Walk-through

MapIt is a GIS app designed to support GPS data collection and any kind of GPS / GNSS based surveys. It’s a mobile GIS tool for land and field surveyors and anyone dealing with environmental and GIS data. MapIt makes GIS data collection or field survey process faster and more efficient.
App can be also used as a measurement tool to calculate areas or distances.
The data can be organised on layers and exported to number of common formats.

When registering location simply choose required attributes from defined drop-down list, no need to type the same information over and over again. Import long list of attributes from text files and re-use them in number of projects. If necessary you can add pictures to each location as well.

If you are working in the field, gathering large amount of spatial / location based data this app is designed for you.
MapIt is a perfect app for anyone involved in forestry, agriculture, environmental or farming business and allows quick collection of spatial data without the need of typing similar information number of times.

Speed up your workflow and make the data collection more efficient. Take advantage of survey layers and possibility to re-use same set of attributes for multiple surveys. Export your data to common GIS formats like Esri shapefiles, CSV, KML, GeoJSON, ArcGIS JSON, DXF, GPX and post process your data using Desktop GIS software like ArcGIS, ArcGIS Online or qGIS.

 

Following steps in this article you will create sample environmental survey from scratch. The whole idea is to automatically display a screen of preset drop-down lists when button ‘Add Point’ is pressed:

1. Survey purpose:

The purpose of the survey is to gather the trees distribution in public park including the height of the trees.

We need also to get at least one picture for each asset.

 

2. Creating set of attributes 

To create new set of attributes please open the navigation drawer and choose ‘Manage Attributes’ option, then press the ‘Add’ icon in the top right corner:

 

 

 

To add new fields ‘Species’ and ‘Height’ we need to edit the attribute properties. Please choose the name of recently added item and then click the ‘Pencil’ icon from the context menu.

 

Note: Field is like a category for the set of values e.g. in our example we need to create 2 fields:

• species (set of trees species growing in our test area)
• height (several hight ranges we want to register)

To create field species  please press the + (Add) button, provide the name in our case ‘species‘ and press the button ‘+’ (Add) ones more to add a value:

Please add few species to the attribute – defined values will be then displayed within a drop down list when ‘Add Point’ button is pressed.

Please get back to ‘Edit project’ screen and add new attribute called high:

 

Field’s values can be also imported from the text file, please follow steps in this artice to get the values imported: http://mapitgis.com/import-values 

We can also add so called ‘Scalar field’ it will be display as a free text or Yes/No spinner on the ‘Add feature’ screen.

The ‘text field’ can also have a default value. This value will be set automatically when ‘Add feature’ button is pressed.

At the end of the process the ‘Edit Attribute’ screen should look as below:

 

 

At this point the attribute set is ready to use. To start the survey we need to create the survey layer now and set the default attribute set.

3. Creating survey layer

To add new layer and use it to collect the survey information please go to ‘ Layers’ Management’ and press ‘Add Layer’ button.

 

When setting a layer name it’s highly recommended to not use special characters like: / \ ? ‘ ; : ” | . , ^.

Layer name is being used to create e.g pictures’ sub-folders in MapIt->Pictures and these special characters may cause problems on certain devices. Similarly the layer name is being used to name the file during the export operation and some special characters may cause problems as well. The advice is to use alpha-numeric strings with spaces, dashes or underscores as delimiters.

Set the default attribute set – if you leave it as ‘None’ you will be able to create points containing only name and description.

When adding new layer you can also set the new layer as active or choose a field for labels when the checkbox ‘Show labels’ is checked.

You can also choose color for new markers or lines or set outline color and fill for polygon geometry type.

Please set the layer as Active to be able to add new features to it.

 

Some Layer properties can be changed later, however layer name, attribute set and geometry type can be set only during create layer operation.

 

4. Collecting the data

When there is an active layer each time you press the ‘Add Point’ button when collecting the data you will see screen containing dropdown lists for preset attributes.

 

You can add one or more pictures before saving the point (Pictures will be saved to SD card->MapIt->Pictures folder)

 

4. Export your survey

When the survey is finished you can export your data to CSV, KML or GeoJSON format – exported data will be saved to SDCard and alternatively can be shared using number of standard ways including email, gdrive and skype.

 

 

Mobile Data Collection Features:

– Base maps: Google Maps, Bing Maps, Open Street Map, Mapbox and Offline mbtiles,
– Support for RTK corrected coordinates when external Bluetooth GPS / GNSS is connected,
– Support for WMS and ArcGIS Server Tiled map services as Google Maps Overlays (Load topographic and orthophoto maps, geological surveys, cadastral information and number of other services.
– Possibility to create and maintain sets of attributes – these are available as a drop down lists when new feature is being recorded, long lists of values can be imported from text files.
– Clusters for point map markers, efficient way of having large number of points on the map without performance issues,
– Currently 4 methods of collection are supported (GPS / GNSS location, Map cursor location, tracking, Point projection using angle and distance),
– Possibility to group your data into the survey layers – each survey layer may have a default set of attributes.
– Local SD card or remote export. At the moment Esri SHP files, KML, CSV, GeoJSON, ArcGIS JSON, GPX and DXF export is supported,
– Direct export to Dropbox or FTP location
– Possibility to record multiple points, lines and polygons on one layer,
– When creating new polygon or line features measurement details like area or length are also available.
– GPS / GNSS and satellites status,
– Address, location search,
– Import point, line and polygon features into layer from CSV, KML, ESRI Shapefile or geojson file,
– Backup management,
– Import/Export attributes from file and much more to discover
– The app supports number of predefined coordinate systems like: WGS84 (decimal or degrees), Web Mercator, British National Grid, UTM SAD69 (Brazil), UTM NAD83, NATO, Stereo 70 (Romania), System 1992 (Poland), UTM Indian 1975 (Thailand), SIRGAS 2000 UTM coordinate system for South & Latin America, ETRS89, TM06 – Portugal, D73 Modified Portuguese Grid or custom EPSG code can also be used if required.

Our users are successfully using MapIt in number of applications including:
– environmental surveys,
– woodland surveys,
– forestry planning and woodland management surveys,
– agriculture and soils’ types surveys,
– road constructions,
– land surveying,
– solar panels applications,
– roofing and fencing,
– tree surveys,
– GPS and GNSS surveying,
– site surveying and soil samples gathering