Ag Geek Speak
GK Technology Inc Team Members, Jodi Boe and Sarah Lovas talk about precision agriculture, agriculture mapping, agronomy and drainage.
Ag Geek Speak
14.5 Tiny Bytes: Introducing GK Field Mapper: We Have an App for That!
Discover the power of viewing and collecting data on the go with GK Field Mapper, the cutting-edge mobile GIS tool designed specifically for precision agriculture. In this episode, we delve into how this innovative app, available for both Android and iOS, enables you to view and create GIS files right from your mobile device. Whether you're a soil sampler or a casual GIS map viewer, GK Field Mapper can help streamline your workflow with its user-friendly interface and advanced features.
We’re excited to introduce this game-changing app to our loyal GK Technology software customers, as it seamlessly integrates with ADMS, utilizing the GK Cloud for rapid data transfer. Customization options, such as altering colors and names of points, lines, and polygons, make this tool incredibly versatile for field applications. Don't miss the chance to enhance your productivity—download the app using the direct link in the podcast notes, and be sure to share your feedback with us. Join us to learn how the GK Field Mapper can make your field operations better!
GK Field Mapper for Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.gkmobile.droid&hl=en_US
GK Field Mapper for iOS: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/gk-field-mapper/id6448194019
And now it's time for a tiny bite of knowledge.
Sarah:Welcome back to tiny bites. At GK technology, we have a map and an app for that. Wait, we have an app?
Jodi:We absolutely do, and the app is called GK Field Mapper, which you can now find in both the Google Play and the Apple App Store, for both Android and iOS devices.
Sarah:This is a brand new product from GK Technology. We are extremely excited about it and we are excited to talk about it today on Tiny Bytes. So, jodi, what does GK Field Mapper do?
Jodi:It is a mobile GIS tool that allows you to view your GIS files on your mobile device, whether that be an iPad or an Android tablet, or a Android phone or an Apple iPhone. This app gives you that ability to open those GIS files, take a look at them and then modify them with points, polygons, lines, etc. While you're out in the field. What?
Sarah:kind of data are we able to log and document and what sectors of the precision agricultural market are we really trying to target at this point in time with GK Fieldmapper?
Jodi:It's August when we're recording this and also when this is out in the app store both app stores, I should say and there's two big things we think about in August.
Jodi:Well, not only harvest, but shortly after harvest we get into soil sampling season and also drainage season, and so when we think about that, a big thing for collecting soil samples is being able to view the zone maps that you've made and then drop sampling points or go to sampling points that have already been dropped in whatever program you've made to make that zone map, and so this app allows you to do that. You can bring in those shapefiles of your zones, bring in BMPs that have your zones, or, if you're somebody that is working on drainage projects which I'm going to guess there's probably quite a few people out in the world right now, especially the northern Great Plains, upper Midwest, that had a really wet season, especially the spring they're probably looking for something that would allow them to bring in their tile plans and then go out and collect benchmark data to make sure that their elevations, that they're logged and that the plans are based off of, are exact. So being able to do that is crucial.
Sarah:And this app gives you the ability to do that is crucial and this app gives you the ability to do that. When I've been playing around with the GK Field Mapper app at this point in time, one of the features I've really been enjoying is when you create a survey line and you click on that line, select it with your finger on the app and you can actually see the elevation changes as you've gone across that line. It is a neat feature to see the topography changes over the direction of travel that you've gone across that line. It is a neat feature to see the topography changes over the direction of travel that you've taken in a field.
Jodi:So, sarah, you've been working with this app for a while now.
Sarah:About a year. Yeah, Yep, I've been working with it for a little bit. What kind of?
Jodi:data have you collected in that sort of testing phase?
Sarah:One of the first places where I played around with this app was soil sampling. I loaded up my zones for a field, went out and marked sample points in zones and it worked great for that. And working with some of my other soil sampling geeks out there since this is a Geek Speak podcast, we all like to geek out about soil sampling They've been really impressed with how they're marking their points as well. Now, one of the things that's interesting with soil sampling Some people like to load up just the zones and actually go out to the field and mark the points in the zones as their soil sampling.
