ArcPad

A tree inventory system for Corvallis

The goal of this project is to create a system to manage the urban forest here in Corvallis, as a joint project for the city and the OSU campus.

We went to City of Eugene and met with the tree folk there; they are using Treeworks software. (Feb 2006) Treeworks is based on ESRI software.

In my project, I want to use ArcPad as the field-based component to support data collection and maintenance operations, and an office-based database/report component; the office side could be expanded later to work with ArcIMS and/or a non-spatial asset management system that the city already uses.

I've worked with ArcPad in the past but never done a customized application for it.

The obvious starting point for the ArcPad side is this ESRI sample project which installs very easily...

General hardware and o/s information

PocketPC

TabletPC

GPS

My Dell Axim is equipped with Bluetooth.

I am building a GPS receiver with a Trimble Lassen SQ and a Bluestamp.

I have the prototype running now.

See General GPS project notes

Working with ArcPad

Export from Geodatabase

It builds pick lists using domains from a geodatabase, this is a nifty feature that I should look at...

Bear in mind that ArcPad only works with shapefiles for its vector data.

Raster layers can be: MrSID, JPEG, JPEG 2000, TIFF, PNG, BMP, CADRG

Using ArcPad with GPS

What can I collect? Quality of data attributes?

Other stuff I want to play with

redlining with a graphics layer

Learning to live with ActiveSync

Maybe ActiveSync is so good now there are no longer any 'annoyances.' My advice is to upgrade your handheld to the latest version of PocketPC (2003?) and run at least 3.7.1 version of ActiveSync on your PC.

I worked with a TDS Ranger a few months ago running Solofield and an older version of the O/S (maybe 2002?). Forget the serial port connection, ugh. Running ActiveSync over a serial port is not just slow, it's hard to get the PC and the Ranger to notice talk at all... Pop for the $25 USB/Ethernet adapter.

Software development

ArcPad runs on PocketPC devices; and that's normally the context in which you'd expect to use it. But it also runs on desktop systems. Customizing it normally requires Arcpad Application Builder, a $1500 add-on to a $500 product.

I'd really like to see what it takes to develop code without the Application Builder... at least to build custom menues. The App Builder creates XML files. I can write XML files, with emacs...

To test your custom app, you can run ArcPad in a 'skin' on your desktop system. Basically you just provide it with a picture of your PocketPC device and it inserts the screen image into the screen area of the PocketPC picture. Here is the ESRI page on how to do this: Making a skin

Interesting ArcPad Options

GPS data quality

You can tell ArcPad to issue warnings regarding DGPS availability, PDOP, EPE, and 3D mode. More important for me at the moment, you can tell it NOT to issue warnings. When you turn on GPS and it misses a beat (for example, bluetooth reception is not working) it pops up a dialog. It does this over and over while you try to configure things. So it's important to know you can set it to only play a sound instead of popping open the stupid dialog every 10 seconds.

Paths

You can preset paths that ArcPad uses for things like maps & data, system files, and applets.

Audio

You can attach your own WAV files to events. See Tools->Options->Alerts.

A day in the field: Mission planning for ArcPad

Way ahead of time

How to collect useful data.

With and without GPS

Customizing ArcPad with applets etc.

The ArcPad Studio application looks suspiciously like specialized XML editor to me. It creates an XML file that configures ArcPad. It creates text files that contain VB code.

Preparing maps and data

How much memory will all that take?

RAM versus compact flash

Preparing a folder with ArcPad Tools

I have ArcGIS 8.3 at home. ArcPad 7 is incompatible and cannot be installed on the same Windows machine with ArcGIS < 9. This is a serious inconvenience. I am now highly motivated to build a Mapserver to ArcPad connector!

You can create an APM file (aka an "ArcPad Map") with the "ArcPad Tools" extension. ArcPad Tools come with ArcGIS 9; for early versions of ArcGIS 8 you can download a copy from ESRI.

In ArcView, start it up with View->Toolbars->ArcPad. It has three icons, one for setting up a project, one for checking in edits, and one for undoing check out.

The tool simply copies all the data you select into the output folder, and (if you check the appropriate box) creates the APM file. ArcPad only handles shapefiles so if you select data from other sources such as Geodatabases, the layers will be converted to shapefiles when they are copied.

This is a really good way to create a folder with more data than your PDA can handle. Don't copy data directly into the PDA unless you are sure it won't runneth over your memory.

Each shapefile also gets a new component: a file with the extension 'apl'; also in XML.

Here is a sample ArcPad APM "map" file. Here is a sample ArcPad APL file.

Debriefing

Pulling data out of ArcPad

Using it

Links

ArcPad product description page

Papers available online through ESRI

Park Maintenance system Battle Creek, Michigan

[http://campus.esri.com/campus/library/Bibliography/RecordDetail.cfm?ID=33540&hidpage=1&browseonly=0&CFID=7897571&CFTOKEN=15821047

Noxious weed control] including aerial photos and groundtruthing with ArcPad

Aquatic Weed Control Using Mobile, Enterprise, and Web-Based GIS

Precision ag application

Combining Mobile GIS and Indigenous Knowledge in Community Forest Management

GIS in Nutrient Management: A 21st Century Paradigm Shift

Hacks from afar

Some guy's notes on ArcPad and handhelds

Chris De Herrera's most excellent PocketPC site