Currently, the Hadleyville cemetery lacks a map or plan of the grave plots located in the cemetery. The plans were lost in a move from government buildings, which left the cemetery with a problem of not properly knowing the total occupants on site, or the locations of existing grave plots. The risking the potentially of selling the same grave plot to different people prompted the official’s in charge to pursue a technological answer to the 150 year old cemeteries problem.
o Why is building a GIS of this project better than a simple map and/or spreadsheet?
An attribute based Geospatial system offers an elegant solution to the problem at hand. An upgraded version of a planar map, a system allows much more information to be distributed with more ease. A Geospatial system functions to attach attribute data (Name on grave, condition of stone, DOB), o a physical location. Additionally, a GIS lets the user access the attributed data by interacting with the map while viewing the physical location of the grave site.
A GIS can easily be updated and maintained, allowing the information to stay current as the cemetery moves forward in time.
o What equipment are you going to use to gather the data needed to construct the GIS; ie what is the overall approach?
In the essence of producing an accurate GIS, and utilizing the equipment available, the data collection will use the collective effort of all the students. Initially the entire cemetery will be explored thoroughly on foot to make sure any hidden or dirty head stones could be located and a rough count of the number of occupants of the site. Once that’s achieved a specialized drone will be flown while equipped with an 8mp camera and a guidance system to gain high quality imagery of the sites for post analysis. The flight data from the drone can then be imported into a mapping program and plotted to an accuracy of less than half a meter. Additionally, collection of grave stones will be collected with a survey grade GPS unit which is capable of collecting points withing a 10cm range. This collection will take considerable time however, and if a successful flight outcome is achieved, a survey grade GPS my not be necessary.
o What are the overall objectives of the method being employed to gather the data.
* Methods The overarching objectives of data collection are to accurately place each head stone present in the cemetery, produce a spatially accurate and representative map of the grave sites, collect information on the grave stones.
* Methods
o What combination of geospatial tools did the class to use in order to conduct the survey? Why?
The collection tools available provided numerable acceptable substitutes for our methods. Focusing on the most efficient and accurate tool, the specialized GIS drone offered a solution which fit all of our needs for collection standards. Along with the photos and points collected with the drone, a survey grade GPS will collect points at each individual grave site head stone to ensure accurate placement of the graves. The grave stone information is also compiled in notes made into a physical copy in a notebook.
o What is the accuracy of the equipment you are intending to use? (Be sure to cover each piece of equipment)
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GIS drone used for data acquisition. Controlled from a
tablet to program the flight path and parameter
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The equipment which we will be primarily using will be
the GIS drone. The drone will fly in a grid pattern, two separate times, from
different pattern directions. At a pattern height of 40m, aerial images will be
captured at a predetermined interval. The images can then be downloaded and
used as the input to create the attribute GIS product.
o How was data recorded? List the different methods and state why a pure digital approach is not always best. What media types are being used for data collection? Formats?
o How will you transfer the data you gather into a GIS
Once the aerial images are compiled into a computer program, the attribute data which was collected in the field notebooks can be added into the tables which will be attached to their corresponding grave site head stone in the system.
o What equipment failures occurred if any? What was done to remedy the situation?
Over the course of data collection, no equipment failure was reported. However, in certain areas surrounding the SW corner were covered by a considerable amount of upper canopy of a conifer tree. This dense canopy made acquiring an accurate signal for the survey GPS difficult in these specific areas. The dense canopy also made the ground underneath a challenge to see from the aerial photos. This is why physical copies are so valuable, they can be used to fill in the information whose accuracy comes into question.
o What might have been done to facilitate data
collection in terms of equipment and refining the method?
After the procedure was ran once, a possible refinement would be to ensure all students are on the same page, and going about tasks in an ordered form.
* Conclusion
o How did the methods transfer to the overall objectives of the project?
Our methodology directly flowed to achieve the objective proposed. A benefit of producing a GIS is that each plan is custom prepared for each project, which require independent processes to produce the most accurate and economic use of equipment, time, and tools.
o How did the mixed formats of data collection relate to the accuracy and expediency of the survey?
Using variable forms of data collection allowed for a diverse amount of information to be produced. Conducting an aerial survey with the GIS drone, combined with a physical collection of the grave stone information supplemented with the survey grade GPS for the areas underneath the dense canopy.
o Describe the overall success of the survey, and speculate on the outcome of the data.
The individual flights of GIS drone seemed to be successful, which will be able to produce a highly accurate, high quality representation of the cemetery. Combined with the detailed notes which were collected by hand in the field, a highly dynamic GIS will be
