Crankfire Review: Topofusion

Who:	Topofusion v2.50
What:	GPS Mapping Software for Windows
Where:	http://www.topofusion.com/
How Much:	$40.00 USD
Our Rating:	Rated  4.5  out of  5.00
Overall Rating:	[ 2 votes ]

Introduction

Topofusion is a Windows based software that allows you to upload, download, manipulate and analyze GPS data. And not just any GPS data, we are talking GPX data (learn more about GPX here) - the very heart and soul of this web site.

Ok, I admit it, I have an mild infatuation with Topofusion. It can't be helped. I can't entirely put my finger on why, but I can tell you that (strangely enough) the software is like looking in a mirror. Well yeah, that makes no sense, so maybe its more along the lines that if I had the smarts to program something like this, I would aim to make something quite similar: A software jammed full of features that perhaps only I would think amazing and the general public might not fully appreciate. But they should. And if I have to go door to door giving knuggies, wet willies and indian burns to accomplish this so help me I will.

Simply put, Topofusion's features line up near perfectly with mountain biking (and this web site).

Data Import and Export

GPS Connectivity

Topofusion supports the transfer of routes, tracks and waypoints to and from Garmin, 'Older Garmin', and Magellan GPSr's. It works fine, but I feel this feature could be a little smarter. Setup requires you choose the correct baud rate and COM port your GPS is attached to. To be honest though, I find myself using TopoGrafix ExpertGPS (or EasyGPS) for my data transfer for the following reasons:

• Offers the ability to set up data transfer for different GPS Units (Crankfire has 6 loaner units of all different makes and models, so this is key to me).
• Knows default baud settings for most unit and auto configures them.
• Supports most brands of GPSr's.
• Has a test GPS Connection feature.

Topofusion also supports real time map tracking with the standard NMEA output - which I have never tried.

Data Formats

Overall data import and export from and to the multitude of GPS data formats out there is limited to only a select few, namely Delorme Topo USA's and Maptech's Terrain Navigator. And this is ok. Why? Because the GPX format is all we really need now isn't it?

And if you really needed to convert between formats, check out something like GPSBabel.

Map Exports

Topofusion also allows you to export the map you are viewing as SVGs or JPG and BMP images. All well and good, but this is where we find a common downfall among just about every mapping program out there: Exporting most maps at a useful resolution, you will find that most mapped trails will not completely fit within a single screen. So you either are out of luck or you have to make multiple exports and then splice them together with a graphics program or perform some sort of other wizardry.

In other words, a 'Export Selected Area' feature would be amazing.

Mapping

Topofusion excels at mapping, and like many mapping applications out there, it relies on the Terraserver. This is both good and bad.

Bad in the fact that the Topographic Maps the Terraserver provide are not high resolution scans like those found in the National Geographic Topo line of products. To be honest though, they do just fine - you don't really notice this until you really begin to zoom in. Also, I should note that access to the Terraserver is dependent on an internet connection.

The good part of using the Terraserver: it keeps the cost down. A mere $40 gets you Topo Maps along with several flavors of aerial and satellite imagery for the entire United States. Compare that to $100 for a single state for the National Geographic Topo line of products... yikes (not to mention no GPX support? Blasphemy!).

	Topographic Maps: You can choose from USGS Topographic Maps from a 2 meter resolution to a 512 meter resolution. Though the 2 meter resolution is where you will really see the resolution limitation of the Terraserver.
	Aerial Photos: The Terraserver offers aerial photos from a 1 meter resolution out to a 65 meter resolution. In my experiences, these photos are always black and white and can be somewhat dated.
	Combo Maps: One of the more interesting features that makes Topofusion so unique. Using some fancy pants graphic manipulation topofusion will overlay topo maps and aerial photos, thus giving you a whole other take on map viewing. Topofusion also allows you to 'tweak' around the brightness, contrast, sharpness and what they call the 'Combo Value' - which is more or less adjusting the transparency values of the 2 maps.
	3D Maps: Now how cool is that? Topofusion automatically downloads the data via the internet to and creates these 3D models. You can create these 3D Models with any of the map themes. Damn cool.
	Urban Photos: The Urban theme consists of amazingly high resolution color photos, all the way down to a 0.25 meter resolution! Problem is that these are pretty scarce and only really show up in a select few urban areas - and as mountain bikers, we tend to hang out in the woods.
	LandSat: Color satellite imagery from a minimum 16 meter resolution. Not terribly useful for the purposes of mapping mountain bike trails, but cool nonetheless.

