Add slope aspect information

[russellporter]

We can calculate the approximate aspect of each segment of a run as we have elevation data. Need to decide the best way to display this information, also a single run might have multiple aspects in varying percentages.

One option could be to bucket segments of the run into aspects N, S, E, W, NE, NW, SE, SW, and display an aspect if the % of run exceeds some threshold.

[dhimmel]

Just had a similar idea and came searching if anyone has created distribution plots of slope aspect for ski areas.

I'm interested in creating polar/radial plots that show the distribution of aspect across a given aggregation. The aggregation could be a single trail/run, although ultimately I'd love to make some data visualizations that aggregate by ski area, US state, hemisphere, elevation, etcetera. Could probably dig up some cool correlations between ski area attributes (like season durations) and their aspect distributions.

One option could be to bucket segments of the run into aspects N, S, E, W, NE, NW, SE, SW, and display an aspect if the % of run exceeds some threshold

Showing the primary aspect of a run is a cool idea.

I'm not sure if it makes sense to show aspect along a run (e.g. with distance on the x-axis. I could imaging the current distance/slope plot showing aspect either as points that are directional arrows or via color. Since the aspect is somewhat obvious when highlighting a single run from the map layout, it's probably not that helpful to visualize aspect along the run.

[dhimmel]

We can calculate the approximate aspect of each segment of a run

Noting that if calculating from segment coordinates, we'd actually be calculating run orientation/bearing rather than aspect, since there is no guarantee that a run follows the fall line. Often runs deviate considerably from a fall line like in the case of a traverse.

I'm not sure if the proposal is to perform the more challenging approach to interpolate points along a run and then calculate aspect at each of those points based on surrounding elevation data.

[russellporter]

I'm interested in creating polar/radial plots that show the distribution of aspect across a given aggregation. The aggregation could be a single trail/run, although ultimately I'd love to make some data visualizations that aggregate by ski area, US state, hemisphere, elevation, etcetera. Could probably dig up some cool correlations between ski area attributes (like season durations) and their aspect distributions.

Something that's also crossed my mind, definitely an fun topic to explore 👍

Noting that if calculating from segment coordinates, we'd actually be calculating run orientation/bearing rather than aspect, since there is no guarantee that a run follows the fall line. Often runs deviate considerably from a fall line like in the case of a traverse.

Good point. As the height maps are already cached on the server it should be doable but would have to check what approach is best.

[dhimmel]

I'm interested in creating polar/radial plots that show the distribution of aspect across a given aggregation.

Just wanted to share an update on this task, which morphed into a project we're calling OpenSkiStats. We've generated histrograms of ski run orientations based on OpenSkiMap data. Here's an example ski area:

And now for all ski areas by hemisphere:

We'd love any feedback from the OpenSkiMap team and community via issues. @russellporter I'll follow up separately with some collaboration opportunities I see for OpenSkiMap and OpenSkiStats.