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Joey
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Joined: 05 Jun 2005
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Joey
verrry senior member
PostSat May 11, 2019 4:45 pm 
It is coming up on a year since I shut Gmap4 down for all but a few use cases not relevant here. Since that time I have been building GISsurfer to replace at least most of the Gmap4 features. If you were a Gmap4 user you will feel at home with GISsurfer since the on-screen interface is the same. However the syntax for building map links is a bit different. Website This includes information on the various parameters you can include in a GISsurfer map link. https://gissurfer.com (You will be redirected) Default map - production code https://mappingsupport.com/p2/gissurfer.php Default map - v2.0 beta code This is a web page with a link to the beta code and tips to get you started. https://mappingsupport.com/p2/gissurfer-beta.html Scanned USGS paper topos Turn on the basemap “ESRI scanned topo USA”. GPX and KML files GISsurfer does not presently let you display GPX and KML files. This feature will be added. Delimited text files You can use a delimited text file to add GIS basemaps and overlays to the map. The syntax is different than what Gmap4 used. For documentation, go to the GISsurfer website, open the menu and click “Help”. Read about the “txtfile” parameter. Currently you cannot use a text file to add your own symbols and lines to the map. This feature will be added. Surf GIS data This is the big new feature in the v2.0 beta code. The rest of this post describes this new feature. At last count there were roughly 1.2 bazillion layers of data hosted on public-facing government GIS servers. The v2.0 beta version of GISsurfer can display that data. Whatever you are interested in, there likely is a GIS server with data layers that you would enjoy seeing on a map. When you turn on the GIS surfing feature, one side of your screen displays the table of contents of *any* public-facing ArcGIS server. The other side of your screen displays the map. Click a layer on the table of contents and that data appears on the map. “Click layer - See data” Screenshot showing split screen: https://mappingsupport.com/p/surf_gis/GISsurfer_split_screen.jpg After you add some data layers to the map, you can click Menu ==> Link to this map and get a link that will replicate the map on your screen including the GIS data layers you added. But wait - there’s more. In order to view data that is hosted on a GIS server, you need to know the internet address of the server. I was greatly surprised when I discovered that there was no list of the GIS servers operated by the various federal agencies. So using simple Google searches, I produced such a list. That work then expanded down to the city level. Currently the list has addresses for 1,800+ ArcGIS servers. This is a curated list. My code automatically checks every link once a week. Any link that goes bad is either fixed or flagged. You can find this list in a PDF file at: https://mappingsupport.com/p/surf_gis/list-federal-state-county-city-GIS-servers.pdf Let’s do an example. Assume you want to know about trails in the Bellingham area. 1. Open the PDF file with the list of ArcGIS servers and search on ‘Bellingham’. You will see a link for the ArcGIS server operated by the City of Bellingham. Click that link. 2. You are now looking at the table of contents for that server and you are going to click those links to drill down through the table of contents looking for trail data to display on the map. Sometimes if you look around you will find the same data in more than one layer. When that happens I try to display each layer to see which has the styling (color, symbols, line width, etc) that makes the data easiest to see on the map. 3. Go ahead and click “Maps” and then click “ReportLayers”. Scroll down to layer 19 titled “park Trails”. That is the layer we will display in this example. 4. Open a new browser tab and start the 2.0 beta version of GISsurfer. Pan and zoom in on Bellingham. Or do Menu ==> Search. https://mappingsupport.com/temp/gissurfer_426_beta.php 5. Click the basemap button (next to the “Menu” button) and look under the “Overlay” heading. (Mobile users scroll down). Click “Add GIS overlays”. 6. Go back to the tab with the server table of contents and copy the address from the top of that browser tab. https://www.iqmap.org/arcgis4/rest/services/Maps/ReportLayers/MapServer 7. Paste that address into the GISsurfer dialog box and click “Send request to GIS server”. The sidebar will open and the list of data layers will appear. 8. Scroll down to layer 19 and click it. The trail data will appear on the map. 9. To get a link that will replicate the map on your screen, including the trail layer you added to the map, click Menu ==> Link to this map. There is one known bug in the beta code. Nested MapServer layers do not display correctly. This will get fixed. Finally, the “Overlay” heading of GISsurfer always shows the overlays the map can display. An overlay with a number in front is ‘on’. The overlays are stacked on top of each other with the highest numbered overlay ‘on top’. The order with which you turn overlays ‘on’ can have a huge impact on the appearance of your map. The ‘top’ overlay (i.e. highest number) can be clicked to display all the attribute data the GIS server has for the thing that you clicked. Sometimes this attribute data includes a link that leads to more information. Try clicking on any of the trails you made on your Bellingham map. Among other things, you will learn if dog sledding is allowed on that trail. If you have any questions and/or feature requests please post in this thread.

