Scott and Alan Morris, brothers and computer science graduate students, weren’t satisfied with the various Windows mapping programs on the market, so they wrote their own. TerraClient showing an aerial photo with topographic map overlay. TerraClient has an extremely user-friendly interface, and you can be up and running the program in a matter of minutes.

This is very useful for quickly identifying features on aerial photos.

You can control the transparency of the overlay so that only a faded, ghostlike image of the map appears on top of the aerial photograph. Superimposed maps: This is a very slick feature that allows you to superimpose a topographic map on top of an aerial photo (see Figure 14-7 for an example). To view the aerial photo, click the one you’re interested in. It doesn’t interface with GPS receivers or use GPS data, but it does have two features that make it ideal for beginning map users:Įasy location lookup: Instead of knowing the exact coordinates of the area you want to view, enter a place name and watch TerraClient return a list of possible matches. TerraClientīill Friedrich’s TerraClient is a free, easy-to-use Windows program that displays TerraServer-USA aerial photos and maps. If you like USAPhotoMaps, take the time to download and try a few of these programs to see whether they meet your mapping needs. These programs are inexpensive, ranging from free to around $60. Other mapping utilities have the same basic functionality with additional features.

USAPhotoMaps isn’t the only program that uses TerraServer-USA data to display aerial photos and maps.

Expert gps software