Making your own maps

[Team Alto]

I downloaded a program called Oziexplorer and OziMC from a guy down under, http://www.powerup.com.au/~lornew/ozimc.html

In a nutshell it lets you take any map - scan it in - then you have to trace the info you what to sent to your GPS - then start Mapcreate and upload it to your gps. It only works with Eagle and Lowrance gps units that use mapcreate to upload maps, but I havn't tried a Lowrance gps that has the MMC cards. I'm in the progress of making a contour map of North Twin Lake in Vilis county Wisconsin for the walleye opener, I just got done with the contour lines and started on the depth numbers and lables.

I figured that it may take years for Navionics to get around to make maps for a lot of smaller lakes so I'll make my own. I scanned a hot spot map in and used it as a background to trace the contours, thats what takes the most time plus I'm still learning how to use the program so the next one (Pine Falls, Manatoba) will go faster.

Bob

[Mike Michalak]

I always wondered when this would come up. The technology is a wonderful thing but keep one thing in mind. Scanning a DNR or similar "public domain" map is one thing. But, when a map such as Fishing Hot Spots is used, these are protected by federal copyright law and cannot be duplicated in such a manner without specific permission and a signed document on file.

Navionics, Garmin, Topo-Log and a number of other companies we deal with have such rights. In fact, the arrangements are all relatively new. Within a short time there will be digital map data available for hundreds of lakes and hopefully an industry standard to handle such information, no matter what brand of GPS or mapping software.

I strongly caution anglers to be careful here because we do watch the market and follow-up on cases where our trademark and/or copyright has been abused. It's the law and we work hard to protect what's taken more than 25 years to build.

I'm hosting a chat here on WC this week and will be glad to go over things further. Or, I can be contacted directly via email. Thanks for understanding.

Mike Michalak
President
Fishing Hot Spots, Inc.

[curt quesnell]

hi mike,

i have a question for you. what if i buy the hot spot map
i scan into my computer?

what "for my own use" things can i do with my map?


i guess that is 2 questions.

i love hot spot maps and own several of them

thanks in advance

curt quesnell

[Backwater Eddy]

Sounds like a NAPSTER scenario to me?

If you buy the maps or software do you have the right to print copy's or modify the originals? Interesting question?

Backwater Eddy..........><,,>

[Fish-on]

I too follow closely the copyrights of my fishing maps. Mosty people are simply naieve about map copyright laws. I once had a guy at a sportshow come up to me and tell me about how he was copying pages out of my Fishing Atlas, laminating them and selling them to his buddies! He had know idea how much trouble he could get in, until he received a letter from my attorney explaining that he should collect those maps he made and destroy them or face legal charges.

Like the good folks at FHS, I don't want to be a paranoid jerk about the maps I produce, but I have put a lot of effort into compiling the info and I cherich my right to guard it carefully.

Most maps produced by state DNRs are public domain because they were produced with public funds. But maps produced or altered by private companies can be copyrighted and those copyrights are easily defendable. Be careful what you copy.

Bernie Barringer
Fishing Atlas Co.
www.fishingatlas.com

[curt quesnell]

hi bernie.

can i copy a map of yours that i have purchase and laminate
it for my self?

can i make a copy of the same map that i have purchased, laminate
it and give it to my fishin buddy at no charge?

curt quesnell
(thanks man)

[Fish-on]

You are walking a very thin line there. First I would doubt if anyone would go to the trouble to chase you down and prosecute you for making copies that you would use yourself. I know a couple people that tore a few pages out of my book and laminated those pages for their own use and that's perfectly okay. As far as making copies for your buddies, that would be a violation of copyright laws, but I would say that it would be pretty hard to chase that down and run it through the courts and most companies wouldn't bother unless a person was being beligerent about it. Then maybe a company might make an example out of them.

