A Virtual Tour De Force With Global Information Systems, Students Create Variety Of Maps

Unpublished correction: The name of Higgens Point is misspelled in this story. This information is from the Idaho Department of Parks & Recreation.

When three local high school seniors cycled the Centennial Trail in October, they took along global positioning equipment.

The result is an electronic map, with 63 pictures taken along the North Idaho segment of the trail.

T.J. Eixenberger clicked on a portion of the trail map near North Idaho College on Wednesday, bringing up a snapshot of the Spokane River.

“You can’t see it, but there were about 100 Canadian geese here,” Eixenberger said.

Eixenberger, Laura Malone and Eric Stone worked on the trail project as part of their course work at Riverbend Professional Technical Academy.

Map demonstrations were one of the highlights of GIS Day at the University of Idaho Research Park. Wednesday’s open house showcased the many uses of global information systems.

“There’s a lot more to geography than what is the capital of your state,” said Rick Lovel, CEO of a GIS company called Spatial Tek.

GIS can be used to map pollution spills, insect infestations or U.S. Highway 95 fatalities, Lovel said. It helps people analyze the information in a data base.

Lovel, a self-described “ex-logger turned computer geek,” worked closely with the three students on the mapping project. He picked the Centennial Trail because it was familiar, and the finished map had tourism potential.

Lovel and the students spent two days covering the 24 miles of the trail between Stateline and Higgins Point. They stopped frequently to take geographic coordinate points and shoot pictures with a digital camera. Clicking a button on the map shows people exactly what they can see from that location, Malone said.

“You can zoom in, and pan around, and click on the bottom to get the latitude,” Stone said. Stone’s mother, Nancy, attended the open house. She had heard her son talking about the mapping project, but couldn’t picture it until she sat in front of the computer Wednesday.

“I’m going to put this (address) in my Christmas newsletter,” Nancy Stone said as she clicked her way through pictures of the Spokane River, Post Falls and Lake Coeur d’Alene.

The family moved to North Idaho from Virginia a year ago. Many of their friends and relatives have never seen the area, she said.

The students are already planning their next GIS outing - a skiing trip to shoot a 360-degree photo from the top of Schweitzer Mountain.

This sidebar appeared with the story: ON THE NET Check out the map

To view the Centennial Trail map, go to www.spatialtek.com. Click on education.