Do you have a digital camera? Do you take pictures while you are out riding with your GPS? And did you know that most every digital camera out there embeds into the photo a time stamp of when it was taken? Well, most do. And since each track point your GPS takes is also time stamped, would it make good sense that you can pinpoint almost exactly where each picture was taken along your trip using this information? Ok, I am done with the rhetorical questions (Or am I?).

Topofusion has done this. Under each tracks properties, you can specify a directory where such pictures exist. Topofusion will figure out where each picture resides along your track and creates little camera icons on your map. You can even taken it a step further and have Topofusion export a HTML page containing a topographic and aerial maps of your viewable screen along with image map links for each photo.

Very cool feature for sure, but I have some issues with this feature:

1. As you can see things got a little sloppy in the above example. The 'groupings' of photos are the result of staying in one spot and taking several pictures. Now I can assure you that many of these pictures were taken from the same spot, but they are not perfectly overlayed at the same exact point. In other words, you may notice these groupings 'travel' a little. And if my understanding of how this feature works is correct, there really is not anything that can be done to make this more accurate. To be honest its not a terribly fair compliant, but for purposes of determining exact waypoint locations using this feature can be slightly inaccurate.
   
   
2. As discussed above, the Photofusion export suffers from the same problem as exporting the map window to a graphic file - it is limited to whatever is visible in your map window.
   
   
3. The ability to customize a template for the HTML output would be nice.

Data Manipulation

Basic Editting

Those of you that are familiar with mapping trails with your GPS will certainly appreciate Topofusion's editing features. If find the controls to be both intuative and simple:

1. Select Point: Allows you select a single waypoints or track point allowing you to move it, delete it, or even insert more points next to it.
2. Select Points: Rectangular drag and drop selection tool that allows you select, then move or delete, a group of track points.
3. Draw Track: Using this tool you can create simple routes by clicking from point to point, or you can hold the mouse button down and draw tracks as squiggly as your heart desires.
4. Cut Track: Allows you to delete segments of your tracks and routes.

Trail Networks

Those of you familiar to mountain biking, especially in New England, realize that there are a lot of trails out there - and riding them all in hopes of mapping all of them on a single ride just is not going to happen. Which is where Topofusion's 'Trail Network' feature comes beautifully to the rescue.

Take look at the two maps below. The map on the left shows us 3 different GPS tracks, both travelling on new trails and on previously mapped trails. Notice, especially at the northern points of the screenshot, that the tracks overlap in a messy, far from perfect, fashion. Now how cool would it be if Topofusion could average out these overlayed tracks and combine everything into a single track?

Here's the rub though: Uploading one of these Trail Network GPX files to your GPS might yield some odd results on your GPS units plotter. The trail network it creates has gaps in the track data - and, my GPS units at least, are expecting these tracks to be continuous entities. Therefore they tend to 'connect the dots' from gap to gap, leaving you with big nasty looking straight lines on your GPS display. But admittably, I can not speak for all GPSr's out there, some handle this just fine. I should stress that this is no fault of Topofusion.

There have also been a handful of occasions during the creation of these trail networks that caused Topofusion to crash on me.

"Splining" (Simplify / Interpolate) Tracks

Splining provides the ability to add or remove points to and from your GPS tracks. You wonder how this is useful? Oh it is my friends, it is. For example, here at Crankfire.com we have couple of old beastly Eagle Explorer loaner GPS units. Now many GPSr's, especially newer units, have a bit of intelligence when they are taking track points. For example, my Magellan determines that you have made a significant change in direction and knows to add a track point. The Eagle Explorers on the other hand, simply takes a track point every couple seconds. A brute force approach for sure, and this method tends to create pretty large tracks. Tracks with a lot of unecessary track points in the mix. Guess what you can do? Yeah, that's right, you can Simplify, or remove track points from the track.

On the other hand, lets say your GPS Track ends up really jagged and literal like the image on the left below. We all know trails usually don't take perfect right angle turns, instead they tend to flow. Using this feature you can interpolate points into you track and create nice rounded corners.

Splining: Pre-Interpolated

Splining: Interpolated

Both the simplifying and interpolating features allows you adjustment parameters affording you complete control. Again, this is a great feature, but with great power comes great responsibility. You have be careful playing with these functions - you could easily decrease the overall accuracy of your data.