Take a look at it from my perspective. My first Iowa Fishing Atlas that I put out in 1993 cost me about $20,000 to print, plus almost a year of travelling and legwork, interviews of nearly 200 biologists, fishing guides, bait shop owners, and local experts. You can understand why I would really prefer that all your buddies just buy their own book! Really that's what this is all about, rewarding the guy for his work instead of trying to save a buck at their expense.

Bernie

[curt quesnell]

thanks for the come back bernie.



the laws concerning this stuff were written before all this
new technology came along. the courts will kick this around
for a hundred years, it will come down to our lawmakers to
update existing laws to cover these loopholes, if they will
decide to get involved.


curt quesnell

[ANXIOUS]

DID YOU KNOW YOU CAN MAKE YOUR OWN MAP WITH YOUR SONAR RECORDINGS? THATS WHAT A GAL FROM LOWRANCE TOLD ME! YOU UTILIZE THIS NEW PING FEATURE SOMEHOW TO MAP THE BOTTOM OF YOUR FAV LAKE. THEN SOME HOW WITH YOUR GPS AND THE SONARGRAPH RECORDINGS YOU CAN MAKE AN ACTUAL CONTOUR MAP OF YOUR OWN! AND IF YOU ALREADY HAVE A MAP WHY WOULD YOU WANT TO GO TO ALL THE TROUBLE TO SCAN AND TRACE? SO YOU CAN HAVE IT ON MMC AND BRING IT UP ON SCREEN? I THINK THEY ARE JUST BEGINNING TO SCRATCH THE SURFACE AS TO WHAT WE CAN DO WITH THESE NEW UNITS. A LOT OF PEOPLE ARE VERY DISGRUNTLED, BUT REALLY I THINK MAYBE IN SOME CASES IT'S JUST A PROBLEM OF BEDROCK MEETS THE JETSONS!!!

[Mike Michalak]

All good questions guys, but the fact is, you may buy the product but you don't have the right to copy it.

Is this Napsterish? Not really. We're not getting royalties from the sales of the materials. We get one shot at it. Buy a map, period. We're a small company despite our distribution and if copies are made we're losing business, Garmin, Navionics and our other digital partners are losing business. Bottom line, we pay a lot of money to protect our copyright and protect it we will.

When it comes to personal use, if you call and ask me, on a case-by-case basis we can grant permission. And believe me, it happens more than I like to admit. Depending on the use, we do grant that permission. We certainly embrace the technology and applaud you guys for recognizing the importance of maps in the sport we all choose to enjoy. We also need to stay in business and copying federally protected products isn't a way to do it.

Please keep all this in mind. It is serious stuff. We do appreciate all of your support and will continue to provide you the finest maps and fishing information available.

See ya Wednesday night on the chat!

Mike Michalak
FHS

[chadk66]

Mike,
do you guys make a map for lake Sakakawea in ND. If you do I haven't been able to find one. When I lived in Minnesota I bought your maps all the time and loved em. Hope you have one for up here.
chad

[rngrfshm]

Hi Anxious,

I just checked out the ozi link above and there they have the program that you where talking about, It is called ozisounder and ozimovingmap. Go to the section toward the middle of the page. http://www.powerup.com.au/~lornew/oziexp.html#1

There you will see a visual basic program. Looks easy to use as I am looking at mapping out some of my area lakes for which there is no map for. Will try this and see what happens with my GPS.

Good Mapping.

[ANXIOUS]

