RRG 3D terrain map

Interactive web maps have come a long way over the years. First we had slippy maps using raster tilesets – they’ve been around for about twenty years and are incredibly durable. However, once the tileset is rendered, it’s not easy to change the look of the raster image. You will need to render a new tileset and replace the old. Because a tileset can contain millions of images, it’s not a quick replacement.

Gaming technology evolved in the browser and brought us WebGL and vector tilesets. These tileset features have attributes and are rendered programatically in the browser. It’s rather easy to change the appearance of a feature and Mapbox built a browser application, Studio, to create endless styles of maps using vector features. What’s not easy is serving a vector tileset to a client until recently. Libraries like PMTiles bundle a vector tileset into a single file that expose the necessary to the client browser.

More recently, elevation (terrain) tilesets have made 3D maps more exciting to create and explore. Once an elevation is loaded, all other layers, tilesets, etc. are draped over elevation surface. Depending on the resolution of the elevation data, this surface can dramatically change the appearance of the map.

Using an open source mapping library like MapLibre GL JS, a browser can simultaneous consume raster, vector, and terrain tilesets to make a 3D map for any place you have data. Kentucky has excellent data availabilty including lidar data to make high-resolution elevation surfaces. This map uses that lidar data to create the terrain tileset and a shaded relief raster tileset. The vector tilesets for trails, roads, etc. are derived exclusively from OpenStreetMap. The water layers are from the USGS National Hydrological Dataset.

Below is a screen capture of the web page and a link. You might notice that it doesn’t have all of the trails that our printed maps show. We may add those trails in the future, because it would helpful for planning your trip. And, we’re not planning to move to an exclusive mobile app. With all of the advances in mobile technology, we think paper maps are still essential for learning basic navigation and map reading.

Screen Capture of map

The map can be loaded here: outrageGIS.com/gorge/map

Happy adventures!

Experimenting with Geolocation API

We have a lot of great raster base map services available in Kentucky and I wanted to access them for my current location when I use my mobile device in the field. While there are many ways to make a mobile map, I wanted use Leaflet JS and build a custom geolocation service using the Geolocation API. Some desired features for the web page:

  • The interface should be just the map, with a single button to access the controls
  • Location services should record a track of previous locations with distance covered
  • Location coordinates should be averaged over a sample period to help with accuracy
  • Other information for the current location should be offered on the page, e.g., hourly weather forecasts.

Map cound found here: https://outrageGIS.com/location

The below screen capture shows the control panel for selecting base map and enabling the the location services. It also gratuitously adds content from the last three posts to this forum. (Practicing with Tailwind CSS for potential site redesign.)

Screen Capture of control panel

Please feel to add your comments and tell how it works on your mobile device. It has tested on Chrome and Safari mobile browsers.

Some caveats.

  • The tracking feature is tuned to walking. If you drive or bike, the track will more generalized the faster you travel.
  • Of course, you’ll need to enable location for the page :). I promise that nothing is used or saved from your session. This is a completely client-side app.
  • If you refresh your browser, the page is reset and your track is lost. Working on a local database option to save the track.
  • This page requires an online connection. Working on an offline version, too.

Screen Capture of control panel Above is an screen capture of the Kentucky Topo map for the state. Other base maps include, lidar-derived surface models and current GOES-16 imagery.

Screen capture of mobile device Screen capture of track mapping on a mobile device

Weather archive updates

We collect imagery from national park webcams in the Great Smokies and Mammoth Cave parks and then make animated gifs of those webcam images. In 2011, I penciled this quick note:

110629 Nice time-lapse photography for all cameras and satellite. Make movie?

Beginning in 2012, we started archiving these animations.

New webcam added to animation archive

Turns out, we had Mammoth Cave working for the entire 2021 year, but didn’t have them accessible via a web page. With a little grep and sed action, the gifs were added to the default page for the Great Smokies archive. Visit the interface here.

Weather and animation archive

We plan on having at least the last year covered in the archive. At 60 GB a year now with HD cameras, it can get expensive hosting multiple years. I do have the years back to 2012 stored offline.

New Red River Gorge map

Over the past spring, we’ve been revamping our popular map for the Red River Gorge. The map should be available in early June. One of the additions is a new Bird’s Eye View map that user lidar elevation data and Blender 3d modeling software. You can view a zoomable image with this link

New map in our printed series for the Red River Gorge
New map in our printed series for the Red River Gorge

Sheltowee Trace elevation profile

Working on the 2020 update of the Sheltowee Trace maps using high-resolution DEMs derived from lidar point clouds. An elevation profile was created by sampling elevation every 264 feet along the 343-mile trail. This profile shows the proposed extension from Burnt Mill bridge to Rugby.

Enlarge

The resolution is high enough to see the indentation of wider trail beds, which helps verify GPS data.

Trail bed observed new Gray’s Arch recreation area

The updated trail maps should be at the printer by mid-July.

