elib77 Posted 12 July , 2010 Share Posted 12 July , 2010 Greetings to you all, I'm on my way to the western front. All the planned trip is on google earth. It will be great if I could add to it layers with trench maps. Is there a place to get such layers? Thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MACRAE Posted 12 July , 2010 Share Posted 12 July , 2010 There will be something on that in the forum, just a matter of finding it . Dan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
martinclift Posted 12 July , 2010 Share Posted 12 July , 2010 Hi elib77 I know a chap by the name of Bernard. I think he uses this forum but, for the life of me I can't remember his forum name. That said, you can leave a message for him at:- jainvince http://ypres1917.3.forumer.com/index.php?showtopic=806 Bernard spends many hours in flanders checking out trenches and taking thousands of photographs. If anyone can help, he will be your man. Martin Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
elib77 Posted 12 July , 2010 Author Share Posted 12 July , 2010 :DThank you all. Will try. Nice wellcome Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
towisuk Posted 13 July , 2010 Share Posted 13 July , 2010 elib77, welcome to the forum... I don't think you will find layers of trenches to overlay on Google earth on the net. There is a digital package of trench maps available from "Linesman" which can be used on PDA's with sat-nav positioning, it isn't cheap, but I consider it money well spent if one is going to spend time wandering the battlefields of the Western front. I think Guy who brought out "Linesman" is developing it for certain mobile phone use, although I don't know how far along the line he is with this project.... regards Tom Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eltoro1960 Posted 13 July , 2010 Share Posted 13 July , 2010 Hi there , dependant on your skill with picture editing software, it is possible to generate overlays to put over satellite pictures / modern maps. I have the old IWM Trench Maps CD which I picked up second hand. I use it to create overlays like this. Linesman is brilliant but expensive. John Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
elib77 Posted 13 July , 2010 Author Share Posted 13 July , 2010 OK. Thank you all. And sorry for the mistakes in my previous post. ..well I'm a rookie and full with enthusiasm in front of my great war tour. It seems that making my own overlays is the solution. But were can I get the "old IWM Trench Maps CD"? Best, Eli Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
27thBN Posted 14 July , 2010 Share Posted 14 July , 2010 Yes where do these 2nd hand copies live ,probably hiding with the SDGW CD :rolleyes: MC Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eltoro1960 Posted 14 July , 2010 Share Posted 14 July , 2010 I got mine form a fellow Forumite upgrading, might be the best avenue to follow, or speak to forum member Croonaert, he make a range of econimcal trench map CDs. John Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
West101Ned Posted 16 July , 2010 Share Posted 16 July , 2010 Hallo I've been looking for layers for some time now. I found, as mentioned earlier, a digital package of trench maps from "Linesman" Very nice, but too expensive for me. For now I visit only the "Pool of Peace"- area. (Spanbroekmolen - Pool of peace - Wijtschate) I've found a trenchmap map of the area on the internet. Then "photoshoped" it over a satellite picture from Google Earth This is the result. No need for 'Fancy Pants'- expensive software Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
elib77 Posted 16 July , 2010 Author Share Posted 16 July , 2010 FANTASTIC. This is what I'm looking for. Where in the internet can such trench maps be found? Eli Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Smithmaps Posted 16 July , 2010 Share Posted 16 July , 2010 No need for Fancy Pants'- expensive software? Mmmm- I am the LinesMan developer, and would like to make a couple of small points. What you display over Google earth images are very nice pretty pictures, but they have no accuracy for some simple reasons: (Reproduced from an earlier post) They look very good, and work OK in small areas, but what you will find is that the aerial photos and the trench maps are in totally different world projections, and are images that are entirely different shapes. The Bonne Projection retained Bearing but not distance. The French Lambert Projection, retains Distance but not Bearing.The shortcommings of the Bonne Projection was welll known to the British Army in France, and the Artillery units cut up the trench maps and pasted them slightly further apart onto map boards. They reprojected to French Lambert just after the Great War. In practise, this means that if you match a point on the two images, the two pictures get progressively different, the further away you get from the matched point. it works ok in small areas, but you will find that roads diverge etc as you get further away from your match. If you don't believe me try a bigger area. You can show this