Elevation Data (Climbing Analysis Dialog)

We will talk more about Topofusion's Climbing Analysis Dialog when we talk about the data analysis features of Topofusion - but since we are talking about data manipulation, we need to touch base on a feature built into the Climbing Analysis Dialog, the "Add DEM Elevation Data to Track" feature.

First, let me set this up. Crankfire owns two Garmin GPS 12 units - and niether of these (possibly due to user ignorance) record elevation data in the track data they record. So we typically cannot create elevation profiles of any rides mapped with these units, but hell, if I am going to suffer pedaling my Heckler uphill all day, I sure as hell want to see this pain graphically represented (just because it's the little things that make it all worth it).

Thusfar, our options are limited to bupkis when it comes to most software out there solving this problem for us. Except for Topofusion. Topofusion allows you to apply DEM (Digital Elevation Models) data from various sources straight into your data. It automatically downloads the data, affords you some 'Custom Algorithm' options to tweak it, and then writes it to your GPX data. In the immortal words of Carl, "Freakin beautiful".

I would guess the original intention of this feature was for creating the elevation profiles for routes and tracks that users may have hand drawn. Just so you sickos can see how much that new ride you just mapped out is going to hurt.

Data Analysis Et Al

Going through all the features and cool stuff Topofusion does, you can't help but think someone over there is quite the mathematician.

Ok, I am not the most physically fit chap. I have never really embarked upon any sort of scientifically developed training regiment, nor have I even really tracked my efforts. But I have to admit, if I was into this sort of thing, I would probably really dig Topofusion.

Statistics

Take a look at the screenshot to the right. This is a ride we did in Nepaug State Forest overlayed on LandSat photos. You can see the rainbow colored track to the right - the different colors illustrate elevation Very cool. Now look to the right of the track, what's this you wonder? I will tell you, stats baby, and in this case interactive stats. Specifically, as you mouseover (or click) on the elevation profile, the little biker dude on the map moves around and shows you where you are on the track. You can also use the 'Playback Mode' and sit back and watch the little biker guy ride your ride, making it look rather easily I might add. Damn that biker guy! And as the this little guy moves around, you will notice that the stats update depending where you are on the track - we are talking distance, time, speed, total climbing, total descent, elevation and grade.

Lap Analysis

Topofusion will take any specific ride and break it up into 'laps' - or better put, segments and will provide stats for each of these segments. You can have Topofusion segment your rides by distance or time. You can also export this data to excel. Again, I am certainly not one that likes to comb over statistics telling me how out of shape it am, but I would imagine people into this could really put this to good use.

The TopoFusion Logbook

Using your GPS data, Topofusion can create a calendar that automatically keeps track of your rides, analyzes them, and allows you to see all sorts of neat bits of information about each ride, and can even provide aggregrated data of all rides between specified date ranges. For illistrative purposes, I grabbed 3 GPX files of rides I took during July of last year, opened them up in Topofusion and clicked on the "Add all open files to log". Topofusion determined the dates of these rides, added them to the calendar you see to the left, and did some more statistical work. Notice the text on the bottom - this is ride data from the ride I took July 2nd. Read it closely. Thats a pretty kickass summary of what the ride entailed. Furthermore, of most interest here is the "Difficulty Index" and the "Effort Index". In a nutshell, Topofusion creates these two ranks by using the distance, elevation change, 'steepness' and the overall speed of a specific ride. Its a rather interesting concept that I am not going to recreate the wheel with here, the theory and math are best explained by the Topofusion people themselves.

Conclusion

Ok, this review became much longer than I originally anticipated. So between being out of features to comb over and being pretty exhausted, let's wrap it up.

The Good

• Native support for the GPX data format.
• Mapping features are second to none - especially for the purposes of this web site and mountain biking in general.
• Strong track editting and management features.
• Data analysis ahoy.
• Abundant 'Configurability' and 'Tweakability'.

The Questionable

• Navigating the features of Topofusion does not always seem incredibly intuative. I hesitate to chalk this up as a bad thing because I can not think of any other ways that could make it better. Perhaps its as intuative as can be?
• Relies on the Terraserver.

The Bad

• Exporting Maps: Screen exports or through the Photofusion feature. I would love to see some sort 'set export area' feature allowing users to choose the map area to export.
• GPS connectivity: Not terribly robust and only supports Garmin and Magellan GPS for data transfer.
• Overall 'Undo' functionality is lacking.
• Software is buggy from time to time for me (crashes).

In summary, I love this program and highly recommend it. Running a website based on mapping trails through collecting GPS data - with its trail network, splining and track editing features, Topofusion has no equivalent.