Generate a Roadmap Project

Example of a project to generate

Foreword:

Our freedom is our most precious good. I am Charlie and will remain Charlie, I’ll never forget the attacks committed against the Freedom in Paris on January 7th, 8th and 9th, 2015

Our most precious good can be divided infinitely without shrinking. That is why this modus operandi is put at the disposal of trekkers, avid to leave for autonomy into the mountain – or somewhere else 🙂

This provision completes the collection of logbooks (Tab Treks), with this hope to get in return your contributions, remarks and improvements as well as your routes which can widen our library.

The users of this modus operandi are responsible for risks they take by venturing into mountain or somewhere else. The GPS is not enough either to protect against natural risks, and even more, from faults of appreciation due to the lack of experience or to guarantee that paths didn’t change. The mountain is always right, merciless with those who engage themselves without precaution and even sometimes with the others!

Objectives:

When we want to create a route in a region for which there are no data to be automatically imported in the GPS (case of Nepal, India), it is necessary to create this route by ourself.

Modus Operandi:

A route is a set of segments taking place by points following each other. Every point defines itself by its name, its GPS coordinates, its altitude and the distance connecting it with the following point. Every point is named and contained in a file.

The routes must be created with a sure support, supplying these four source data: name, both coordinates, altitude and distance between points. The support, here, is Google Earth (GE).

1st stage:  Identify the points by which the route will pass. They are named and placed one by one on the support (GE), in a specific file.

The number of points depends on:

• the precision we wish to have and
• the capacity to reveal where the route really goes (forests, non-existent paths, inaccuracies of the satellite photo)

satellite photo on Google Earth

Second stage: the file must be then exported towards the spreadsheet given at the end of article:

• Either manually towards the « GPS » sheet. For that purpose, look for every point for coordinates, copy and paste in the corresponding cells of the line attributed to the point, copy then its altitude.
• Or automatically, with GPSvisualizer. In this case, which is to be favored because it’s much less boring,
  • Record the GE file of the points of the route in a directory of your computer
  • Go then on GPSvizualiser (http: // http://www.gpsvisualizer.com / convert_input). Ask for the extraction of the altitudes ( » add Dem elevation data « ) then convert the file (it is a .mkz) in a » plain text  » file.
  • This  » plain text  » file is then opened and copied ( » select everything  » then ctrl V) to be pasted in a  blank Excel sheet.
  • Locate the four columns corresponding to three source data: the name, the coordinates, the altitude

GPSvisualizer Input mask

GPSvisualizer converted datas in text 

 The file is pasted on a blank excel sheet

• Having made sure that the number of points is lower than lines in the « GPS » sheet, paste the data column by column in the « GPS » sheet. If GE name is not the same that those of the places, indicate the names of the real places in the column  » nom GE ou nom du lieu si différent de nom GE » (column D). If GE name are identical to the names of places, when they exist, paste names GE in the column  » nom GE ou nom du lieu si différent de nom GE » (column D). In this column, the names of Night Stages will be extracted by the calculation. If there is not enough lines, it is necessary to insert new lines then of refresh* the computation zone ( grey zone at the middle of the screen).
• Collect the distances between every point and complete the « GPS » sheet. It is often necessary to make a record by looking for the frequent and important bends of the route in mountain. They are not always visible, particularly in forests. Approximations are thus sometimes inevitable. The indication of the slope calculated between points allows in this case to estimate a probable distance.
• It just remains to determine the Nights Stages by indicating « n » in the cells in intersection between column for « N » and the line of the point for the night stage. This can be repeated by modifying the positions of « n » to obtain compatible stages with the objectives (duration, distances, elevation)
• The spreadsheet calculates slopes,elevation, total distance at the stages.

The spreadsheet « GPS » without data

The spreadsheet « GPS » is now filled

*Possible refreshment of a calculation area:

When cells are deleted or added in the data zone (white zone to the left), the values of certain calculation cells (grey zone in the middle) become false in the lines following the addition or the deletion. In this case, select as indicated in photos below, calculation cells of a line above the zone of addition / deletion (column K to T) (1) point the low corner at the right of the selected zone, left click of the mouse ( 2 ), come down to the bottom of the calculation zone by maintaining the left click of the mouse (3) 🙂

The deletion of a line pulls an error on computation zones

 (1) and (2) Select the calculation zone on a line above and click at the low right corner

 (3) By maintaining the left click of the mouse, come down to the bottom of the calculation zone

On output, we find:

A timetable. It indicates the stages, the daily elevation, the traveled distances and the altitudes at night stages

Remark: for the presentation, the zones of the schedule not informed by the calculation (trek shorter than 23 days) can be manually completed with information on the journey following the trek.

A curve of the altitudes according to the traveled distance (names of maxima to be manually added)

A curve of the altitudes at night stages (names of the stages to be manually added)

A graph of total elevation for every day, useful to plan reasonable stages and avoid the mountain sickness (advice: elevation / day < 500m)

Remark: The rule of 500m / j max is not respected in this example for days 2, 7 and 10

Spreadsheet: tableur vierge

To the possible users: thank you for bringing your support by commenting and by proposing your improvements and complements