Sarah:Other people like to create the soil sampling points in the office, at the actual computer. With this app, you can do it both ways. You can load up your zones, you can load up your sampling points and go out to the field, and you can mark more sampling points over the top of your initial template of where you want it to, so you can actually see what you marked. Some people like to mark the points as they go so they can see what they've gotten done and what still needs to be done as they're going through there.
Jodi:One thing we haven't talked about yet is its connection with ADMS, and so for anybody that's a GK Technology Inc customer, our premier software that folks use to make zones, make drainage maps, make tile plans is a software program called ADMS, and what's really cool about this is that GK FieldMapper is connected to the GK Cloud, which means that if you're connected and logged into your account in ADMS and in FieldMapper, those files that you create in FieldMapper will automatically sync over to your ADMS back on your PC.
Sarah:This is actually one of my favorite features of the app, which actually isn't the app itself, it's the GK Cloud. It is seamless, it is fast. The most limiting factor for transferring data is your internet connection or, if you're in the field, you may need a cell phone signal, but as soon as you are connected to Wi-Fi or cell phone, that data exchange is extremely rapid. I've been impressed with that.
Jodi:I 100% agree. Travis, who's on staff and developed the app in the GK Cloud, has spent a lot of time working on that and it is amazing what it can do when.
Sarah:I've had both my desktop computer and my app device hooked up and I've been in the office just seeing how fast that connection would be when I'm connected to good Wi-Fi. It's been immediate, so it's pretty exciting.
Jodi:Sarah, is there a way in the app that you can change the colors and and names of, like the points, lines or polygons that you're dropping out in?
Sarah:the field. Absolutely. In GK Field Mapper there is a way that you can change what we call survey templates. In a survey template you can create sample points, you can create boundaries, lines, polygons, all of those sorts of things and you can even create continuous points where it's logging a number of points based on time, which is very helpful if you're logging elevation. But when you create a sample point template and the office on ADMS and you upload that into the GK Cloud, sometimes you want to have a different sample point color in the field so you can actually see what you are sampling in the field and the progress that you've made as you're going.
Sarah:And so in the survey templates there's a place in there where you can actually go in and change the colors or the design or create new templates if you want to do something specific. So there's a lot of flexibility with how you're logging that information. Further, the information that we're logging is generally in a vector format, in a shapefile format and that database file. You can tell it to log all of the GPS data that's in there so you can actually see the quality of the GPS data as well as your elevation information. And when you bring that GeoJSON file across into ADMS and convert it to a shapefile. Then you are able to actually have access to all of that data. It's very powerful and, yes, when you are actually using the app you can actually see that attribute table right then and there.
Jodi:Speaking about GPSs, you can set up either an internal GPS or a Bluetooth connected GPS with FieldMapper and in the GPS setup you can see what kind of data is being collected. And then you can also set up some criteria of what GPS data to bring in, so you can be picky about what kind of data you bring in from that selected and connected GPS.
Sarah:Some of the people that have been working with GK FieldMapper have told me that they have used the internal GPS on their device. You know, sometimes that works well. I'm not sure if it's as accurate as using an external GPS. I'm still using my old Garmin Glow, which I've found to be extremely successful. You pair that with your device prior to launching the app and then when you go into the app, you tell it that that's the GPS you want to work with.
Jodi:It's really exciting For all long-term ADMS or GK customers. I think it's really cool for us to see something GK in the app store and if you're looking for it, it's called GK Field Mapper. So go out, give it a download, let us know what you think. If you have questions, give our office a call. We're happy to help and we're really hopeful and excited that this will make your field data collection a lot smoother and a lot faster.
Sarah:Check the notes for this podcast if you want a direct link to find our app there.
Jodi:Tune in next time for a tiny bite of knowledge from GK Technology, where we have a map and an app for that.