[Qgis-user] Re: map formats (Jel Coward)

[Morgan Hite]

Hi Jel,

I use QGIS a great deal, and have some experience mapping for PEP/Air up
here in the Northwest Region of BC.

I would say you would give a resounding YES to the offer to use
Provincial data sets. Layers such as the most current Forest Tenure Road
Sections can give you a fairly up-to-date view of the forestry roads.
Current air photo imagery could be very valuable. Ask for access to all
the TRIM data! If you want to do your own mapping, these datasets are
invaluable.

However, that said, do you really want to do your own mapping? Is using
an online service from Victoria, like iMapBC just as good? You can turn
layers on and off, but you cannot usually apply the styling you wold
like, nor set transparencies.

Format-wise, I would think you would ask for shapefiles and KML (for
vector formats; for raster I suspect it is just georeferenced imagery).
KML you can view in Google earth, but it has some shortcomings in a GIS.

Chances are you will want to be able to zoom in on an area where a person
is possibly located, apply all sorts of layers, do some processing to
predict probability areas for search, (such as distances from roads,
which direction is downhill,etc.) and then stamp out some maps. It's
not as easy as it sounds, and someone will need to do a lot of ground
work to define the work flow.

Hope this helps,

Morgan Hite
Smithers, BC Canada