GeoBase in Action
GeoBase and the History of Railways in Canada
Using the GeoBase CDED product, Thad Wheeler built a small business reproducing prototypical Canadian railway routes for publicly available train simulators. "Prior to the availability of GeoBase data, I was purchasing many topographical maps that I would then scan and process in software to trace contour lines at all available intervals. The process was very labour-intensive and time consuming and did not always yield good results" says Wheeler. To produce a good quality railway route requires good terrain rendering within the simulation. "GeoBase data turned this job around overnight" he says.
When he began the project, Wheeler realized that it was necessary to render terrain for several kilometres from the immediate area adjacent to the tracks. It was clear that using the old method of data collection made this virtually impossible. Commercially acquiring DEM data was also a dead end, as cost recovery from the use of such data was simply not possible. When GeoBase Canadian Digital Elevation Data (CDED) was made available for free, this was a project saver for Thad Wheeler. He could now spend more time modeling trestles and other rail structures than tinkering endlessly with terrain. Furthermore, since he also uses data collected from railway beds in GPS co-ordinates, he is able to tie into the CDED data, ensuring accurate features and placement within the scenery software.
Presently, he is working on historical routes within the mountains of British Columbia. The educational value of this material is priceless as it teaches people the history of the early days of Canada and the importance of railways in its creation. He also notes that "Using the GeoBase CDED product, the scenery reproduction is so well defined that people who know nothing of the areas are keenly interested in seeing it in person, a sort of tourism spin off", says Wheeler.
The images show portions of Kettle Valley Railway which ran between Medicine Hat, Alberta and Vancouver, British Columbia through the southern interior of British Columbia from 1915 until it was decommissioned in the early 1970's. All the terrain has been completed using GeoBase CDED.