GeoPad^(TM)

Introduction

What's New?

Presentations and Publications

Use Cases

Hardware

Software

Data

FAQ

Participants

Contacts

Acknowledgements

Emily Johnson, Peter Knoop, and Philip Ong during field trails of the GeoPad; mapping near Alta, Utah. (July 2003)

[Currently being updated...]

Use Cases

Over the years we've experimented with and evaluated a variety of approaches to incorprating Information Technology (IT) into field courses and field trips with the goal of improving the educational outcomes of such endeavours. Below we provide some example projects based on our experiences. They are not meant to be used as-is, but rather to provide inspiration in developing your own IT-enhanced exercises or in adding IT components to existing projects. We also hope the following considerations will help guide you in developing your own exercises:

• Match your educational goals and expectations to your budget. If you have a limited budget and are working with limited screen real-estate and computational horsepower (i.e., PDA- versus Tablet PC-style devices), then avoid goals that require students to visualize spatial relationships that cannot be displayed with the necessary scope and level of detail on the device, or which take too long to render and result in an interruption of the student's train of thought. When such limitations cannot be avoided,consider organizing the project such that the data collection and analysis portions permit alternative ways for students to gather and interact with their data in a useful manner. For example, data gathered on a PDA-style device can later be transferred to computers in a classroom/laboratory setting to provide support for sufficient visualization context and timely data exploration and analysis. (A disadvantage with this approach to gathering data is the loss of in-the-field visualization and analysis capabilities that can help in identifying and correcting data-collection errors; however, extra supervision by someone who understands the expected outcome or an increased component of peer-review incoporated into the data-collection phase can help ensure students end up with usable data.)
• Is the information technology itself a primary educational goal? If it is not, then design your exercise to treat the IT aspects as a black-box for achieving the project's true educational goals. For example, if GIS-skills are not a primary outcome for a geologic mapping exercise, then provide students with a GIS project that is already configured with the necessary background data (e.g., topographic maps, aerieal photos, contour lines, mapping boundary), a database in which to record the types of observations relevant to this specific project, the necessary layers and symbology to visualize their data, pre-defined views and bookmarks for analyzing important aspects of their data or for printing out their project, a customized application toolbar that brings together the features of GIS of they need for this project and hides the unnecessary extras that would distract them, etc.
• Introduce incrementally. As with most any set of education goals, you need to introduce and develop the necessary skills in incremental steps so as not to overwhelm the students and help them develop confidence in their abilities to indentify and apply key skills and concepts in the long-run.
• Assess, Assess, Assess. A continuous program of evaluating students and instructors will help to rapidly develop suitable IT-enhanced field exercises. Evaluations prior to exercises can help you evaluate students' relevant background knowledge and skill-sets, aiding you indentifying and providing any remedial instruction that might be necessary to ensure attempting the project will have a useful educational outcome. Periodic student evaluations of instructors, rather than just at the end of a course, can help identify areas of concern that can be addressed in subsequent projects.

Example IT-Enhanced Field Activities

Selected exercises and activities drawn from the University of Michigan field camp courses and departmental field trips:

• Geologic Mapping - from basic exercises focused on producing a simple geologic map from outcrop observations or a history of river succession based on ecosystem surveys, to advanced exercises that require integration of geophysical data, modeling, interpreation of subsurface structures, etc. that result in maps, reports, supporting data and figures, etc.
  • Basic geologic mapping exercise (Cream Puff Project, Snake River Project)
  • Advanced geologic mapping exercise, involving the collection of geophysical and petrological , and its in-field interpretation and analysis. (Atlantic City Project, Alta Project)
  • Glacial geologic mapping exercise (Pinedale Project)
• GIS, GPS, Compasses and Maps - Simple exercises designed to familiarize students with the creation, operation, use, and benefits and pitfalls of GIS, GPS units, compases, aerial photography, and topographic maps. (Camp Davis Project)
• River succession - Collecting, analyzing, modeling, and interpreting ecosystem-survey data to map out river succession history. (Snake River - Grand Teton National Park Project)
• Mobile classroom - Facilitating improved or additional educational oppurtunities during the ubiquitious time spent driving during field trips and field courses, as well as supporting opportunities to collaborate in real-time with students are out-of-sight, spread over a large geographic field-area.
  • Moving map reference materials to facilitate discussion
  • General refernece materials for a lecture/presentation
  • live video-feed to help draw attention to subject of discussion when viewpoints are not the equivalent (i.e., people spread out in vehicles along a road not all seeing the same object.)
  • shared views to facilitate discussion
  • remote-help; be careful about no making it too easy, though its getting easier to do so every-day in the real-world to call back to an expert at the home office who can be shared among multiple field projects

Undoubtably many more examples will arise as the adoption of information technology in field courses evolves and breadth of disciplines represented grows. Hopefully the list above and the details provided below will serve to help inspire new ideas!

