Newsgroups: alt.cd-rom,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.cd-rom Path: cdrom.com!barrnet.net!biosci!agate!ihnp4.ucsd.edu!pacbell.com!att-out!cbnewsh!cbnewse!parnass From: parnass@cbnewse.cb.att.com (Bob Parnass, AJ9S) Subject: Review of S&S Precision Mapping CDROM Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Naperville, IL Date: Mon, 4 Apr 1994 16:03:35 GMT Message-ID: Followup-To: alt.cd-rom Keywords: map making software, map database Lines: 77 Xref: cdrom.com alt.cd-rom:2250 comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.cd-rom:1949 x PRECISION MAPPING CDROM REVIEW by Bob Parnass, AJ9S I saw demonstrations of two CDROM mapping programs this weekend: 1. DeLorme's Street Atlas USA (v 2) 2. S&S Publishing's Precision Mapping Street Atlas got good reviews here on Usenet but I didn't see any reviews of Precision Mapping, so here's my two cents. First, both these programs are remarkable and put CDROM technology to good use. They contain almost all of the streets in the entire USA. The Street Atlas CDROM is called from Windows, versus Preci- sion Mapping which is a DOS program. I think Street Atlas USA has one disk. The Precision Mapping setup comes with two CDROMS disks, one for the Eastern and one for the Western USA, using the Mississippi River as the dividing line. I purchased the Precision Mapping because it includes a few latitude/longitude features I need which were missing in the Street Atlas. As you position the mouse, the exact latitude and longitude is displayed on the screen at all times. I need this feature in my application of locating transmitter sites from FCC records which often contain latitude and longitude but no street address. Street Atlas prints prettier paper maps than Precision Map- ping. The lakes are shaded in the Street Atlas printouts, but are merely outline drawings on the Precision paper maps. Also, the Street Atlas draws major roads with two parallel lines (i.e., giving the major road some stature to help make it stand out), and the Precision represents these roads (on paper) with darker lines. Although the Precision maps appear in color on the screen, they are black and white when printed (even on a color printer). I'm using an HP Desk Jet 520 ink squirter printer, and the printouts look better than they do on my 14" cheapo SVGA monitor. The only real problem I've had with the Precision Mapper so far is that the tutorial bombs with the error message "Integer divide by zero" on my IBM PS/1 486DX2 - 66 MHz. I phoned S&S and they said they know about the problem -- the tutorial won't work on faster machines. Although this defect was somewhat annoying, it's not a great loss to me as I learned to use the Mapper on my own, using the Help text. I don't know much more about Street Atlas USA, but the Pre- cision Mapping allows you to click the mouse on a street, landmark, lake, or river. An information window pops up and usually gives you more info. For example, it will often tell you what the range of house numbers is on a street, and what type of street it is. You can "mark up" maps with your own notes or drawings using the Precision Mapping software, or save the file and mark up the map with your favorite graphics editor. I've clipped out an entire map and swept out parts of a map using the mouse and created .PCX files, which I then read into the Paint program. I paid about $75 for Precision Mapping, and it came packaged with a Business phone book CDROM of low quality, but that's another review. :-) -- ============================================================================== Copyright 1994, Bob Parnass, AJ9S AT&T Bell Laboratories - parnass@ih4gp.att.com - (708)979-5414