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zephyr
aka friendly hiker



Joined: 21 Jun 2009
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zephyr
aka friendly hiker
PostSat May 11, 2019 6:27 pm 
Joey wrote:
Since that time I have been building GISsurfer to replace at least most of the Gmap4 features.
That's a lot of work! Thank you, Joey, for your dedication and efforts here. Thanks for sharing this project with us. ~z

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MtnGoat
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PostSat May 11, 2019 8:54 pm 
Donate! I did. I use his tool more than any other.

Diplomacy is the art of saying 'Nice doggie' until you can find a rock. - Will Rogers
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moonspots
Happy Curmudgeon



Joined: 03 Feb 2007
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moonspots
Happy Curmudgeon
PostSun May 12, 2019 5:51 am 
MtnGoat wrote:
Donate! I did. I use his tool more than any other.
Yes, I agree, and I have. 👍

"Out, OUT you demons of Stupidity"! - St Dogbert, patron Saint of Technology
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Joey
verrry senior member



Joined: 05 Jun 2005
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Location: Redmond
Joey
verrry senior member
PostWed May 22, 2019 6:50 am 
Do you have any Gmap4 map links that you would like to convert to GISsurfer map links? If so, I just added some information to the GISsurfer FAQ to help with that conversion. You can find the GISsurfer FAQ at: https://mappingsupport.com/p2/gissurfer-faq.html This FAQ will be expanded in a couple of weeks when GISsurfer v2.0 goes into production.

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Joey
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Joined: 05 Jun 2005
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Joey
verrry senior member
PostTue Mar 03, 2020 2:27 pm 
It’s been a long time coming but this morning I worked up the nerve to promote the GISsurfer production code to version 2.0. Anyone can now surf GIS (Geographic Information System) data almost as easy as you surf internet. Want to see an interactive map with trail and other data for some city/county/state you are planning to visit? Yup, you can do that. No GIS savvy required! On the left side of your screen you can display the table of contents for an ArcGIS (Geographic Information System) server. On the right side of your screen is the map. Drill down through the table of contents to a data layer, click the layer and that data appears on the map. The following link shows a jpg of the interface when the sidebar is open and showing part of the table of contents from an ArcGIS server. https://mappingsupport.com/p2/help/california_fishing.jpg For more information please open the map and click “What’s new” in the lower left corner. Among other things, the “What’s new” page includes a link to the list of ArcGIS server addresses that I curate. Open GISsurfer map: https://mappingsupport.com/p2/gissurfer.php?center=38.959550,-100.415039&zoom=5&basemap=USA_basemap There are also lots of updates to the documentation on the GISsurfer homepage: https://gissurfer.com Finally, I already have a list of features to consider adding in versions 2.1 and 2.2.

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call-151
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PostWed Jul 08, 2020 2:37 pm 
Is there a way to trace a line and convert it into a .gpx or something? I'm looking at a satellite view of a new logging road and want to load it into my GPS. I could do it by right-clicking on various points and cutting 'n pasting the lat/longs into my own gpx file, but there must be an easier way. Thanks for your work on this project Joey, it's an awesome tool!