Background

The evolution of the GeoPad can be traced to experiments initiated during summer of 1999, which explored the benefits of advanced information technology in field geology research and education. These early experiments examined a variety of hardware, including laptop computers, Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs), early pen-based computers, cell phones, and portable GPS receivers, and employed ESRI's ArcGIS, ArcView, and ArcPad software.  These experiments focused on field geology as the domain science, however, the technology and approach considered here is generally and readily applicable to education and research in any field-oriented science.

From early experiments with Windows NT4.0 pen-based computers from Fujitsu and regular laptops, the development of the GeoPad concept was furthered significantly by a donation of ten Toshiba Portege 3500 TabletPC units in late 2002 from the Microsoft Corporation to the University of Michigan (U-M), the University of Illinois at Chicago, and the University of Minnesota. While these units were not suitable for outdoor usage, they provided an excellent development platform for experimentation with the new Windows XP TabletPC operating system.  With the subsequent integration of digital ink into ArcGIS, the arrival of Microsoft OneNote, and the availability for the first time of sufficient computational resources, the Tablet PC-based concept of the GeoPad reached a level of general usefulness for a broad audience. An additional grant of from Hewitt-Packard of ten Compaq tc4200 Tablet PCs in 2005 furthered our design, development, and evaluation capabilities.

The current state of the GeoPad, as a truly field-durable, easily adoptable concept, is well illustrated by their incorporation into the U-M's field geology curricula.  After a very successful pilot study in Summer 2003, focused on GS-440 (Geology Field Course), a senior-level field methods course, we expanded the integration of GeoPads and GeoPockets to all of our Camp Davis field courses, adding GS-341 (Environmental Sciences) and GS-116 Introductory Geology.

Some examples of use from specific years:

• 2010
• 2009
• 2008
• 2007
• 2006
• 2005
• 2004
• 2003

Other uses, which provided opportunities to experiment with new GeoPad and GeoPocket equipment and teaching approaches, include:

• Soft Rock Field Trip (U-M sponsored trip to Nevada/California/Utah/Arizona), May 2007
• Soft Rock Field Trip (U-M sponsored trip to Texas/New Mexico), May 2006
• Hard Rock Field Trip (University of Michigan sponsored trip to Scotland), 21-30 May 2005
• Structural Geology Field Trip (U-M sponsored trip to Spain), 26 May - 4 June 2004
•  (Coming soon...) Soft Rock Field Trip (U-M sponsored trip to the National Parks of the Southwestern United States), 3-17 May 2004
• Hard Rock Field Trip (U-M sponsored trip to Northern California), June 2003
• Soft Rock Field Trip (U-M sponsored trip to Texas/New Mexico), May 2002
• Other (various field experiments in Southwest Colorado's San Juan Mountains, Michigan, etc.), spanning 1999-2003

Use Cases

[This section is currently undergoing re-organization...]

The following list is an attempt to organize our experiences around various activities representative of how GeoPad and GeoPocket type approaches can be integrated into curricula.  (If you have a story that you would like to share, then please contact us and can include it here or link to your own website.)

