Use site with Google Maps plugin to estimate Elevation Data

[Adrean]

Attempting to put together a plot plan with terrain elevation this weekend, I came across this site that I thought was handy.

https://www.daftlogic.com/sandbox-google-maps-find-altitude.htm

It isn't an elegant site, but you can enter the address for the property that you are working on and simply click the image to find the elevation for that "point". I was able to put together a reasonable terrain in Chief quickly using this tool.

Certainly not great for a final project, but a good start for the conceptualization phase.

[rikdekker]

This is brilliant! Haven't put it to practical use yet but will definitely be playing with it!

Thanks for sharing this

[dshall]

Thx Adrean, I will check it out.

[Chopsaw]

Adrean, I have previously done searches on manually plotting GPS in Chief and found nothing. This is a great tool although it would have to be carefully compared to actual ground data. Would you be able to put together a tutorial on plotting GPS elevation data such as this onto a traditional survey using "Horizontal Ground Distances" measurement.

Thanks, Chopsaw

[KirkClemons]

Nice! I've also used this site as well:

http://www.geoplaner.com/

[Adrean]

Chopsaw, I'll see if I can come up with something to share.

 

In essence, my approach would be to take a screen capture of the map and/or satellite view from website, and import that into chief as a picture, scaling it and aligning it to the terrain perimeter.

 

Next, I would find the elevation 'points' on the website's map for each corner of the lot and any other landmarks, then create correlating elevation points on the picture imported into Chief.

 

Once you have some good anchor points, you can start bisecting them to find the midpoints, on and on until you have enough elevation points in Chief to show a reasonable topo.

 

The example I was using was a sloped lakeside lot. The site's elevation data didn't appear to account for the existing excavation and pad flattening that has been done on the site, so for that scenario one would have to infer the elevations of flattened regions and roads and change the Chief topo accordingly after they've established a base. It did seem to give me a reasonable natural slope, though.

 

Best,

[javatom]

I'm not so sure how accurate it is.  It shows an 18' drop from wilbur ave. to canfield.  It is pretty flat there.  I also checked it against a lot I own east of town that I have a topo for already.  It is right for some of it and off by 20' on others.  Great tool but might require visual confirmation.  Good job finding the site.  Thanks.

[Chopsaw]

Adrean,  This is a great approach and thank you for explaining your situation.  I am not sure exactly how the website determines their elevation data but it does not seem to be live or as accurate as the many decimal places suggest.

 

I would be interested in using the Chief  X-Y grid system to accurately plot GPS coordinates and corresponding elevations sourced from a variety of more accurate sources.

 

This would be overlaid on a plot plan derived from an official survey such that once this has been established then using the X-Y grid system any theoretical or proposed point for new development within or even outside the plot plan could be assigned an accurate GPS position from the grid.

 

This theory should be rather easy to understand but unfortunately in real life there are many obstacles to overcome to achieve this and a comprehensive technical overview of how to achieve this in Chief would be invaluable to many.

 

This would have to include standardized procedures for converting all of the currently used methods of measurement for distance and angles used by surveyors over the last 100 years. As well as how to apply this within the program.

 

I was working on this last year and made a lot of progress but did not complete the project when I ran out of time but still intend to finish as I believe this is possible in Chief but I am not aware of anyone who has done it.

 

Please contact me if you are interested in working on this together.

 

Thanks, Chopsaw

[VHI_WMA]

Great post, Thanks!

[VHI_WMA]

Nice! I've also used this site as well:

http://www.geoplaner.com/

Is there any way to import this as elevation data or just as markers and polylines

[KirkClemons]

Is there any way to import this as elevation data or just as markers and polylines

I typically just place some point markers and then download the data as a GPX file. The point markers are then imported as elevation points in Chief Architect.

[parkwest]

Has anyone any experience with using siteops and chief for terrain mapping?

Here is the site

www.siteops.com

Lower left has the siteops lite...

[da3020]

Here is the way!

 

First point some points here to determine min and max ranges for latitude and longitude (it will be a rectangular field at finish)

https://www.daftlogic.com/sandbox-google-maps-find-altitude.htm

 

Even two points will be enough by diagonal of a rectangular. Also you can use any other service to determinate coordinates in decimal format. GoogleMaps for example.

