Tara Smedbøl

The process started off with sourcing contour data that would make my heart sing and feel good to look at as I build content for my portfolio. I knew in my heart of hearts that it had to be of the Valhalla Mountain Range that I grew up looking at from our porch, from my Grandma’s kitchen window, from our summertime lake adventures on Slocan Lake, and where my heart has always felt at home. 

For starters, I looked at the open data portal for the RDCK (the regional governing body for where I grew up), I combed the BC government open data, I googled - all in the search to find free contour data of these mountains that I love. At last, after not too much searching, and also after finding several data sets that I hope to explore in the coming weeks, I discovered that iMapBC is easy to use, has a load of layers to choose from and emails you layers you request in the extent you choose (restricted to the Province of BC). 

One of the first steps is to click “Data Sources” and then “Add Provincial Layers”. There is a LOT here, so I would recommend searching for keywords. In my case I searched for “contour” and found a nice variety of contour levels. For the sake of generality and purely artistic purposes, I chose the 250m contour file. 

Once that loaded, I panned to the region I was looking for (the Slocan Lake/Valhalla Mountain Range in the SW of BC), and then clicked “Export” > “Provincial Layer Download” and selected the extent I wanted the data for, which layer(s) I wanted, and hit “Prepare Order”. Once I had filled out the format I wanted the layer in and my email address I was ready to...sit back and wait while the data got assembled (per the email I received from “NRSApplications”). Instead of truly sitting back though, I decided to try my luck and request the entire layer for all of BC. I was not disappointed - my request went through for that one too. 

After very little time waiting for the files (a whopping 2 minutes), I was excited to see that the files were ready and waiting for me. I took no time in loading them into QGIS so I could start visualizing the data and choosing colours etc. Ihave worked in QGIS previously and found the set up/installation easy (and it’s open source). As well there is excellent documentation to help if you get stuck: https://www.qgis.org/en/site/forusers/trainingmaterial/index.html

My last step was to “smooth” the contour lines as they were appearing jagged, like, you know, the line was made out of connecting points or something. I tried a couple of plugins in QGIS but ultimately was not seeing the results I was looking for so turned to the good old trusty work horse of FME. After using the “Generalizer” tool, connecting it to the reader and writer, and reading the help documentation for the tool, I decided to use the NURBfit (Smooth) Algorithm and gave it a Degree of Basis Polynomial of “10″. I ran the workspace, loaded the output into QGIS and was extremely happy with the smoothed contour lines so proceeded to export and refine my extent for optimal viewing.