Geography 165.

Computer Cartography: Principles and Design

Assignment 4. Map Co-ordinates and Map Scale

Dates and Duration
Assigned: October 18 - 24, 2011 Duration: 1 week Due: October 25 October 31, 2011

Objectives
The objectives of this assignment are to: point out that "north" may not be what it seems; learn to use UTM grid co-ordinates for locational reference on large scale (topographic) maps; and learn to work with map scales and scale conversions. An Excel file will be provided on the UW-ACE page that you can fill in with the answers to the questions.

Readings
Slocum: Sections of chapter 7 Course Notes: Map Co-ordinates, Scale, and Geometric Measurement.

Computer Demonstration
At the start of your lab class, your T.A. will demonstrate the use of Excel.

Geographic vs. Rectangular (UTM) Grids

Geographic co-ordinates (latitude and longitude) are the logical co-ordinate system to use to locate positions on the globe. If you are in the middle of the Pacific Ocean and have a Global Positioning System to tell you where you are, latitude and longitude are the co-ordinates that you would need. The distance from Toronto in km would not be considered useful information. Conversely if you are on land, working within a smaller area e.g. Southern Ontario, it is hard to calculate the distance from Waterloo to Toronto in terms of degrees of latitude and longitude and the associated arc distances. Furthermore, the reference grid formed by the lines of latitude and longitude varies in shape from one area to another when these lines are put on a flat map. These problems and others prompted all countries to develop individual rectangular grid systems to use as reference or co-ordinate systems for their national maps. Rectangular grids are much simpler since they consist of two sets of parallel straight lines intersecting at right angles and forming a series of squares which can be subdivided to give a precise location. Most land masses are therefore mapped with reference to a rectangular grid system, but have the lines of latitude and longitude on the maps as well. The grid used by the Canadian National Topographic System (NTS) is based on the Universal Transverse Mercator projection, a system which has been adopted by many countries throughout the world. On the 1:50,000 scale NTS maps the grid lines are spaced at 1,000 metre intervals. These form a subdivision of the 100,000-metre quadrangles that are in turn a subdivision of the UNIVERSAL TRANSVERSE MERCATOR GRID zones (identified by a number and letter combination). At the 1:50,000 scale the 100,000-metre quadrangle and the UTM grid zone need not be identified for a grid reference, as long as the map sheet is named. At smaller scales (e.g., 1:250,000) the quadrangle must be indicated since the 1,000-metre grid numbers begin to repeat themselves on one map sheet. The UTM grid zone designation is only required if a world wide location is needed. 1. Select a 1:50,000 NTS map (maps will be available in the Lab class). Choose any two point features on that map and find both the latitude and longitude and the UTM grid reference for each of those points to the nearest second and 100 m, respectively. Take the map to your T.A. during the lab, to check that you have specified the correct grid location, and to collect the marks. There are instructions on the side of the map sheet to help you. (8 marks)

Where is North?
In northern Canada the pie shaped geographical grid is superimposed on the UTM rectangular grid. So where is north? True North is the direction of the geographic north pole, indicated by the direction of the meridians of longitude at any point on the map. These are often shown only as degrees along the map edge, but on the NTS maps the left and right edges are parallel to true north, i.e. parallel to the lines of longitude. Grid North is the direction of north indicated by the vertical lines of the rectangular grid superimposed on the map. Magnetic North is the direction in which a compass needle points. (The magnetic compass is not only controlled by the magnetic north pole and will very likely not point directly toward it. It responds to the total effect of all parts of the earth's magnetic field on the needle at the observer's location). The relationship Instructor: Dr. Peter Deadman, ES1-114, Ext. 33404, pjdeadma@uwaterloo.ca Department of Geography and Environmental Management, University of Waterloo 1

Geography 165. Computer Cartography: Principles and Design

Assignment 4

between the three directions becomes vitally important if you are lost in the field with a compass which indicates magnetic north and a map that indicates grid north. The relationship is indicated by a small diagram in the margin of large scale topographic maps, called a declination diagram.

Measuring and Plotting Directions

When you measure direction on a map it is usually measured as an angle from north, but first it is necessary to state whether you are measuring from true north or grid north. Once that has been established, one of two systems may be used for specifying the direction of one point from another on maps. Using the whole circle system, azimuths are measured clockwise from the north whereas in the quadrant system, bearings are measured either clockwise or counter-clockwise from north or south for one quadrant of the compass rose. An azimuth of a whole circle system may be indicated as 210 35' 45". The same bearing on a quadrant system is south 30 35' 45" west. Azimuths are more commonly used, and in fact the term 'bearing' has come to imply more generally 'direction'. When a major airport has several runways, they are numbered according to their azimuth. 2. What is azimuth 143 expressed as a bearing using the quadrant system? What is the bearing North 51 West expressed as an azimuth? (4 marks)

If the map (UTM) co-ordinates of two locations on a map are known, the grid azimuth of the line from the first to the second point can be calculated using the following formula: A = arctangent (difference in Northings / difference in Eastings) 3. Using the UTM co-ordinates of the two features identified in question (1), calculate the grid azimuth of the line from the first feature to the second feature. (4 marks) Use Excel to do the calculations. Excel has two arctangent functions: ATAN and ATAN2. For our purposes, ATAN2 is easier to use. ATAN2 takes the difference in Eastings and difference in Northings as two arguments and returns an angle in the range to + radians measured from east. Negative angles go clockwise from east, positive angles go counterclockwise from east. To obtain an azimuth in degrees, you must convert from radians by multipying the result by 180 and dividing by . Then convert the angle from east to an azimuth.

