Posts about new features added to CalTopo

New Feature Announcement: Account Folders

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You asked, we created it. We are releasing a new UI for the “Your Data” dialogue that includes a new feature: Account Folders! This will help with two main areas of improvement: organization of maps and continuity between the mobile app and web. These updates will also bring additional capabilities to the mobile application that were previously only available online. 

What’s New?

Below, you can compare the differences between the new and old UI under the “Your Data” menu.

Before imageAfter image

(Slide the bar to the right to reveal the new UI!)

The biggest change is the ability to create, and sort your individual and team data into Account Folders. What does this mean to you? Organization! Spend a lot of time in several areas? Now you can create a folder for all those PNW Ski Line maps you’ve created over the years, and another for backpacking routes in the backcountry of Colorado.

These folders can hold more than just maps too. You can add tracks, PDFs,  Mapsheets, icons, bookmarked maps, and custom layers to these folders. Account Folders (and the new UI) will show on both the website and the mobile/tablet applications. Keep in mind, you can still leave all your maps in the “Your Maps” folder like you always have, if you’d prefer.

A screenshot showing how the Your Data dialogue will appear on the mobile app. 

Another included and frequently requested update is the ability to search for a map within your data. Users with many maps will find the ability to organize and search for a specific map much easier.

 

What does this mean for mobile use?

The look of the mobile app has not changed as significantly, but the functionality has greatly increased. In the past, to accomplish things like editing map name, visibility level of the map (ie. is it private or public), deleting a map, or changing the map ownership of team maps, you had to log into the website.  This can now all be done from your mobile app.  All changes made on the app will automatically update when you log in online, and vice versa. Organizing your data into Account Folders will lessen the need to scroll through long lists of maps within the app. The more maps you have, the more this will be helpful. 

You can now edit or delete maps in the mobile app.

 

What does this mean for team accounts?

CalTopo Teams users were where we saw the most requests for better organization. Team account users tend to have many maps, and belong to several teams or subteams. Previously, it was difficult to navigate to the map you need. This is also true for individual users with many maps (we’ve seen some impressive map counts out there!). This allows teams to create folders, for instance an “Archive” folder, to make accidentally updating old maps less frequent (to be clear, this does not lock the map but is a useful tool to avoid opening the wrong map). 

Everyone on the team (or subteam if you are adding Account Folders to a subteam) can view the folders. To create, delete, or edit a folder in a team or subteam, you must have at least Manage access (or higher). Team members with Update or high level permissions can add items (maps/tracks etc.) to an Account Folder. 

The addition of Account Folders will help your team to quickly find and open the map you need. Maps from previous incidents, or even previous years, can have a specific folder for ease of finding later, while also not cluttering the map list when time is of the essence. If you have questions on how other teams are using this, send us an email for ideas!

The “Your Data” dialogue with Account Folders on a team account.

 

Help! How do I use this?

We know this is a big change. We are so excited to release this after many months of hard work and testing. You can find detailed instructions on using the new UI in our user guide at the following link: Account Folders. 

If you have any questions that aren’t answered in that chapter, please leave questions/comments in the comment section below, or email us at help@caltopo.com. 

Happy Mapping!

Latest High Resolution Elevation Data Updates- Bring on the Snow!

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With winter rapidly approaching, we thought it was an ideal time for another high resolution elevation data import from the USGS 3D Elevation Program (3DEP). Although we regularly make updates to our elevation dataset as high resolution elevation data becomes increasingly available, the striking difference between the original lower resolution elevation data and the high resolution elevation data never gets old.

Check it out for yourself! Each of the images below are split images of the same location with the new high resolution elevation data on the left and the original lower resolution elevation data on the right. Move the slider to compare these two elevation datasets and see the difference high resolution elevation data makes!

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Above: Split image of Long’s Peak in Rocky Mountain National Park, CO, with the shaded relief layer.

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Above: Split image of the Sierras in California with MapBuilder Topo. 

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Above: Split image of Pyramid Peak near Aspen, CO with MapBuilder Topo and slope angle shading.

In addition to the above areas, other notable areas that were part of the latest high resolution elevation data import include:

  • El Dorado National Forest (south of Lake Tahoe), CA
  • All of southwest Colorado
  • Large portions of Rocky Mountain National Park
  • All of southeast New Mexico and large portions of northwest New Mexico
  • Northern Idaho
  • All of southwest Wyoming
  • All of Nebraska
  • All of southwest South Dakota
  • Large portions of Georgia

To see all the areas that currently have high resolution elevation data, check out this interactive coverage map.