graphically in LinesMan. If you display a trench map on one side of the screen and a sync of the IGN on the other side, have a look at the green map border. You will see that it is a proper rectangle on the trench map side, but is a distorted shape on the IGN side. Then draw a diagional line from one corner of the trench map to the other. You will see it draws at a different angle on the IGN side. All Projections are flat representations of a curved surface. If you try to directly overlay the two, clearly they are different shapes, and it does not work in any fashion that is not just pretty. This illustrates the projection difference between the two maps. You cannot therefore directly overlay the two with any accuracy without performing what is called digital orthorectification between the maps (Skewing the map images by calculation). You either need to orthorectify the trench map from Bonne projection to French Lambert, or conversly orthorectify from French Lambert to Bonne. Orthorectification is a science in itself. LinesMan has the ability to synchronise two maps of different projections within the software, and give meanigful correlation that is accurate, from one end of the Western Front to the other. The maps are not, however, orthorectified, in LinesMan there is no need, as they display in their original forms. Any overlays you draw, do orthorectify between the two views, thus enabling accurate detail exchange. To overlay two very different shaped map images, is I'm afraid an oversimplification of what is going on. No critiscism intended, and I know you are trying to be helpful, but LinesMan 'Fancy Pants' software took seven years to bring to commercial realisation, and has literally transformed the Western Front visit experience for many, and every map on the disc is georeferenced, not just a tiny square. All the best Guy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dfaulder Posted 17 July , 2010 Share Posted 17 July , 2010 Guy, Thanks for your note - particularly highlighting the problems that WW1 Artillery had with the projections of that day. I wish "projections" were covered more in school geography (an outline understanding should not be beyond A level students). As someone living in the North of Britain, I am irritated everyday by the projection of some of the weather maps on Television. However, it's surely horses for courses when it comes to software? (Although I somehow feel that to say you can do something (such as the Spanbroekmolen example above) without "Fancy Pants Software" is to do an injustice to the Google Developers.) If your interest is in a single area no more than a few kilometres in either dimension and that interest does not involve detailed study of issues like ranges, a rough and ready overlay probably meets your needs. The degree of "rough and ready" (i.e are you prepared to accept a 20m+ error in the positioning of a trench or dugout) depends on how much time you are prepared to spend "fiddling around" with an overlay image in Google Earth (you can scale, stretch and rotate an image, but you cannot do a proper re-projection - which means that what-ever you do is compromised). Trying to do so certainly makes you study both maps! The result for a small area is truly remarkable compared to what was possible a few years ago (getting an overlay image to wrap itself to an oblique "3D" view in Google Earth is near incredible). We already have StreetView for modern-day images; what about TrenchView? (Dream on!) If your interest is more widespread (both in terms of geographical area and timespan) and longlasting, a single tool that holds the whole lot and correctly reconciles all the different scales, orientations and projections (and gives you GPS integration) has to be the way to go. I don't think I can yet justify the price, so limit myself to what I can do with Google (and feel the frustrations). I doubt whether we will see Linesman functionality in Google for a long while. Perhaps we may (given time) see more of the Google Earth Functionality incorporated in Linesman? David Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
West101Ned Posted 17 July , 2010 Share Posted 17 July , 2010 FANTASTIC. This is what I'm looking for. Where in the internet can such trench maps be found? Eli Hi Eli I just 'googled' TRENCHMAP (and) WIJTSCHATE And, with a bit of luck, I found exactly the part I needed. shortly I'll be visiting that area again and I'll take my "trenchmap/satellite photo" with me Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
West101Ned Posted 17 July , 2010 Share Posted 17 July , 2010 Krater 11 - Spanbroekmolen - Pool of peace - Wijtschate http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ruvCzVOYLho Start of the works : 01/01/1916 Completed : 26/06/1916 - 6/06/1917 All measures in metres Depth of load : 26,8 Lenght of gallery : 521 Diameter : 76,2 Depth of crater : 12,2 Width of the craterlipps : 27,4 Total diameter : 131,1 (Bron : LAMPAERT R., "De mijnenoorlog in Vlaanderen") Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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