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Joey
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Joined: 05 Jun 2005
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Joey
verrry senior member
PostThu Jul 09, 2020 4:37 am 
call-151 wrote:
Is there a way to trace a line and convert it into a .gpx or something?
I had that feature in Gmap4 but have not yet added it to GISsurfer. Most likely I will work on adding that next winter when the monsoon season returns and I am inside more.

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Joey
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Joey
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PostSat Oct 21, 2023 9:54 am 
New GISsurfer feature gives access to NWS hour-by-hour "point forecast" for rain, wind, snow, sleet, etc. The 'point' for the forecast will either be the spot you rightclick or your geolocation. Option 1: Rightclick the map. Forecast button is in the sidebar. Mobile users tap bracket at left screen edge to do simulated rightclick. Option 2: Tap Menu - My Location. Tap location symbol. Forecast button appears in the popup. Open #GISsurfer map: https://mappingsupport.com/p2/gissurfer.php

mike, Cyclopath
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mike
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PostSat Oct 21, 2023 6:28 pm 
Is there a possible option for a world topo like the esri topo that you used to have. Would be nice to use in conjunction with the OSM maps. Thunderforest is good. Either Outdoors or Landscape. But maybe you have to pay ??

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Joey
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Joey
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PostSun Oct 22, 2023 6:41 am 
mike wrote:
Is there a possible option for a world topo like the esri topo that you used to have. Would be nice to use in conjunction with the OSM maps. Thunderforest is good. Either Outdoors or Landscape. But maybe you have to pay ??
Here is a screenshot of the ESRI topo map GISsurfer used to display. Note that it does not show trails. I am curious how you find this map to be useful.
I provide GISsurfer as a free public service. And since there are plenty of map sources that can be displayed without paying anything, I tend to drop the map sources that would require me to pay. 1. Andy Allen allows a certain amount of free usage of his Thunderforest map tiles. If that level of use is exceeded then you need to pay. GISsurfer used to provide access to the those map tiles but they became very popular. Since the level of free use was being exceeded I removed access to the Thunderforest map tiles. 2. OSM allows a certain amount of free use of the tiles hosted on their servers. If they decide GISsurfer is making too many calls for their map tiles then they ban GISsurfer. There does not seem to be any hard numerical limit so I do not know how close I might be to getting cut off. Heavy users are expected to host the OSM map tiles themselves. 3. The situation with ESRI's basemaps is interesting. I have an ESRI 'developers' account and an API key. There is no charge for opening the account. ESRI allows this type of account to display 1,000,000 map tiles per month from ESRI's servers with no charge. If the amount of free use is exceeded then you must pay. Currently GISsurfer is using roughly around 50-60% of that free allotment. Last year I discovered a federal server that was hosting a number of the same basemaps that ESRI was hosting. I tweaked the GISsurfer code to use that federal server thus avoiding the obligation to pay ESRI if my use exceeded ESRI's free limit. These basemaps included scans of the paper USGS topo maps. GISsurfer calls this basemap "USA scanned topo". Sweet! A couple of months ago public access to those basemaps on the federal server was turned off. Sour! I have served the feds with a FOIA to regain access to those basemaps. The feds have another 10 days or so to reply. If they reply that they have removed those map tiles from their server then regarding the tile set with scans of the paper topo maps, I will inquire if they will turn that data over to the USGS for potential hosting. Stay tuned... Meanwhile, GISsurfer has gone back to using ESRI's server to display the "USA scanned topo" basemap.