Where can I see high resolution elevation data on CalTopo?

High resolution elevation data is available on the web, mobile, and desktop app. If you have a mobile subscription or higher, you can download it for offline use, allowing you to bring the high resolution elevation data with you into the backcountry.

Please keep in mind that currently CalTopo does not automatically update offline downloads when we do a new elevation data update. If you notice discrepancies between the online elevation data and your offline downloads, make sure to delete your old downloaded tiles and re-download the latest ones. More information on managing your offline downloads can be found in the Mobile App- Offline Use or CalTopo Desktop- Download and Sync sections of our user guide.

Limitations of high resolution elevation data

While high resolution elevation data is incredibly useful for backcountry travel, it should still not be relied on as a definitive source of truth. As is true of any map (even paper maps!), it is a model of the terrain (albeit a pretty good one!) but not the terrain itself. For a more in depth discussion, check out our blog post Maps and Tracks: Accuracy, Precision, and your Phone GPS (Part 1).

Always carefully assess and evaluate any terrain that you are traveling in, and confirm your observations instead of relying solely on maps. Seek professional instruction on how to travel safely in the backcountry- our partners at the American Mountain Guide Association and American Avalanche Association have some great resources to get you started.

Happy mapping!

Team Account Updates: Sub-Teams & Events

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CalTopo Teams allows organizations to connect all their members in a single platform, promoting the seamless sharing of information. As CalTopo team accounts have been increasingly adopted by a wide variety of organizations (including search and rescue, wildland fire, SWAT teams, public land management groups, and guiding companies), we have seen a greater need for the ability to customize the platform for different use cases.

We’ve been working hard to improve team accounts and we are excited to announce the latest team account updates!

Sub-teams and Mutual Aid Incidents as seen on the team account admin page

First, there is a new feature available to all team accounts: Sub-Teams! Sub-teams allow you to organize your team membership into distinct groups that make sense for your organization. For example, a sheriff’s office may want to create specialty sub-teams (such as a canine sub-team, evidence sub-team, etc) to more accurately reflect their organizational structure. Individual members can be assigned to a single sub-team or multiple sub-teams, depending on their role in the organization.

You can also set visibility between sub-teams and the main team account. This allows you to control the flow of information, providing or restricting access to team or sub-team data as needed. For example, a sheriff’s office may want to provide a canine sub-team with upward visibility into the main team account, so that they can view maps for incidents that they are asked to respond to. However for an evidence sub-team, they may want to prevent any member who is not part of the sub-team from viewing evidence sub-team maps or data in order to protect any potentially sensitive information.

Check out the Sub-Teams page in our user guide to learn more about creating and managing sub-teams on your team account.

Second, Events are now called Mutual Aid Incidents and are no longer a separate tab on the team admin page. Sub-teams and mutual aid incidents (formerly called events) are essentially the same thing except mutual aid incidents (1) are temporary groups for responding to a large complex incident, (2) have an expiration date, and (3) can include people from outside your organization. For example, a search and rescue team that is coordinating a multi operational period search may create a mutual aid incident to rapidly onboard mutual aid from outside their team.

Check out the Mutual Aid Incidents (Formerly Events) page in our user guide for more information on how to create and manage a mutual aid incident. 

Finally, you may notice that there is another new feature on the team account admin page called Collaboration. At a high level, Collaboration allows teams and organizations that frequently work together to create a shared workspace for sharing maps and data. For example, a fire department that often works with a sheriff’s office could create a shared workspace that they give the sheriff’s office access to. While the feature is live on the site (and you are welcome to play around with it), we aren’t quite ready to officially roll it out yet- we’ll save that for another blog post soon!

 

Not familiar with CalTopo Teams and want to learn more about how a team account could help your organization? Visit the CalTopo Teams page or email us at help@caltopo.com for more information.

Latest High Resolution Elevation Data Updates

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As high resolution elevation data becomes increasingly available through the USGS 3D Elevation Program (3DEP), we regularly make updates to our elevation dataset so that it reflects the best data out there. We recently added high resolution elevation data for some new areas that we are pretty excited to show off. No matter how many times we’ve done it, we can’t help but admire the new data.

But don’t take our word for it- check it out for yourself! 

