LoggerHead Navigation

You are here: What's on
GIS Technology Blog

GIS Technology Blog

This is our blog about the latest developments in GIS technology. We like to use a hand-on approach, showcasing technologies through real life examples as much as possible. We hope you'll like it.

Satellite tracking technology has revealed in detail for the very first time the annual movements of thousands of loggerhead turtles that live off the east coast of the US.

The ten-year study shows that they go back to the same spots year after year.

This means researchers can now say where, to within a few tens of kilometres, the turtles will turn up at any point during the year.

Support vs Training

Written by Wednesday, 29 June 2011 03:02

At Loggerhead Navigation we provide great support for customers, based in our own experience. We have years of experience of GIS projecs, across many industries, that allows us to know the best way to make use of  each piece of hardware and software that we offer, to obtain the best results, in terms of quality of the deliverable, cost and overall effort. We are experts.

Purchasing a product from Loggerhead Navigation will ensure you that either it works correctly, or we will be available help you to get it working properly, or otherwise we will replace your purchase. This is what we call support.

However, if what you really need is not only an equipment that works, but also find out the best way of using it, applying best practices and adapting your workflows to maximize your productivity, we could train you for that. This is what we call training.

When you include training, we explicitly say it at the time of purchase. Typical training includes a full day in our offices and a certain additional time for you to ask questions over the first period of use. We could also provide training remotely via Skype and similar technologies, which happens to be a great way to balance time availability with experts’ access at an affordable cost.

As training is expensive, inexpensive receivers don’t include training as part of the package.

If you are a knowledgeable user, you pay no training and get the best price.

Purchase Pricing and Training

This is an example of how pricing might work:

Sales
Price
Discount % Discount $
MSRP: $2,750 0% $-   0 Manufacturer Suggested Retail Price
STREET: $2,585 -6% $-165 Probable street price from dealer
WEB: $2,475 -10% $-275 Lowest price from web discounter

This table shows how pricing works according to the system you chose to purchase. Obviously, choosing the web low price and considering that training runs around $800 per day, you must expect the best support we can give but no training. If you purchase a receiver at MSRP price, for instance, you can expect $275 worth (2½ hours) of training.

There is one thing you have to be sure of: we’ll give you a great service and the best products on the market.

Please consider that Web base pricing is a great alternative for all users.

The right place, the right purchase

When you choose us and you purchase an instrument, you must be sure that we’ve checked each and every part of it, so we’re selling you exactly what we offer and exactly what the package says it is.

For instance, we inspect every USB and it serial ports, the touch screen, batteries and charging system, the receiver, the battery backup of system settings, the SD card slot, software,  retention of settings, etc. This is part of our responsibility as sellers. Yours include returning an instrument which does not work, for technicians to repair it.

If you purchased your receiver on the web from another dealer, we invite you to ask your local dealer  (or us) to quote a price for individual training. As we are experts, we can train you on your equipment purchased from any dealer.

Accuracy versus Precision

Written by Wednesday, 29 June 2011 02:55

A surveyor struggles for both accuracy and precision. “Accuracy” and “precision” are terms often used by many people interchangeably. However, for those in the surveying profession and other technical and in scientific fields, these words have different implications. To surveyors, “accuracy” refers to how closely a measurement or observation comes to measuring a "true value," since measurements and observations are always subject to error.  “Precision” refers to how closely repeated measurements or observations come to duplicating measured or observed values.

To help differentiate the meaning of these two terms, four cases of rifle shots fired at a bull’s eye target, each with different results was used.

Case 1

Not accurate, not precise: A shooter stands, aims through the rifle’s telescopic sight, and fires four shots at a target.  Upon studying the target, the shooter noticed that all four shots are high and are scattered all around that part of the target. These shots were neither accurate (not close to the center) nor precise (not close to each other).

Case 2:

Precise, not accurate: The shooter assumes a level position, rests the barrel of the rifle on a support, takes careful aim, holds his breath, and gently squeezes the trigger. The four shots are very close together but all are high and to the left of the bull’s eye. These shots are precise (close together), but not accurate (not close to the center of the target).

Case 3: Accurate, not precise: The shooter adjusts the rifle’s telescopic sight and, full of confidence that the problem of inaccuracy has been solved, stands and quickly fires four shots.  Upon studying the target, the four holes are scattered across the target, but the location of each of the four is very close to the bull’s eye.  These shots are accurate, but not precise.

Case 4:

Accurate, precise: The shooter again assumes a level position, rests the barrel of the rifle on a support, takes careful aim, holds his breath, and gently squeezes the trigger four times. The four holes are very close to the center of the target and are very close together. These shots are accurate and precise.

To show the distinction between terms through a surveying example, imagine surveyors very carefully measuring the distance between two survey points about 30 meters (approximately 100 feet) apart 10 times with a measuring tape. These would be very precise measurements if all 10 of the results agree with each other to within two millimeters (less than one-tenth of an inch). However, suppose the tape they used was too long by 10 millimeters. Even though the measurements are very precise, it would not be accurate. Other factors that might affect the accuracy or precision of tape measurements include:  wrong spacing of the marks on the tape, use of the tape without the correct tension to control the amount of sag in the tape, and use of the tape at a temperature different from the temperature at which it was calibrated.

Source: NOAA

Mobile GIS Technology Trends

Written by Friday, 03 June 2011 10:57
Geospatial Insights Webinar Series

Mobile GIS Technology Trends

Register Now

Date: Thursday, June 16, 2011
Time: 10:00 a.m. Pacific / 1:00 p.m. Eastern / 5:00 p.m. GMT
Speaker: Eric Gakstatter, Geospatial Solutions Editor
Duration: 60 minutes

Sponsored by: Magellan

We are working with these other products to provide legitimate and proven "solutions" to our clients that are looking to solve problems, get the right tool for the job, save time and money, and are open minded and not "married" to only a brand name.

Astech MM100Ashtech is unveiling today the ultimate GIS handheld for high-precision mobile mapping and data collection:  the MobileMapper® 100.  MobileMapper 100 is the newest generation of Ashtech GNSS handheld mapping solutions; it complements the well-known MobileMapper family that includes the MobileMapper 6 and MobileMapper CX GPS/GIS data collectors.

Like its predecessors, the MobileMapper 100 sets a new standard for mobile mapping accuracy. It provides real-time sub-meter, to centimeter accuracies in a rugged and very lightweight 22-ounce (0.62 kg) unit. 

First Look at Arcpad 10

Written by Loggerhead Navigation Sunday, 12 September 2010 14:46

ArcPad, a feature-rich mobile GIS application for field mapping and data collection, incorporates new features and quality improvements in the latest version, ArcPad 10.

Now in its tenth year, ArcPad continues to build on enhancements made in Esri's previous release, ArcPad 8. ArcPad 10 improves field productivity and helps users manage their GIS projects more efficiently.