WELL I DIDNT KNOW THERE WAS ACTUALLY A PROGRAM FOR THIS! THOUGH I DID GO TO THE WEBSITE THE FIRST GENTLEMAN MENTIONED,I DIDNT HAVE TIME TO CHECK IT OUT SO I JUST PUT IT TO MY FVORITE FAV'S. I THINK A GUY COULD SPEND A LOT OF TIME DOING THIS,AND I DONT HAVE MUCH TIME TO FISH REALLY! I JUST THOUGHT IT WAS A VERY NEAT OPTION AND THAT I WOULD MENTION IT. IT'S FUNNY YOU'RE THE ONLY GUY THAT CAUGHT ON TO WHAT I WAS SAYING! I POSTED ANOTHER COMMENT ABOUT EMAILING NAVIONICS AND LOBBYING FOR MORE HOTMAPS FOR THE NEW LCX15 MMC'S AND DIDNT GET ANY RESPONSE THERE,I THINK THESE MAPS ARE WAY COOL AND CANT WAIT TO USE IT. I WANTED TO GO FISHIN TODAY AND LAST NIGHT WHEN I MENTIONED IT TO THE WIFE SHE SAID "I FORGOT TO GET THE BOAT TABS"..... GOT MY WORK DONE AND CANT GO FISHIN IN THE BOAT,NEVER BEEN MUCH FOR STANDING ON SHORE!

[Mike Michalak]

Not yet, Chad.

We are heading back up north and into Dakota country in the near future so keep an eye on the store shelves or our Website for info. Thanks.

Mike
FHS

[anxious]

hey mike, go to bed it's late!

[eco angler]

Cheap way is to use DNR maps.

For Wisconsin, go to
http://www.dnr.state.wi.us/org/water/fhp/lakes/lakemap/lkmaps_a.htm
for maps of lake bottoms.

Then use OZI if you like, or print a copy of your favorite lake.

Most underutilized resource on the web for WI anglers.
FREE.

[anxious]

dnr maps are vague at best. not very much detail! and as far as the ozi program goes,whats up with the warning about the damage it can do to your gps? if you read down far enough about the system use it warns you about file problems and even worse,the unknown damage it can do to your gps unit!

[eco angler]

None of the underwater maps have excellent detail. Maps with Hot Spots have known missing bars, humps and holes, so what.

Point is why pay big $ when you can have great (not greatest) detail for hundreds of lake bottoms for free.

Creat your own modifications and annotations. That is part of the fun..doing it yourself, not ala plastic experts. JMHO

[rngrfshm]

Hi Mike,

Let us all know when you get lake Sakakawea done here in ND. What other lakes do you plan on mapping out up here in ND?

rngrfshm@hotmail.com

[Glenn_S]

I can't believe this! You guys spend hundreds, if not thousands on fishing gear, but won't spend a lousy $20 bucks for a decent map book? You would rather copy someone elses work, and take advantage of their hard work and money outlay, so your buddy can also save his $20....

These guys have a LOT invested in their products, but if they keep having people steal their product, pretty soon no one will bother printing these. Then where will we be? Relying on old maps from the DNR, with little or no relevent/current information.

Me? I have a whole collection or Mikes map books, and I don't have a problem paying the price.

Glenn

[Team Alto]

Well you can take my name off the FBI's most wanted list, I talked to Mike Michalak at Fishing Hot Spots and he gave me permission to use his map for my project. Thank you Mike.

The warnings about doing damage to your gps is probable a liability disclaimer but anything is possible. I have used it with a Eagle Accumap 12 with no problem, but this is my old gps and I wouldn't lose any sleep if it fries.

The quality of the final gps map depends on the amount of time you put into making it. On the map i'm making, the contour lines alone took over 4000 points (in vector graphics you can't make a curve you have to make a series of short straight lines) thats 4000 mouse clicks. From what I have seen using Oziexplorer is that it will never compare to Navionics maps because you don't have full control over all the mapping features. The gps map has 7 layers of graphics, an object on layer 7 would show up when your zoom out quit far and an object on layer 1 shows up at about a zoom of .4 miles. When I put contour line in I only have layer 5 to work with, so the lake will look overcrowded or black with line when zoomed out but gets better as you zoom in. Text labeling is great you have full range of layers to pick from. I might be wrong since I'm still learning the program.

I look at this way, its better than no back ground map and I like the challenge. If Navionics comes out with a map of a lake that I fish I would be one of the first to buy one. I have 5 of theirs already.

Bob

[Firetiger(MN)]

Maybe I'm missing something, but I have yet to find that anything Navionics offers to be worthwhile to me. They do not have even a small percentage of lakes in MN, so I guess I don't see what everybody get out of them.