• Mapping Exercises  - can include a wide variety of activities, depending on goal of exercise, student background, etc.; some "end-member" examples
  • for non-GIS students (University of Michigan)
  • for students learning GIS as part of course or who are already familiar with GIS (Mark Manone, Northern Arizona University)
  • using GPS directly for mapping with GeoPad and ArcMap (Mark Helper, University of Texas)
  • using ArcPad and GeoPockets (Charles Onasch, Bowling Green State University)
• Digital Field Notebook  (University of Michigan, Northern Arizona)
  • Microsoft OneNote; powerful, intuitive note-taking capabilities, screen capture and annotation, linking to other applications (i.e., hot-linking between notes in OneNote and map data in ArcMap), audio recording, capturing digital images from cameras
    • ability to draw on digital photos can be used to help construct schematic cross-secitions or stratigraphic columns
  • Memo (Pocket PC), audio notes, digital images from cameras
• Instructor Tools  (University of Michigan)
  • GeoPocket as the answer key and reference library
• Data Collection and Analysis in the Field (University of Michigan)
  • Collect data with ArcPad, ArcMap, or Excel
  • Analyze data in the field, with a eye towards using results subsequently in the field, rather then separating the phases by performing data analysis post-hoc in the classroom and obtaining results after you've left the field
    • contour magnetic survey data in ArcMap
    • model ecosystem succession data in Excel
    • gather real-time, downstream conductivity data from salt-bucket in-the-watershed and contour concentrations in real-time in ArcMap
  • Use results for further work in the field
• Teaching in Motion (University of Michigan)
  • using wireless networking and application sharing to support collaborative discussion and interaction while traveling in multiple field-vehicles (i.e., using an application, like VNC, Microsoft NetMeeting, Microsoft LiveMeeting, Microsoft Conference XP, etc., to share other applications, like images, Excel, PDFs, models, power point slides, etc., amongst GeoPads in multiple field-vehicles and the CB-radio as the audio channel
  • the critical piece being the synchronous, shared pointer capability of application sharing, which allows one to point and draw well talking just like in a face-to-face setting
  • the audio capabilities of GeoPads are easily overwhelmed by road noise, unless you use a headset
    • Bluetooth headsets eliminate the cable entanglement problems, however, they are another piece of equipment that needs charging, and most last no more than four hours per charge.
• Survey Exercises (University of Michigan)
  • Gravity
  • Magnetic
• Structure Exercises (University of Michigan, Bowling Green State University, Cal Tech)
  • Stereonets (i.e., recording data in ArcPad or ArcMap and exporting to an external stereonet application)
  • Cross-sections (i.e., extracting a topographic profile in ArcMap for use in another drawing application or printing for constructing a cross-section manually)
• Personal Reference Library (University of Michigan)
  • pre-load the GeoPad or GeoPocket with reference materials, such as maps, papers, documentation, digital images, figures, web pages, etc.
• Digital Atlas (University of Michigan)
  • pre-load the GeoPad with a wide-variety of geo-referenced datasets around which discussion can occur, problem-sets devised, etc.
    • A great starting point is the USGS/AGI Global GIS data DVD
  • using ArcGlobe one can create a single document which brings all the data sets together, regardless of scale or projection (e.g., from world geology maps to USGS quadrangles)
    • you could also create a single ArcMap document, however, differences in projection across scales can be problematic in a flat projection.
    • The globe projection of ArcGlobe also makes it easy to include polar data
• Field Teaching Tips
  • If you want to show an example of mapping to the group use an extra layer on the instructor's tablet with very large symbols and labels.  For instance, when introducing how to record strike-and-dip and how it subsequently appears ArcMap, switch from the "regular" layer to an "instructor" layer where the symbology is set to use a very large strike-dip symbol and label it with a very large font.  This helps everyone standing around see it.  Another approach is to use Windows Accessibility options, such as high-contrast, large objects or the Magnifier accessory.

2009 Camp Davis Field Season

• With more students than available Geopads, they were not used in GS-440 this year. Past experience from pervious years taught us that attempts to share computers or teach different projects to different groups of students did not produce the desired level of educational benefits. Funding was also not available to increase the pool of Geopads and supporting equipment within the necessary time-frame.

2008 Camp Davis Field Season

• GS-440 Atlantic City Mapping Project
  • Gather geophysical data (magnetic, gravity, seismic) to add interpretation and understanding of the geology
  • Visualizing and interpreting data in real-time helps catch areas and validate students' understading of such data. For example, magnetic survey profile showed unexpected deviations as students passed near a campsite (occupied by a large RV, which of course is composed of a lot of metal that can strongly influence the magnetic singal locally.) Students could observe and detect this "problem" by looking at the data they were gathering in real-time in a variety of ways, such as unexpected variations in the magnetic intensity numbers in the spread-sheet-like table-view of the data, the color-coded dots plotting out magnetic intensity in the map-view of their survey area, the developing shape of the profile in the graph-view of magnetic intensity versus distance along the survey transet.

