More changes (hopefully improvements) to the maps on the site.  I've re-done all the map tiles for the overlay map - hopefully they are lined up a bit better than the old tiles were.  The old maps were geo-referenced in about 4 spots - the new ones were geo-referenced in about 20 different areas.  For those who don't know, geo-referencing is the task of mapping a scanned image to coordinates on the ground so that it can be used in mapping software.  Without those references, the software has no idea what territory the map covers. 

In looking at the new tiles, they look like they line up better to newer maps, although some of them are a little shy on detail, so it is hard to know for sure.  Hopefully they are a little more useful.   I also added a new overlay map from 1958, and some USGS quads from 1985ish (which still show some old roads that don't show up on other maps).  There are now 11 different options for historical overlay maps (1916, 1931, 1935, 1938, 1946, 1952, 1958, 1963, 1966, 1972, 1985).

The last change was one that was required by the hosting provider.  I had to migrate all the map data and tiles from one datacenter to another, which required a few changes to several pages and links.  I have tried to catch broken links from the changes, but it is possible I missed something.  If you see anything odd on any of the pages (404 or page not found errors, etc), please send an email to webmaster@trailadvocate.org.

I think this finishes up all the mapping changes on the site for now.

I've made a few more enhancements to the map viewer page.  Mostly they are things that I used from the gmap4 website, so I found them useful.  I experimented with different print options, and ended up just using the browser print function, with the addition of a title section that you can add.  CalTopo is still the king when you want a really nice printed map.  I also added the ability to add either freehand or poly (segmented) lines to a map.  You can't save them permanently, but it is sometimes nice to annotate on a map to print it (like a planned route or something).

As always if you find anything that seems odd, or if there are features you would find useful, please send an please send an email to webmaster@trailadvocate.org. 

I made a few last tweaks to the map viewer pages.  I removed the freehand line drawing (it seemed kind of difficult to use correctly and I couldn't get it to work the way I wanted it to) and added the ability to download drawn tracks and cleaned up a few other features and optimizations.  At this point these pages have all the functionality I was thinking of or used on the gmap4 pages, so I'm considering them "done" unless I find issues or people have requests for new functionality.