PLEASE NOTE: Due to lack of critical mass, the option to subscribe to Digital Globe will be disabled on or before Jan 13, 2015.
We thank those few who did subscribe for supporting the program. They will be able to use it for a year after their subscription date but not renew.
For one alternative, you might see this:
http://support.crittermap.com/entries/21926185-Custom-Map-Sources
=======================
A Digital Globe subscription is now available. It has a seven day trial.
Preview at
http://gpstopomaps.com/digitalglobe/
This link will give you a better idea of how it covers your country:
http://www.digitalglobe.com/coverage-maps#coverage-maps
You will see a new choice called Digital Globe under Worldwide.
To purchase it, you go to Purchasing Addons. There is a seven day trial available when you push Buy.
Please note:
In the first weekend, there were several times where it was showing no map coverage or blank where it should have coverage. This is both in the website and in the app.
I worked with the staff at Digital Globe to make sure we have enough bandwidth and this will work for us at scale. They recommend a daily limit of 1 Gig (or less) per person per day.
The daily limits are not enforced by Backcountry Navigator software as of yet, but they will need to be to avoid one person using up the bandwidth for everyone.
Since the first weekend, things have been much more stable and we are operating within our limits.
Those who are using it, let me know how it is going for you in the comments below.
Comments
37 comments
How do you access the seven day trial?
Matt, if you go to Menu->Purchasing Addons, you can choose Digital Globe. A trial is on of the options when you choose Buy.
I am following up with Digital Globe to see if this is a permanent solution.
Thanks, I'll give it a try later.
Another question, does the subscription give us access to Digital Globe outside of BackCountry Navigator or is it specific to BCNav?
It is specific to BCN.
Digital Globe appears to be more stable this week. We tend to be a bunch of bandwidth hogs, and that is causing them some trouble.
I have been following up with Digital Globe. We have a total of 40 Gig bandwidth per day.
So far they are suggesting a limit of 1 Gigabyte per person per day to keep us under that limit, assuming not everyone is
This is not enforced by BCN (yet), but please do limit yourself to less than one gig of downloads per day.
Make a note of whether this will change your enjoyment of this subscription, because if no one likes having restrictions on this, we may not be able to afford to offer this to users.
I signed up and paid, and so far it's worked like a charm. Amazing pictures - I can make out the Celtic spiral garden in by back yard.
It estimates size when you are doing a download. I estimated one square mile at 25 Meg, 40 square miles at a gig, but could be different.
It does cache areas as you browse, which doesn't usually take as much bandwidth.
I will give refunds in the event we have to nix it.
I have both Digital Globe and AccuTerra. I like being able to flip flop from one to the other and show my track on both. AccuT gives the major
roads and marked trails and Dig Globe shows all the fine unmarked stuff. Also AccuT doesn't have alot of cluter and has a bright background which is easy
to see outdoors.Both working fine for me.
Bob
Played around with the online demo, and just signed up via the trial subscription. Glad to see the subscription is smoother to zoom in than the demo. Last week the online demo would zoom to a certain level then give me blank screen if I tried to zoom in further. Just checked the online demo again, and it seems like that's improved this week as well, though maybe their just not getting slammed this week. I love the resolution of the imagery (though I do wish it had a few more layers to zoom in on).
I see myself only downloading a few times a year, and likely a few square miles of a few areas each time, but that's just me. I have no idea how often other people would download imagery, or how large an area they would download. I guess if Digital Globe sets a maximum, what would happen if we collectively went over the maximum? Would it be shut down until the next day, would the throughput be throttled back, would there be a financial fine to BN?
Would you have to set a limit to the number of subscribers, or would Digital Globe open up another block of 40GB/day if we ended up over a certain number of subscribers?
I know you don't have the answers to these questions, I'm just trying to stimulate some discussion here. I appreciate you putting in the effort to make this happen even if you did get blindsided by Digital Globe.
From a purely personal perspective, I would just need to know that I would be able to download what I wanted, when I wanted. I think that would apply to everyone. That said, I bet that 10% of subscribers would use 90% of the available bandwidth.
Herb
> if Digital Globe sets a maximum, what would happen if we collectively went over the maximum? Would it be shut down until the next day,
Yes, for everybody. It would then show blank or "No Map Coverage". That's what you saw last week.
>Would you have to set a limit to the number of subscribers, or would Digital Globe open up another block of 40GB/day if we ended up over a certain number of subscribers?
I think we would have to get over 2000 to get up to their next tier. I'm only expecting 1000 the first year.
