Any Graphics folks interested in helping NWAC?

Check out keyhole.com. Its the latest and greatest when it comes to 3-D digital models/maps. It kicks ass!

I'll try to run these ideas past M.Moore. Hopefully, he'll be working again this week. I'll let you know what I find out on the map thing, guys.

Here is some additional information on this project.<br><br>From Mark Moore: Paraphrased quotes and replies to conversation 4/8;<br><br>Regarding maps, that is something we could maybe work towards in the long run. The maps would require an ARC GIS server and license and that is something that would be expensive.<br><br>In the end, the best thing in the near term might be a simple solution that is easy for forecasters to manage and easy for the public to utilize.<br><br>Mark confirmed the goal of this project is to provide another means to communicate information to the public and to educate the public as they continue to accdess the information.<br><br>It would be really great if the graphics schematics morphed over time, perhaps in stages to say represent the hazard for a particular region in the morning of the day of the forecast, in the afternoon of the day of the forecast and for the nexrt day.<br><br>Something else that would be great would be a regional map much like the bulletin page of www.avalanche.ca

Either a 3-D avalanche rose or a stylized mountain would be a good graphic initially. He liked the idea of showing a gully and ridge, but iif the diagram became to complex it would be time consuming for the forecaster to fill out.

The NWAC has the following regions: Olympics, W. Slopes Washington Cascades from Stevens Pass N, W. slopes Washington Cascades from STevens Pass to White Pass, W. slopes of the Cascades from White Pass to Mt. Hood, E. slopes Washington Cascades from Stevens Pass N, E. slopes Washington Cascades S. of Stevens Pass, Washington Cascades, passes from Stevens Pass N, Washington Cascades Passes Stevens and Snoqualmie Passes and Washington Cascade Passes Snoqualmie and White passes. On most occasions, two or more of these regions are grouped together when the conditions are similar for more than one region. So collating the regions would need to be an option.

One possible solution to enter the information into the graphic, would be to design part of the forecast as a tabular forecast, for instance:

N cascades W slopes /above 5000'/High/critical aspect E through NE/below 5000'/Considerable/critical aspect NE/Surface Hoar

But these hazard levels would have to change with the time periods shown above. If the information was entered and displayed in tabular form, filling out the tabble could also create the fields to be entered on the graphics diagram

The NWAC uses the large server at Avalanche.org This server supports sql and mysql data bases and php language, among others.

On the number of hits on the website: 140,000/week.

Gary,<br><br>

<br> Regarding maps, that is something we could maybe work towards in the long run. The maps would require an ARC GIS server and license and that is something that would be expensive.<br>

<br><br>This is not the case. All of this can be done with currently available free open-source software. The pre-processing can all be done using the GRASS GIS, and the maps can be served dynamically using UMN MapServer. A number of high traffic sites use MapServer with fast response times. Topozone is the best example, they do approximately 300,000 maps per day. At 140,000 page views per week, a single processor server with around 50GB of hard drive space (even 10m DEM data for WA and OR isn't that big) would suffice. It may even be possible to have UW host the data, since a northwest mosaic of elevation data with slope, aspect, and curvature would be useful to researchers in many other fields.<br><br>If you would like, I can talk to Mark directly about some of these ideas. I believe this project could be done relatively quickly for a low cost, and I would be really excited to take a crack at it.<br><br>Jeremy<br>

I wanted to bump this up so I could throw this out to everyone here for their opinions.

I make my living making maps so this topic has interested me since it was originally posted. What I've created doesn't quite address Gary's original guidelines but I thought it might be an interesting substitute. Basically, I've created a map, enhanced with shaded relief, that depicts aspect and elevation using colors. Aspect is divided into 8 different sectors (N,NE,E,SE,S,SW,W,NW) and is shown by different color hues. Elevation is added in 500 ft groupings and shown on the map by progressive levels of hue saturation.

You can download my example here:

PDF File (586k)

I'm a Mt Baker homer so that's my example area so far.     I'm looking to do another one for Paradise and Stevens Pass just so people who are more familiar with those areas can weigh in. My original version Kinda worked but after consulting with my old cartography professor last week, she pointed me in a different direction and the result is much better.

Anyways, I think the "pros" of something like this is that the product is static and does not need to be updated on a daily basis. The "cons" for me are selecting the elevation range and interval. The elevation component of my example map barely works because I have 2 too many elevation categories and the color differences blend together a little too much for my liking. I did add contours to counteract that though..

Thoughts?..

You have created a very good map of slope angles but the problem is that the NWAC would want to be able to enter the Hazard Level, so the question is: How does one graphically enter both slope shapes, angles, etc and the hazard level simultaneouly?