Description:
Look up obscure country lanes, view 3-D topographical maps of national landmarks like the Hoover Dam or Mount Saint Helen's, and navigate the complicated roadways of America's biggest cities with Topo USA 4.0, a seven CD-set that puts the whole country at your fingertips. Designed to be compatible with GPS devices and handheld computers like the PalmPilot, Topo USA 4.0 can work out routes for road trips, locate obscure locales within the U.S., and even find hiking trails before you embark on a walking tour. For those with fewer gadgets, the program is still useful--you can build your own maps, customize them to an extraordinary degree, and print them out for trips and outings. It takes a bit of work to learn the ropes with Topo USA 4.0, and some of its GPS features are available only as extras from the software manufacturer, Delorme. With a bit of practice, however, users will find the program runs smoothly and without glitches, providing topographical and two-dimensional maps of every portion of the United States, at a high level of detail. Add to this the ability to filter out any information that isn't of interest, and the updates to the map database that are available on the Web, and the result is a powerful interactive atlas, a thoroughly useful guide for getting around the USA. --Alyx Dellamonica
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