The long awaited but not forgotten new Pinnale Trail Map has been completed!

Please note, in commemoration of all the hard work Dan O'Neill has done for the Town of Newport in his 22 years of service, and for all the blood Dan has spilt on the trails, we have renamed Pinelink the O'Neill Trail and extended it to the summit of the Pinnacle.

Here is the new map: [url]http://www.team-pinnacle.org/media/maps/Pinnacle20110407.pdf[/url]

Team Pinnacle

This is a huge honor guys, thank you. The trail system is a jewel of Newport and to think that in the not too distant future I can take a couple grandchildren down these trails and stimulate a love of the woods and desire for adventure is very exciting for me. It would not be possible without all of teams hard work over the years.

I can't wait to blast all the way down it.

Wow, Ryan - great looking map! What software did you use to create it?

I'd like to figure out how to do a printed copy on tyvek paper. I'll look around for a printing service.

Jesse,

The goal for making the map was to use either free software or software I already had, or inexpensive software. I ended up purchasing one inexpensive program. For a newbie to cartography there is a pretty steep learning curve to this process. I tried a couple dozen free programs before I came upon the combination that worked best.

1) Use the most accurate device you can to gather the GPS data. Couple things to note, the cloudier the day, the more moisture in the air, the heavier the foliage the less accurate the data. So the best time of year to get the gps data is on a cold, clear, mid winter day.

2) After you have turned on your GPS and have set it to start gathering route points, wait atleast 30 minutes before start gathering important new data. Despite saying they are on and have satelite lock, it takes a while for the GPS unit to lock in as many satelites as possible, and once that has happened, a while longer to get real accurate positioning calculations. If you skip this step you will find what I found, every time you start GPSing from the same location the tracks are WAY off at first and slowly get better aligned with time.

3) GPS the routes / trails at least 3 times each so you can eliminate as much error as you can. There will be error in the data. Even the best units go off the reservation occasionally.

4) Purchase TopoFusion Pro. The basic free version doesn't have some of the tools you are going to need. Purchasing this program is optional as you can edit the data in the next program, but I found it a very easy program to work with and bought it first so it was easier for me to do it this way and easier to work with multiple tracks of the same data. To produce a non vector based map this program has everything you need but I was looking for a super clean vector map and you can not get that using TopFusion alone. You can export the trail system to Google Earth with TopoFusion and that works real slick.

4) In TopoFusion import all your data. Go through everything and take the average route for each path. Redraw as necissary. Delete the unused duplicate tracks after you have finished going through every trail. Make sure you save each trail segment as a separate track and add it's name and details to the data info for the track as this will make messing with line weights and names easier later. TopoFusion has a tool for making a trail system with a push of the button but it doesn't work well with duplicate tracks in my oppinion and it simplifies things more than I was looking for. Once you are done editing with TopoFusion, export the tracks in a form you can import easily into the next program.

5) Aquire QuantumGIS (or QGIS). This is a free open souce program and is where the real magic happens. Install QGIS and import the data from TopoFusion.

6) Next go to the GRANIT Data website which is a free service for NH mapping data. Download via their FTP server the desired layers. This is where I got the Roads, contours, rivers, lakes, streams, etc. Sufficive to say, these things are all called something you would not think of so it takes some time to get the right layers from GRANIT DATA but in theory you only have to do this part once per trail system.

7) In QGIS import all the layers and layer them up the way you desire. Modify the line weights and colors to your preference. Modify the colors and lineweight for your trail data.

8 ) In QGIS create a Print Composer for the scale and data you wish to export. Don't fool around with this too much as it is VERY BUGGY. The map layers and scale is really what you want. Export the Print Composer in SVG format. You will want all the line weights to be looking way too big in the Print Composer because when you import the data into Illustrator they turn out a lot thinner than you would expect.

9) Take the exported data and import it into Adobe Illistrator (or your vector graphics program of choice). QGIS at this time does not clip the contours et al very well so the best approach is to MASK the extra content. Illistrator is where you make the pretty finished map, add the Title, Legend, etc. You will find that the data exported from QGIS is way too big to fit a normal page size so I found 25% of original size to be about right for a letter size map. You will have to modify the positioning of the trail names for a lot of the trails as QGIS is not particuarlly good at positioning them. I also added the special markers on the map in Illustrator for the foundations, parking, etc.