2006 Camp Davis Field Season

• GS-440 Geology Field Course
  • Snake River Mapping Project
    • Pre-configured files for students to use with ArcGIS 9.1 (205MB zip archive form 2006 course); directory structure:
      • Snake_River
        • Data
          • Dikes.lyr
          • Faults.lyr
          • Geology.mdb [personal geodatabase for storing students observations; domains defined to provide drop-down menus in attribute table when entering data, e.g., formation name, type of dip-and-dip-direction symbol]
          • Observations.lyr
          • Outcrop.lyr
          • Stratigraphy.csv
          • Strike and Dips.lyr
          • Synforms.lyr
        • DEM
          • digital elevation data and contour data
        • DOQQ
          • aerial photos
        • DRG
          • USGS 7.5-minute topographic quadrangles
        • Project Boundary.lyr
        • Snake_River.mxd [ArcMap project file]
        • Snake_River.sxd  [ArcScene project file]
  • Granite Creek
  • Palisades
  • Atlantic City
  • [from past years] Alta, Cream Puff
• GS-341 Environmental Science
  • River Succession Project
    • Example Excel data sheets and graphs for collecting and interpreting data in the field
• GS-116 Introductory Geology

University of Michigan, GS-440: Geology Field Course; GS-341 Environmental Science; and GS-116 Introductory Geology, June - August 2005

Camp is underway.  Some expected highlights:

• New screens in Xplore iX104C2 AV units are much brighter and eliminate most of the problems with screen visibility
• 1GB of RAM in new iX104C2 enables seamless, rapid switching between multiple GIS applications and OneNote -- not disk-swapping -- which results in less interruption of workflow and an overall more intuitive experience.
• GeoPad use further expanded to projects in GS-116 (introductory geology) and GS-341 (Environmental Science)
• more...

University of Michigan, GS-440: Geology Field Course; GS-341 Environmental Science; and GS-116 Introductory Geology, June - August 2004

A continuation and scaling up from 2003's pilot.  Some notable additions were:

• use of HP5550 iPAQs (w/ HP Bluetooth GPS units) and ArcPad:
  • provide instructional staff with reference materials in field
  • GS-440 students gathered magnetic survey data using ArcPad and incorporated it into their ArcMap projects
  • GS-440 students used Pocket Excel to record and process data during a gravity survey
  • GS-116 students explored how GPS units worked and how to read topographic maps and aerial photos
• Switched from using Windows Journal to Microsoft Office OneNote as the digital field notebook.  Integration for screen clipping is vastly improved.  Automatic recognition of note structure and ability to re-organize simply by dragging, and add white-space on the fly is wonderful.
• Main drawbacks were still:
  • not enough units for everyone to use to complete an entire project on the GeoPad
  • screen-brightness

Examples of rich note-taking capabilities of Microsoft OneNote as a "digital field notebook":

Examples of GeoPocket use for magnetic and gravity surveys (ArcPad data entry on aerial photo of magnetometer readings; ArcMap view on GeoPad of data imported from GeoPocket; Excel spreadsheet with formulas and supporting data for converting gravimeter measurements into gravity anomalies while in the field):

Pilot Study: University of Michigan, GS-440: Geology Field Course, June-August 2003

A core component of the Geological Sciences curriculum at the University of Michigan (U-M) is a seven-week, summer field geology course (GS-440), based out of the U-M's permanent facility at Camp Davis, Wyoming. Such a field course is a degree requirement for most undergraduate geological science programs.  The GeoPads were introduced during the latter half of the course and were integrated into three field mapping exercises and a regional field-trip. 

The GeoPads were well received by both students and faculty, as acknowledged by very positive feedback and evaluations.  They were considered an important addition to the curriculum, both in terms of facilitating existing strategies for teaching geologic mapping, as well as enhancing the development of spatial reasoning skills by providing a richer environment in which students could record, manipulate, and explore data.  They also helped expand the learning environment into field vehicles and  to exploit previously under-utilized educational "down-time" during field trips.  While technical glitches were encountered, the overall feeling was that these difficulties were outweighed by the advantages offered by the GeoPads.

