GPS/GIS/cruise grids, HELP!!!

[campbro]

Hey, I'm new to this forum and would love some help.  I am starting to get into some of this carbon cruising stuff, and I need some help with what program to use to generate cruise grids and maps.  I do not have access to ArcMap because I am sort of venturing out on my own to do this, and I cannot afford a $1,500 program.  Is there something cheaper out there?  I have a Garmin Summit HC GPS, so I need something compatible with that.  Thanks in advance for any help.

[SwampDonkey]

I don't know of anything that is going to generate a grid that will scale unless it's a script that generates a GIS spatial dot grid layer. The dot centres need to be georeferenced spatially (X,Y). If using a label for the dots the label scales in size and not the grid spacing. Some GIS programs might have this built-in as a function, but I think most will use a script.

What I do in Arcpad is scale my view to 1:12500 and place my 1:12500 dot grid over the screen and digitize the dots in X,Y. Then I can go to any scale, since the dots are digitized spatially they scale over the same x,y position.

I think your out of luck trying to do it on the cheap. However, do a Google for Minnesota DNR Garmin Utility and see if it allows you to do manual digitizing on screen to create a layer you can export to the Garmin. I almost think it is simply a conversion/transfer utility. I have not used Garmin's software so I don't know much about it's capabilities.

[SwampDonkey]

transparent dot grid placed over screen




Digitized spatial dots layer.

Your not going to get a thematic aerial image on a Garmin I'm afraid. So, your going to have to have an outline of the cruise area at the very least so you can use it to digitize your dots inside it's perimeters. As I said it has to be a spatial (X,Y) GIS layer your creating.

In my case, the dots are 100 m apart at any scale. The isolated ones are placed centrally in those isolated islands of wood.

[clearcut]

GRASS GIS (Geographic Resources Analysis Support System) is a free, open source geographical information system (GIS) capable of handling raster, topological vector, image processing, and graphic data.

I'm not sure if it will meet your needs but the price is right.

http://grass.osgeo.org/

Quantum GIS (QGIS) is the Graphical User Interface to Grass

http://www.qgis.org/

[SwampDonkey]

I'm not sure if he is going to be able to get the spatial data (dot grid) into his Garmin from this, but it's sure worth a try. I don't see any export data information. Looks like it was born as a Unix program and is beginning to take on a new look for a couple of OS's like Mac and Windows.

You can forget about any of the aerial photography or satellite images getting into the Garmin though. Only a Windows Mobile, HPC, Pocket PC, and a couple other device types will be able to handle them. The Garmin doesn't have enough memory or computing power.

[campbro]

thanks for the replies guys.  I found something I think will work when it is released.  It's called ExpertGPS http://www.topografix.com/
I spoke with the developer, and he said that the grid builder function will be available soon.  Seems like a good deal to me.

[SwampDonkey]

Yup, I've heard of it. That will be great if/when they get that new functionality.

View your engineering drawings over topo maps and aerial photos, and combine them with field data collected with any handheld Garmin

This means the imagery of topo maps and aerial photos along with the collected field data from your Garmin is viewed in ExpertGPS, not on your Garmin screen. ;)

[Tillaway]

Clearcut

Good link, QGIS looks pretty good.  I loaded it today and was playing with it a bit.
The interface vaguely resembles ARCMap 9.2 that I use daily at work.  I will grab some more GIS layers and see what the map layout looks like.

The other foresters here should check it out, it appears to be quite functional. 

[SwampDonkey]

Yeah, I have no doubt it's quite functional. I believe it has been developed for quite awhile now. I never did buy ArcView or ArcMAp. I went with Maptitude because i can do a whole lot more right out of the box and don't have to spent 100's more for all those add on functions from 3rd parties. And it was only $500 compared to $1500 for the base install. I can import/export shapefiles as well. The newest version you can actually load ArcMap projects direct without importing. It's probably a huge download for a dial upper. ;D Probably it would be great for Mac users, since GIS is pretty much limited to Unix on Mac.

[Tillaway]

SD
Yep, there are Linux, and Mac OS versions.  There is a graticule grid maker that would do a cruise grid as a plug in although it would take some time to figure it out.  The download is not dial up friendly, however you could save the program to a disk from a computer with a faster connection.  It took about 40 minutes to load on my slow dsl.

QGIS does handle ARCinfo coverages (.e00 files), shape files, and will create shape files.  It is open source so who knows what it can do.  People have probably built some cool tools for it. 

Manifold is less expensive than the GIS program you are using now and will do everything and more than the ESRI products.  It's around $300 bucks.

[SwampDonkey]

I can open ArcInfo to in Maptitude. And there are probably 20 or more other GIS formats it brings in. Even adding an external database table is easier. I can even digitize a paper map or aerial photo with control points on screen. Also, it has New Brunswick Double Stereographic projection. Most GIS don't and in ESRI you had to know what settings to use in some obscure utility to convert from WGS84 to our provincial projection. I couldn't even get that information needed to plug into the utility anywhere. It was like some kind of secret code.  : It finally got added to ESRI products such as Arcpad, ArcGIS after years of complaining. Even Trimble Pathfinder had it long before ESRI, ArcInfo has been used by DNR for almost 30 years on Unix. I got the feeling that dealing with those guys you had to give up the gold for public domain information that only had about 10 sentences of code.  : The only reasons they dropped the price from $6000 to $1500 was that others were providing more value for a lot less.

[SwampDonkey]

No more to the Projection Code than this.  :

[Tillaway]

It seems like government agencies are really the only ones sold on ESRI.  One company I did work for had ARCInfo but they did allot of contract government work back in the 90's.  Anyone starting a new company now would be money ahead, even though ESRI dropped their price, to look elsewhere for their GIS program.

That ESRI limited function for a high price keeps numerous folks employed writing scripts to complete simple functions.  ARCMap is not capable of producing a cruise grid.  We had a script written to do it in ARCView 3.2 but we have since "upgraded" to ARCMap and lost that function as well as many other tools our department has created specific for forestry applications.  We have to create our cruise grids using the old ARCview.  Our IT group has not written new scripts for ARCMap yet and it has been 18 month since we changed.

Our IT guys are sold on ESRI and folks like me suffer every day.  It seems like their programs are written for users that do nothing but GIS and Database management.  It is not field staff friendly.

[SwampDonkey]

I never did much scripting and none in Maptitude. It has scripting available and a SDK included. I think all that it would take to make a cruise grid is to define or make a call to the theme you want to base the grid on so the boundaries are defined and use a matrix (DIM() array function) to populate a table with X,Y positions based on the projection and have them display as dots in a new theme. I never bothered because it doesn't take long just to draw the grid with a dot grid up to the screen on a 100 acre parcel of land, be off and cruising and be done with it and on to something else by the time I spend writing the script. Granted once written, it's there. Some day I'll write something up I suppose, just ain't priority. :D Also, doing it that way is almost useless on fragmented private forest where, the dots, even though random might not land in isolated parcels of wood where you have to put 3 dots into, and that won't fit the random grid spacing. Also, lines and points should follow property side line bearings to minimize on extra walking and that won't be easy scripting. Sorry I was just taught to minimize on NP walking. It also cuts on sampling error a bit to. ;) You go down one road and the side lines are 250 degrees, the next tier of properties over might be going on 270 degrees and on and on... :D