[OSGeo-Discuss] looking for input on field enabled desktop / internet project

[Jody Garnett]

You may want to look at beegis; it is for field data collection.
Jody

On 27/07/2010, at 11:05 PM, karsten vennemann wrote:

> Hi all,
>  
> I am working on a project that deals with storing, retrieving and displaying field collected data about plant species. Data will often be entered on laptops in the field and later uploaded onto the web and database server once an internet connection is available. Thus the project involves both
>  
> * an internet based application for managing , updating and viewing spatial data and
> * a desktop application enabling the "disconnected collection" and editing of data This is pretty similar to the approach taken by the initial version of the Open Ocean map (desktop component based on QGIS - compare http://www.ecotrust.org/ocean/OpenOceanMap.html )
>  
> While from my perspective the web based part can relatively easily accomplished using Open Source components, the other component - a desktop tool to collect the data in the field that should at the same time be compatible with the desktop system could potentially prove to be more tricky. One problem is that we might have to use ArcGIS as a desktop tool because users are familiar with it and are already using it for other tasks. Unfortunately (from my experience) ArcGIS is not really good in displaying related table information in one-to-many relationships.
>  
> Basically for each mapping polygon (there are many areas and many species) over time different users will enter information about species. Those will have times attached to them. This will create a time series that once can monitor changes over time (did the species decrease or increase in that area). Thus the database design I wanted to use will have 3 related tables
>  
> 1. polygon GIS layer of areas (static)
>  
> 2. a 'record" table (update all the time)
> that will store each record ever entered with fields such as species name, species_id, user, date, and map_area_id (this table will be related in a may to one relationship to the mapping areas using the map_area_id (many records related to one mapping area. In the end this table will have information for each of the mapping areas, for each area several hundred species, for each species multiple entries over time and from different users. Thus that absolutely doe not follow the standard format of one column one could use to symbolize this on the map in ArcGIS. However using zigGIS this can be pulled from PostGIS. Using a “view” in a PostGIS with a definition query in ArcGIS can handle the display in ArcGIS .
>  
> 3. table of species (pretty static)
> with specific species data (common and scientific names, species_id, web links etc...) related to the records table using the species_id 
>  
> Now I am looking for a field enabled solution (no internet access) on the desktop that can handle the editing of multiple mapping areas (assigning to many map areas values for one of the species for example. The data should be stored in a format that we can then (hopefully easily) upload to the PostGIS database as new records ... ArcGIS can handle the editing very well but not the relationships we will create (out of the box at least not), also zigGIS does not allow the related tables to be edited out of the box.
> We could do this adapting the OpenOcean Map tools - but would need to enable advanced editing (to allow updating many map areas records and multiple attribute data at once in a form) . Or we could use ArcGIS for editing and define an upload mechanism to PostGIS . But whish data storage format to use ZigGIS is not ready for editing for related tables … Another thought is using some set-up of GIS on a stick (flash drive) …
>  
> Any suggestions how to approach this best?
> Thanks Karsten
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