weekly reflection #3

This past week has been a whorl wind of a week, it has gone by so fast.  I have accomplished a lot too, I have made two of my formats for my maps, since I will be printing out 4 or 5 total different formats. I will have trail maps that will be take away maps on 8.5x11 pieces of paper which will include the trails and wetlands.  I will also have 11x17 inch pieces of paper to show the different layering options a person can have.  I have enjoyed making the formats for the maps, and have been looking forward to printing my largest 3x4 foot maps.  The 3x4 maps will be hung in ECO as decorations then I will keep one and Dave will have one as well. Everything has gone as excepted But I do worry about using FedEx to print some of my maps.  I have benefited because I have learned the process of formatting maps so they make the most sense to the reader. This achieves my goal because I only have to format a few more sizes and then print them all.

Week3 Day4-5

A lot of progressive has been made, I have been able to print out two copies of my map and handed one in two Dave.  I have started thinking about how I will want to present my map during the show.  I am going try to use the program in the meeting house and show how the different layers work with in the program.  I will have two or three 3x4 foot maps then smaller 11x17 in maps with different layers showing, then final 8.5x11 trail maps.  I will need to start making setting up then legend and title for each size of paper. I also have had my last meeting with Lynn Cox  and I showed her the print map I got from Development.  I will need to go to FedEx copy center to get the large 3x4 maps.

week:3 day:2

I was able to get a lot done today.  Dave came over to check out the map and has okay it, also Scott Allenby said I could have a active map or could a link to my map under the woodlands page.  I have started to work out on the layout of the map and how I am going to print it.  I know that the largest map is going to be either 4x4 or 4x3 with a matte lamination that can be written on with dry erase makers.  The problem I am having know is trying to get my focus area only to the Proctor Academy not the town of andover. I can zoom in on the map but it will zoom in on the town as a whole not just to PA.

Week3 day1

Today was interesting, Chris the guy from UNH did a huge favor for me when I met him on Friday. He was able to cut down one of my data files only to the town of Andover.  However I struggled getting it into my map.  Most of my hours today I was spent emailing and trying to trouble shoot it. I almost gave but I decided to talk to Seth and he suggested that I copy and paste the FTP server address into my computers search bar  under "This PC".  After I got that all settled I started work on making it look good but also that all the layers corporate together.  I am trying to cut another piece of data so it does not have to load the entire state data.  The time it takes to load is enough time that I can get distracted and move off from working on my map.

Week 2 reflection

This week has had a lot of ups and downs, I had the opportunity to learn from each one. I learned that asking for help is okay and sometimes it is going to make your product overall better.  Also going to an expert in the field you are studying is also a great idea.  With all the frustrations I still enjoy what I am doing. I was asked to do this so Dave Pilla will have a current up to date map of all the important information he needs to mange the land.  When I asked Sydney for help I knew she had friends everywhere in the tech world but I did not know the extent of it.  I was pleasantly surprise with the results of calling in a favor.  The expert I UNH was so helpful and friendly, I did not know what to expect going into it. I have made great progress( shown In the pictures below).  I have to make the map look presentable and readable for all party's but especially for Dave. I also need to find a place to print my maps and laminate them as well.

W:2 Day:5

Oh what I day, over three hours in the car, A stop at UNH and then ending it with a scoop of ice cream from Johnsons.  Today really could not have been better in terms of my senior project.  I met with a man name Chris who works at GRANIT, he showed me what he has worked on and started to help me make my map presentable. Since all my data is now view able I can start to work on it being presentable. Since one of my files is so large and it takes my computer along time to reload everything when ever I move the map around, I was able with the help from Chris to get data from only the town of andover instead of the whole state.  What Chris is working on right now is flood plane maps for towns but all for FEMA and insurance companies. Today was total worth the time I spent in the car. I can not wait to start making my map look professional.

W:2 Day:4

Today was Amazing, I got so much accomplished to day.  First I got a meeting with Chris at UNH GRANIT tomorrow afternoon.  The original plan was for next week but he was able to fit me in his day, with his busy scheduled.  I am going go into the meeting with my questions planned out, so I can maximize the efficient of the meeting. Hopeful I will be able to make a connection out of the meeting which could come in handy one day.  Lastly I got the last piece of data I have been struggling with the past few weeks view able.  I had to call in a favor from Sydney Lake to use one of her friends who is familiar with trouble shooting all kinds of tech problems.  With out talking with Sydney I would still be struggling with getting that data view able. The problem was once I had the files downloaded I need to save it in a certain way to gain access to the actual data.  The next couple days will be sent making sure the map can be viewed easily by everyone.

W:2 day:3

Today was pretty uneventful, I continued my struggle with getting my last piece of data viewable.  I have made a call into a assistant research professor at Montana State University, asking for his help.  I have not gotten a response from him today. I have not gotten a response back from GRANIT to set up a meeting with them next week. Tomorrow I have a meeting with Pilla where I will be asking to see what more information he wants on his maps.  IF he is satisfied with what I have then I will move on to maybe making a trail head map or another map for the school.

