GPS for Dummies.pdf - Engineering Surveyor

Chapter 8: Digital Mapping Hardware Considerations151large format printers are important for a professional mapmaker, but anyprinter that can output the map in a readable fashion is fine for the averagecomputer user. However, some printers are more suited for digital mappingthan others. Color printers: Black-and-white printers are perfectly suitable for printingmaps, but color output is usually easier to read and understand,especially when using topographic maps. A colored map produced on acheap inkjet printer might be more useful than a crisp black-and-whitemap that came from an expensive laser printer. When cartographersmake maps, they design them to be either black and white or color.Important information can be lost when a map program translates acolor map into the inherent shades of gray in black and white. Resolution: The higher the print resolution in dots per inch (dpi), thebetter the map will appear; especially for maps that show a lot of detail.Printers designed for printing digital photos work quite well in representingtopographic and other detailed maps. Print speed: Some printers are faster than others, and a faster printermeans you get to see and use your printed map quicker. Printers arerated in pages per minute (ppm), which is the number of pages that canbe printed in a minute. When you’re comparing page per minute ratings,be sure you look at the numbers for printing graphics instead of at text. Cost per page: If you’re frequently printing maps, it makes good economicsense to use a printer with a reasonable cost-per-page rating (theestimated cost to print a single page, considering paper and ink). Costper-pagerates vary considerably between printers and are usually mentionedin magazine and online reviews.Communication CapabilitiesIf you want your GPS receiver to be able to talk to your map software or ifyou plan on accessing the Internet to use Web map sites or to download mapdata, your PC needs to have some basic communication capabilities. Take aquick look here at communications ports and Internet connectivity.Communication portsYou can connect most GPS receivers to your computer through the computer’sserial port. (I discuss ports and connectivity thoroughly in Chapter 9.) If youwant to download data from a GPS receiver to use with a digital map or uploadmaps and data to a GPS receiver, your computer needs a serial port and aspecial cable to connect the two devices. (Note: Some GPS receivers use afaster USB connector to interface with a computer.)