Map Scale
No single feature of a map is as important as its scale. Scale determines the accuracy of the data on the map, the smaller the scale the less accurate the map. All linear and area measurements and indeed all map production requires the use of scales and you must acquire the facility of working with scales rapidly and with confidence. Any scale can be given as a representative fraction (1:25,000) with units the same on both sides; verbally (e.g. 1 cm = 25 metres), or as a bar scale. Map scale is the ratio of distance on a map to the corresponding distance on the ground. To express scale as a representative fraction, the units of measurement must be the same for both the numerator and denominator of the scale ratio.

Scale

map distance in cm ground distance in cm

20cm 500m

20cm 50,000cm

1 2500

Determination of Unknown Scale

The constant enlargement and reduction of maps, and the fact that some images (primarily air photographs) do not carry a printed scale, means that a common type of problem centres on determining unknown scales. This can be resolved quite easily by measuring the distances between the same points on both a map with known scale and the 'unknown' material. The ground distance between the two points can be calculated by dividing the distance measured on the map with known scale by the map scale. (Remember that to divide by a fraction you must invert and multiply). The distance measured on the unknown material and the calculated ground distance can then be used in the above formula to obtain the unknown scale. 4. What scale would you use to construct a) a map of the UW campus, b) a floor plan of the EV1 and EV2 buildings, c) a map of the Asian land mass for an atlas (22 x 28 cm page), d) a land use map of Wellington County, Ontario. (4 marks) 2

Department of Geography and Environmental Management, University of Waterloo

Geography 165. Computer Cartography: Principles and Design

5.

Assignment 4

What is the scale of the map if 5 km on the ground represents 2 cm on the map? State the scale as a representative fraction (R.F.) and graphically in an open divided scale showing 25 km divided into primaries of 5 km. (4 marks) Imagine that you have to reduce a map measuring 240 cm x 150 cm to one that measures 80 cm x 50 cm. The original map scale was 1:25,000, what would the new scale of the map be? Provide your calculations. It may help to draw a diagram. (4 marks) Imagine that you have to enlarge a map measuring 30 cm x 40 cm to one that measures 75 cm x 100 cm. The original map scale was 1:10,000, what would the new scale of the map be? Provide your calculations. It may help to draw a diagram. (4 marks) Study 2 NTS maps of Canada, one at a scale of 1:250,000 and one at a scale of 1:50,000. State which two maps you are using and record the major differences between them in terms of the depiction of ground detail and the amount of generalisation. Use note form if you wish but illustrate your statements with specific named examples of features on both maps. This exercise should be done in the lab. Maps will be available in ES1 240 for the duration of the lab. (8 marks)

6.

7.

8.

Length and Area Measurement Length Measurement of a Straight Line

Using a map's graphic/bar scale is the most common method of determining the straight-line distance between two points, and works best when the distance between the points is less than the overall length of the scale. A graduated scale can give a distance measurement only as accurate as the units into which it is subdivided. An alternate method of distance measurement is to use the UTM grid co-ordinates for the two points, the distance between them can then be calculated using Pythagoras. For maps displayed using ArcGIS, lengths of linear features can be measured and labelled using the dimension tools.

Length Measurement of a Curved or Irregular Line

Streams, roads, boundaries of vegetation etc., are often too irregular to be measured easily using a bar scale. Their measurement is facilitated by the use of an opisometer, a small, toothed wheel fitted with a recording dial which is run along the feature to be measured. The cm reading is then converted to ground distance using the map scale. Other tools can be used in place of an opisometer, for example, a piece of string or cotton, or a digitiser, tools at opposite ends of the technological spectrum.

