1. What is the general goal of the feature?
To be able to edit existing records that have geotrace data by selecting them on a map. Currently it is possible to visualise existing geopoints (e.g. Visualize on the fly in the mobile phone the data collected with ODK on a map) as long as they are not in repeat groups. It would be great to do the same with geotraces and geoshapes. 2. What are some example use cases for this feature?
When collecting 'linear' data it would be useful to be able to see that visualised on the 'fill blank form' map to check that there is no overlap / duplication of coverage.
This could be useful for longitudinal studies, where the geotrace has been previously collected and 'blank forms' could be pre-loaded to a device. This could then become a monitoring tool (which is my main interest).
In my wildest dreams (related to ODK Collect, not that I dream about an app, you understand!), I would like to be able to select a geotrace / or geoshape on a map to create a new record associated with that trace (similar to B) almost like a 'visual select_one' widget - so that it is not necessary to create the trace or shape in the field but 'copy' it from a predefined list - currently I do this by creating a geopoint over a base layer (mbtiles), then match up the point and the line / shape on the GIS, which is a bit tedious with lots of data points.
3. What can you contribute to making this feature a reality?
Anyone who's used this forum knows how good I am at breaking stuff... happy to test
I'm hoping that the functionality might be similar to that used for on-the-fly visualisation, so it could 'borrow' from that? Maybe...
Not exactly what you want, but... have you looked into perhaps using the current image map select widget. Granted it is not rendering (predetermined?) geoshapes, but if you can convert your goepshapes to an SVG - and provide the user some visual context as to their geospatial location (and scale?) - then it might make for an interim solution.
Thanks for your suggestion @Xiphware - I love a good workaround and I have looked into image maps but there's quite an overhead in creating them. They have some value, but I was hoping to be able to use the advantage of geolocation to combine with a map (so being able to pan and zoom, and select an item near to the current location that could be plotted on the map). Also, enumerators often don't want to put up with the compromises I come up with - in this case of it not being a real map...
One real world example would be an area of National Park with footpaths - about 40 of them in around 70,000 hectares - difficult to do currently except by name (e.g. edit existing form with a meaningful instance name, or a new form with a select_one) with a reference map elsewhere... with a geo-visualisation it would be easier to ensure that the correct record or path is selected for editing.
It's possible I'm thinking of (and maybe confusing) two different things with the idea of visualising and editing records via their geotrace / geoshape geometry, and generating a 'visual select_one' (which is closer to your suggestion), so the first case is probably a better start point...
As @seewhy, we are facing similar needs that are difficult to solve with ODK only for the moment, in the context of long/middle term monitoring of a lot of objects (hedges, ponds, habitat patches, hydraulic gates or valves, grapes parcels, sample plots and so on).
I think this discussion is linked to enhancements you are discussing for entity based data collection (eg choose on a map the object I want to describe).
The first use case I have in mind is about square cells monitoring on the field. The study zone is divided in square cells from 10 to 100 meters large (depending on the effort it represents) and we populate several indicators for each cell. To achieve that in ODK I use a Geopoint question with a base layer and an overlay of sample cells to be as sure as possible I am in the good one (relative to the one I feed before).
the survey logical is :
date
site
cell (repeat-group)
question 1,
indicator 2
indicator 3
...
comment about the session
Once data arrives in our database, a spatial intersection associates each data to the cell containing the geopoint.
As a database manager this is OK for me as the data are well associated to the right space but the user experience is not so good as colleagues can't see on the map which cells were already feed during the session. They do it with a second app, running in parallel to ODK and showing their trace on the map (oruxmaps). In the same time they eared about QGIS derivatives that should do the job but I am afraid about data consolidation with such tools.
The second use case is about water level hydraulic management equipment monitoring. Because every equipment is not named in a meaningful way and because they are a lot, we perform a cascading select one to reduce the choice list. After the user selected the one he think he is standing in front of, I show / display? a map (as a note) with the location of the selected element and the location of the user, so he can confirm or correct his choice.
For those cases I imagine, (dream about ) two geo improvements in ODK :
be able to click a vector object on a map to fill a form about (it seems to be part of the EDBC discussions and use cases)
having a new "select_one_from_layer" widget, which, as the select_one could be feed by the choices sheet or by an external dataset, and contain, an id, a name and a geojson or other geo-standart column to draw it on the map. Already selected entries should be styled in a different way than the others in order to see the progression on the field.
) two geo improvements in ODK :