Geography 336 - Field Methods

Using Survey 123 to gather survey data using your smart phone Introduction             This lab was a tutorial from Learn ArcGIS Online, called “Get Started with Survey 123 for ArcGIS” (Figure 1). This tutorial walks students through the process of creating a survey, as well as, the viewing the survey data collected and the analysis of the data. Figure 1. An image of the tutorial taken on Learn ArcGIS Online.              Survey 123 stresses that it is a field data collection system that makes accurate field data collection easy. The survey can be created online and then the app can be downloaded on Android or Apple devices and surveys can be taken from the app. Therefore, making data collection in the field much easier, while still being accurate. The data can also be analyzed in the field for quick decision making in the field. Methodology ...

Lab 6: Using a Bluetooth GPS with an iOS Device Introduction This lab used the BadElf GPS app with a Bluetooth GPS device to track the group’s movement as we conducted a basic find and seek on the UW- Eau Claire campus (Figure 1). Bluetooth connect devices, such as BadElf, are becoming increasingly popular. As smartphones became increasingly accurate with internal GPS, it became more cost efficient and convenient to have a GPS device attached to one’s smartphone instead of large pieces of equipment. Today, smartphones and tablets are used in a wide variety of geoscientist fields because it is more efficient and more cost effective. Figure 1. This is map of the location of the UW- Eau Claire campus within Eau Claire County, Wisconsin.  There is a variety of app that can be used on a smartphone that are compatible with BadElf. One of these apps is Collector for ArcGIS. This app allows one to collect and update data using the map or GPS and download maps to...

Introduction          Pix4D is a premier software for the construction of point clouds. This program is user friendly and has a lot of intriguing features. This lab will consist of the use of Pix4D to process a set of unmanned aerial system (UAS) data points taken from South Middle School in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. This study area consists of the South Middle School garden (Figure 1). This lab is designed to accurately process the data set using Pix4D. Figure 1. This map contains the city of Eau Claire, which is located in Eau Claire County, Wisconsin. The South  Middle school garden is the location of the red box in the south-east portion of the map.  To produce highly accuracy results, a high overlap between images is needed. Since, Pix4D uses similarities between images to match up locations, flat terrain with similar vegetation, such as agricultural fields can be difficult to analyze. It is suggest to increase the overlap to at leas...