I can see a couple of advantages for importing GPS tracks and waypoints as vector (OCAD 9+). One is dealing with the errors. I find myself wanting to distinguish the latest GPX import from previous ones, so that I can make judgements about the scatter; and I use a series of symbols to do this (subsequently hidden of course). The other is that with a geo-referenced map the GPX is placed exactly in the right place