10) once everything is the way you want it in Illustrator, save the document as a PDF. This preserves the vector lines. If you export directly from QGIS to PDF it does not preserve the vector lines and because of the buggy nature of the line clipping, you get weird results.

There are a lot of little details I'm omitting here but you get the general sense of it. For someone trying to figure this out on there own for the first time, it is a very long and difficult process with a ton of trial and error. If you need help with the details let me know.

Hope this helps Jesse.

Ryan

I've read through your response once, but I imagine I'll be referring back to it. It turns out that I had downloaded QGIS a while ago, but never tried to use it. I'll go hunt through the GIS layers on the granite site now.

Great map! Is there any way to sticky it at the top of the General Discussion Forum?
 
Stearing by IMPACT in search of FLOW

Ryan, did you generate your contour lines from Granite's .dem file? If so, did you have to convert them to .shp files first?

* edit *
Nevermind. I found the tagged vector contours (.e00 files) that will open in QGIS.

fattireb,

The current map has always been linked from this page: http://www.team-pinnacle.org/resources/mtb-locations.html

That location is buried a little deep. It took me while to find it the first time.

-Jesse

Brian, I agree with Jesse's assessment of the trail maps being a bit buried so I did away with the "Resources" section and made the link directly to the trail locations page. I also renamed the link to "Trails" and moved the link next to Local Loops.

I also stickied this topic.

Hope this helps

Ryan

For those interested in reproducing the base map I used for the Pinnacle, here is where and what files you need from NH GRANIT for QGIS:

1) Go to the GRANIT Data home page [url]http://www.granit.unh.edu/[/url].

2) Click on the "Download Free Data" link.

3) Click on the "Link from layer list by data catagory" link.

4) Next Download Via FTP the following files:
[list:fe61847a2e] A) Administrative and Political Boundaries
[list:fe61847a2e] + New Hampshire Political Boundaries at 1:24,000 Scale
[list:fe61847a2e] - pba.shp, pba.dbf, pba.prj, pba.shx
- Every shape file below requires all the extensions listed
above, I think? Make sure you download them all.
[/list:u:fe61847a2e][/list:u:fe61847a2e]
B) Cultural, Society and Demographic
[list:fe61847a2e] + Geographic Names Information System (GNIS)
[list:fe61847a2e] - GNIS_2008.shp
- I think this is the file I used, not sure on this one.
[/list:u:fe61847a2e][/list:u:fe61847a2e]
C) Elevation and Derived Products
[list:fe61847a2e] + Hypsography
[list:fe61847a2e] - From the Infomation link pick the quadrants you need.
- Not all quads are available - For Newport I used...
- hypso118.shp
- hypso131.shp
- I believe I used the Hypsography because it has the smallest
contour interval and is available for the Pinnacle. You may
have to use something else for contours.
[/list:u:fe61847a2e][/list:u:fe61847a2e]
D) Environment and Conservation
[list:fe61847a2e] + New Hampshire Conservation/Public Lands at 1:24,000 Scale
[list:fe61847a2e] - consnh.shp
[/list:u:fe61847a2e][/list:u:fe61847a2e]
E) Inland Water Resources
[list:fe61847a2e] + New Hampshire Hydrography Dataset
[list:fe61847a2e] + Directory d-nhhd_shp
[list:fe61847a2e] - NHDArea.shp
- NHDFlowline.shp
- NHDWaterbody.shp
[/list:u:fe61847a2e][/list:u:fe61847a2e][/list:u:fe61847a2e]
F) Transportation Networks
[list:fe61847a2e] + NH Public Roads
[list:fe61847a2e] - Roads_DOT.shp
[/list:u:fe61847a2e][/list:u:fe61847a2e][/list:u:fe61847a2e]
Hope this helps.

Ryan

I'm just looking to get the contour figured out for started. You can use the hypsography (.shp & supporting files) files since they are available for newport.

Page Hill is in 108 or 109 whre those files aren't available. I'll fool around with converting the .dem files tonight.

I figured as much for your stuff Jesse.

They say you can use a .dem to get the contours but I don't know how to do that without figuring it out for myself.

Ryan

I'll let you know when I figure it out.

garble frolg michon albitor ron stu gats? slodor fronk e tomei.

PJ

PJ

?????????????

Perfect, PJ! What the heck language are they speaking???