One of our primary concerns in developing the GeoPad was to ensure that its introduction into the curriculum did not detract from the emphasis on "field" work for this course, in other words, the curriculum needed to stay focused on field geology not technology.  As a testament to achieving this goal, only thirty-minutes of instruction were required to get the students up to speed and out in the field mapping on their first day with the GeoPads.  Additionally, by using off-the-shelf GIS software (i.e., ArcGIS) as a component of our GeoPad system, the students also gained practical, real-world-applicable experience.

Support for this pilot study was provided by a U-M College of Literature, Science, and the Arts (LSA) Instructional Technology Grant, an equipment donation from the Microsoft Corporation, and additional funds from the U-M Department of Geological Sciences and the U-M Global Change Program.

Introduction to the Digital Field Mapping Experience

The first use of the GeoPads in GS-440 took the form of a one day geologic mapping exercise.  It involved a transit from camp up a nearby mountain (Camp Davis to Cream Puff).  We began the day with a thirty-minute lesson on the basics of using a GeoPad: using the hands-free harnesses; turning the units on/off and placing them in standby; using a TabletPC pen, rather than a mouse; the basic features of ArcMap for manipulating layers (e.g., topographic maps, aerial photos, digital elevation models), moving and zooming the map, using the GPS; and, an overview of our customized geologic mapping toolbar in ArcMap for entering outcrops, strike-and-dips, etc.  The purpose of the geologic mapping toolbar was to reduce the complexity and power of the GIS software to a manageable, intuitive level and to focus on the capabilities required for geologic mapping.  We made a conscious effort to emphasize the GeoPad as a tool, rather than on learning a new technology requiring extensive training.

The students were also given a quick introduction to Windows Journal as a digital replacement for and enhancement over a field notebook.  Journal works just like a paper journal for recording notes, sketches, cross-sections, etc., however, it also offers ready access to a number of standard drawing capabilities, such as pencils, pens, markers, highlighters, and a choice of colors, without having to dig in one's field bag. [Microsoft Office OneNote is now the preferred choice for this functionality on the GeoPad.]

With that brief introduction, the students were divided up into groups of three (one GeoPad per group, a limitation imposed by the number of available units) and we were off and mapping and recording the way up Cream Puff.  We stopped at numerous locations along the way for students to gather and record observations using their GeoPads, and to discuss the various geologic features we encountered.  A critical factor enabling the rapid ramp-up of the students on the GeoPad is their existing familiarity with Windows and common user interface features and metaphors (e.g., the magnifying glass for zooming, the hand for panning), so working with ArcMap was fairly intuitive for them.  Furthermore, some students had previous experience with various GIS software packages, including a few GIS experts who delved much further into the system and explored the data to a greater extent than we anticipated.

Digital Field Mapping Projects

Students subsequently used the GeoPads for two mapping projects: Snake River and Atlantic City.  (Due to the limited number of units available, and the need for students to work in pairs, only half the pairs of students were equipped with GeoPads for each mapping project; in other words, each student only had one change to complete a full mapping project with a GeoPad, and then they had to switch back-and-forth with their partner on a daily basis.)

For each mapping project, the students were provided with a standard ArcMap project that included the custom Geologic Mapping toolbar and contained four major data layers:

• USGS Topographic Quads (i.e., Digital Raster Graphics, DRG)
• Aerial photographs (i.e., Digital Ortho Quarter-Quads, DOQQ)
• Contour intervals derived from a Digital Elevation Model (DEM)
• Student's mapping data

The key benefits of using ArcMap for teaching geologic field mapping are:

• easy, intuitive visualization and manipulation of data -- Each data layer can easily be turned on or off, or viewed in combination with other layers using transparency; zooming in-or-out or shifting the map around are simple, intuitive procedures.
• larger, more detailed datasets -- Working on a map board with paper data limits the amount of information a student can easily access, the digital approach allows for more contextual data to be supplied at increased resolutions.
• intuitive pen-based data entry -- the TabletPC extension to ArcMap allows a student to enter data (e.g., outline of an outcrop) directly by drawing on the map as if using a regular pen or pencil; it also renders symbols for point observations (e.g., strike-and-dip, foliation) neatly and uniformly, thereby eliminating confusion generated by poor handwriting skills or a lack of room on paper.
• media-rich digital field notebook -- Windows Journal provides students with an electronic interface for note taking and sketching.  Entries can be easily linked to markers in ArcMap.

