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Best Setup for Mapping in Undeveloped Countries?

Posted by Cliff on from the mapping-the-unmapped dept.

Floodimus asks: "My girlfriend lives and works in West Africa and on my next visit she has asked me to help her do some mapping of uncharted villages. I want to make this study really accurate and useful, so I am thinking about using high tech and low tech resources such as GPS and good old fashioned compasses, but I was wondering what the Slashdot crowd would recommend for GPS hardware (does GPS equipment from the US work over there?), field equipment, mapping software etc. I use both PCs and Macs and would like the software to run on the Mac, but it doesn't have to. What's the best, most rugged stuff you've used? Where are some resources that would help me out?"

2 of 438 comments (clear)

  1. 2 things by Rosco+P.+Coltrane · · Score: 4, Insightful

    (does GPS equipment from the US work over there?), field equipment, mapping software etc. I use both PCs and Macs

    1) GPS equipment, bought anywhere in the world, works anywhere else in the world, since GPS satellites cover the entire globe

    2) All you describe is fine and dandy, but it seems to me that you're forgetting one crucial part of it: power supply. In the Middle of Nowhere, West Africa, you may not be able to find wall outlets everywhere to connect your laptop to everyday. What's more, if you do find power, your laptop might not like it (voltage spikes, bad frequency...).

    So my suggestion is that you start designing around your power supply. Solar? Generator? how to conserve power? PDA or laptop? what size battery to you expect to need? etc etc... all that depends on the exact application.

    --
    "A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
  2. Power? Storage? by Bastian · · Score: 3, Insightful

    My first thought isn't what equipment would be the most fun or powerful, but what equipment will work. How reliable will electricity be in the area you are going to be mapping? Since you describe these areas as uncharted, ,y guess would be "not very," so don't expect that Mac to always be available to you.

    Now what are you going to do without that laptop? You're going to need a GPS device that runs for a *long* time on batteries, or you're going to need to bring a crate of batteries where you go. You're also going to need something that allows you to save and tag all this GPS data so that you can decipher it when you do get back to a computer.

    Get that figured out, and if you have any money left over, THEN you can start thinking about buying that copy of ArcView.