First up, take a look at the Wind River Range in Wyoming, which was one of the lucky areas that received an update. Below are two images from the Cirque of Towers, both with the MapBuilder Topo and slope angle shading layers. The original lower resolution elevation data is on the left and the new high resolution elevation data is on the right. Notice the increased level of detail in the image on the right. It is much easier to discern subtle changes in the elevation of the terrain, which might affect your route or trip planning decisions.

Before imageAfter image

Above: Split image of the Cirque of Towers, Wind River Range, WY. Move the slider to compare the original lower resolution elevation data (left) with the new high resolution elevation data (right).

This difference is even more pronounced when you check out the shaded relief layer in the same area.

Above: Cirque of Towers again but this time with shaded relief. Compare the original lower resolution elevation data (left) to the high resolution elevation data (right).

Glaciated terrain might be one of the best places to gawk at the increased detail of the high resolution data. Check out Gannett Peak, also in the Wind River Range. The difference in the original and new elevation data on this glaciated peak is astounding- notice how you can spot the location of crevasses when the data was collected in the image on the right, whereas they are largely absent from the image on the left.

Above: High resolution elevation data means more details. Check out the crevasses that are visible in the high resolution image (right) but absent in the lower resolution image (left).

The Wind River Range wasn’t the only place that got an update- Yosemite National Park in California was also a winner this time around! Take a look at Slide Mountain. This one is a particularly neat example because you can see evidence of a rockslide to the east of the peak in the high resolution image on the right but it is missing from the image on the left.

Above: Even rock slides can be captured by the high resolution elevation data (right), as shown in these images from Slide Mountain, CA.

Where available, high resolution elevation data is incorporated into any CalTopo tool or layer that uses our elevation dataset. This includes layers such as MapBuilder Topo, MapBuilder Hybrid, shaded relief, slope angle shading, sun exposure overlay and custom DEM layers, as well as tools like elevation profiles. Just look at the higher level of detail the sun exposure overlay shows with high resolution elevation data in the Elk Mountains in Colorado- that update looks good on you, Elks!

Above: Blinded by the light and the increased level of detail in the sun exposure overlay with high resolution elevation data (right) in the Elk Mountains, CO.

The difference is pretty wild, isn’t it? In addition to the Wind River Range, Yosemite and the Elk Mountains, other notable areas that were part of the most recent high resolution elevation data import include:

  • Trinity Alps, California
  • California Coast Ranges
  • Big Bend National Park, Texas
  • Black Canyon National Park, Colorado
  • Large portions of Colorado including the Sawatch Range

To see all the areas that currently have high resolution elevation data, check out this interactive coverage map.

Where coverage is available, high resolution elevation data can be accessed from the web, mobile and desktop apps. And if you have the appropriate subscription, you can download it for offline use, allowing you to bring high resolution elevation data with you into the backcountry.

Before imageAfter image

Above: Couldn’t resist one more split image, this time in Black Canyon National Park, CO on the mobile app. Move the slider to compare the original lower resolution elevation data (left) with the new high resolution elevation data (right).

At this time, CalTopo does not automatically update offline downloads when we do a new elevation data update. If you notice discrepancies between the online elevation data and your offline downloads, make sure to delete your old downloaded tiles and re-download the latest ones. More information on managing your offline downloads can be found in the Mobile App- Offline Use or CalTopo Desktop- Download and Sync sections of our user guide.

And as a reminder: while high resolution elevation data is incredibly useful for backcountry travel, it should still not be relied on as a definitive source of truth. There are limitations, including possible errors or accuracy issues with the dataset or our processing of it which can artificially create or omit terrain features. It is also important to note that all elevation data is just a snapshot of the terrain at one point in time; natural and manmade forces can dramatically alter the terrain since that data was gathered. 

Always carefully assess and evaluate any terrain that you are traveling in, and confirm your observations instead of relying solely on maps. Seek professional instruction on how to travel safely in the backcountry- our partners at the American Mountain Guide Association and American Avalanche Association have some great resources to get you started.

Live Tracks for inReach, APRS, ADS-B and more

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You can now record permanent live tracks for inReach, APRS, ADS-B aircraft, and custom integrations directly to your CalTopo map!

One of the most powerful features of CalTopo is the ability to share and track location alongside all your other mapping data. Previously you could only display the most recent location updates along with a small portion of the track for devices such as inReach, APRS and custom integrations. You could not reliably save the entirety of the device’s track.

However that has changed with our latest update for locators and trackable devices. We are excited to announce that you can now permanently record the entirety of the device’s track to your map! Along with this increased functionality, we’ve also added support for a wider range of devices, including ADS-B aircraft.