In addition, several students explored the use of ArcScene to view and manipulate data three-dimensionally.  By enabling the students to view their data in this manner, while still in the field, one facilitates the students' abilities to make the connection between the real-world and standard, two-dimensional map views.

Field Trips

In addition to field mapping, the GeoPads were also used to support the unique "distance-learning" environment of field-trip travel.  A GeoPad and GPS were placed in each vehicle during a four-day exploration of Wyoming, Idaho, and Montana.  The GeoPads provided students with access to the state geologic maps and USGS topographic quads for these regions. The GPS units enabled the students to quickly and easily locate themselves on the maps in real-time, which, in turn, allowed them to focus immediately on understanding and discussing the data on the map and their surrounding environment. 

In addition, the GeoPad provides an ideal platform for activities for during typical educational "down-time" of field-trip travel.  This can be accomplished through a variety of activities centered around figures, plots, digital photographs, schematics, thin section images, etc., that were pre-loaded on the GeoPads.  An instructor could also refer to these items while pointing out various features and discussing geologic process over the CB radio. 

Field-trip support is readily applicable to other field science courses. In particular, other course offerings at Camp Davis, such as the environmental geology or introductory geology courses, where the focus is on observation and discussion, rather than mapping, stand to benefit from field-trip use of GeoPads.

Student and Faculty Feedback

Emily Johnson, a graduate student instructor, participates in a GeoPad mapping project trial run, near Alta, Utah. (July 2003)

When asked, "How would you rate your overall experience using the GeoPads to complete mapping projects?", students responded overwhelming with "excellent" (an average of 3.9 on a 4-point scale for 19 students).  The four faculty directly involved with teaching this Summer's course were similarly pleased with the GeoPads.

Difficulties were encountered with the GeoPads, which while frustrating at times, did not dampen the enthusiasm for their use.  The source of nearly all the problems was, not surprisingly, the technology itself, however, none of the problems encountered were deemed significant impediments to lteaching or earning by either the students or faculty.  These problems have already been or will be addressed by continued evolution and innovation of the technologies. 

The primary difficulties identified this summer were:

• screen visibility -- While the iX104's display technology represents a significant improvement over everyday laptops, students still experienced some difficulty viewing the screen during the brightest couple of hours of the day.  They had to turn their backs to the Sun or shade the screen with their hand.  This was particularly troublesome when working with black-and-white aerial photos during the brightest part of overcast days.  (An interesting solution to this problem is to covert the photos from black-and-white to some other color scheme, such as red-green).  The continuing evolution of active and trans-reflective display technologies will eventually address this problem; currently available trans-reflective screens are somewhat better in sunlight, however, they offer lower resolutions, typically have larger pixels (i.e., less-crisp displays), and generally display colors poorly in bright settings.
• software bugs -- Students encountered a fatal bug in ArcMap-geodatabase interaction, which while never resulting in lost data, generally forced students to have to take the time to restart ArcMap.  (This bug has subsequently been corrected by ArcGIS 8.3 Service Pack 3 (released 15 Oct 2003).
• power management -- When placed in Standby, in order to conserve battery power between stops, the iX104's would sometimes not wake-up.  When the problem did occur, it was not clear what lead to it.  If the units were restarted using the reset button, then the problem would recur; however, if the unit was completely reset (removing the battery and pressing the button), then it would work fine for awhile.  No students reported losing data as a result of this problem, but resetting and rebooting the unit took several minutes of valuable field-time.  Leaving the GeoPad on most of the day, and equipping each group with a second battery, ensured them of a full day in the field, even without the power-saving advantages of Standby.  (Fixed in iX104 BIOS, version A1s, released Jan 2004.)

