1. Creating a Cemetery GPS Inventory and Finding a New Location for a Telecommunications Tower
Bull’s Eye GPS and Suitability Services, Inc.
Molly Coryell, William van den Boom, Andres Segovia, and John Dayton

2. Outline Background Problem Statement and Purpose Scope Data
Methodology
Results
Conclusion
Outline

3. Background
The San Marcos City Cemetery, founded in 1874, is located on 45 acres at Ranch Road 12 in San Marcos.
The cemetery is the burial ground for many Texas pioneers and veterans of wars dating back to the War of 1812.
The cemetery lies within a Mexican land grant acquired by Thomas Chambers in Chambers died in 1865 and in 1867 his widow, Abbey, sold 3,000 acres containing this site to H.N. Duble at an estate sale held in Galveston. A portion of the cemetery site was purchased by Freedman Peter Roberts in Galveston in 1868.
It's also believed that there were slaves buried at this site from the earliest settlers making it a very unique burial ground containing soldiers of war, pioneers, Native Americans, and the local population of San Marcos that has resided in this community for the past 150 years.

4. Problem Statement and Purpose
The purpose of our project is to digitize the Tower Addition section of the cemetery as well finding the best location for a new telecommunications tower.
We were also asked to create a digital inventory of grave sites of the Tower Addition of the San Marcos cemetery.
Our work will be used for integration into a software program known as Pontem, Pontem is a cemetery management software system that was developed for maintaining all of your cemetery’s grave, owner, burial, and genealogical records.

5. Scope
The study area has remained the with the same focus on the Tower Addition [red] located on the western boundary of the San Marcos City Cemetery.

6. Data Name Purpose Data Type Data Creator 2015 Orthophoto TIFF
Depicts an aerial image of the study area.
TIFF
City of San Marcos
Cemetery Boundary
Outlines the cemetery area.
Polygon
Proposed LCRA Tower
Shows the two possible locations for the new telecommunications tower.
Point
Contour Lines
Lines showing contour intervals every 2 feet. Needed in order to create a TIN surface that is needed to create the DEM.
Lines
Ramsey Addition
Outlines the boundaries for the Ramsay Addition of the San Marcos Cemetery.
Super GPS Bros
Ramsey Section 3
Outlines the boundaries for the Ramsay Addition, Section 3 of the San Marcos Cemetery.

7. Bull’s Eye GPS & Suitability Services
Ramsey Section 3 Blocks
Outlines the boundaries for the Ramsay Addition, Section 3 eight and four blocks of the San Marcos Cemetery.
Polygon
Super GPS Bros
Ramsey Section 3 Graves
Outlines the boundaries for the Ramsay Addition, Section 3 grave plots of the San Marcos Cemetery.
Tower Addition
Outlines the boundaries for the Tower Addition of the San Marcos Cemetery.
Bull’s Eye GPS & Suitability Services
Tower Addition Blocks
Outlines the boundaries for the Tower Addition eight and four blocks of the San Marcos Cemetery.
Tower Addition Graves
Outlines the boundaries for the Tower Addition grave plots of the San Marcos Cemetery.
TIN
Created from contour lines in order to show the surface morphology.
Polygons
DEM
Needed in order to perform the visibility tool in order to determine which tower location would be the most visible in a 5 mile radius.
Raster

8. Original
Methodology

9. Final
Methodology

10. Final Methodology (cont.)

11. Results

13. Tower 1 Results Visibility: 25,123 raster unit cells
Not Visible: 17,312 raster unit cells
Ratio between Visibility and Non Visibility is 1.45:1

15. Tower 2 Results Visibility: 24,600 raster unit cells
Not Visible: 17,836 raster unit cells
Ratio between Visibility and Non Visibility is 1.38:1

16. Result Comparison Ratio between Tower 1 and 2 is 1.45:1.38
Tower 1 has 523 more visible raster unit cells
Due to 10 ft height difference (Tower 1: 805 ft, Tower 2: 795 ft)
Due to 510 ft distance between each other resulting in different 5 mile radius
Slope between locations: .0196

17. Cemetery GPS Inventory Map
160 Grave Blocks
920 Grave Plots

18. Conclusion
Quantitative analysis is crucial for locating LCRA Tower locations even if they’re only a few yards apart.
GPS is important to learn but not crucial for the completion of the cemetery digitization.
The Hill Country region’s terrain requires viewshed analysis to help understand the “big picture” of visibility.
Digitizing grave sites will benefit families and friends of the deceased for years to come and can help preserve gravesites that can be damaged by weathering.

19. Questions?