GPS for Dummies.pdf - Engineering Surveyor

148Part III: Digital Mapping on Your ComputerSome mapping programs allow you to copy mapdata from a CD to your hard drive. This is usefulbecause then you don’t need to find misplaceddata CDs or swap between CDs to view differentmaps. Unfortunately, many commercialmapping programs don’t give you this option.Skirt this problem with a special type of software:a CD emulator. This program allows youSweet emulationto copy the contents of a CD onto your harddrive to create a virtual CD. This tricks a mapping(or other) program into thinking that youinserted its CD when the data actually alreadyresides on your hard drive. Sweet. Do a Googlesearch for CD emulator to find information aboutvarious products. They tend to be reasonablypriced — under $40.Hard drivesIn these days of cheap, large hard drives, it’s easy to get a little blasé aboutstorage space. Digital mapping can take up quite a lot of hard drive space,though, and you should be aware how much space your map software and itsdata can consume.Software storage needsA mapping program can easily install between 300–500MB on your hard drive,and that doesn’t count all the map data that’s contained on a CD. Dependingon program options and the types of maps to be used, you can easily have upto 1GB of space taken up by a single mapping program. Always check thesoftware hardware requirements to ensure you’ll have enough storage spaceto install the program.If you’re running low on hard drive space, some mapping programs have aminimal install option that leaves some program data on the CD instead ofwriting it to the hard drive by default.Data storage needsMost commercial mapping programs come with map data on CDs, so youshouldn’t need to worry about storage space unless you plan on copying themap data on the CDs to your hard drive.However, if you’re downloading lots of raw data from the Internet to createyour own maps, you definitely need to think about your storage space needs.Map data is not small. For example, a single map data file can easily take up5–10MB of space.