2005 GIS Project

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2005 GIS Project Jasper National Park
Backcountry Visitors Guide
BCIT May 2006
By Myriam Berube
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Introduction

• Jasper National Park is located in
• the Canadian Rocky Mountains,
• in mid-western Alberta. It covers
• 10,878 km2 and has over 1200 km
• of hiking trails. 2.2 million people visit
• the park each year, 20 thousand of
• which explore the backcountry.

Location
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Project Sponsor
Jasper National Park!
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Objectives and deliverables

• The purpose of this project is to create an
  on-line,
• interactive backcountry trail, hut and campground
  map
• for Jasper National Park. ArcIMS will be used to
  build
• this website.

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Objectives and deliverables

• The interactive map will allow future backcountry
  
• travellers to quickly find information about
• TRAILS location, usage, elevation profile,
  condition, maximum group size, if dogs
  allowed
• BACKCOUNTRY CAMPGROUNDS location, usage, number
  of sites, length of stay, toilet facilities, food
  storage
• HUTS, LODGES and FRONTCOUNTRY CAMPGROUNDS
  location and contact information

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Objectives and deliverables

• The interactive map users can
• Click on trails and campgrounds to obtain
  related information
• Submit queries to find trails and campgrounds
  that fit their needs (i.e. dog friendly)
• Access photos and trail reports

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Project background

• Existing backcountry trip planning resources
• Website
• Paper map and brochure
• Friendly information centre staff
• Various books

Website
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Brochure
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Project background
Presently, the information centre staff spends
approximately 750 hours answering the questions
of prospective backcountry visitors. It is
anticipated that the interactive on-line map will
reduce this time by 30.
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Extent of study area
The projected coordinate system used for the map
layers is UTM83, Zone 11. Xmin 330000 Xmax
514000 Ymin 5774000 Ymax 5929000
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Data sets
Frontcountry campgrounds Backcountry
campgrounds Huts and lodges Trails Caribou
Habitat Lakes and wetlands Icefields Backcountry
management units
Town of Jasper Place names Railways Roads Park
Boundary DEM
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Data dictionary
Backcountry campground attributes
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Data dictionary
Trail section attributes
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Software

• ArcGIS ArcMap, ArcCatalog
• ArcIMS Author, Administrator, Designer
• Microsoft Windows Server 2003
• Excel, Access
• Notepad, Visual Studio, Crimson Editor
• Color Cop

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Methodology Data Input and Manipulation
Edit backcountry trail shapefile

• Moved trail segments that went through lakes
• Changed some trail segment names
• Split or merged some segments
• Deleted trails that are not considered part of
  the network of backcountry trails
• Appended a shapefile of trail segments outside
  the park boundary (dont forget to delete
  overlapping segments before doing this!)

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Methodology Data Input and Manipulation
Create background mountain relief image
Initially, I added the GRID dem and hillshade
rasters to the web services AXL file. GRID
files cannot be added to an ArcIMS website using
Author. I found the necessary AXL code in the
ArcXML Programmers Reference Guide (ArcIMS Help)
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Methodology Data Input and Manipulation
1) Define image workspace ltWORKSPACESgt ltSHAPEWO
RKSPACE
... /gt ltIMAGEWORKSPACE
name"jai_ws-15" directory"D\ESRI\AV_GI
S30\AVTUTOR\SPATIAL" /gt lt/WORKSPACESgt
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Methodology Data Input and Manipulation
2) Add raster layer and give it a Renderer tag.
Define the color for each range of values.
ltLAYER type"image" name"DEM" visible"true"
id"1"gt ltDATASET name"dem_raster" type"image"
workspace"dem_ws" /gt
ltRASTER_RENDERERgt ltRASTER_RANGE
lower"420" upper"1474"
color"112,153,89" transparency"0.5"
equality"lower"/gt
lt/RASTER_RENDERERgt lt/LAYERgt
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Methodology Data Input and Manipulation
Create background mountain relief image
The resulting website image had weird green spots
when zoomed into. Better image I created a map
of only the dem and hillshade in ArcMap with my
favourite symbology. I then exported the map as
a jpeg with 600 dpi resolution.
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Methodology Algorithms
Many algorithms were developed to create profiles
for the trail segments. These are mentioned
briefly in the Problem Solving section.
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Methodology Customization
Creating a hyperlink field for the trail profiles
I modified the ArcIMSparam.js file in the ArcIMS
websites folder. Changed useHyperLink
false To useHyperLink true Added hyperLinkLay
ers0 Trail Sections" hyperLinkFields0
PROFILE" hyperLinkPrefix0
"/Website/JNP5/Profiles/" hyperLinkSuffix0
".jpg"
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Methodology Customization
I changed the website colours, the title and
title logo by further modifying the
ArcIMSparam.js file and modifying various .htm
files in the ArcIMS websites folder. I found
all this information in http//downloads.esri.com
/support/documentation/ims_/1011Customizing_the_HT
ML_Viewer.pdf
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Problem Solving
Creating trail profile graphs
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Creating Trail Profiles
Searched Google and esri.com for methods of
creating profile graphs of 3D line
shapefiles. Chose method described
at http//support.esri.com/index.cfm?faknowledge
base.techarticles.articleShowd29205
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Creating Trail Profiles Steps

• Use DEM and trail shapefile to create 3D lines
• Create 3D point shapefile from 3D line shapefile
• Add DISTANCE and Z_VAL field to 3D point
  shapefile
• Calculate DISTANCE and Z_VAL values
• Export 3D points attribute table as .dbf file
  and open it in Excel
• For all rows with the same Id number, create a
  DISTANCE vs. Z_VAL XY scatter plot (Id value is
  equal to FID of line the point comes from)
• Create a jpeg for each chart

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Creating Trail Profiles Calculating DISTANCE

• All line start points were assigned a value of
  zero. Subsequent points DISTANCE values were
  calculated to be the cumulative sum of the length
  of the segments linking them to the first point.
• A macro was initially written in ArcMap using
  ArcObjects and VB but took 1 hour and a half to
  run.
• X_VAL and Y_VAL fields were added to the 3D
  points shapefile and the attribute table was
  imported into Access. A similar macro in Access
  took less than a minute to run.

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Creating Trail Profiles Making jpegs

• A macro was written in Excel to create XY
  scatter plots with the DISTANCE and Z_VAL values.
• Another Excel macro was written to create jpegs
  from the plots.
• Then, I saw a profile of the Chilkoot Trail at
  http//www.pc.gc.ca/lhn-nhs/yt/chilkoot/activ/acti
  v1a2_e.asp and decided that the profiles needed
  labels for campgrounds, intersections and
  trailheads. I wrote an ArcMap macro which added
  a LABEL value to the appropriate 3D points.

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Creating Trail Profiles Making jpegs
4) Later, I decided the profiles needed direction
arrows as well. The DIRECTION values were
calculated using an Access macro (so much
faster!!!). 5) Code was added to the Excel
chart-creating macro. The macro now labels the
appropriate points along a profile and inserts a
direction arrow with the correct value. 6) When
the charts are created, the labels must be edited
manually to remove overlaps. 7) The jpeg-creating
macro is then run on the edited chart.
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Results!
ArcIMS backcountry trail and campground map
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Results!
ArcIMS backcountry trail and campground map
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The End