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

Red River Gorge map update

Natural Bridge profile from point cloud

Natural Bridge profile from point cloud

This summer we are planning an update to our popular Red River Gorge trail map. Since the release of the Lidar point cloud data for Daniel Boone National Forest, we have been excited to start the project. With a pixel resolution of 5-foot, this is the most detailed elevation layer we have for the Red River Gorge. Let’s take a look at some samples. An elevation profile of the well-known landmark, Natural Bridge arch, shows canopy slightly dimmed and you can clearly see the arch.

Cliffs over 100 feet in Chimney Top area

Cliffs over 100 feet in Chimney Top area

Many other interesting analyses are planned; for example, where are the high cliffs and overlooks? In the right image, we show the cliffs over 100-feet in height. We can clearly see the high cliffs of Pinch ‘Em Tight, Chimney Top, and the other high cliffs the line the Red River.

Cliffs over 220 feet in Small Wall area along Red River

Cliffs over 220 feet in Small Wall area along Red River

Of course, the inclination is to find the highest cliff in the Red River Geological Area. With a preliminary analysis, we have found the Small Wall climbing area has one of the highest cliffs at 220-feet.

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…]

Cranksgiving 2017 map

This map is for Cranksgiving 2017, bicycle competition and food raiser for God’s Pantry Food Bank. I put it online this year since the race had about 5x as many grocery stores. Check out the printed manifest and the mobile map: https://outragegis.com/cranksgiving [Read more…]

Chicken Chase map

Map of chicken houses in Lexington, Kentucky

Map of chicken houses in Lexington, Kentucky

Downtown Lexington has a large number of chicken coops. A coop tour has been an annual event for years. In 2016 Floyd’s Farm & Home asked us to make a map of a tour centered on 6th Street. We used the artwork created by Homegrown Press (whose studio is located at 6th and Limestone) and tried to style the map in a similar fashion.

East End Preservation Project map

East End Preservation Project map

East End Preservation Project map

A map historically significant homes and structures in the Martin Luther King and William Wells Brown neighborhood associations; many have connections to African-American work and life over the past two centuries. It was a pleasant afternoon walking Onabits, aka lil’ blue eyes, and taking photographs in my neighborhood. With the growth of the north Limestone corridor and the planned development of the Midland and 3rd street area, it’s important to recognize the history that resonates through downtown Lexington. We’ll come back in 10 years and see how many of these structures remain.

Base map for Salt Lake City hiking

East of Salt Lake City

East of Salt Lake City

A client needed a base map for an upcoming hiking guide to areas east of Salt Lake City. We came up with a simple, clean photoshop file using NAIP aerial imagery and 1/3 arc-second seamless DEM. The NAIP was used to create an NDVI and estimated canopy cover and the DEM was used as a shaded relief and to generate 40 ft contours. The NDVI and shaded relief were used for emphasis and helped make the aerial ‘pop’ a little more. Lakes and perennial streams were added, but as you can see the don’t register perfectly with the aerial image.

Norris Watershed Trail Map

Norris Watershed Trail Map

Norris Watershed Trail Map

Over the past year, we’ve refined a trail map for the City of Norris, Tennessee. The Norris Watershed Trail Map is probably printed by now and offers GPS mapped trails and mountain biking opportunities. The WPA era dam is pretty cool, too.

[Read more…]

City of Rocks and 3D mapping offer teaching moment

City of Rocks example visual

City of Rocks example visual

With the quality of elevation data increasing, especially with the availability of LiDAR data, we have an opportunity to make unique visuals. Recently Wolverine Publishing needed maps developed for the climbing area, City of Rocks in Idaho. The project needed high-resolution maps and the data was available through public sources. We like making the physiographic base maps for recreation areas and this offered a special challenge. [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…]

Pine Mountain Canopy Tour

Canopy zipline tour mapping assignment

Canopy zipline tour mapping assignment

What wild weekend and mapping task! Boyd led an undergraduate GIS class at the University of Kentucky and endeavored to map and analyze environmental tourism assets on Pine Mountain. During discussions with Pine Mountain State Resort Park, we discovered a canopy zipline tour, one of the first in the state, was being installed in the park. [Read more…]

Robinson Forest Camp Trail Map Exercise

Robinson Forest Camp trail map

Robinson Forest Camp trail map

As part of UK Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences 2015 Summer Camp, I taught a one-day GPS and GIS exercise to map the interpretive trails around base camp. With seven undergraduates and their mobile devices and one Trimble ProXRS, we split into three teams. One team focused on the trail network and GPS mapped trail alignment and intersections. A second team mapped interpretive sites on the left-side of trials, while a third-team mapped right-side features.

In the second-half of the day, we worked in the classroom and on laptops to make a map in ArcGIS. Some students had GIS software experience and helped their fellow classmates to make a map as a geospatial PDF and use on their mobile devices. A GeoPDF is a mobile map that doesn’t require a cellular data connection to function.

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