13 replies to this topic

[Hans van der Maarel]

Can anybody point me to some sort of reference on how a Canadian NTS reference relates to the real world? I'm trying to download some CanVec data for a relatively small area, don't want to have to sort through the entire country

[François Goulet]

It's not easy to find a specific location only using the codes... You can find an explanation of how it is divided there: The National Topographic System of Canada or there Topo 101 - Topographic Maps, The Basics

The best way is probably by Geographic location or geonames on that page: CanVec

and that one can help find a specific sheet too: Topographic Map Search

You can find an index in shapefile format here

Hope it helps!

[rudy]

Hans -

A while back I downloaded both the 1:250,000 and 1:50,000 NTS index as a shapefile. I think I downloaded them from Geogratis but I can't find them anywhere on the site. It seems that entering any search term on the site always gives 71 results.

If you want I can email them to you - neither are very large.

Is that what you are looking for?

(Isee that Francois has beat me to it.)

[Hans van der Maarel]

Thanks, Francois and Rudy!

A while back I downloaded both the 1:250,000 and 1:50,000 NTS index as a shapefile. I think I downloaded them from Geogratis but I can't find them anywhere on the site. It seems that entering any search term on the site always gives 71 results.

If you want I can email them to you - neither are very large.

Is that what you are looking for?

(Isee that Francois has beat me to it.)

Those indexes would be great. If you could email them to me (hans-at-redgeographics-dot-com) that'd be great.

[François Goulet]

Those indexes would be great. If you could email them to me (hans-at-redgeographics-dot-com) that'd be great.

It should be easier this way:
50K
250K

[Hans van der Maarel]

Ah, excellent. Thank you very much, Francois!

[François Goulet]

Ah, excellent. Thank you very much, Francois!

I gave you the reference, but I don't want to see you making good looking maps about Canada... That's our specialty... You don't see me making maps of Netherland!

Ok! ok! I did one on Ukraine 2 weeks ago, but it was an exception

Always a pleasure to help!

[Hans van der Maarel]

I gave you the reference, but I don't want to see you making good looking maps about Canada... That's our specialty... You don't see me making maps of Netherland!

Ok! ok! I did one on Ukraine 2 weeks ago, but it was an exception

Always a pleasure to help!

Hehe... no, I need to look at some Canadian data for a client. But hey, at least over in Canada the data is free, so who knows, I might just go ahead and make a pretty map...

Well, had some trouble struggling with grid shift files, until I noticed that the link you provided comes from a page that also supplies a .prj file... Looks like I have everything I need now

[François Goulet]

Hehe... no, I need to look at some Canadian data for a client. But hey, at least over in Canada the data is free, so who knows, I might just go ahead and make a pretty map...

Canada yes, Quebec, well... some Base data are free, but it's pretty expensive for 20K data provincial data...

I wonder if anyone has ever compared availability of national data?

If you do the map, I hope you'll post it in the Map Gallery

[rudy]

I gave you the reference, but I don't want to see you making good looking maps about Canada... That's our specialty... You don't see me making maps of Netherland!

Ok! ok! I did one on Ukraine 2 weeks ago, but it was an exception

Always a pleasure to help!

Hehe... no, I need to look at some Canadian data for a client. But hey, at least over in Canada the data is free, so who knows, I might just go ahead and make a pretty map...

Well, had some trouble struggling with grid shift files, until I noticed that the link you provided comes from a page that also supplies a .prj file... Looks like I have everything I need now

Hans -

If looking for road data, you're best bet (for free data at least) is to use the data available on Geobase. This is more update than the stuff on Geogratis and is broken up by province. Geobase also has digital elevation data, geonames and a few other things. These are broken up by NTS tile, though.

[Hans van der Maarel]

If looking for road data, you're best bet (for free data at least) is to use the data available on Geobase. This is more update than the stuff on Geogratis and is broken up by province. Geobase also has digital elevation data, geonames and a few other things. These are broken up by NTS tile, though.

I've got both the CanVec and National Road Network data, but it appears there's no street names, only route numbers for the major roads, in either. There appear to be attributes for them, but they're either empty or "unknown". Is this to be expected?

[rudy]

I've got both the CanVec and National Road Network data, but it appears there's no street names, only route numbers for the major roads, in either. There appear to be attributes for them, but they're either empty or "unknown". Is this to be expected?

Yes, this is to be expected. The NRN's most useful class for classifying roads is ROADCLASS. I know that some of the provinces have separate provincial Road Networks that you can download (e.g. British Columbia and Ontario); these have the same geometry as the NRN but include road names (but, strangely, BC's doesn't have a class on which they can be sorted out by type). What province(s) are you looking at?

[Hans van der Maarel]

Yes, this is to be expected. The NRN's most useful class for classifying roads is ROADCLASS. I know that some of the provinces have separate provincial Road Networks that you can download (e.g. British Columbia and Ontario); these have the same geometry as the NRN but include road names (but, strangely, BC's doesn't have a class on which they can be sorted out by type). What province(s) are you looking at?

BC. But I got everything from geobase.ca and geogratis.ca, I guess I need to look at the relevant BC organisation.

[rudy]

Hans -

Now that I think of it . . . it wasn't the BC Road Network data I was thinking about but a similar one with different geometry from Statistics Canada - the road network file, also available on a province by province basis for the entire country but through StatsCan. The data is more up to date but the geometry is different and not quite as accurate as the NRN but it does have street names attached to it - but no way of classifying what is what. The files are available from StatsCan for free download. You'll have to look at it yourself to see if it meets your needs. Hope this helps.