Live tracks on map

You can now record permanent live tracks to your map for a wide range of location sources- including ADS-B aircraft as shown in this screenshot.

How you add devices and record live tracks will depend on whether you have an individual or team account. If you have an individual account, refer to the Live Tracking and Locators page of our user guide for instructions. Please note that recording tracks for ADS-B aircraft does require a pro, desktop or team account; recording live tracks for all other objects is available to all users. It is also important to note that Live Tracks will be replacing the original Locator Group function for individual users. While some objects now require more information (i.e. IMEIs for Garmin inReaches), this update adds support for a wider range of objects and the ability to record permanent live tracks to a saved map.

If you have a team account, please refer to the Live Team Tracking page of our user guide for a complete breakdown of all location sharing and tracking functions available to team users, including recording live tracks. Team accounts have additional location sharing and tracking features, such as the ability to link devices to the team account which eliminates the need to add devices separately to each map.

Real Time Updates: Aircraft and Weather

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New ADS-B based aircraft tracking overlay, and hundreds of additional weather stations and statistics are now live in CalTopo alongside some cleanup of the layer list. More details about both these overlays can be found below. Access to some overlays will change slightly as part of this improvement as highlighted below.

Above: Aircraft layer over California displaying “All” Aircraft

Aircraft Layer (ADS-B)

We’ve added a real time aircraft data layer which is based upon ADS-B data from aircraft. This feature is available to all pro, desktop, and team users. Inherent to ADS-B are a couple of limitations to be aware of. There must be a receiver that can “see” the aircraft and report their locations, and the aircraft must have an ADS-B transceiver turned on. At times low flying aircraft particularly in remote valleys, or after landing will not be visible on the map. These are expected limitations, however overall ADS-B coverage is good and no filtering or blocking of military, firefighting, or medical air assets is done by the data provider.

 

Organizations can leverage this feature to track air assets responding to their incidents such as helicopters or fixed wing assets. If a tail number is known it makes finding and displaying that resource quite easy, but we’ve also included a number of filters. In the near future organizations will be able to add specific tail numbers and create a permanent track on search maps as needed.

Enthusiasts can also track air assets with the additional context of CalTopo topographic layers, and overlays. The example shown on the right displays aerial operations at the Dixie fire in California, several air tankers and helicopters are visible. Clicking on an aircraft displays altitude, airspeed, and additional information as available about the aircraft.The show track option allows for a short tail to be displayed in order to provide insight into where the aircraft has been as well as its direction of travel and relative speed. 

All visible aircraft are displayed including high flying commercial aircraft, though our focus was on optimizing visibility of rescue and firefighting aircraft with a mapping context. This layer continues to be a work in progress and we welcome questions or feedback. We will continue to make incremental improvements and tweaks over the next weeks.

Above right: Colors based upon temperature. Above left: Colors based upon wind speed

Realtime Weather

Fortunately or unfortunately our real time weather station layer became inoperable a number of months ago due to changes at our former data provider. We have since moved to a much more robust data source that contains a significantly larger number of weather stations throughout the US and includes data in Canada. Many stations also report additional variables as compared to our previous data source such as relative humidity and air quality. This expanded coverage and high quality data, comes with significant cost increases for CalTopo. As a result, this layer will only be available to Pro, Desktop and Team users beginning in October. Until that time the realtime weather will remain available to free and mobile users. Note that this includes the former SNOTEL and water gauge overlays (which are now enhanced with additional data as well).

Each station is now colored based on a selected variable such as temperature, or air quality allowing at a glance assessment of current conditions across a wide region. The former individual water gauge and SNOTEL real time data overlays are now integrated

into this layer as part of the drop down selections with additional data sources, these overlays are now enhanced with additional snowfall measurement sensors and flow meters.

Clicking on an individual station reveals more information about data collected by that specific station including some basic information, temp, wind speed, etc. There is also a link for a customizable and interactive 7 day data graph from that location.

Many of these stations report tons of additional information (such as altimeter, max or min 24-hour temperatures, etc). These fields are currently displayed (seen above), however are not “prettified” at this time and may not have a unit associated with the measurement. Over the next months we intend to refine and clean up the display of these additional data points honing in on the most valuable additional data available.

