Creation of Priory Navigation Maps

Introduction

For this project, the class will be going to the priory in Eau Claire to use navigation maps to find different locations within the grounds. The first step for this project was to create the maps. This post will go over the methods involved in creating the navigation maps. The next post will talk about the process of navigating the priory with our navigation maps.

Methods

Data

To start off, the data that was provided came from the USGS. There was an aerial image of the area, a contour map, a digital elevation model, the study area and an example of a navigation map that showed some contours and some of the physical features in the area. These pieces of data were used together to create an effective navigation map.

Coordinate Systems

For this assignment, two different maps needed to be created.  One of the maps used the WGS 84 coordinate system. The other map used the NAD UTM Zone 15. There are different reasons that these two coordinate systems. WGS is a coordinate system that is standard through out the entire world. The coordinate system is relatively accurate and doesn't have much distortion. Usually it will be used to map at a smaller scale. Universal Transverse Mertacor (UTM) is a system that is divided up into 60 zones that stretch 6 degrees from east to west and from pole to pole. These Zones stay a little more true to the shape of the Earth's surface at a larger scale. UTM is good for mapping more specific areas because more distortion occurs around the edges of the zones. This means that any areas that are spanning across more than one zone will have more distortion. So to quickly summarize the two systems, WGS is relatively standard throughout the world meaning you will get the same amount of distortion just about everywhere. UTM is split up into zones and is more accurate for smaller things that are inside these zones, but becomes less accurate when larger areas are being mapped.

Creating the Maps

First, each map was assigned the correct coordinate system. The next step in the creation process was to bring the study area into the map. This is represented by a black box on the map. The next step was putting in the aerial image of the priory and making sure that it was set to the correct coordinate system. Once the imagery was brought in, the next step was using the tool to convert a DEM into a contour feature class. The contour feature class that was created has a 5 foot contour interval. The contour feature class was put on top of the aerial imagery so that the map will give a sense of the elevation of the landscape as well as showing physical features of the landscape. Once both of these were together on the map, a grid was created. The grid will give measurements and help to show how far different things on the map are from each other. The WGS map grid uses decimal degrees as units and the UTM map uses meters as units. Once the grids were in place on each map, the final map elements were added. This includes a title, author name, legend, north arrow, and scale. 

Results

The results from the first part of this assignment are the two navigation maps that were created. Figure 1 is the map that uses the WGS 84 coordinate system. Figure 2 is the map that utilizes the UTM Zone 15 coordinate system. Both will be used in our next activity when navigating the priory.

Figure 1 is a map in decimal degrees and uses the WGS 84 coordinate system.

Figure 2 is a map in meters and uses the UTM Zone 15 coordinate system.

Conclusion

This activity helped to, first off, get a good visual of the area that we will be navigating. The mapping of the area itself was a relatively straight forward activity but it was enjoyable. I am looking forward to our next activity where we will get to put our maps to use and see the differences in navigation maps using WGS and UTM coordinate systems.