Software Review of:
3-D TopoQuads:
Texas West 

3-D TopoQuads allows you to look at a flat map and then create a 3-D view of it. You can look at the whole continental United States if you wish and can even zoom in quite close to an area before being told you need the regional disk. 3-D views aren’t available for large areas such as the whole country or the whole state of Alaska. 

This is the first mapping software I’ve used. I have used MapQuest on the Internet to plan highway travel.

What does the box hold?
The 5 ½ inch square box contains a 12 page manual, a notice for those with an ATI AGP (Accelerated Graphics Protocol) card in their computers, and 7 CD-ROMs.

The manual contains a list of the system requirements, an Introduction, and how to begin the installation routine. It also contains brief sections on running and learning to use the program, the help system, tools, troubleshooting and technical support. The seven CD-ROMs include 1 installation CD-ROM and 6 West Texas regional CD-ROMs.

Running the program
After you install the program but before you can run it, you must register one or more of the regional disks. If you register more than one disk at a time and try to register a disk again, the program will tell you it’s already registered. I found that most warning dialog boxes really addressed what you did wrong and helped you take corrective action.

3-D TopoQuads is a mouse driven program. It doesn’t have a real menu bar with drop down lists except for Help. It has a large tabbed tool bar at the bottom of the screen. You access Help by clicking on the Help Icon in the Title bar. If you want a written manual of the entire Help contents just select HelpDoc on the Help drop down list. It’s an Adobe Acrobat file. Once you open it you can print it out. You’ll need Acrobat Reader installed on your system to do this.

The first time I ran 3-D TopoQuads: Texas West I went through the tutorials for Using the Map, Finding Places, and 3D Mapping. Each one is only a few screens long but if you pay close attention, you learn a lot. Find allows you to locate any place in the US quickly and easily. You can search by place name, geographic feature, USGS quad, or latitude/longitude.

After I did the tutorials, I chose the disc containing Big Bend National Park. Each disk shows the area covered with a black area on the map of Texas. I enjoyed zooming in on Big Bend and creating 3-D views from different directions and at different pitches. My brother and I spent several days exploring the park by van several years ago and I was able to locate several of the areas we visited. Once you have reached the detail you want and centered the map to your liking, you can save the view under your own name. Then you can just click on the name later to quickly get back to it. You can save a lot of these since the files are only 3K each.

I found 3-D TopoQuads very easy to learn and use. I had no trouble moving from location to location and zooming in on a particular area. The 3-D maps loaded quickly and it was simple to change the view angle and direction of view.

Other features
DeLorme says you can “profile your hikes and backcountry travels for distance, elevation, grade, etc.” Since I haven’t been on any hikes recently I did a quick routing along the highways. The profile feature worked as promised. All the points along the way were listed by longitude and latitude. There was also a place to make journal entries.

You can add symbols, text and MapNotes to customize your maps. I only made a few simple lines and circles on one map. This would be great for creating orienteering maps.
While the manual says you can print high-quality, detailed topographic maps of any place in the US and cross-sectional profiles of your routes, I didn’t actually test this on my printer. (I was having too much fun zooming and around and making 3d pictures and ran out of time.)

DeLorme says you can use the GPS (Global Positioning System) through a connection with a GPS receiver. You can also download maps and Route Directions to Palm Computing or Windows CE handheld computers. Since I don’t have any of those I wasn’t able to test these capabilities.

Bottom line
I had a great time revisiting sites my brother and I visited several years ago with 3-D TopoQuads. If you need detailed topographic information professionally, I recommend it. However, I can’t recommend this program for most home users due to its cost. For those individuals who drive off-road, go hiking or orienteering several times a year in the same region the monetary investment may be worth it. It’s a great way to learn to interpret geological maps. If you can afford it and can use it, buy this program.

If you don’t need the USGS detail or you need the whole USA, you may want to check out DeLorme Topo USA" 2.0 ($99.95). Their web site says _DeLorme Topo USA 2.0 provides topographic maps of the entire US at one low price. Ideal for hiking, biking, fishing and hunting, DeLorme Topo USA 2.0 shows 20-foot contour intervals  (except for Alaska, which has 100-foot intervals), and includes over 300,000 miles of trails. Preview your backcountry trips with the elevation profile and spectacular 3-D map views. Includes version 1.5 of Solus Pro, which allows you to use the Earthmate GPS Receiver and other receivers with most models of Palm Computing and Windows CE 2.0 handheld and palm-size computers.”

Installing the program
Although I had to install the program three times in order to get it working, I’m highly impressed with the install routine although they could make one improvement. You can choose where to place the program files and where to place the DeLorme Docs. However, they don’t define DeLorme Docs. They’re the five folders created to hold the user’s files. The multiple installs did allow me to place these folders with my other data files for easy backups.

