DIGITAL MAPPING USING- SW MAPS APP

Author: Maina Njuguna , PETER NDIRITU THUKU , Thitai Francis ndiritu

WHAT IS DIGITAL MAPPING:

Digital mapping or digital cartography is the process by which a collection of data is compiled and formatted into a virtual image. digital mapping helps one to conduct surveys, map and produce topographical maps of an area of interest without necessarily going to the field through the use of mobile and desktop-based applications.

WHAT IS SW MAPS: SW Maps is a free GIS and mobile mapping app for collecting, presenting, and sharing geographic information. SW is user-friendly since it’s easy and simple to use and contains no ads as compared to other free mobile-based data collection apps

SW maps interface

FEATURES OF SW MAPS:

1. Have Online Base maps: Google Maps or Open Street Map
2. You can Connect SW maps to external RTK GPS receivers through Bluetooth or USB Serial for high-accuracy surveying using RTK.
3. Defines multiple numbers of feature layers, each with a set of custom attributes:

Feature Types: Point, Line, Polygon

Attribute Types: Text, Numeric, Drop down Options, Photos, Audio, Video

4. You can Save a Template for re-use or sharing

5. You can record GPS tracks, with distance measurement

6Ability to Import feature layers from templates or existing projects

7. You can share or export collected data as KMZ (with embedded photographs) shapefiles or GeoJSON

8. SW maps have a better zoom extent which improves the accuracy of mapped features

9. SW maps have a template builder which enables the user to generate questions that are most suitable to His/Her surveys

10.Simple and easy to use

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HOW TO COLLECT DATA WITH_MAPS

1. Open your SW maps app and go to projects -create a new project-then give it your preferred name, your new project appears on the project list

2. Tap on your project name on the projects list and on the interface that appears tap on the blue pencil to start your point and feature collection.

3. Click on add/insert point tab: in this section, you specify if you want to digitize either a point, line, or polygon. you zoom into your feature and tap on it and enter the feature attributes

4. You can create as many feature(points, lines and polygons)as possible until you are satisfied with what you want to map in your area of interest

A sample survey at DeKUT using Sw maps

5. After successive survey you need to export data to other Gis software for further analysis and manipulation:

tap on the SW maps icon and at the button select export, you can export your data in various formats as shown

Export icon in SW maps

various data formats to export data in SW maps

You can view the exported data using Google earth pro (kml and kmz) data format, Google Earth Engine, Qgis, ArcMap, and ArcGIS.

That’s how easy its to do digital map and export your datasets using the SW maps app. Also, you can connect your SW maps working on your pc using the Vysor app for better visualization and zooming to your area of interest.

Thanks for the read, wishing you a happy mapping

Reach out to me at

Twitter: @maina_maps

phone: 0723144789