Read Mbtiles File From Device to Mapbox Ios
Taking data collection offline with Open Data Kit and Mapbox
Latest ODK Collect release adds new features and maps
Past: Marena Brinkhurst
Open up Data Kit Collect is one of the about widely used mobile-based information collection tools for nonprofits, governments, and researchers working on humanitarian issues at the biggest scales. Users include the Globe Food Program, the Jane Goodall Found, World Health Arrangement and Centers for Disease Control.
This month, ODK released a new version that expands what you lot tin can do with location information inside the app. The update adds Mapbox basemaps with the Maps SDK for Android, making the maps faster and easier to utilise especially in offline and limited connectivity environments. I caught up with leading contributors Yaw Anokwa and Hélène Martin to acquire more near the app's new geospatial features.
What is ODK and why has it go and then widely used?
Open Information Kit is a free and open-source set of mobile data collection tools used for social good efforts ranging from polio elimination to election monitoring to rainforest conservation. ODK is widely used because it helps social good projects, regardless of size, collect critical information in the most challenging environments — fifty-fifty in infinite believe it or non!
ODK Collect is the most popular component in the ODK suite. The Android app has millions of users, is running on 12,000 different devices, and has been translated into 50 languages. Collect is an offline-friendly replacement for the paper forms that are typically used for field data collection. Unlike paper, Collect allows for a wide range of question types including points, lines, and polygons and back up flexible skip logic, robust data validation, and end-to-end encryption.
What's an example of how ODK Collect is being used?
In Jan of last twelvemonth, the Somalia Ministry of Health, WHO, and UNICEF launched a campaign to vaccinate more than 726,000 children from polio. The campaign was supported past some 3,500 personnel, and staff used Android devices running Collect to provide quick and accurate reports on vaccine coverage.
And while global health is a big role of our user base of operations, ODK is unique in that it'due south used across a wide variety of sectors:
- In Western Australia, the Department of Biodiversity, Conservation & Attractions uses ODK to tape 30,000 turtle tracks and nests.
- In Albania, the Coalition of Domestic Observers deployed some 2,000 observers with ODK to monitor Assembly Elections.
- In Republic of yemen, the World Food Program used ODK to monitor the distribution of food to 26,000 families.
- In Tanzania, the Jane Goodall Institute uses ODK to manage land use and woods reserves.
- In Italian republic, volunteers use ODK to fight illegal line-fishing controlled past organized law-breaking.
- In Portland, Trimet uses ODK for on-board rider surveys to produce information in back up of transit planning.
How does location factor into ODK Collect?
One of the most of import things Collect does is enable easy drove of location data. The primary use cases for collecting location data are ground truthing, improving data quality, and wayfinding. For example, mapping clinics to plan an outbreak response, or ensuring an election monitor was actually on site, or locating a rural household that was surveyed last twelvemonth.
Recently, we've been putting a lot of attempt into improving the geospatial functionality and map feel in the app. In our latest release, nosotros've added the Mapbox SDK which means we can now provide much faster, more responsive maps — and increased usability like smooth rotation and zooming that previously were not possible. This means that information collectors can more easily, rapidly and accurately collect indicate, line, and polygon data.
What else are yous excited about in the new release?
Collect has supported offline raster tiles for some time, but adding the Mapbox SDK means nosotros can now support offline vector MBTiles. Vector tiles are much smaller and faster to load. This is important because our users work in areas with footling or expensive jail cell coverage and and then every megabyte counts.It was also very heady to meet how our lead developer, Ka-Ping Yee, and a volunteer mobile engineer from Mapbox, Langston Smith, collaborated on these new features. Thank you to the hours they invested into integrating the Mapbox SDK and vector tiles, a whole new roadmap of geospatial feature evolution has opened up.
What are some technical hurdles the squad had to piece of work through?
One claiming was how exactly to load offline layers from the file arrangement on the device. The Mapbox SDK can only load tiles from a URL, so nosotros congenital a way to run a small background web-server within Collect to serve the tiles from the filesystem. It's been working great so far. The Mapbox Community team likewise has support available for organizations that need special permissions to create and side-load offline map tiles between devices, which is very helpful for users in that state of affairs.
We also had to build some workarounds to keep the app size small. The Mapbox Maps SDK for Android has native binaries for four architectures and including the SDK as-is would accept increased our APK to 22 MB. The recommended workarounds like ABI splits or App Bundles required likewise much maintenance for our small team. Instead, we use zippo-byte stubs for the architectures we wanted to exclude. This arroyo enables us to laissez passer the Play Store requirements for native code, continue aircraft not-Mapbox related features to all architectures with a single APK, and keep Collect APK to 10 MB.
We wanted to preserve the option for users to choose betwixt different basemap providers, simply this means that the app has various interfaces so that any mapping library code can claw into the cadre lawmaking. For instance, an interface makes sure that pressing the device location button will piece of work the same no matter the basemap. Edifice the Mapbox SDK into these location-related interfaces was as well an interesting and challenging procedure, but Ping and Langston did a great chore navigating that.
What else are you working on?
We don't yet support styles for vector MBTiles, so for now colors are selected by Collect to differentiate lines from different layers. We are exploring options to work with the broader geo community to define a mutual standard to parcel styles with tiles.
In addition to styling, we volition shortly enable form designers to parcel MBTiles and GeoJSON as part of their Collect form and specify which questions show which layers. Together, these features will arrive easier for projects to deploy very tailored experiences for large-calibration information drove campaigns.
Longterm, we hope to add more "map-centric" information collection workflows to Collect. For example, we'd like to go far possible for users to select a geo feature from an offline layer and collect data about that feature by launching a form specific to that type of feature. You'll also be able to view previously-nerveless data near those features to provide fifty-fifty more context.
What motivates you to continue contributing to an open-source project like ODK?
Information technology's all most helping the helpers! We had the opportunity to travel to Somalia last year to help railroad train vaccinators on how to better utilise ODK in their work. These are people working in conflict zones and who put their lives on the line to ensure children are vaccinated against polio. They were amazed when nosotros told them that ODK is a community-owned open-source project and some of them have started contributing translations to the project. The potential for everyone to be involved and continuously improve the tools is incredibly powerful.
What sets ODK autonomously from other data collection tools is that information technology'south a community-endemic public good. Nowhere is this community more visible than on our forum where some 10,000 users, implementers, and developers from effectually the globe assist each other collect data. Nosotros strongly believe that ODK only gets better if everyone participates.
To anyone who loves geo: We need your skills and your passion to help design, build, and test more than functionality in Collect. The skills and ideas from the wider geo community are invaluable to the development of this tool, no matter your background, talent, or skill, you can aid make our customs and tools ameliorate.
You can help build ODK Collect! Join the forum at http://forum.opendatakit.org and orient yourself to the lawmaking with the readme.physician at https://github.com/opendatakit/collect . And larn more about working with the Mapbox SDKs for mobile . If you need back up with offline map tiles for mobile-based information collection, contact the Mapbox Community team .
Yaw Anokwa co-founded the ODK project. He's currently CEO at Nafundi, a technology consulting company that leads the software development on ODK. Nafundi designs, builds, deploys and supports information collection systems that work well in challenging environments.
Hélène Martin is CTO at Nafundi and a lead maintainer on the ODK project. In her gratuitous fourth dimension, she sews and builds Cora, an iOS app that helps sewists proceed track of their fabric stash.
Source: https://blog.mapbox.com/taking-data-collection-offline-with-open-data-kit-and-mapbox-4228ad172e9f
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