You can choose among three types of installation: Install the 2-D version of 3-D TopoQuads, Install the 3-D version of 3-D TopoQuads with DirectX or Install the 3-D version of 3-D TopoQuads without DirectX. I choose the second option. You can also choose to install product demos on your hard drive. (I didn’t and saved myself 32MB of hard drive space. I ran the demos from my CD-ROM drive and had no problems.)

Once the program started installing, I received several messages about files that didn’t need updating or that were younger than the 3-D TopoQuads program files. In every case the program let me make the choice of which file would go on the system although the dialog box contained recommendations. Many programs automatically install their own files regardless of file dates causing many problems for the user.

During the DirectX portion of the install, I received the following message: 

This is the first time I’ve ever received such a lengthy, informative warning when installing a program. I appreciated the warning and am happy to report that I’ve noticed no problems with my monitor. I haven’t missed the Control Panel Applet either. After that there was a notice about a read-only file whose name I failed to write down. I didn’t let the program overwrite the file. This was a big mistake although I didn’t know it until later. When I ran the program half of its functions weren’t available. Miraculously, the program ran fine for all the functions that were there. During the first install, the Windows automatic restart failed. I had to turn my system off and restart it. When I started the program, everything seemed to be running fine until I tried to do some of the tasks in the tutorials. That’s when I realized that functions were missing.

I had to uninstall the program, which went quickly, although I had to delete several files myself. During the second install, I made note of the read-only file name (c:\windows\system\atl.dll) but I accidentally installed 3-D TopoQuads in the wrong location. The missing functions were still missing. After another round of uninstall and install I had a fully functional 3-D TopoQuads on my system. As a by-product of installing 3-D TopoQuads two other programs I had recently installed finally started working correctly.

System requirements
PC with Intel® Pentium® 120 MHz or higher processor (233 MHz or higher recommended for 3-D map view), 16 MB RAM (32 MB recommended for 3-D map view), 80 MB minimum of available space on a hard disk, Microsoft Windows 95/98 or Windows NT 4.0 with Service Pack 3 or later (3-D map view is not available with Windows NT), Microsoft Windows-compatible Super VGA card, 16-bit color monitor, and mouse. (For CD-ROM version) ISO 9660-compatible CD-ROM drive with 650+ MB read-capacity and Microsoft CD-ROM extensions. (For DVD-ROM version) DVD-ROM drive, Microsoft Windows-compatible printer with 1.5 MB printer memory for 300 dpi laser printing, 6 MB for 600 dpi (color recommended), 3-D graphics accelerator card recommended for 3-D map view 

GPS connection requirements
DeLorme Earthmate", DeLorme GpsTripmate", Garmin 30, 45, GPS II, GPS II Plus, GPS III or GPS 12XL, Magellan", Rockwell, Trimble Scoutmaster" or a fully compatible NMEA receiver 
Connector cable (required for some GPS receivers) 

Palm Computing Connection Requirements
DeLorme's Palm Computing adapter cable (for use with a GPS receiver), Palm OS" version 2.0 or later PalmPilot" Professional, Palm III", Palm IIIx", Palm IIIe", Palm V", Palm VII" or PalmPilot 1000 or 5000 with PalmPilot 1 MB Professional Upgrade 

Windows CE connection requirements
DeLorme's Windows CE adapter cable (for use with a GPS receiver), Windows CE 2.0,
NEC MobilePro" 700 and 750C; Compaq® 810 and 200C; Sharp HC-4000, HC-4100 and HC-4500; Casio Cassiopeia" A-20, E-10 and E-11; HP 360LX and 620LX; Everex Freestyle"; or Philips Velo" 500 and Nino" 300

My System 
I tested 3-D TopoQuads on a Gateway 2000 P5-200 with a Pentium 200 MMX (Intel Pentium processor chip running at 200 MHz with Multi-media Extensions), 64 MB RAM, a primary 6.4 GB hard drive and a secondary 8.4 GB hard drive. The computer also has a Microsoft Intellimouse, an internal Iomega Zip drive, a wave table sound card, a STB Nitro 3D video card with STB Vision 95 and a 33.6 fax/modem. The computer is hooked up to an Epson Stylus Color 500 printer. Its operating system is Windows 95.

Vital statistics
I didn’t have time to look for this program in the local stores. I did visit the Delorme web site. You can buy TopoQuads: Texas West by itself for $99.95 or you can buy the whole Texas bundle for $299.85 on-line. You can buy DVD versions for the same price.

You can view an on-line demo at <http://www.delorme.com/quads/flashdemo/>.

Company Information

DeLorme
Two DeLorme Drive
PO Box 298
Yarmouth, ME 04096, USA
phone: 207-846-7000