Trail Network Production using GPS Data

The production of accurate, digital trail representations is a necessary component of map making and trail user simulation. Typically, land managers, recreationalists and those who study trail use are interested not in a single trail but in an area which contains a complex network of trails and roads. GPS receivers facilitate the capture of accurate trail and road data. When used to extract a single trail their use is straightforward. When trying to capture an entire network, the procedure is not as clear and takes either great diligence on part of those doing the collection or a great deal of post processing and organization by hand. This paper presents an automatic method of producing an accurate representation of a trail network given a number of possibly overlapping and intersecting GPS tracks.