Use our public mapping features to share your research with the public!
Public Mapping Features
Here is an example map we created from a week of Brown Pelican data.
Live 3D Earth Functionality
Using the very latest tools from Esri, this system was developed to feature a fully interactive 3D globe – right in your browser.
Rich Symbols
The 3D icons that represent the GPS fixes in the air with altitude data (height of the pointer), and they also show the Course Over Ground (direction of the pointer) and Speed (size of the pointer).
Sunlight Illumination Indicator
For many projects, it is important to note which points were collected during daytime and which are nocturnal. This public mapping system calculates the current sun position for every GPS fix based on the time and current latitude & longitude position. This is then represented by a colored disk on the map that shows the current illumination.
Dynamic Point Selection for Performance
Many telemetry maps have tens of thousands of points which (understandably) can have performance impacts. The map is designed to load only the number of points needed at each zoom level. This improves performance and allows the page to load faster.
Point Details and Load Locations in Google Maps
When looking at telemetry maps, it’s often helpful to get a better perspective on the region using Google Maps. Every point has a built in link to find the location on Google Maps.
Protecting the Birds
Public maps only make sense if we can maximize both public outreach and the safety of the birds. For this reason, CTT has spent a significant effort in creating this system with a focus on building subsystems just for protecting the birds.
There have been very public cases of birds and other tracked animals getting targeted when their tracking data is shared online. We believe we have a responsibility for ensuring the well-being of the birds whose data we share, and we will work with you to best configure how you share your data.
Time Delay
Specify how many hours the data should lag the present time.
For example, set this parameter to 24 hours to hide the most recent day of data.
Aggregating Data
You can specify that data should be summarized over time windows. This is especially useful for Flight Mode birds where the number of points can be overwhelming! This tool is mostly useful to protect the bird’s data for the researcher’s benefit. This way you can share the broad movements of your birds without giving up too much of your data. These aggregated points are smart – they actually show average values over the time period and incorporate data from the entire dataset without revealing all of the underlying points.
For example, set this parameter to 5 minutes to only show one averaged point over every 5 minute window with data or 240 minutes to show one averaged point for every 4 hour window.
Recent Location Privacy
This is the most powerful protection and is the most complex subsystem of public mapping. Using this feature, all points within a radius around the bird’s most recent location will be hidden. This is specified in decimal degrees and is updated with every checkin.
For example, if you set this parameter to 0.01 degrees, any data point (recent or historical) within ±0.01 latitude and longitude of the bird’s most recent position will be hidden. This will not be obvious, and the gaps in historical data won’t appear unusual. A frequently used roosting site that wouldn’t be covered by the time delay would be hidden using this tool (except when the most recent position came from a checkin that is far from the roosting site that the bird will later return to and the privacy radius is too small). If the bird had previously roosted in the same location as the most recent position, the system will carefully slice out those points and still show the points before and after connected like a normal path.