Toward a scenic trail index

Sheltowee Trace, Daniel Boone National Forest, and Big South Fork scenic trail index
Visit the web page

Over the years we’ve pursued some measure that reveals the character of 900+ miles of trail here. Often we talk about a trail’s length or steepness with other dimensions gleaned from the base map. In this experiment, we are creating zones at discreet locations along trails and estimating the character of that location.

Over 14,000 polygons are shown on this 3D Mapbox map. The color indicates the type of scenery and height shows how much relief is the area. Future additions to this map include adding a searching tool and summary statistics for each trail.

West Sixth Farm trail map

Took an afternoon to GPS map the trail network at the West Sixth farm outside of Frankfort, Kentucky. You can download the map here https://www.westsixth.com/farmtrailmap.

West Sixth Farm trail map
Preview of the map

The farm maintains a mountain bike trail with technical features and one-way trails. Enjoy a ride and then a brew.

lidar point cloud render
View an interactive 3D map of the area

As an experiment, we added a 3D map from a lidar point cloud viewable here: https://outragegis.com/pointclouds/w6.

New Maps Plus projects

Visit the full-screen map.

I began teaching at New Maps Plus in October 2015. Students have made many awesome maps since then. This ‘map of maps’ shows projects going back to early 2017. Many of the early projects utilized CartoDB (now CARTO), which has evolved considerably over the years. While technology and visualization techniques change, a map is also an artistic pursuit and perhaps can withstand the ebb and flow of tech design styles.

New images and data from GOES-16

Visit the page to view and download imagery

Over Christmas break, it was time to automate collecting and displaying the incredibly detailed imagery from the GOES-16 Advanced Baseline Imager. A problem that plagued previous efforts was not accessing the raw data, a netCDF formatted file for the contiguous U.S. which can be downloaded freely from a variety of cloud data hosts. With the raw data, one can project, modify and use it in web mapping libraries like Leaflet.

This page offers a slippy map of grayscale and color imagery and is updated every 15 minutes. You can download GeoTIFFs of rendered layers that can be used in GIS applications.

Arches mapping project

During the Fall 2018 semester, students mapped and visited arches and waterfalls in Kentucky’s Red River Gorge Geological Area. They adopted an arch or waterfall and produced maps, analyses, 3D visualizations, and a web page that explores their arch. Visit the site.

Arches in the Red River Gorge

Bluegrass trails, a student mapping project

Bluegrass trails, a student mapping project

Over the course of the spring 2018 semester, UKy Geography students mapped public areas in the Kentucky Bluegrass that offered hiking, walking, or recreation to the public. They could select from one of 10 areas that offered strenuous cliff-lined hiking, sculpture garden walks, or lake-view dog parks.

tastyfreeze.github.io/bluegrass/region/

Students map Town Branch Trail

Town Branch Trail in maps

Students create many maps and a website for the soon-to-be-built Town Branch Trail during the Spring 2017 semester in the GEO 409 (Advanced Topics in GIS) in the Department of Geography, University of Kentucky. We used mainly open source GIS software QGIS and GitHub to create and publish our maps.

We used mainly open source GIS software QGIS and GitHub to create and publish our maps. For the final project, students grouped into separate teams for web page production, field GPS and photography, story production, and 3D mapping.

An interactive map of the content produced for the final project can be found in the following map:

[Read more…]

Sheltowee Trace interactive mobile map

Locate yourself on the ST

We’ve updated our map of the Sheltowee Trace on our ST site: sheltoweetrace.com/hike. The map has symbols for official recreation sites and trails for the Daniel Boone National Forest, Big South Fork National River and Recreation Area, and Cumberland Falls and Natural Bridge State Resort Parks. Of course, it has the ST and mile markers from the northern terminus.

Since we deployed this map last year, we have updated the Leaflet and MapBox JS to make the work with a GPS-enabled device as long as you have a cellular data connection. The points of interests and trails are clickable with useful travel information.

Our next goal is to fill out the map with more scenic destinations and include more photographs. Let us know if you have any suggestions.

[Read more…]

Swift Camp Creek Trail interactive 3d map

Explore a 3D view of Swift Camp Creek

Explore a 3D view of Swift Camp Creek

This interactive 3D map was built in QGIS using a add-on named QGIS2Threejs. The add-on builds the model from digital elevation model in QGIS and drapes the layers symbolized in map view over the model. It utilizes javascript to make interactive in browser.

Explore the Swift Camp Creek Trail in the Red River Gorge with this 3D map. Learn more about this trail in our hiking trail page.

Lexington’s Urban Canopy

An exploration of canopy cover measures

An exploration of canopy cover measures

How much tree canopy covers the urban service area of Lexington, Kentucky? Inspired by the Davey Resource Group’s October 2013 study of canopy cover using 2012 NAIP imagery within Lexington’s Urban Service Area, a GIS class at the University of Kentucky created a similar, though limited, evaluation. [Read more…]

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