Gary

There are many ways of looking at this, but my thinking is that you can look at a transect as  a set of linked samples.  A Survey Event is in effect a set of linked samples so by creating an event for each transect and creating a sample for each point sampled you have all you need. You could use sample reference to  give an order to the samples,  and so not as to confuse transect samples with normal samples within events you could give them a  sample type of say 'Transect'. Taxa can be added to the sample for each point and you could if needed use sample measurement to record other information.

As far as Locations are concerned you can have them if you wish, but I would not  have considered a Location for each point in the transect as being necessary.  Personally, I like to be sparing with Locations  and would only use them in situations where they have some specific use in reporting . Consequently,  I only use Locations for clearly defined areas (ie with a known boundary), where I would wish to report on the Location as such and also only if I am likely to able to use it for additional input.  Under these criteria I personally would at most  have one Location for the event and samples  perhaps not even that, but it up to you.

The Report Wizard wouldn't be of much use to get to the data about specific transects, but all the data  would be there to get out the information using an XML report. In fact when  working out the best way to record data, it is a good idea to first work out  your reporting needs. You can then make sure that all the data you require  for your reporting has been collected.

Sorry, but I don't know much about what could be done with GPS.

Mike

Gary

The map needs bit of thought, but I suspect you can do it from the results of a report.  The report would certainly be possible. You can't create a dummy record in the way you suggest, but you could create an excel spreadsheet with the information and import this via the Import Wizard. Not sure if all the fields you need can be imported, but most can. You would need to experiment a bit with this to stop Recorder just adding the transects samples  to an existing Survey Event rather than creating a new one..

Mike

Hello,

The data entry type screen certainly sounds interesting for getting this type of information in.

It seems to me at the moment that they exist as two seperate entities. You can map the data (when there are occurences) and there is software out there that maps gps routes.

Tying the two together is a bit more difficult. I guess if you created these two there would be a way to overlay the two maps in some way? Also the map need to be current to be useful.

The data import wizard works fine and allows you to create a basic transect survey event/sample/occurrence. Unfortunately, you cannot import sample reference. As I found out the other day as well Recorder  sorts the samples by this reference. That means using the comment field to name the transect type e.g. Stop1, Walk 1 etc.

I also found that when you don't use the locations file. The Observations window shows the survey event as the grid ref. In a way that is good as it makes it stand out from the rest. But, it would be nice to have the location name in there.

I did have a brief look at DMAP and the website mentioned Mike's excellent downloads to create input to this. It does seem to have more options than the inbuilt Recorder Mapping. As it is a distribution mapping I am not sure that this is flexible enough to do what I am looking for?

Maybe within recorder it would be better to forget about developing Mapping and partner with someone who provides a fuller spec. mapping system?

I seem to have opened a bit of a can of worms with this but I don't think it is not achievable. For me anyway, a lot of this is relevant to doing normal entries.

Cheers for now

Gary