How to capture a screen shot from iPAD or iPhone?

Sometimes you may wish to capture a screen shot from your iCMTGIS or iGPSGIS application to incorporate it into a document file. For example,  you may want to include a few screen shots in your entry for the iCMTGIS application competition.

To do so, press the “Home” and “Power” buttons at the same time then release them.

You will hear a familiar camera shutter sound when the picture is snapped and automatically saved as a .JPG file into the Photos app on your iOS device

From the Photos app Camera Roll, you can email the photo file to your PC. If  you use a Mac, then you could synch it with your photo files on your iOS device.

User application contest – Win a PC-GIS PRO software license

GIS is not easy for everyone to learn. To help promote a better understanding of the usefulness of GIS, CMTINC.COM welcomes you to submit a presentation demonstrating how you are using the iCMTGIS or iGPSGIS to achieve your GIS goal and  increase work efficiency. This will be helpful to the beginning GIS users.

Your submission will be entered into a contest with a chance to win a PC-GIS PRO software license valued at US$385.00. PC-GIS PRO is a powerful mapping program that will run on your PC or your MAC in PC mode. Among other things, it will let you prepare background maps for use on your iCMTGIS or iGPSGIS, import the data collected using iCMTGIS or iGPSGIS,  calculate statistics on the data, digitize Features  on the map, and print out the map.

Over the Year 2012, CMTINC.COM will offer the award to up to 12 different winning entrants for this competition.  CMTINC.COM will evaluate the entries and periodically post the winning entries at http://icmtinc.wordpress.com

Entries do not have to be long or elaborte. They will be judged based on the following merits:

Usefulness of the application

Helpfulness of the demonstration

Clarity of presenting the design, approach and result

How to enter:

Please submit your presentation to:

support@cmtinc.com

This contest will stay open until December 31, 1012.

By submitting your entry you agree to let CMTINC.COM post the contents of your entry at http://icmtinc.wordpress.com.

iCMTGIS II and iGPSGIS II coming soon

The iCMTGIS II for iPAD and iGPSGIS II for iPhone to be released in early March 2012 will have a number of software enhancements, including the following:

   1.   iOS5 compatibility – Feature Topic pattern/color assignment

   2.  Send/Get jobs via eMail

   3.  Support iCloud storage

We welcome your comments about these applications. If you have suggestions for other useful functionality, this is a good time to send them in. Thanks!

Can I use my PC to set up the Topics for a job?

Yes, you can run PC-GIS 09 on your PC or in the PC mode on your Mac and use it to create new Topics. You can set up description fields for each topic and also assign a symbol to it.

After you have saved the job as a .PMP file, you can copy it to the Documents folder for  iCMTGPS or iCMTGIS. Then you can work with these Topics in that .pmp job on your iCMTGPS or iCMTGIS.

Similarly, you could import shapefiles and digitize additional Features using PC-GIS 09 then save the .pmp job for use on your iCMTGPS or iCMTGIS.

A more precise stylus for iPAD and iPhone?

Quite a few people asked about a pointy stylus for using on their iOS device.  The design of the iPAD and iPhone capacitive touch screen requires a minimum contact area, on the order of a few mm (about the size of your fingertip) to work properly. This is why capacitive styluses tend to have fat tips.

For the ability to more accurately place your Point Features in the iCMTGIS or iGPSGIS app, you might check out the Adonit Jot Pro Capacitive Touch Stylus, and read the reviews of the other users for the pros and cons of this stylus design.

Within the iCMTGIS or iGPSGIS apps, you can increase the accuracy of dropping the points or vertices by zooming close into your map.

Can I attach a photo to a Feature?

The back-end mapping program, PC-GIS 09, will let you link one or more photos that you have taken at the work site to the relevant Feature. It will also let you link a video and a voice recording or an ODBC object to the same Feature.

Another CMT mapping program, PC-MAPPER 09, provides the option to automatically match the photo files to the Features based on time.

How to restart the iPhone or the iPod touch

All of a sudden, the Camera app on our device stopped working. Tapping on the app icon only returned a black screen.

Resetting the device resolved the problem. If you encounter a similar problem, please click on this link to  see the instructions at apple.com.

 

What to do when GPS signals are not available?

GPS mapping depends on your receiver’s ability to receive the signals sent out by the orbiting satellites and to compute its position. When working under heavy canopy or inside buildings, the GPS signals are considerably weakened or blocked altogether. What’s a person to do under those conditions?

As mentioned in our blogpost dated 7/17/11, you  could join a Wi-Fi network and use the Location Services on your iOS device to obtain position information, which is not as accurate as that obtained from a GPS device.

If you are running the iCMTGIS app, you could switch to the Traverse mode and record angles and distances that reference back to the last known position. So, suppose you would like to record the location of a number of artifacts that you’ve found inside a large cavern. What you could do is to first log a good GPS point near the entrance to the cave then use that point as the first reference point for the Traverse measurements inside the cave.

Can I use my own aerial photo as background image?

Your own aerial photo in the form of a JPG or TIF image file has most likely not been geo-referenced. This means that the GIS mapping software will not be able to place the aerial photo at the location that it represents.

PC-GIS 09 will let you register the location of the aerial photo based on a number of reference points. Essentially, you will match the reference points with known coordinates to the corresponding points on your aerial photo, and PC-GIS 09 will register this information and permit the photo to be displayed at the proper location on the GIS map screen.