Josh Journey
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Josh Journey
a.k.a Josh Lewis



Joined: 01 Nov 2007
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Josh Journey
a.k.a Josh Lewis
PostThu Oct 26, 2023 7:32 am 
Thank you Joey for keeping one of the better map providers going. cool.gif Any interest in supporting Open Topo? On Peakbagger I had good topo coverage in Peru by changing the upper right menu (topo layer) to "Open Topo Map". In addition to covering international places, the route lines drawn in are quite good. Left of the highlighted peak (red circle, Nevado Trapecio) it shows a route line that provided important evidence for getting through this region of the Cordillera Huayhuash. The glacier had melted enough so I could safely pass through it solo keeping it at trekking grade. I came in knowing the glacier might still be there with a huge over stock of supplies to go back down valley. Also curious if there is interest in having CalTopo or MyTopo as a backup option for topo maps. Scanned topo is decent but it seems CalTopo/MyTopo has a little more detail.

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Joey
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Joey
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PostThu Oct 26, 2023 10:26 am 
Thank you for the kind words Josh. And bonus points for the opentopomap tip. 1. CalTopo. Early in January 2021 they stopped licensing their topo tiles to other developers. 2. MyTopo. Years ago when Thales bought MyTopo, myself and a few other independent map devs negotiated a usage agreement with Thales whereby our software could display the MyTopo tiles. I just tried to old Gmap4 code and that method for display MyTopo tiles still works. However, that tile access might be oversight on their part since Thales/MyTopo sells https://maps.terrainnavigator.com/ In any event, assuming they still allow 3rd party software to display their tiles, I would have to include some Thales code in GISsurfer and display their ads. I am not inclined to do that since the scanned topos GISsurfer already displays are 'good enough'. 3. https://opentopomap.org/about seems to be in german which I do not habla. Google translate gave up. Below is a 'live' GISsurfer map displaying the opentopomap tiles. Very interesting! I found this english explainer: https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/OpenTopoMap The 'ReadMe' on this GitHub has more info: https://github.com/der-stefan/OpenTopoMap I am going to add this basemap to GISsurfer. I need to write a bit of code so the proper attribution displays. When GeoJPG v2 is done you will be able to use these maps offline in your browser. BTW, there is a garmin flavor of opentopomap but it is a bit different critter.
View larger size in new window

call-151  Josh Journey
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Josh Journey
a.k.a Josh Lewis



Joined: 01 Nov 2007
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Josh Journey
a.k.a Josh Lewis
PostThu Oct 26, 2023 6:41 pm 
Joey wrote:
I am going to add this basemap to GISsurfer. I need to write a bit of code so the proper attribution displays.
That was swift. Of course regarding attribution.
Joey wrote:
1. CalTopo. Early in January 2021 they stopped licensing their topo tiles to other developers.
Interesting. Good to know.
Joey wrote:
I just tried to old Gmap4 code and that method for display MyTopo tiles still works. However, that tile access might be oversight on their part since Thales/MyTopo sells https://maps.terrainnavigator.com/
My map generator serviced JPG maps through MyTopo until it was bought out by another company who seemed to have stopped the server that ran it's generation. Because it still displays a map I assumed things were still workable. Keep MyTopo as back stock code (outside the operating code) in case scanned topo disappears. cool.gif
Joey wrote:
When GeoJPG v2 is done you will be able to use these maps offline in your browser.
Looking forward to GeoJPG v2. I'm guessing it will allow us to generate JPG images of the current map view? This would allow us to annotate and draw lines for sharing externally. FastStone Image Viewer is great for this kind of work which is light years ahead of Microsoft Photo Viewer. Open Topo is by far the most important of all my suggestions, so this made my day. Appreciated Joey! up.gif up.gif

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Joey
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Joey
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PostThu Oct 26, 2023 7:35 pm 
Josh Journey wrote:
Looking forward to GeoJPG v2. I'm guessing it will allow us to generate JPG images of the current map view?
GeoJPG v2 will let you install georeferenced JPGs and view them offline and with a symbol that shows your geolocation. One way to make georeferenced JPGs is with GISsurfer's screenshot mode. PDF tutorial: https://mappingsupport.com/p2/help/GISsurfer-georeference-images.pdf Video tutorial:

Josh Journey
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