1)    After looking for a while i came across a GIS website for North Vancouver called "GeoWeb District of North Vancouver GIS".  This is a small company based in North Vancouver which has undertaken many planning projects as well as distribution of maps, digital data and other GIS services.  At this site i was able to obtain some free data in compressed .exe files on school locations, school catchment areas.  This data was in ArcView shape format and needed to be converted to Idrisi.  I also downloaded some road network data from the same place but i noticed that some of the streets are somewhat inaccurate in the higher elevations.  There were patches of streets that did not exist and some were missing.  I decided against using this.  Once i had this data i wasn't too sure what to do with it.  I did not have enough information to begin any sort of project analysis.  After a couple of weeks of trying to figure out what to do with school data i decided on doing the school bus stations project.  I thought of switching my project for something else, but i did not find enough data and time was running out.  I decided to proceed with my original plan.  I used the FME Universal Translator to convert these shape files int Idrisi Vector format.

Schcatch.exe ----> Schcatch.dbf
                        Schcatch.shx
                        Schcatch.shp

Schools.exe ------>Schools.dbf
                        Schools.shx
                        Schools.shp

Streets.exe ------>Streets.dbf\
                         Streets.shx |------> Missing/innacurate data = Not used!
                         Schools.shp/
 

2)    To accompany the data i recieved from "GeoWeb District of North Vancouver GIS" i collected data from the SFU Newtork S:\\ drive.  I brought in a more accurate road network file.  I also collected landuse data from the S;\\ drive which aided me in my analysis for this project.

Allroads.vct
Allroads.vdc
Mjroads.vct
Mjroads.vdc
Landuse.rst
 

    Most of the data i collected was either in ArcView shape format or in Idrisi vector format.  The shape files i downloaded needed to be converted into Idrisi, and i did this using the FME Universal translator.  This converted all my shapefiles into Idrisi vector format.  To be able to perform any analysis on these files i needed to rasterize most of them into a idrisi raster format.  This was a little bit difficult because the accuracy was somewhat lost due to the thin lines involved, such as road networks and catchment areas.  To make everything work i quickly realized that reprojection of these images was necessary to be able to perform any type of analysis.  Using the "Project" utility I had to designate a reference system for each image so that i can work with them.  I used the UTM-10n for all my images, and this allowed for further analysis.

Additional background information on population and growth rates was collected from BC Stats.  www.bcstats.gov.bc.ca

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