ill go look at the format for a route file but what i was thinking was for a POI/waypoint file. so for example, that way i could use the POI file for project sites and download level 2 MSVE out to 1 mile from each site.

back to the original topic, for getting the level 4 MSVE data for a general area, and using Benson's method, it seems like i would have to do allot of zigzaging in order to not have any gaps in the interior or the polygon. for level 4 what would be the spacing to use between routes??

i guess another option, which is not as elegant as the download by polygon inside MM, would be to download level 4 for my entire region (winmapper.exe) and then build a seperate utility (qgis, udig, or arcgis) to select the tiles for each polygon area and write them to a MM2.xx db file. but that sounds like allot of work thats mostly over my head right now.