EDIT videos tutorial

EDIT mapViewer is a webmapping application designed for visualizing georeferenced data coming non-GIS (Geographic Information Systems) taxonomists. Such data must be puntual, and in CSV format.

It only works perfectly with Firefox 3.

EDIT mapViewer is not made for fast travelling around the world. If you do so you can get frustrated.

The usual workflow should be:

-Upload (and symbolize if necessary) your CSV data (with georeferenced point data)
-Add the geographic layers you may need and are provided by EDIT
-Add the scalebar, windrose if necessary.
-Print (download) the map in different image formats and resolutions.
-Print the map and your points legend, as well as a key map.

The more geographic layers you add, slower will be the webapplication. For that reason we strongly recommend to add the layers only when your area of interest is ‘zoomed’, ready for printing.

EDIT mapViewer is modular. It means not all the functionalities are shown by default. You can add them in ‘Modules’ section: spatial analysis, Google&Yahoo maps, GBIF information…

Basic interface

EDIT servers provide some geographic information that is used in EDIT mapViewer. All this information is on the left menu, ‘Layers’. It is grouped in different categories and at different resolutions. Simply switch on/off layers selecting the correspondent checkbox.
Each layer you add you can see the map legend grows also.

You can also show/hide all the layers within a group (eg: Natural Features) after opening the white cross (top-right of the map) and checking it’s selector (‘Natural Features’).
Some of these layers (and/or its label) are not visible at some zooming level (or scale). Layer symbolization is possible in a few layers, but unfortunately the legend will not correspond to this new generated style.

Upload your point data

Your puntual data must be in a comma-separated-falues file (CSV) and have at least latitude and longitude in WGS84 datum and a field for future filtering and symbolization.

The system is currently designed to work with Genus and Species, and these have to be the third (and fourth) field in your CSV.
You can try to work with other kind of data (data of collection…), but you must have at least a third field in the CSV, and in that case the Spatial Analysis module has not much sense.
Don't leave any blank space! don't use non-latin characters or symbols (accents, > commas...)be sure you have in all the records the same number of fields
Any error in your file will avoid its uploading to EDIT mapViewer!

IMPORTANT:your data will be removed as soon as you leave the webapplication

Coordinates must follow Decimal notation (eg: 0.44, -79.9). To convert to Decimal notation you can use the Coordinate Conversor

Note that depending on how many fields your CSV have you can symbolize by:
-Third field (Genus by default)
-Fourth field (Species by default)
-Third and Fourt field (Genus and Species by default)

Be aware that some point layer can overlay others, making them not visible (e.g; Genus layer can overlay Species if both are selected on the same time). Moreover, the performance when browsing the map can drastically decrease.

You can ‘merge’ different CSVs in the same map; simply switch on the ‘add to the current map’ before uploading the second CSV file.

EDIT mapViewer provides a CSV file for testing.
The parameters to fill for this test file are:

• Number of fields:5
• Latitude: 1
• Longitude: 2

EDIT mapViewer allows the user to download a file containing all the necessary information to ‘restore’ the currently viewed area (and geographic layers).

It doesn’t include user point data, GBIF or symbolized layers and map complements like windrose and scalebar.

When you upload your project (a JSON file), you should keep visualizing your currently data AND the data (layers) stored in the project.

This feature only works in latitude/longitude projection.

Choose the geographic projection you need for your map and apply it. Make sure first this is the projection you need!

Your data will be reprojected and automatically zoomed to the area the selected projection has sense.

The layers symbolized by the user will not be shown on the reprojected map.

You can easily get distorted maps if the geographic layers used are very general (high scale layers like ‘mundial countries’) and reproject to a local projection.

That’s the reason why some layers like ‘Administrative’ have been classified in different groups.
So, if you reproject to an European projection be sure to use only some of the european administrative layers (even in that case, depending on the scale you are, you can create distorted maps).

All geographic layers should be splitted on the future on more little parts to avoid distortions.
Navigating around using a different projection than WGS84 (latitude/longitude) can cause a performance slowdown.

You cannot upload CSV when you are on a different projection than latitude/longitude (EPSG 4326 code) but you can first upload CSV file and then reproject.

You only can use this tool in latitude/longitude ‘projection’ (EPSG 4326)

You can use Google and Yahoo maps as background
These maps use a particular projection, EPSG:900913, so that all the layers will be reprojected to fit it.

You cannot reproject these maps to another projection and cannot upload your CSV file if you are visualizing these maps.

You can switch to latitude/longitude in the same dropdown list, upload your CSV data and switch to Google&Yahoo maps.

After choosing which commercial map you desire you will be zoomed to a general view, so you have to navigate again to your area of interest.

We provide you the tools to print your map at different resolutions and image formats
For each resolution you have to choose an image size. This is the size your resulting image has to be transformed to get the desired resolution for printing.

You can easily change image dimensions to include on a text processor (OpenOffice, Word) using "Properties" of the incrustated image.
Be aware that high resolutions may mean about a few MegaBytes image file.
You can also print:

-the map scalebar
-the map legend
-your symbolized point data legend
-the key map (a map showing your currently visualized area)

Some of these layers (and/or its label) are not visible at some zooming level (or scale).
Layer symbolization (stroke color, width, fill color…) is possible in a few layers, but unfortunately the legend will not correspond to this new generated style.

You can create your polygon on the screen, symbolize it, add a label and get it on the final image for printing.
You must activate first the “Query & Draw module”.
To stop drawing the polygon just make a double-click It's specially interesting if we don't provide a layer you need as background (for example, a natural park, or your area of study) but you know (or you can determine) its shape using other background information.
Also adding annotations can be very useful. You can even set up the polygon opacity to ‘0‘ (also the stroke opacity to ‘0‘) if you just want to annotate something (eg:"here I found specie X");

After uploading your data you can perform a Spatial Analysis over a user selected polygonal layer (e.g: UTM squares, quadricules of different resolutions…)

You get three different maps, each one with it's own legend:

1) Map of sampling effort (number of records in each polygonal entity)
2) Map of taxonomic richness (number of genera in each polygonal entity)
3) Taxa/record relationship

After performing a Spatial Analysis operation, you can hover the polygons and get the analysis results of the data contained on the hovered polygon (use ‘Interactive analysis’ tool)

A review of the available scientific information on the possibilities and usefulness of the compiled species distribution data for basic and applied purposes is available for download here

Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) is a distributed network of institutions sharing biodiversity data.

The tool developed in EDIT mapViewer allows browsing biologic hierarchy and finally get a map of data density (the number of records that occur in each 1.0 degree by 1.0 degree cell, and in some cases in each 0.1 degree by 0.1 degree cell).
These maps are intended as a first indication of distributions and show relatively little detail on underlying geography. It doesn't allow making scientific analysis but can give an idea of how avaible is the data in GBIF.

Be aware that the performance of the tool depends on the GBIF server

Browse the taxonomy till you get the desired level of classification and click on the left cross. If there is georeferenced information, just click on "Visualize it on mapViewer".

Several institutions across the world provide geographic layers (WMS) accessible by EDIT mapViewer.

After choosing the institution from the list we provide you, and the desired layer, an abstract of the choosen layer will appear. It defines what kind of geographic data are you dealing with and which styles are avaible for such information. If you agree, just click 'Ok'.

Be aware that the performance of this tool mainly depends on your bandwith and the capabilities of the remote server, not in EDIT mapViewer. Sometimes remote servers are too busy or down, in that case try it later.