States/Whole Country/Both - EOTopo 200K

In the last paragraph, I thought I typed "though" but I thought wrong. Sorry. WBS

WBS,

Thanks for your input. I have just done a massive update on the road data and in fact am sitting in front of the GIS system and have been for that last two weeks. I have re-done so many roads down to very close detail, this will be released on Monday at 2014 (I think). The amount of updates along the main roads is immense, Sydney - Melbourne was almost a complete rebuild, Sydney - Briisbane was a lot of work, new roads in the capitals has taken the most time. I am currently re-aligning the whole Bruce Hwy from Cairns to Brisbane and will be finished this today, Cape York was yesterday. The list goes on and on.

In terms of updates I am setting up a new email account for direct email correspondence. We have the User Treks system for road uploading, this is available to all users (not just members - I think, will check it still works shortly).

The process at the moment has been to clear up the User Treks database (ie: get out all the poor quality data). Then superimpose this data on the Roads, Tunnels & Bridges layers, couple this with Satellite and Street level online maps onto my GIS desktop and then re-align, import or redraw section by section. Add missing road names etc. and adjust the tables to suit my future needs.

When you see 2014 next week in the online system you should be able to see the differences straight away. It is a massive update and I just ran a query on the roads layer and have updated 4376 objects from the 460362 objects. Not a huge percentage but in terms of main roads it fixes the data and brings the main road networks up to date.

In terms of data verification, the process of user treks linked to satellite road data gets us very close. Of course high resolution supplied data is the best and we already have a great deal supplied in the user treks system. As an example also a member the other day emailed me a 17MB Heysen Trail update, as the walk track has been re-aligned recently. This is going in.

Anyway I must get back to the task only today/tomorrow to finalise the updates and I have a few tiles of the east coast Bruce Hwy to finish today.

Thanks for the input.
David

Hi David, I have also sent you a small update to a track I recently travelled. Probably too late for your next update but keep in mind for the following update. A description is on EOTopo Review. The track file is still on EOtrackMe (GEORGE S) Cheers

George,
Thanks if I missed it it will be in the next round. Here is the update grid I have been working on. This is progress of the roads updates: Orange is updated to 200K scale, Red is updated to 50K, blank is not yet updated. The purple lines are the entire road network, the orange blobs represent dual carriage way roads.



This is most likely where the Monday release will be as I need a day of testing to ensure all the updates worked correctly and make adjustments. I must add the new Heysen trail this arvo and then move to testing.

George,
Can you do me a favour and save the tracking to a user route. I use the user route data for the mapping update tasks as all the data is in a single database.

Thanks - just let me know when it is done and I will check the update in the mapping and get it loaded in this release.

Others,
I have just loaded up the Heysen updates - awesome you can follow the walk track from the beginning to the end - it is one of the hundreds of new great additions to the next release.

David

Hi David, all done. Looking forward to the next issue

George,
Is this where you mean? I am a little confused about the update are you say the Mt Jackson Rd (the red bit between your route) is now closed to mining and hence you went down and around?

David

Yep, that section is closed now.

The old intersection between Mt Jackson and Bullfinch Evanstone Road is now intersected by a mining road.
The short (my tracks) leading away from the intersection, is where I was looking for a way to get onto the Mt Jackson road but all reached a dead end.
Where my track does not exactly follow the Bullfinch Evanstone Road, to the new turn off to the Mt Jackson Rd, is probably caused by my settings of 200 metres. Hopefully you can follow this explanation. Cheers

Hi

Main trafficable track is fairly clear on Microsoft Virtual Earth/Google Earth/ArcGIS Satellite..



Looks like the direct road/track going directly across as shown on 250K maps (and consequently 200K maps) is way out of date and has just overgrown (to a certain degree - possibly still useable if you tried hard enough) over many years as apposed to being a main road/track that was recently been closed because of some recent mining activity.

Cant see any operating mines but these photos are often several years old (but not as old as data used for 250K/100K maps previously illustrated). Good and bad thing about "old" maps..the track is there but you may not be able to use it...but then again ...:)

Cheers
Greg

while we are here ....the latest Hema map (Great Desert Tracks - SW sheet -2012 ed) is "up to date" with respect to this track/road...



The 2008 and 2010 versions of the same map show the cross track, but only as a secondary road...as does the 100K geology map of the area (Jackson Sheet - 2003 ed).

Cheers
Greg

Wish I could get this level of information for all roads - thanks guys. Here is what I have done based on your feedback and a re-alignment of the area based on Satellite imagery - this should be spot on for that junction and will be in the Monday release (unless it is still not right).



The lines into the area from the east are going to what looks like a dam or tank - here is the view from my GIS desktop with satellite view (BTW: I can zoom in much more than this but this view is already at 12K.



So there you have some insight into how I update the maps. Thanks again for all the input. If there are others please let me know. You will be really happy with the next release it resolves all the main city road updates and a few remote ones also.

David

That looks spot-on. Thanks David. Looking forward to the next release. And that short road to the left does indeed go to a water reservoir for the mining company. They use it to water their roads to keep the dust down. Cheers, George

Geobjw,

The Geoscience zones were sort of a choice however to make them work right required re-projection of the data into the specified zone - this was deemed a pain so we went away from this. You could suffer from the same issue of not having the right file loaded and in fact with the zones it is a little harder as you may not know what zones are what. It takes some working out what area of Australia Zone 50 covers vs WA for example. I buffer the states around the edge so you get a bit but not much from the next state.

If you are on a performance limited machine I would have thought you would load all state files so you have them all anyway. It is really a choice of one or five I think. There is no other major difference really - I do apply a little more ECW compression on the single file but the ozf is full format.

The reason for a one card preference is maintenance and stock. I could hold 100 SD for one and sell out of the other. Also when we update it makes it really hard. This is why I went 16GB and in the first round just filled it and decided we would work out the needed files as the product moved forward.

Thanks for your feedback it is all very valuable.
David

Hello Bill

Simple "trick" with Ozi if you are flicking between maps and want to find an area/point you where last looking at is to mark a waypoint at that location. When you load the next map the waypoint will be visible in the map view window (or use waypoint manager to take you straight there).

Takes a few seconds and removes need to look around - problem solved. Obviously a full mosaic is better, but not all maps are available in this format.

This method is also handy for flicking between different map sets.

Cheers
Greg

Hi Greg,

Bloody hell mate!
What a simple solution and one that had not occurred to me.

Thanks for the lesson.
Always learning hey!

Going OT so we may get in trouble but...I use temporary waypoints in this fashion a fair bit...in particular using these two shortcuts in the Waypoint List Box...you may already know this but anyway...



Select a waypoint from the list and click on the bulls eye icon - the map view will move to the location of the waypoint (assuming map containing that point is open).

The other icon (find map for selected waypoint) is great for opening up the right map for the area you are chasing e.g. mark a waypoint on the 250K mosaic at point of interest - open any 25K map - select the waypoint and click the find map icon and the 25K map on which the waypoint is located will open - saves looking through your map collection or trying to remember which map is required.

Cheers
Greg