At the end of camp, as part of the anonymous course evaluations, students were asked to provide feedback on their GeoPad experience.  The comments were very positive overall, including a strong desire by the students to have spent more time using the GeoPads (a limitation imposed by the number of units and a conscious decision to still spend time on the basics for the first part of course).   The following are some representative examples of the students' feedback:

• "Worked wonderfully"
• "At first I did not like them. Then I loved them for their layers, zoom and resolution which made finding myself easy."
• "The [GeoPads] are excellent except for 2 things. Hard to see, and not so good to measure bedding with." [The later comment refers to the common practice of using one's field notebook to help align the compass when measuring the orientation of a bedding feature; not easily accomplished when your field-notebook, the GeoPad, is strapped to you.]
• "I really liked them because they replace mapboard and field notebook and allow for accuracy and easy documentation in the field. They save time in the final mapping process."
• "I hope more computers are made/produced so all students and faculty can enjoy [Arc Scene] like I do."
• "Only problem were with the software crashing. Everything else was great."
• "Get enough tablets for everyone."
• "Good idea, need more time with them"

Field Trip (University of Michigan sponsored trip to Scotland), 21-30 May 2005

GeoPads were put to the test in the rain pretty much every day of the trip, from constant drizzles to driving down-pours, and the Xplore iX104 units worked just fine.

Field Trip (University of Michigan sponsored trip to Flordia Keys and points in between), 3-13 May 2005

Planning is underway...

Field Trip (University of Michigan sponsored trip to Spain), 26 May - 4 June 2004

The University of Michigan Department of Geological Sciences sponsored a graduate/undergraduate field trip to the Pyrenees in Spain (26 May - 4 June 2004) focusing on the structural geology and tectonic history of the area. GeoPads fulfilled several roles during this expedition:

• trip planning and navigational aide, using Microsoft MapPoint 2004 Europe and Garmin MapSource Europe

• GIS access to geologic maps and road logs at multiple scales with real-time GPS-positioning, both while traveling and hiking

• easily-transportable reference library of relevant papers and figures for review and discussion while traveling

We also experimented further with the use of digital cameras to facilitate the drawing of schematic cross-sections.  Panoramic images of road-cuts or the surrounding countryside were stitched together on-the-fly and imported directly into the digital field notebook application, Microsoft OneNote.  The schematic cross-section was then drawn on top of the image, which could be hidden or viewed as needed, resulting in improved figures.

Field Trip (University of Michigan sponsored trip to Northern California), June 2003

The GeoPad was primarily used on this trip for navigation and routing purposes.  We tested two commercial packages, Garmin's MapSource Topo and DeLorme's TopoUSA software.  Using this software, the GeoPad was extremely useful in helping to locate and navigate to geologic stops and campgrounds; either because of poor directions, road construction, or out-of-date information.  It truly proved invaluable, however, by locating and directing the group to the nearest Dairy Queen during a particularly long, hot day of driving.

Field Trip (University of Michigan sponsored trip from Michigan to Texas/New Mexico), May 2002

The University of Michigan Department of Geological Sciences sponsored a graduate/undergraduate field trip from Michigan to Texas/New Mexico, and geologically interesting points in between.  An early GeoPad prototype was used for navigation, logging and collaborative application-sharing experiments between field vehicles. 

The proto-type Geopads were built from a IBM ThinkPad T21 running Windows XP and an Apple iBook running MacOS 9.  Each unit was deployed in a separate vehicle (mini-vans).  Each unit was configured to use an ad-hoc 802.11b wireless network for connectivity between vehicles.  The laptops were located in the front passenger area of two mini-vans, so electronic interference and line-of-sight issues significantly reduced the reach of the network.  However, by employing an Apple Airport (802.11b base-station), deployed in the back window of the leading vehicle, the range of the ad-hoc network was increased from ~50m to ~200m.  Further extension of the network is possible by placing base stations in each vehicle, and by mounting them outside the vehicles on the roof. 

The ThinkPad was also equipped with a Garmin eTrex Vista GPS receiver and was loaded with Garmin's MapSource Topo and MetroGuide USA software.  It was used to aid in navigation and to produce a road log of the trip.

Application-sharing was used between the two laptops, using  Virtual Network Computing (VNC), to explore the potential for "distance-learning" in this unique environment.  The typical scenario involved collaborative viewing of the MapSource application.  This provided a "shared" map to facilitate discussion of the surrounding features of geologic interest over the CB-Radios in each vehicle.  The ability to see, in real-time, what the other user was seeing and what features they were indicating on the map as they talked was extremely valuable.  Difficulties with maintaining an ad-hoc wireless network between the two vehicles inhibited extensive use of this capability; however, with modifications to the wireless networking infrastructure, the reach of such networks can be dramatically increased.