So now you have information about latitude range - from/to and about longitude range.

 

Then sign up to https://replit.com/ and you will be able to run Python scripts online. You can quickly sign up with Google or othe cross-sotial account.

Now you must create your own Python repl and paste to it some code, described below:

I wrote this code that can generates pairs of coordinates inside you rectengular field with some step.

 

https://replit.com/@DaniilChiernien/Coordinates-grid#main.py

 

See "Code" tab and copy code from my repl to your Python project. Since that you will be able to change some parameters in code. Here it are:

Nmin, Nmax, Emin, Emax - latitude/longitude ranges that you have took on first step.

 

StepN, StepE - is how dense calculate points on both axises. Descrease Step will encrease dence grid prodused. Note that too mutch points will make bugs in Cheif Architect. Usualy about 1000 points is enough. You may try experimentally.

 

Run the csript and it writes results to coordinates_grid.txt near the main script file.

 

Now the most interesting. Download coordinates_grid.txt Go to

https://www.gpsvisualizer.com/convert_input

 

and upload it there. 

Change following settings:

 

Output format: Plain text  GPX

Plain text delimiter: comma

Add DEM elevation data: best available source (it will add altitude data to points in best way!!!)

show advanced options, Remove all tracks: Yes (it will descrease a size of result file)

 

Now push "Convert" and download GPX file.

Import GPX to CA as "Import GPS Data" and build the terrain.

 

 

[Alaskan_Son]

On 8/10/2021 at 7:32 AM, da3020 said:

Here is the way!

 

First point some points here to determine min and max ranges for latitude and longitude (it will be a rectangular field at finish)

https://www.daftlogic.com/sandbox-google-maps-find-altitude.htm

 

Even two points will be enough by diagonal of a rectangular. Also you can use any other service to determinate coordinates in decimal format. GoogleMaps for example.

So now you have information about latitude range - from/to and about longitude range.

 

Then sign up to https://replit.com/ and you will be able to run Python scripts online. You can quickly sign up with Google or othe cross-sotial account.

Now you must create your own Python repl and paste to it some code, described below:

I wrote this code that can generates pairs of coordinates inside you rectengular field with some step.

 

https://replit.com/@DaniilChiernien/Coordinates-grid#main.py

 

See "Code" tab and copy code from my repl to your Python project. Since that you will be able to change some parameters in code. Here it are:

Nmin, Nmax, Emin, Emax - latitude/longitude ranges that you have took on first step.

 

StepN, StepE - is how dense calculate points on both axises. Descrease Step will encrease dence grid prodused. Note that too mutch points will make bugs in Cheif Architect. Usualy about 1000 points is enough. You may try experimentally.

 

Run the csript and it writes results to coordinates_grid.txt near the main script file.

 

Now the most interesting. Download coordinates_grid.txt Go to

https://www.gpsvisualizer.com/convert_input

 

and upload it there. 

Change following settings:

 

Output format: Plain text  GPX

Plain text delimiter: comma

Add DEM elevation data: best available source (it will add altitude data to points in best way!!!)

show advanced options, Remove all tracks: Yes (it will descrease a size of result file)

 

Now push "Convert" and download GPX file.

Import GPX to CA as "Import GPS Data" and build the terrain.

 

 

 

 

Don't forget that we can also simply Import>Import Terrain Data without having to jump through quite as many hoops.  The data can simply be imported from the aforementioned sources as simple csv/text file data. 

[AvoyeDesign]

On 6/20/2016 at 2:58 PM, Adrean said:

Attempting to put together a plot plan with terrain elevation this weekend, I came across this site that I thought was handy.

https://www.daftlogic.com/sandbox-google-maps-find-altitude.htm

It isn't an elegant site, but you can enter the address for the property that you are working on and simply click the image to find the elevation for that "point". I was able to put together a reasonable terrain in Chief quickly using this tool.

Certainly not great for a final project, but a good start for the conceptualization phase.

This would be great for a preliminary phase when we are waiting weeks for the surveyor to fit us in his schedule.  Thanks, I'll check it out!