 

Weather Shading Overlay and Weather Grid Data

We’ve combined the former weather grid overlay with the weather shading overlay. Numeric temperature values are now displayed on the weather shading layer at the center of the 2.5km grids, zooming in is required. Subtle differences in color can be challenging to interpret so these numeric readouts help give more precision. NOAA spot forecasts are still available via right click “NOAA Forecast” (seen in above screenshot). This is available even when this overlay is not displayed. The closest available spot forecast will load in a new tab without requiring searching for an individual forecast grid dot to click on.

“Your” Data Overlay

This layer now displays all map objects from your maps and any team maps from team(s) that you are a member of. You can use the “your tracks” filter to display only tracks from saved maps. Tracks are actually traveled and recorded via GPS, either in the CalTopo app or imported via a file that has preserved time/gps data.

Shared CalTopo Maps Overlay

This layer has gotten some filtering improvements as well including displaying only tracks (ensuring that the route has actually been travelled) as well as sorting only popular shared maps that other users have bookmarked and found useful. Additional future improvements are planned to ensure shared maps are easier to find and sort through.

Shared Locations

For members of a single team there is no change to this layer. If you are a member of multiple teams you now can select between teams using a drop down instead of an individual shared location layer for each team. The shared location layer now includes the option to display a short tail for each user being tracked in order to infer rate and direction of travel. In order to record a complete track users still need to record track from their device, though additional improvements to this functionality are forthcoming.

SMS Locators – New Search and Rescue Feature

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First Responders: Display and monitor a subject’s location in your map with SMS

Update: This feature can only be created on the web version of the program at this time. You can not yet send the text from your mobile device.

 

Have you ever been talking to a lost person on the phone, but can’t get an accurate location for them? Have you had a subject tell you their coordinates, but it turns out they are in another state? How about a time when a patient is injured and finding them rapidly could make all the difference?

The recipient gets this screen after opening the link.

We’ve just added a new feature to team accounts that can help with all of those situations: SMS Locators. With this feature, you can quickly send a text to the missing person. Assuming that person has a smartphone with a cell signal, they can open a link that they receive in a text and send their location to a saved CalTopo map. Then anyone viewing that map can see the location of the user. The location will continue to update long as the user doesn’t close the page or leave cell service or turn off their device. Through the whole process, you never have to leave SARTopo/CalTopo. 

This is a huge feature for helping to find missing persons, or to help responders navigate to a scene without delay. It can also potentially be used to locate a lost party, then verbally guide them out, all the while watching their progress in real time on your map. This could mean you don’t have to deploy teams to resolve a situation, perhaps instead talking the subject through their own rescue.

All members of a team account with a data connection can see the location of the lost or injured person, so each responder can navigate directly to that person without entering coordinates into their device by hand. Each responder can see their own location as well as that of the subject. 

Additionally, this is all done within the CalTopo app, so responders benefit from the many other features of using CalTopo, such as satellite imagery, parcel data, and roads and trails on a variety of different base layers. Plus team leaders can view the location of all of their responders at the same time and on the same map. 

To use this new feature, you must 1.) be a part of a team account subscription, and 2.) be working from a saved map. As long as these conditions are met, you can go to +Add, choose “locator”, then choose SMS locator. 

 

Once you’ve sent the text and the subject opens the link, you’ll start to get a track. 

View the subject’s track live in your map.

Additional information for the status of the locator is available, so you can see that the link has been activated, when the last update took place, and even send another message to the user (it’s a one way system though.)


Here’s where things really get useful: any team member can open the same map via the mobile app, and navigate to the subject. Here we see a mobile app user finding the app track in the map items list. In the next image, the app user has their location turned on and is pointing more or less in the direction of the sms user. 

 

If you are using a team account, go try it out! The best way to figure it out is to use it. 

Dude, Where’s my UI?

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We’ve just released a major UI overhaul for the desktop and mobile websites.  We had two major goals with this project: first, reduce the variation between the desktop web, mobile web, and app UIs.  And second, address some recurring issues around discoverability and ease of use.

 

Before imageAfter image

 

The UI is now better grouped by functional area.  We’ve moved your account data into the top bar, so that the left bar is dedicated to map objects, and most mapping related functions are on the map itself.  We’ve also replaced the mouseover menus. An more in depth overview of the new UI with comparisons to the previous UI is found here.

 

Other major changes include:

  • Keyboard shortcuts for commonly-used tasks
  • Clicking on the map brings up info for all nearby objects – no more struggling to click on exactly the right spot
  • We now have separate “Log In” and “Sign Up” actions to help people catch when they accidentally login with a new account provider
  • Rendering object labels with halos instead of large white blocks, to improve label visibility on complex maps

 

On the left side of the map the map objects list is now solely focused on map objects including importing, exporting, and adding new objects.  When minimized, the add button moves onto the map so you have more room to work! 