Week 2 Day 1

After a restful weekend, I got back to work on my map.  I am still facing the problem I had last week.  I am unable to see my last piece of data which is one of the most important items of the map.  I called ESRI and got two different representatives but since I am on a trial program they can only help me so much.  However one of the reps suggested that I call professors or find a tutor and ask for help.  I also got a change to call GRANIT, I told them about the problem I was having, and asked if they could help.  I suggested that I could come down and visit them.  I am trying to go down and visit with them sometime next week. Tomorrow I will research some professors and ask for their help.

Week Reflection: Overall progress Made

     This overall week has been a total success,  I have been able to make a good base map to work off of.  I learned a lot this pass week, first thing I learned was gut because I have the data it does not mean it all wants to work together, Also in the files data I downloaded there are many different files which each carry specific information.  Some files may not work well the ARC and others will.  Another thing I learned is I do not want an office job when I graduate college. Having to look at a computer screen for 4 hours a day is something I do not want to be paid for.  MY favorite part of making this map is that a lot of people are getting excited over it.  Many of the teachers who love to mountain bike and hike in the trails are getting very excited.  They love that fact they will be getting a map with all the trails but also Dave Pilla will be able to use it to mange our wood lot better.
     Everything Dave asked me to put in has a purpose, the forest types, soil types and the wetlands will all help Dave mange the land but also it will be useful to the next wood lot manger. I was surprised how smoothly some pieces went together but at the same time I was frustrated when two items I thought would work together don't.  I have benefited since I now have over 15 hours in the program. Each day I will be gaining more. Being this far ahead makes sure I have some lee way going forward so nay problems that arise can be taken care of.  

Day 4: Moving on

After not getting my trail data in a line I moved on to a different part of my map.  I went to focus on the forest types.  I also went to Dave to get to see what he wanted more of in the map, he said wetlands would be great.  Adding wet lands was hard than expected for some reason.  I was able to get the data from UNH, but when I in put it and move the map around the whole thing turns blue. At the begging of next week I will call UNH or ESRI the software maker to see if they can help.  My Sponsor Lynn suggest that I call UNH and see if I can go visit their faculties and possible get help from them.  Getting that opportunity would be awesome and be a great help. The next few days I will be taking off so Monday will be the next blog.

Hours 4
written 9:00

Day 3: Better Late Than Never

I was not able to connect all my way points into a line, so I have decided to move on and focus on another piece of my map.  I tried to use the search feature with in the software to find out how to connect the ways points.  I attacked this problem from multiply angles but still I was not able to figure it out.  For a hours during the day I lost my soil data, it was inputted but I could not get it to show up.  After an hour of frustration it pop back up again.  I do not know what I did exactly but I am happy that it is back.  I still need to figure out my last piece of data and how to make it view able.  This data is all the different kinds of forests.  It breaks the land up into different color areas, which represent different kinds of forest like aspens,pitch pine and so on.  Tomorrow I will continue on trying to get my tree data view able.

Hours:4
Written 9:20

Day Two: Slight Disappointment

I was unable to accomplish my goal of connecting all my way points into a line, so the .GPX file Josh gave me is still little dots on my map instead of a line. I have not figured out to make a line or a trail with the file I was given.  I might need to change the file type so it works better.  Sadly I do not know what kind of file that should be.  I will spend tomorrow trouble shooting, if I can not figure it out I will make a phone call either the software maker or to UNH to complete my goal.  On the unfortunate occasion that I can not make it happen I will move on to other parts of my maps and not focused on that problem.  On a fresher side, I was able to go for a hike at Winslow State park. The air was fresh after the rain that fell on Monday.  I was able to freshen up my hike with some Yellow Birch twigs.  If you scrap off the bark until you see the green flesh you can start chewing on it, you will get a wintergreen flavor.

Hours 4
Written 8:30

Day 1: Getting started

Today was a filled with some frustration but progress was made on the map.  I figured out what I wanted my base map to be, I chose a topographic map.  With the topographic base map I do not need to find and input  topographical data from UNH's Granit site. UNH Grantit is a department were they collect GIS data for the state and they put it one place for free. Anybody can use their data and make a map.  My first layer I added was the Proctor trail system. I did not get this data from UNH but from Josh Norris. Over the years he was ridden or hiked all the trails with a GPS and gather data points. Which I have put into my map so, now you can see all the different trails.  The frustration was trying o get the data into ARC MAP the software I am using. I needed to convert a .GPX file into a .SHP, I struggled on finding a way to do that with out corrupting the data.  With the trail map added to my layers I need to label each trail, connect all the data points so it creates a line instead of many way points clumped together, I also need to change the color so it is easy to follow.

written 9:00
Hours 4:20