I wish someone would come out with an underwater topo of MN lakes for GPS units...I can't believe it's been this long. The sad thing is you look at 3 different maps for the same lake and they are completely different (structure, shoreline, etc.).

[Mike Michalak]

Firetiger(MN)...

Keep in mind, this is all new technology and like anything new, the learning curve is huge. They (Navionics) are sometimes dealing with huge digital files they have to compact into some kind of usable form that will end up in an 8 meg cartridge.

To get their feet wet, so to speak, some of the easiest lakes to do were done first to work through any potential problems. That completed, you're now seeing more and more waters coming available. It's a walk before you run scenario and it's done with you guys in mind, to make sure what they offer is (a)going to work and (b)be the best available waters.

As for the differences you point out in information, some of that has to do with the source materials. A lot of times it's old stuff that doesn't get verified. FHS verifies structure, shoreline integrity, fishing areas and the like before we go to print. We fish these waters too, so we want the best info we can get our hands on. We are not the "plastic experts" eco angler accuses us of being.

Hope this addresses your concerns, thanks!

Mike M
FHS

[FJH1]

What? If I purchase a Hot Spots map I'm not allowed to scan it into this program and then download it into my mapping unit for my own personal use? Mike are you sure about your statement?

I understand that there would definately be a problem if someone were to take your map, scan it into a mapping program and then sell it. This would be illegal under a copyright infringement. However, unless I'm really mistaken, there should be no legal problem with me scanning a Hot Spots map into this program and then utilizing it for my own personal use. Kind of like recording a cd (that I purchased) for my listening pleasure in my car with only a tape player.

I hope that you can clarify this. If I'm incorrect in my statement I would like an education.

Best Regards,

FJH

[Dennis]

Hi Mike

When are you guys going to make maps of the Mississippi
river? The ones I have on the Iowa side are getting old,
need new ones!!! Dennis

[anxious]

it's not about not buying the ##### maps! if you would read a little closer, what everybody is trying to do is utilize the technology we have spent so much for by tracing the maps that have not yet been put to mmc format so that we can view them on our mpc(marine personal computers)!!! seems that there are only a handful of maps we can put to these new fangled toys! we just want to use our locators the way they were intended to be used.

[anxious]

and like i said b4, they (navionics) cant read your ##### mind! i wrote to LMACINNES@NAVIONICS.COM after i had visited the fishing hot spots website and picked out the codes for the lakes that i would like to see made into hotmaps,and emailed the codes to LIZ@navionics. they really are nice people but since this is all so new we need to let people know what we want,not just sit around and ##### about it!

[Mike Michalak]

One reason is what just happened on the river! We pulled many of the maps after the flooding of '93 rearranged everything. We are going to return to it after things settle down.

Mike M
FHS

[eco angler]

curious why sonar/gps manufacturers have not produced an accessory that would port external memory pack of 128K ram to their units so that better maps could be exported from PC to memory base of unit.

seems as though manufacturers are always 2 years behind curve of what is possible and what anglers really want.

good PC's are less than 700, so margins must exist for better nav tools that can accept maps with greater mem. demands.

[Mike Michalak]

You're right eco...

The biggest problem with this new technology is summed up in one word, compression. This is, as stated before, all new stuff. Posts such as these do not go unnoticed by manufacturers. You guys calling and telling us what you want is what helps bring these products to market.

The electronics industry has made huge strides in offering maps and associated software available to anglers in the last year alone. Next year will be even bigger. Look at the guys who are getting into all this now too...Lowrance, Garmin, Raytheon, Navionics, C-Maps, etc. This isn't small potatos. They know there are millions of licensed anglers out there with boats and that maps are important. Keep on 'em, and us to improve and you'll see results.

Speaking of results, I see the Cobra/Lowrance merger is now officially off. Too bad, it would've been a nice mix.

Mike Michalak
President
Fishing Hot Spots, Inc.