Navigation Map Construction

Introduction:

The purpose of this exercise was for us to create maps to be used in navigation activities in the future. We created two maps, one with the World Geodetic Survey 1984 (WGS84) coordinate system, and one with the Universal Transverse Mercator (UTM) coordinate system.

Methods:

We needed to create a map using each coordinate system, with grid lines that were appropriate for the respective systems. I generated elevation rasters and contour lines from LiDAR the city acquired in 2013. I also added maps of the trails that I had previously collected with a Trimble Juno 3b when conducting research. I think the trails will be a good reference for knowing how far past or before  trail the markers are. I used 10ft contours, as they would show the terrain better than a 5 meter contour, but be less distracting than the 2ft contours my professor offered. I refrained from adding an aerial image, as I have a fair understanding of the Priory's landscape and I didn't think the map needed any additional clutter. After designing the maps, I added both my and one of my partner's pace counts, so we would have them recorded for reference in the field.

Figure 1: The UTM zones for the lower 48 U.S. States.
I used UTM zone 15N to create my reference map.

Universal Transverse Mercator breaks the whole planet into 60 different zones that are 6 degrees wide, which reduces overall distortion of the areas within the grid. Locations are measured as "northings" and "eastings", or distances from the equator and from a false origin. The central meridian of each zone is given an easting of 500,000, so all values are within the zone have a positive easting value.

Figure 2: My UTM based reference map

The World Geodetic Coordinate System 1984 (WGS84), provides coordinates as their locations on Earth's ellipsoid surface. It is used by GPS for locating positions anywhere on earth's surface and for creating extremely large scale maps.

Figure 3: My WGS84 based reference map

Discussion:

The UTM map will be extremely helpful when navigating with the compass and pace counts, as all distances on the map will be calculable in meters.

The WGS84 map won't be very helpful for navigation with the compass and pace counts, as the grid has .00056 degree intervals, which translates to 44.0776 meters. This awkward interval will make any sort of distance calculations difficult when in the field. The map will, however,  be extremely useful for the GPS navigation activity, as all of the coordinate locations will be easily identifiable on the map.

Conclusion: 

I am intrigued to see how well or poorly my navigation maps actually perform when in the field. I am expecting the trails data to be a helpful reference, though they may prove to be an unnecessary distraction.


Sources:

http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/2001/0077/report.pdf

I used this page to convert the distances from decimal degrees to meters: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimal_degrees