>I bet that 10% of subscribers would use 90% of the available bandwidth.
Yes.
Thanks for your openness - I wish some other outfits were as solicitous of their customers opinions.
William
I very much agree with William's comment about averaging usage over some period of time if possible. As a group, subscribers will probably also have higher usage in the Spring and Summer but I could be wrong. I'm just trying to figure out what the odds of getting shut out of downloading might be with 1000 subscribers sharing 40GB/day (not that everyone would be downloading on any given day).
Also, if a subscriber downloads a particular grid, but later needs to move that download off their device to free up some memory, can it be offloaded to a memory card or laptop, and then later retrieved, rather than having that user delete the grid and then only to download it a second time? That might help reduce the amount of required bandwidth.
Herb
As a note, we are not really using close to maximum on their data. I did get a report from them that suggested that we initially had a cap of 2 GB, which is way too low.
The only days we come remotely close are Friday's and Saturdays, and we are only using 10 out of 40. Other days we use a whole lot less.
So for best availability, it would be easiest to use it Monday through Thursday night.
I have been trying to evaluate the Digital Globe imagery and have run into several issues. To see what the aerial imagery of my area of interest looks like, I have been using this site: http://gpstopomaps.com/digitalglobe/#mappage. The initial screen is a satellite image of much of North America. After zooming into the area I'm interested in, the images appear to be different from what is called "US Topo Aerial Imagery" on Maps - Layers page. The imagery shown on the initial screen was taken when there is was no foliage. The US Topo Aerial Imagery, which also seems to be the imagery downloaded from Backcountry Navigator, what taken with full foliage, which for my purposes is much less useful. In my part of the country, the foliage can completely obscure the landmarks.
Can anyone confirm that the downloadable imagery is different from what is shown on http://gpstopomaps.com/digitalglobe/#mappage?
Don
The downloadable Digital Globe that you could access with a subscription is the same as http://gpstopomaps.com/digitalglobe/#mappage Unless you push the Maps button on that webpage and choose something else. It is missing a button to change back now - you'd have to refresh.
It is different from US Topo Aerial Imagery, although there could be similarities. US Topo Aerial Imagery and Digital Globe are in different places in the menu in the application as well.
"US Topo Aerial Imagery and Digital Globe are in different places in the menu in the application as well."
Where on the BCN menu do I find the Digital Globe http://gpstopomaps.com/digitalglobe/#mappage map? I signed up for a subscription, and thought I was downloading from Digital Globe, but ended up, again, with the US Topo Aerial Imagery which is not what I'm interested in.
Not sure what happened to the formatting of my post above.
Herb
Thanks, Herb.
Under Choose Map Source> Worldwide> I see only Worldwide Open Street6 Map - MapQuest; Worldwide Topo Open Cyle Map and NASA Landsat. - no Digital Globe. I also looked under USA Imagery and no Digital Globe there.
I have received a receipt from Google Play, so presumably my subscription has gone through. Do I need to do something to active BCN on my mobile device?
Don
My Digital Globe is right underneath NASA Landsat.
On what I think is called the 'Layers' button on top of the app screen, is your 'Internet Loading Enabled' box checked?
You need to update your app to at least 5.2.6. Did you get it from Amazon or something? If so, contact me via ticket.
I was running Ver. 5.2.2. I just upgraded to Ver, 5.2.6.
Now I can see Digital Globe and the imagery looks different - those pesky leaves appear to be gone!
Thanks, Nathan and Herb, for your help.
Don
I ran into an unexpected result today. I was looking at a part of Japan at a zoom level of 10 and 11. I downloaded about 30 Meg of data and then began another download which measured about 250 Meg. Deciding I did not want this download I canceled it. I began a different download at a different maximum zoom level which was estimated to be about 380 Meg. I canceled this also. I then evaluated another download before deciding what I actually wished to download. I was denied the download for allegedly exceeding my allowable 1 Gig limit although I had only downloaded 38 Meg of data. I had done minimal browsing, primarily selecting overall areas from zoom levels 10 or 11. If this is the way it works it appears I would be well advised to go ahead and download any area I evaluate as I am going to have its size charged against my allotment anyway.
That's not what I would expect, Gary, but please follow up with us via ticket.
through your software...I select a global maps... interesting thing is this morning it started working again!
Buy Instagram Followers Cheap
What is the maximum resolution offered? Looking at the sample, it looks like ~30m.
What sample do you mean that is looking like ~30m?
From the preview at http://gpstopomaps.com/digitalglobe/
Article is closed for comments.