Looking for a Triton? Check these retailers ...

From our exclusive sources in the field - a partial list of retailers that should have Triton's in stock or at least on their way to stores. This of course is not a guarantee that your particular location will have the unit still in stock, so call ahead, but the source is highly reliable. If this information helps you locate a GPS or if you find another retailer, please post a comment to help others! Happy Holidays!

EMS - New Hampshire based retailer, with stores thoughout New England and the Mid-Atlantic - should have Triton 200 and 300 series models.

REI - Washington based retailer with stores nationwide, should have Triton 300s.

Sportsman's Warehouse - Utah based retailer with stores nationwide, should have Triton 300s.

Joes Sports - Oregon based retailer with stores in the Pacific Northwest, should have Triton 300s.

Sport Chalet - Southern California based retailer with stores throughout the region, should have Triton 300s.

Academy Sports - Texas based retailer, should have Triton 300s.

Once again this list is certainly not complete but should help those seeking Tritons for the holidays. If you find additional sources, feel free to post!

Woodford.

BREAKING NEWS: Confirmed Reports of Magellan Tritons Shipping to Retail

In from our very own "agent x" ... Triton 300's have shipped and are on the way to retailers! That's right you heard it here first, the long awaited Magellan Triton, the first GPS receiver in the market which can load the maps from National Geographic TOPO!, is starting to head towards stores... Get yours while you can! Stay tuned to TOPO! Hacker for further developments. 

Happy Holidays

Import and Export Tracks via Conversion Utility

Originally Posted on GPS Tracklog July 8, 2006:

Convert National Geographic TOPO (.tpo) files

GPS Babel, Robert Lipe's conversion utility, has recently been updated to version 1.3.0. This newest version, I am extremely happy to say, converts National Geographic TOPO (.tpo) files. Yes TOPO users, you can now extract track data, converting it to .gpx or the format of your choice. It will work with TOPO versions 2 and 3, but not 4.x.

For those of us with a mass (mess?) of data in TOPO, this is welcome news indeed. I tried it out this morning and it works flawlessly! Congratulations to Robert and the entire team of Babel-heads, especially Alex Mottram, who appears to be their NG TOPO expert. (CORRECTION: Apparently Curt Mills deserves the credit here.)

National Geographic TOPO (Amazon) is a wonderful product, and remains my favorite in terms of CD/DVD-based mapping software. As I noted in my book, GPS Mapping - Make Your Own Maps, the difficulty in exporting tracks is one of the few disadvantages of this program (and the only major one). Finally, we have an elegant solution that allows you to extract your data."

Open .KML Files in TOPO!

Got KML Files? Open them in TOPO!

Works in any TOPO! Version including both Mac and PC versions.

This is an easy work around for those using either Google Maps or Google Earth that wish to view their KML files on the detailed topographic maps in TOPO!.

KML files are essentially XML documents, therefore they can be read and parsed by any spreadsheet document like Microsoft Excel. If you don't have a spreadsheet application you have a few options for this hack.

1. Sign up for Google Documents. (http://www.docs.google.com/)
2. Use notepad, wordpad, or any other text editing tool. This option will work, but is might be a tad more complicated.

The Steps:

1. Save your KML file to your desktop or some other easily accessible file location.
2. Open the KML file in your spreadsheet application.
3. Assuming you are using Excel. You will be prompted to open this file as an XML table, approve this and any messages pertaining to "schema." There is a photo below showing a USGS earthquake KML file after just being opened in Microsoft Excel.

Note: When you import your KML file into Excel that there will be a lot of columns. The image to the left is showing just a handful. Many of these columns we will delete in the next step.

4. Review your KML file in Excel and note which columns of data you'd like to keep when you import to TOPO!. In every case you will want to locate the columns that contain Latitude and Longitude information. You might wish to keep a time field, name, decription or other column as well. In our example I'm going to keep the description file which contains the date and time of the earthquake as well as it's magnitude.

5. Scroll through your Excel columns and delete any data you do not wish to import to TOPO! Be advised that the TOPO! import will only accept a few fields - so it is important to keep this to a minimum. Below is a screenshot of the trimmed and revised Excel table of the same USGS earthquake file.


6. With your Excel spreadsheet paired down - save it as a CSV (Comma Seperated Value). You may receive a few warnings that Excel can only save these files with one worksheet - this is aok.

7. Open TOPO! if it isn't already and start a new TPO file.

8. Open the "GPS Import Wizard" - this may be in couple different locations depending on the version of TOPO!. Start by looking for a GPS icon on the toolbar.

9. In the GPS Import Wizard you will be presented several options, choose to import "A text file that contains routes, waypoints, and tracks."

10. The wizard will prompt you to select your file - choose the CSV file you created above.

11. The wizard will have you map (identify) which fields pertain to certain necessary atributes, like coordinates. It's important to note that KML files are in the WGS84 Datum (the default in TOPO!) and typically export from Google Maps/Earth in decimal degrees. However be sure to note which datum and coordinate display your KML file is in before finishing the import to ensure accuracy of imported data.

12. TOPO! will process your KML data (now in CSV format) and import it into the application. Once completed, each line in your KML file will become a waypoint in TOPO!. The USGS Earthquake file contains 427 locations. Here's a screen shot of the successfully loaded data:



Note: I've zoomed into an area that I do not have detailed map data for to make it easier to see the waypoints.


13. Your KML file is now imported and can be viewed in any level of TOPO! In my earthquake example, the date and time of the waypoint is linked to the time of the earthquake, the depth of the quake is linked to the message field, and Lat Lon are displayed in decimal degrees WGS 84.


14. Using the merge TPO function I could overlay these earthquakes epicenters on to a trail map I've been working on and go visit the exact spot of a quake with my GPS as a guide.

Give this work around a shot. It's simple and opens up a lot of functionality between TOPO and Google Maps. After running through these steps once you'll quickly get the hang of it. There are tons of free KML files posted on the net ranging from files like this earthquake example to unique point of interest information.

Enjoy - Woodford