Area Measurement
Area measurement involves the linear scale in two dimensions. There are three general types of procedures used for measuring areas on maps: graphical, mechanical and digital techniques. Graphical Techniques. The Grid Method involves covering the area to be measured with a regular grid of unit squares, illuminating from below and counting the squares within the area of interest. The smaller the size of the grid squares, the more accurate the determination of the area. The Dot Planimeter is a transparent acetate sheet covered with randomly or systematically spaced dots within grid squares. The dot method improves on the grid method where you estimate portions of squares for irregular areas. To find the size of an irregular area using the dot planimeter, count the number of whole grid squares falling completely inside the boundary and then the number of dots within the partial grid squares inside the boundary (each square contains the same number of dots). Then divide or multiply by the area factor indicated on the planimeter to get the map area (in square centimetres) and convert to the ground area. A Mechanical Planimeter, fixed at one end, can be used to measure the perimeter, and hence calculate the area of a map section. Digital Techniques: These can involve manual tracing of the perimeters for which the enclosed area is required, or the whole process can be automated and the tracing and determination of the areas of polygons determined automatically. In each case the accuracy of the measurements depends on several factors, including: (1) the precision of the instrument (a unit (circle) of known area should be used as a test); Department of Geography and Environmental Management, University of Waterloo 3

Geography 165. Computer Cartography: Principles and Design

(2) conditions of measurement (temperature, table surface, wrinkles on the map etc.); (3) the human element (acuity of vision, steadiness of hand, patience, good lighting); (4) the size of the area to be measured. 9.

Assignment 4

The following diagrams represent three maps, all printed on the same size of paper, but with the scales as shown. If map B covers a ground area of 1 sq. unit, what are the relative ground areas of maps A & C in square units. What general rule can be formulated to express the relationship between the linear dimensions of a map and the area represented when the scale is changed? (8 marks)

1:400,000

1:80,000

1:40,000

Scale Factor
It is often assumed that the scale of a map is constant. The scale of a road map of Waterloo, may be constant but for all small scale maps, particularly ones that depict a continent or the world, the scale varies from one point to another. This is because it is impossible to project a spherical or ellipsoidal surface onto a flat plane in such a way as to produce a rectangular map covered by continuous detail, without changing the scale of portions of this surface. (The spherical skin of an orange cannot be peeled away and flattened to produce a continuous, flat, orange rectangle.) The nature of this change in scale can be easily understood if we conceive of two steps in the creation of such a map. First there is the reduction of the Earth to a model at a certain scale. This model of the globe retains the true shape of the Earth and preserves all the true scale relationships on the Earth. Such a model is known as a generating globe because it provides the basis for the projections. The projection of this globe onto a plane involves locally shrinking or stretching its surface. The scale cannot be correctly maintained at all points. The representative fraction or scale provided on a map legend is the scale of the generating globe and is known as the principal (or nominal) scale of the map. However, this scale is only valid for a small region of the map (usually along one or two standard lines or at one or two standard points). Elsewhere the actual scale of the map will differ from the principal scale. The scale factor provides a convenient way of measuring the extent of scale variation by comparing the scale at a given location on the map with the principal scale as shown on the map legend. The scale factor is defined as the ratio of the actual (measured) map scale to the principal scale given on the map where both scales are expressed as representative fractions. The scale factor can be quite significant on small scale maps. Often it will be as large as 2.0 or as small as 0.5. A scale factor of 1.0 would indicate that the actual map scale was the same as the principal scale. The scale factor at a given location on a map can be calculated using the following procedure: Measure the length of any 1 of latitude and any 1 of longitude at a point on the map. For example 1 of latitude at 73N measures 0.7 cm, 1 of longitude at 73N measures 0.8 cm. Determine what the length of that 1 of longitude and that 1 of latitude should actually be on the earth at that point. The actual ground distances are 32 km and 111 km respectively. Calculate the actual scale of the map as the ratio of the measured map distance to the true distances on the surface of the Earth. Using the numbers above, the latitude (N/S) scale is 0.7 cm/111 km = 1/15,800,000. The longitude (E/W) scale = 0.8 cm/32 km = 1/4,000,000.

Department of Geography and Environmental Management, University of Waterloo

Geography 165. Computer Cartography: Principles and Design

Assignment 4

Calculate the scale factor in each direction by dividing the actual scale of the map, as calculated above, by the principal scale shown on the map legend (1/12,000,000) where both scales are expressed as a representative fraction. In this example the scale factor for 1 of latitude at 73N is 1/15.8 1/12 = 12 15.8 = 0.76. In this example the scale factor for 1 of longitude at 73N is 1/4 1/12 = 12 4 = 3.0

10. You have a map of the entire world that uses the Mercator projection. The body of the map (the mapped area itself) measures 20cm across. For this map, calculate the East/West scale factor at 70, 40 and 20 degrees north. The ground distance for 1 degree of longitude can be obtained from the table created in question 1 of lab 3. Calculate the actual, and principle, scale of the map (the scale of the map along the standard line) and then calculate the scale factor as the ratio of the actual scale to the principal scale. You may wish to do these calculations using Excel. A template for the calculations has been provided in the file Lab4.xls. (12 marks)

It is strongly recommended that you complete as much of this assignment as possible when teaching assistants are available to help with problems. Please hand in a printout of the completed Excel spreadsheet and your written text and diagrams. TOTAL POSSIBLE MARKS 60. THIS WILL COMPRISE 4% OF YOUR FINAL MARK.

Department of Geography and Environmental Management, University of Waterloo