Atlas of Living Australia

 

Review of Online and Desktop Tools

 

Suggestions for new tools

 

 

Edit this page and add the name of a tool that you would like to see reviewed

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A tool (or suite of tools) that I would like to see on this wiki is the set of interrelated text mining tools presented on http://www.plazi.org/ - text mining is going to be a challenge but is our best bet for bringing significant quantities of additional information online in a structured form.  DonaldHobern

See a review of Plazi here, or through the SideBar under Bibliography. John Tann

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Another PDA unit that is a possible is the non-ruggedised Trimble Juno.  It's a bit more robust than the usual portable devices, and much smaller than the Nomad.  You can get more information on it off our web site at http://www.gaiaresources.com.au/products_pdas.php.  Directly, their web site for Junos at Trimble is http://www.trimble.com/junost.shtml.

Piers Higgs, 11th June, 2008

See a review of Trimble Juno here, or through the SideBar under Field Data Collection. John Tann 

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There are also other PDA GIS and data capture software packages out there that might be of interest if you go down that route.

* HandBase for database collection - http://www.ddhsoftware.com/handbase.html

* gvSIG mobile for GIS and portability (just released) - http://www.gvsig.gva.es/index.php?id=gvsig-mobile&L=2.

* Digital Mapping's MobileMap product (MapInfo based software) - http://www.mapsolutions.com.au/template.asp?Page=mobilemap

 

There are also other packages out there for these things, but these are ones I've used and they have their individual ups and downs - but there's more than just ArcPad, at least. 

Piers Higgs, 11th June, 2008.

 

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Interesting review of web mapping systems available here on the web: http://www.alt2is.com/joomla/index.php?option=com_docman&task=doc_download&gid=2&Itemid=42

Piers Higgs, 11th June, 2008

 

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Not wanting to push our commercial systems too much, but these are also things you might like to consider.

* Our PHP/MySQL low end web database - Digital Birding Database - http://www.gaiaresources.com.au/databases/dbd/introduction.php 

* Earth 2.0 - high end web application - http://www.gaiaresources.com.au/earth2/index.php

Piers Higgs, 11th June, 2008

 

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One final edit... I promise!  The TDWG Biodiversity Projects of the World database. http://www.tdwg.org/biodiv-projects/

Piers Higgs, 11th June, 2008

 

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Mike Giddens at SilverBiology http://www.SilverBiology.com recommends:

GeoNames - Web service for looking up coordinates based on locality or gazetteers. http://www.geonames.org/

SilverCollection - an interactive web portal for herbaria and other biological collections. http://collection.silverbiology.com

 

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The CRC for National Plant Biosecurity has a project in the Surveillance Program entitled "PDA-Assisted Surveillance" that proposes to use VisualCE (http://www.syware.com) to develop database connectivity and wireless synchronisation of field validated and audited data through GPS-enabled PDAs.  Some information on the project is at: http://www.crcplantbiosecurity.com.au/index.php?id=76 and a presentation of general background and screen dumps of the prototype application are at: http://agspsrv34.agric.wa.gov.au/ento/test/PDASurveillance.htm.  Rob Emery, 18 June, 2008.

See a review of PDA Assisted Surveillance here, or through the SideBar under Field Data Collection. John Tann

 

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Yet another PDA tool is Cybertracker - http://www.cybertracker.co.za/ - used by a few of our clients here and there as a simple to use database system.

Piers Higgs, 1st July, 2008

See a review of CyberTracker here, or through the SideBar under Field Data Collection. John Tann 

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I think you should check out Geonetwork http://geonetwork-opensource.org/

Its a metadata/spatial data server, I found the metadata editing very useful, it supports the ANZLIC standard.

I'll be back to check out more of your site!

David McKenzie, June 2008

See a review of GeoNetwork here, or through the SideBar under Metadata. John Tann

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Two additional services that may be useful for name resolution are the Interactive Catalogue of Australian Fungi (ICAF - http://www.rbg.vic.gov.au/research_and_conservation/fungi/cat) and the Catalogue of Australian Mosses (http://www.rbg.vic.gov.au/dbpages/dev/cat/index.php/mosscatalogue). Note that the URL for the moss page will be updated in the coming weeks.

Alison Vaughan, Royal Botanic Gardens, Melbourne, December 2008

See a review of ICAF and AusMoss here, or through the SideBar under Name Resolution. John Tann

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Of potential interest is EDIT Biodiversity Service and Application Tracker, a collection of links to software tools and resources useful to taxonomists. http://www.bdtracker.net/

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