Introduction

These pages are meant to provide a brief overview of Basic Topography using freely available tools such as Google Earth and USGS topographical maps. This project was done for two classes in the fall semester of 2007 at Concordia University Wisconsin. The first was Earth Science with Dr. Mary Korte and the second was Advanced Multimedia Production with Dr. Mark Wolf. Please send questions to this address and thank you for viewing it. Before continuing, read below.

Read this before continuing

When I created this project, it was my intention to make it as easy to use and understandable as possible, but with that being said, there are many variables involved that could hamper a good viewing experience.

Requirements

Google Earth requires a fairly fast internet connection to work well (read not dial-up). Please check to make sure you meet the minimum system requirements before proceeding. You will need to download and install Google Earth from here. Also, all video is encoded as Flash. Please install the newest version of Flash from here before continuing or you may not be able to view all of the nessecary information.

Best User Experience

You experience of this project will vary depending on your computer hardware. The Google Earth files that I have provided have large topographic images contained inside them and may slow down your machine. The more layers you have enabled in Google Earth, the slower your experience may be. It is also possible that a computer without a dedicated graphics card may be slow. If you find that you are unable to view the files or work with Google Earth to your satisfaction, try closing out all other programs and restarting Google Earth. If that does not solve the problem, then your computer may not be able to handle this project. I am sorry but there is very little that I can do about this.

Why don't you host these files?

All the files that I use in this project are in the public domain, and as such are copyright free. Unfortunately, many of the files are large and so I host them in my Windows Live SkyDrive so that I don't get charged for bandwidth, and you can get a much faster download speed off of a Microsoft server rather than my web server.

Copyright

All pictures used in this project are in the public domain, or were taken by me unless otherwise stated. They may be used for non commercial purposes only, but any other use is prohibited. If you have questions or would like to seek permission to use and image, please email me here.

Images and charts specific to Wisconsin were in large part taken from the Wisconsin State Cartographers Office on this page or were created by me.

The USGS Topographic maps are saved on this webserver for convenience. New or updated copies of the maps are available from the USGS from this link. I do not plan to update the maps so please download current versions from the USGS. They are in the public domain.