I'm a huge fan of http://historicalmaps.arcgis.com/usgs/ for finding USGS maps - it's a simple, visual browser to find all available years + scale levels for any location.
Printable 1:24000 topographic maps for the entire US
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Re: Printable 1:24000 topographic maps for the entire US
#22I'm a map junkie; I grew up in the UK, where we have the Ordnance Survey, who makes some of the best maps in the world. At school we actually got lessons in mapreading and analysis. As a result, whenever I go to another country the first thing I do is to try and find some decent maps of the area. With, you know, contours on them. It can be surprisingly hard. I was so, so glad to find this.
Interested in maps from Switzerland? They are of very high quality as well:
There are a lot of different overlays as well as older versions available. I especially recommend the 'Dufour Map' and the 'Siegfried Map' from the 19th century, the earliest official maps of the country.
Re: Printable 1:24000 topographic maps for the entire US
#23My friend uses these open maps to make really cool 3D topo maps. If anyone's interested this is it: http://lithosproject.com
Re: Printable 1:24000 topographic maps for the entire US
#24Wow, the map for my area is seriously outdated. My town looks about like it did when I was a kid in the 1980s. It's easy to tell because my town has consistently grown since then from around 20k population to 150k population, and a lot of things that were built up in the late 80s aren't yet on that map.
It's quite fascinating to get a refresher of what it looked like in the past.
It's a nice concept. I like being able to see this stuff.
Re: Printable 1:24000 topographic maps for the entire US
#25For some reason, I read the title as being 3D printable maps for the entire US. That'll eventually come, I guess.
Already has! I made Terrain2STL [0] a couple years ago to do just that. It converts STRM topo data to the STL format. [0] - http://jthatch.com/Terrain2STL/
Nice. Could you 3D print the entire earth as a globe? :)
Re: Printable 1:24000 topographic maps for the entire US
#26Is there any way to download bulk data sets for gross height data for the USA?
I'd love to pair that up with OSM to make a few nice 3D maps.
Re: Printable 1:24000 topographic maps for the entire US
#27Is there any way to download bulk data sets for gross height data for the USA? I'd love to pair that up with OSM to make a few nice 3D maps.
Re: Printable 1:24000 topographic maps for the entire US
#28The US National Map has better, more recent topos. These GeoPDFs allow turning on/off layers (e.g., satellite image, PLSS grid lines, etc). You can also download historic topos. http://nationalmap.gov/ustopo/
That used to be at "seamless.usgs.gov". The USGS was proud that they'd finally aligned their topos into one seamless map.
Re: Printable 1:24000 topographic maps for the entire US
#29This is cool, thanks to OP for submitting this. In the past I have ordered topographic maps from Raven Maps and they really are excellent. Not cheap, but you can get plain paper suitable for framing or laminated if you want to write on them with whiteboard markers. I have a giant one of the USA, plus a few of states I've lived in. No affiliation with the company except as a customer. http://www.ravenmaps.com/
If you want USGS topos on paper, the USGS sells them directly.[1] The USGS retail map store in Menlo Park, CA sells only California maps now.
Re: Printable 1:24000 topographic maps for the entire US
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
Already has! I made Terrain2STL [0] a couple years ago to do just that. It converts STRM topo data to the STL format. [0] - http://jthatch.com/Terrain2STL/
Nice. Could you 3D print the entire earth as a globe? :)
As noahnoahnoah's comment alludes to, there is kind of a problem with elevation differences on Earth being small. For example, the vertical distance from sea level to the summit of Mt. Everest is only 0.1% of the Earth's radius.
If you made a globe with a 1 foot diameter, Mt. Everest should then be on about 0.2 millimeters above the surface (if you choose to represent sea level as the surface).
Edit: this problem is less dramatic if you make either models either of local regions, or extremely large models (because relative to the size of a region like the Bay Area, the highest elevations in the region are fairly high).