Well we fly out to Costa Rica tomorrow (24th) for the 2009 field season of the Eco Map Costa Rica project. This is the second year of a University of Dallas field ecology class led by Dr. Marcy Brown Marsden. I attend as a co-leader and help with certain areas - eg. volcanology, mapping, photography. The project is studying the Leaves & Lizards rainforest restoration project. By returning each year, it should be possibly to record how the biodiversity changes as the trees return. Other effects are also expected - eg. a better ground water supply.

Last year the group created the maps that can be seen at the project website: EcoMapCostaRica.com. This year we will be doing much less mapping, but we shall be recording new study points for soil analysis, butterfly sampling, and ant sampling. The panoramic photographs will be similar to last year, but I have written a Silverlight panoramic photo viewer that allows photos from different years to be compared for the same location. This should look pretty neat when loaded in real data. I am also going to try to create a PhotoSynth or two of selected areas of the study area. This could be difficult with all the trees and green, but it is also worth a go. It could be interesting attempting to integrate PhotoSynth with Virtual Earth.

Anyway, the real news: There will be no site updates whilst I'm away in Costa Rica. We fly back on 1st June, so normal service should resume on 2nd June. I have a two part article about KML from Eric Pimpler lined up for that first week of June.

In the mean time, you are welcome to visit the blog at EcoMapCostaRica.com and check in on our progress. There is a strong chance that we will not have an Internet connection until Wednesday, but when it is up and running we shall have daily blog updates from the students, Marcy, and myself.

Comments (0)

Subscribe to this comment's feed

Name

Email

Website

Title

Comment

smaller | bigger

Subscribe via email (Registered users only)

I have read and agree to the Terms of Usage.

Write the displayed characters

Add Comment