Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with maps and mac

HD animated maps for video?

nitsuj — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 16:54:58 -0800

What's the easiest way to create HD-quality (1080x) animated maps for use with video? iMovie '09 has the nifty little map feature, but I use Final Cut Express and don't want to plunk down the extra cash for another editor. Is there a similar -- perhaps a bit more professional and detailed -- solution for creating animated maps for importing into Final Cut Express?

Ideally this would be a standalone program that creates the maps and outputs them into a format that is easily ingested by Final Cut Express.

(Other details: Final Cut Express 4, OSX.5.6, 2.4GHZ MBP + 4gb RAM)

If I only had a widget...

nosila — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 06:16:34 -0800

I'm looking for a Dashboard widget for Mac OS X that will help me get better at geography. I've found the Worldview Widget and the countries widget, but neither is exactly right.

Ideally, the main interface would be a normal old colored map with country borders and country/capital names that I could zoom into/out of. It would be a bonus if I could switch between a map/satellite view a la Google Maps, but if I had to choose, I would prefer a plain old map.

The Worldview Widget is close, but it's really small, and you can't make it larger. It also doesn't have a non-Google-Earthy map; it's all satellite imagery. I do really like the extra info it gives, though.

The Countries widget is too simplistic.

It is key to me that it works in Dashboard.

Best Mac GPS mapping software and hardware?

wavejumper — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 00:26:36 -0800

What's the best GPS mapping system for making trail maps (software/hardware)? I'm an Apple person. More explanation: I want to map out and publicize a route I've been exploring that links my town to the regional trail system (which is about 50 trail-miles away, probably taking three or four detail maps). I'd like not to spend that much. And I REALLY like the "Terrain" view from Google Maps, any way to use that for my topography graphics?
Who can recommend the best (Mac) software? And cheapest hardware? Don't really need a good display, as I really just need the GPS to record the trail route and the elevation gains, I guarantee I'll never use it for actual Navigation, I think they pretty much suck for that purpose ;-].
Any way to use an iPhone's GPS with mapping software by the way?
Thanks!

Is there a free (cheap) KML editor for the Mac?

brokekid — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 10:45:53 -0800

Is there a free (cheap) KML editor, like NorthGates' KML Editor or KaMeLwriter, for the Mac? I haven't had much luck finding one, extMate doesn't do the job and running either of these in Parallels would kill my machine. Thanks for your help.