MJR42 Thoughts

Well, I've managed to download a bunch of digital elevation maps and combine them into a single raster. Then I've extracted contours. One map I've created looks like this: The problem I face now is figuring out how to extract polygons from the contour vector layers and create the lake surfaces for the maps. BTW, the reason that the contours only cover the eastern part of the map is that the contour extraction routine crashes for wider regions. I still need to go back and extract the western half and merge the two layers into a single contour coverage.

Well, it's been a while, but I've been making slow progress. I decided to go with QGis and GRASS because I can't find what I want in other packages. That's not to say that they're not there, but the features I'm looking for are not obvious to me, except in QGis and GRASS where I'm pretty sure I'll find what I need. Something else I've discovered in the course of a few work-related meetings in the past week; ESRI ArcGIS is giving me a vocabulary in GIS that others seem to have trouble with. I'm also finding that the tools I'm finding easily in ArcGIS are not so easy to find in any other solutions because the ESRI names are unique. Maybe just working with the other software will expand my vocabulary. Anyway, I'm finding some awkward bits in compiling everything needed for QGis. The required software includes GRASS if you want to use it, and GDAL. Problem I'm struggling with is that if you want the two to be aware of each other, they nee

I've had a cold which made me disinclined to sit in front of a computer screen for several days. It seems that the folks at Refractions also have an open source contribution; uDig . They're based on Vancouver Island, and I've worked with them professionally. They're definitely a competent group, and recommend uDig to me. I've decided to give it my first effort because I know what they can do with other tools, and I see hints that some of the high end capabilities I was looking for may also be easy to implement from uDig and the other Refractions open source tools.

I just came across qGIS , which looks a little more like the ESRI software I'm familiar with. I'm not sure how it combines with GRASS (and why), but apparently I can get the best of both worlds if I use them together. I'll have to install them both and play to find out what works for me. I also see from reading at geocaching.com that there is a Vancouver Island geocaching group with forums, so if I go ahead with anything, I'll lurk there for a while and see if there's any interest there as well.

The whole concept was made easier by Santa, who brought me the Garmin GPS 60 that I wanted. I'm just starting to explore the software available with the unit. Must say I'm disappointed with Garmin for creating software that doesn't run properly unless the user has administrator access. You'd hope that in this day and age of hackers and security conciousness that the software providers wouldn't be the ones to cause problems, but this is the second case of a corporation large enough to afford to set a good example just ignoring the problems surrounding granting administrator access to users. The other software that forces me to grant administrator access is Sony's SonicStage software which the kids use to load their Sony MP3 players. I hate it that I have to grant administrator access to the same kid that keeps loading backgrounds and other crap from her MSN chat buddies. While I'm on the rant, I should point out that the real fault lies in an operat

I live on Vancouver Island, and enjoy exploring the outdoors of this beautiful location. I'm a tech geek who loves gadgets, and I work at a job which lets me learn about geographic information systems. Combine all of that, and somehow the thought of making digital maps about hiking and biking trails on the island becomes a persistent one. I have a philosophical problem with the concept that mapping information should be protected for commercial purposes. In Canada, the government approach appears to be that all mapping information should be kept under tight restrictions, which is why it has been next to impossible to find freely available digital maps. Recently, however, good coverages of Canadian terrain, geographic names, and the road networks have been made available under an unrestricted license at Geobase . This now opens up the possibility of overlaying layers containing local information without having to re-create the base maps. In the spirit of keeping with the free theme,

OK, I bow to the trend. I keep having "great" ideas without knowing whether anyone will care. Maybe this will help. Of course, starting this on Christmas Eve just means I've got too much time on my hands, and who knows if I'll sustain the effort!