Please click on the link for the Geo-referencing DEMO on the right side to see how this is accomplished.

After the aerial photo has been geo-referenced, you may load it into PC-GIS 09 then convert it into a .PIM file for use with iCMTGIS or iGPSGIS.

What’s the No Offest button for?

At the bottom of the Collect screen there is a No Offset button. This option will let you log GPS data for an inaccessible Feature and have its position computed based on the offset information.

For example, if you need to record the central line of a busy road, you would want to walk along the sidewalk while logging the Line Feature. In this case, you will tap the No Offset button and select Left or Right to enter the distance from the sidewalk to the central line.

For recording an inaccessible Point Feature, iGPSGIS and iCMTGIS will let you log the GPS data at a convenient location and enter the slope distance, the azimuth and the slope as the offset. If the actual Point Feature is at the same elevation of the GSP receiver, then slope = 0, and the slope distance is the same as the horizontal distance. The azimuth is the angle between the north direction and line going from the GPS receiver to the Point Feature.

When there is data in the Edit Offset screen, the button will be labeled With Offset. When you view the data in the Feature Properties screen, you can edit the offset information.

How to get a .PMP job file into PC-GIS DEMO or PC-GIS 09?

The .PMP job files you save with your iGPSGIS or iCMTGIS are stored in the Documents folder for the application. 

To access the .PMP job files, first synch your iOS device with your PC/MAC computer via iTunes. You should see an “Apps” or ”Documents” tab across the top of the screen. Click on that tab then select your app, such as iCMTGIS or iGPSGIS. Then scroll down to see the .pmp files that are stored in the Documents folder for your app. Drag your .PMP job file from this Document folder to the PCGISDEMO folder or the PCGIS09 folder on your PC/MAC.

Then you will be able to use PC-GIS DEMO or PC-GIS 09 to open the .pmp job file and work with it.

A purchase reminder will pop up in PC-GIS DEMO from time to time. You can drag it to the side to continue working.

PC-GIS DEMO contains many active functions but it will not let you save your job files or prepare a .PIM image file for use on your iOS. You will need to purchase the PC-GIS 09 software program to perform these functions.

Can I use iGPSGIS to import and export shapefiles?

You can use the iGPSGIS 1.0.0 to import shapefiles. However, iGPSGIS only saves data in the CMT .PMP format. It does not export data in shapefile format.  iGPSGIS II that will be released in 2012 will include shapefile export capability.

iCMTGIS for the iPAD will let you import and export data in shapefile format or the CMT .PMP format.

The CMT PC-GIS 09 desk-top application can import and export data in various formats, including the shapefile format and the CMT .PMP format.

 

iGPSGIS and iCMTGIS use lower case for file names

File names on the iOS are case-sensitive, and the iGPSGIS and iCMTGIS apps use lower case for  file names. If you have created a .pmp file in PC-GIS 09, or if you have a set of shapefiles on your desktop computer, please make sure the file names are in lower case before transferring the files to your iGPSGIS or iCMTGIS. If a file name in the application document folder on iTunes is not in lower case, you can double-click on it then edit it to be lower case.

Similarly, the user_cor.sys and user_pla.sys files pertaining to user-defined coordinate systems must be in lower case for iGPSGIS and iCMTGIS to use them.

Please note that whenever you restart your iGPSGIS or iCMTGIS application, all the file names in the app document folder will be automatically changed to lower case. The procedure for restarting the iOS app was described in our 8/24/11 blog post.

Can I edit the coordinates of a point or a node?

iCMTGIS and iGPSGIS will let you edit the coordinates of a digitized Point Feature or a node on a digitized Line or Area Feature. To edit the coordinates of a digitized Point Feature, tap on that point then select the Feature Properties tool then edit the coordinates using the on-screen keyboard. For a  digitized Line or Area Feature, first scroll to the desired node then edit the coordinates for that node.

You may not edit the recorded GPS data using iCMTGIS or iGPSGIS. This is to protect the integrity of the recorded data. If you really need to change the position of a GPS Point Feature or a node on a GPS Line or Area Feature, you may do so after transferring the data to PC-GIS PRO.

How to create a grid?

If you will be sampling data at evenly spaced intervals in an area then you could create a grid to serve as a data collection guide. You can use PC-GIS 09, iCMTGIS or iGPSGIS to set up the grid.

This video demonstrates the procedure using one of the CMT PC software.

You may set up a regularly used grid configuration as the default grid. To do so, touch the Main Menu icon, select Setup then select Default Grid.

Enter the desired grid orientation.

Specify whether you want grid nodes or grid lines generated. You may have the grid nodes or lines generated in one or both directions.

Enter the grid spacing in the X and Y directions.

To place a grid over an Area Feature, first highlight that Area Feature then pick the Zoom icon and select Create Grid. You may change the default grid parameters as appropriate before confirming the information in the grid setup screen.

To avoid confusion, it’s best to just keep one grid for an Area Feature. To delete the extra grids that you don’t need anymore, first tap the  Topic View icon and select Non-spatial Data. Then tap the Sheet View icon,  select the unwanted grid then tap the recycle bin icon. Please keep in mind that the first record is the newest grid.