Level Curves from GPS Data

[Diego Mitre]

Hey guys,
I'm working on designing an irrigation system for my farm and height differences are crucial for the calculations.
I would love your suggestions on first what GPS to purchase it doesn't need to be milimetrical but should have a fair amount of precision without digging a hole in my pocket.
Secondly I need a suggestion o what software I could purchase to make the curves (Contour Map) and export them to google earth and/or autocad. The more user friendly the better. I currently have autoCAD LT 2015 and I don't really know how to use it.

I recently heard of trackmaker, does any of you have any experience with tis software? suggestions?

 

[Nuvi-Nebie]

I'm not sure what level of accuracy you are looking for, but I don't think GPS is going to be useful, you have to remember that any accuracy figures you may be given for a GPS don't apply to altitude, ( height above sea level), because all GPS devices are roughly twice as inaccurate on altitude as they are for Latitude / Longitude figures. It is possible to use GPS to generate contour lines, but you would really need a professional surveying GPS, which will cost a few thousand dollars

In order to overcome the inaccuracies of hand held GPSs, some units also have an additional way to determin altitude e.g. an in-built barometric altimeter, your best bet is to purchase one if these GPSs, e.g. the Garmin GPSmap 62s and the GPSmap64s have this feature

 

[Diego Mitre]

@

I'm not sure what level of accuracy you are looking for, but I don't think GPS is going to be useful, you have to remember that any accuracy figures you may be given for a GPS don't apply to altitude, ( height above sea level), because all GPS devices are roughly twice as inaccurate on altitude as they are for Latitude / Longitude figures. It is possible to use GPS to generate contour lines, but you would really need a professional surveying GPS, which will cost a few thousand dollars

In order to overcome the inaccuracies of hand held GPSs, some units also have an additional way to determin altitude e.g. an in-built barometric altimeter, your best bet is to purchase one if these GPSs, e.g. the Garmin GPSmap 62s and the GPSmap64s have this feature

Yes the idea is to get a GPS with an in-built barometric altimeter. I'm hoping the gps can detect 1 meter differences. Any ideas on what software I can use.

 

[Nuvi-Nebie]

The contour lines could be drawn as Tracks on the free to download Garmin Basecamp and then exported as a *.GPX file or a *.KML file for Google Earth