 

 

Tasks such as printing, measuring, saving, and sharing maps have moved onto the map and menus now are based on a click instead of mouseover.

 

 

The right side of the screen remains largely unchanged, with layers listed on the left, and the preset layers at the bottom on the left side. Note many layers now have keyboard shortcuts, you’ll see those listed next to the base layer you select on the right hand side (if the base layer has a shortcut), and next to a variety of overlays on the right as well. 

 

 

One of the largest changes is that the top bar is now primarily focused on account level tasks such as log in, creating accounts, managing your account or team data, and managing your subscription.

 

As with any update there may be inadvertent errors or omissions. We’re always here for you at caltopo.com/help and over time we’ll update screenshots throughout our excellent user guide to reflect the new UI. Thanks for supporting CalTopo!

Subscription Improvements

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Individual Accounts

We are revamping our individual subscription tiers beginning January 1st, 2021.  Don’t panic – all existing users will be grandfathered in their existing tier unless they want to switch. We want to give the community a heads up and explain the reasoning behind for our decision making. Team accounts will be unaffected by these changes.

CalTopo’s subscription plans predate the app by a few years, and with the app now well-evolved, we decided it’s time to revisit them.  Our goals are 1) provide a mobile-focused pricing level, 2) re-align several features with particularly high support costs, and 3) simplify the levels by focusing on feature availability rather than units like maximum PDF size.

The biggest change is that our basic level will be replaced by a new mobile-focused subscription, at the same price of $20/year.  Google Earth integration and larger PDFs are moving to pro subscriptions, but in exchange you get full-resolution offline downloads of all non-premium layers, including satellite imagery.

Another major change is that all “live” satellite imagery including GOES and MODIS will become pro-only alongside Sentinel.  We launched the GOES layer in a hurry during fire season, and since then it’s become clear that the layer will require significant ongoing processing costs that make it unsustainable to offer for free.

On the flip side, higher-resolution elevation profiles will become a free feature.  CalTopo elevation profiles are currently limited to 300 points for free users, which leads to understating the gain/loss on long routes.  With the rollout of a global elevation dataset, we no longer need to rely on third party elevation data, and will be removing this limit and providing more accurate elevation profiles to all users.

Revised plans:

Mobile ($20/year):

  • Unlimited private maps
  • Offline layers

Pro ($50/year):

  • Premium layers (currently parcel data + live satellite)
  • Improved printing (larger and higher resolution PDFs)
  • Map layers in Google Earth
  • Import Geospatial PDF map sheets
  • Export MBTiles files
  • Export elevation profiles

Desktop ($100/year):

  • Desktop app
  • WMS / WMTS tile access
  • Import MapBox tilesets
  • 8′ briefing maps
  • Custom MapBuilder Layers

First Responders

Many first responders don’t realize that the first responder accounts are currently slightly different. Moving forward we will be doing away with the different first responder levels.  We will continue to offer a robust free upgrade for verified first responders as well as a 50% discount on pro and desktop subscriptions. Our team account offerings remain unchanged.

Free first responder accounts will include:

  • Private maps
  • Improved printing
  • CalTopo map layers in Google Earth
  • Import Geospatial PDF map sheets
  • MapBuilder Topo offline downloads in the app

Introducing Events

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We’re announcing events, a new feature for team accounts that makes it easy to temporarily bring on members from outside your organization.

If you have a SARTopo team account, you’ve probably started using the app’s real-time sync and location sharing features to improve situational awareness on searches. But what do you do for the large mutual aid search? The fire evacuation with dozens out-of-area law enforcement officers? The missing child with a crowd of convergent community volunteers who want to distribute fliers and knock on doors? You need a rapid way to provide these people with situational awareness and collect their data at the end of the day, even if they don’t have a GPS and have never seen SARTopo before.

An event is a time-limited subteam underneath your main team account. Everyone on your team can see the event’s data, but people on the event can’t see the rest of your team’s data. They can, however, get access to multiple maps, custom layers, and real-time location sharing. We’ve also made it easy to add convergent volunteers to events – download the app, scan a QR code, enter your name, and you’re off and running, without needing to create a permanent SARTopo user account.

We think this is pretty revolutionary, but we’ll keep this post brief and instead refer you to our documentation at https://help.caltopo.com/kb/team-accounts/creating-and-managing-events.

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