Welcome to www.ProjectPlotter.com – the free site that allows you to record, view and manage sightings.
First and foremost the site was designed to be a totally ‘open source’ community project i.e. the information it contains is freely available to everyone and potentially anyone can add to it. The aim is to build an interactive, graphic depiction of Motuihe fauna, flora and other interesting items over time!
Using the Site
To use the site is pretty straight forward. The top portion of the site is a visual GIS map of Motuihe (zoom in and out using the + and -). The middle part is where all the search criteria or details are entered. The bottom part displays the results of the search criteria.
The site is available in two formats. The default format is a ‘read only’ archive of previously recorded items. Information can be retrieved by anyone. If you would like to contribute i.e. ‘write’ information to the site you need to login.
Retrieving Sightings
To get going simply press the yellow ‘Search’ button – this will display everything (actually the first 50 records). To plot all this information on the GIS map click the ‘Plot All’ button in the Results section.
If you want specific sighting information click the yellow ‘>’ button in the Results section and this will highlight a single sighting. This will enable some other buttons i.e. ‘Plot’ (plots highlighted sighting), ‘Details’ (shows the specifics in the criteria section), ‘Image’ (shows an image of the item).
You can also search on specific criteria. For example click the ‘Clear/Add’ button to clear any loaded details and then enter ‘Saddleback’ in the ‘Animal, Plant or Item’ box. Clicking search will bring up all Saddleback sightings. There are countless search combinations i.e. by item, by date, by sub-project etc.
Recording Sightings
To record sightings you will need to login. Do this by clicking the ‘Login’ tab and then registering with projectplotter@yahoo.com for a login and password.
Once logged in click on the ‘Project’ tab and record your sightings by entering information in the details or criteria section and clicking ‘Save’. Only the authors of a sighting are permitted to edit or ‘Delete’ it.
The latitude and longitude co-ordinates can be obtained by clicking on the GIS map or entering them yourself from a GPS (Global Positioning System). The From Date should be entered in dd/mm/yyyy format e.g. '15/8/2006'.
The hope is that the site will add to the Motuihe experience whilst we are chained to our desks. The results of monitoring programs and individuals simply recording what they see will all contribute to the success of the site so please feel free to get involved.