Shallow Thoughts : : mapping

PyTopo can Show GPS from Image Files Now (30DayMapChallenge #15, My Data)

For Day 15 of the 30 Day Map Challenge, "My Data", I'm highlighting a feature I added to PyTopo last week: the ability to read GPS tags in image files.

JPEG, and probably other image formats as well, lets you store GPS coordinates inside the EXIF (EXchangeable Image File format) metadata stored within each image file.

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An Old Autocross Course Map (30 Day Map Challenge #11: Pen and Paper)

I was going through some old paper files last year and discovered something I thought I'd lost: the event flyer and course map for the first autocross course I designed.

Autocross, or SCCA Solo II as it's technically called in the US, is car racing on a miniature course defined by orange traffic cones in a parking lot, airstrip or other available expanse of pavement. Lots of people autocross their street cars, but there are classes for everything up to highly modified open-wheel formula cars.

I got started autocrossing in Los Alamos in the late 80s, driving my Nissan 200SX turbo. In those days, there was an autocross club based in Los Alamos,

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Made it to LA Mountain, Finally

30 Day Map Challenge Day 5: A Journey

Last year for the #OpenStreetMap day of the 30 Day Map Challenge, I wrote about a hike that went a little wrong, when we lost our way on the Mitchell Trail and ended up going partway up the trail to LA Mountain.

LA Mountain is so named because Los Alamos High School kids have, for many years, maintained a big "LA" on the mountain that was visible from town. I say "was" because the LA is very hard to see now, and I've been told (but haven't been able to confirm) that's because the Forest Service, which owns the land, said the kids had to stop updating it. I'd seen it from below and always wondered how to get there, so last year, when I realized that was the trail we were on, I vowed to go back soon and go all the way up.

And then, of course, I promptly forgot all about it, until a few days ago when I was reviewing last year's 30 Day Map Challenge projects.

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Mapping to Protect Los Alamos Open Space (30 Day Map Challenge Day 3, Polygons)

How to Add Data from ArcGIS Web Maps to QGIS

Open Space advocates in Los Alamos county have been fighting the forces of development.

Ordinarily that's not a big problem. This county is wildly supportive of its open space; a huge percent of residents hike, bike, watch birds or otherwise appreciate the natural beauty around us. It helps that a lot of the town is on finger mesas adjacent to un-developable canyons, so you never need to go very far to be in a natural space.

But the county also loves to hire out-of-state consultants any time anything is changing, and a couple of years ago, they hired a consulting firm to rewrite Chapter 16 of our county code, concerning development. That included the zoning maps. The consultants capriciously changed several parcels previously zoned as open space to zones that allow much more development (like six-story apartment or commercial buildings), ignoring public input protesting the changes, and the County Council rubber-stamped the consultants' changes, promising to revisit the open space changes soon.

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Decoding Specialized FIT files (30 Day Map Challenge Day 2, Lines)

I have a new eBike! I'll write about it more before long, but for now, what's relevant to the 30 Day Map Challenge is that it's from Specialized, and if you use the Specialized phone app, it can record all sorts of fun statistics for rides, including GPS coordinates.

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30 Day Map Challenge Day 1, Points: Mapping New Mexico Peaks

November is the 30 Day Map Challenge.

Like last year, I'm going to work it sporadically, since I've been busy with a bunch of other things. But this sort of challenge can be a great way to motivate myself to learn new technologies or get better acquainted with old ones, so it's fun to work the challenges when I have time.

Day 1 is Points, and I'm mapping peaks in New Mexico.

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Fetching OpenStreetMap Details with OSMPythonTools

I was talking to a friend about LANL's proposed new powerline. A lot of people are opposing it because the line would run through the Caja del Rio, an open-space piñon-juniper area adjacent to Santa Fe which is owned by the US Forest Service. The proposed powerline would run from the Caja across the Rio Grande to the Lab. It would carry not just power but also a broadband fiber line, something Los Alamos town, if not the Lab, needs badly. On the other hand, those opposed worry about road-building and habitat destruction in the Caja.

I'm always puzzled reading accounts of the debate. There already is a powerline running through the Caja and across the Rio via Powerline Point. The discussions never say (a) whether the proposed line would take a different route, and if so, (b) Why? why can't they just tack on some more lines to the towers along the existing route?

For instance, in the slides from one of the public meetings, the map on slide 9 not only doesn't show the existing powerline, but also uses a basemap that has no borders and NO ROADS. Why would you use a map that doesn't show roads unless you're deliberately trying to confuse people?

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Making OsmAnd Overlays with QGIS (2024 Edition)

Several years ago I wrote about Making a Land Ownership Overlay with QGIS and Making Overlay Maps for OsmAnd. I've been using that land use overlay for years. But recently I needed to make several more overlays: land ownership for Utah for a hiking trip, one for the eclipse, and I wanted to refresh my New Mexico land ownership overlay since it was several years out of date. It turns out some things have changed, so here's an update, starting from the point where your intended overlay is loaded as a layer in QGIS.

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