Visible Layers
Firetail provides a range of maps and data overlays. Use the menu Layer to access
them.
By default, an Open Street Map view is activated. It provides a great overview of your data, in particular for relatively urban areas.
GPS layer
This layer contains the GPS tracks for the currently selected tag data.
Open Street Map (OSM)
By default, Firetail operates using Open Street Map cartographic material hosted on a dedicated server.
Bing
Alternatively, it is possible to retrieve satellite images from Bing to inspect terrain features visually. The data is static and high-resolution.
The default Bing key shipping with Firetail can be replaced using Files > Settings > Map. This may be required for large-scale region downloads.
NASA - Blue Marble
This data features static, high res (500m/pixel) overlay data from the NASA earth observatory.
NASA - Blue Marble, Full Set
This data features dynamic (monthly progress 2014), high res (500m/pixel) overlay data from the NASA earth observatory. The visualisation thus enables the observation of coarse seasonal changes.
MODIS Vegetation Index, MOD13A
Regional climate data. Spatial and temporal resolution data featuring the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI). For this map overlay, an additional scale is introduced that will overlay the existing map. The visualisation is dynamic and allows for the analysis of periodical changes like winter/summer or dry/humid. The resolution is 1km spatial whith changes provided every month.
MODIS Terra Vegetation Indices
MODIS Chlorophyll Seawater
Overlay of sea water chlorophyll concentration. This NASA dataset features dynamic spatial data covering monthly changes. For this map overlay, an additional scale is introduced that will overlay the existing map with \( \text{mg}/\text{cm}^3 \) .
Vector Layers
Firetail can load shape (.shp) and KML (.kml) and geo-json (.geojson) files as layer overlays. You can use this feature to show administrative districts, park boundaries or trajectories.
(example shapefile from census.gov)
Note that it is not possible to load KML files as tracks for now.
Geojson event with timestamps
It is possible to load geojson events with associated timestamps (experimental).
As an example, use earthquake information provided by USGS:
https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/feed/v1.0/summary/all_month.geojson
The currently reported events are visible for studies that have the same time range:
Feature Overlay - Points of Interest
Firetail can load external points of interest of the following format via
Layer > Add Shape File
Firetail supports a csv format with the following columns:
| field | description |
|---|---|
| Feature | category description |
| Name | individual name |
| Longitude | decimal longitude |
| Latitude | decimal latitude |
Example: places.csv
Feature,Name,Longitude,Latitude
human structure,buoy field,8.95075,47.7343
human structure,buoy field,8.95817,47.7362
conservation,Aachmündung,8.9466,47.7351
conservation,Aachmündung,8.94673,47.7308
conservation,Aachmündung,8.9439,47.7283
conservation,Aachmündung,8.94326,47.7273
conservation,Aachmündung,8.94077,47.7277
traffic,ship,8.96922,47.7331
traffic,ship,8.96879,47.7313
traffic,ship,8.96866,47.7306
traffic,ship,8.96819,47.7288
traffic,ship,8.96789,47.7276
traffic,ship,8.96759,47.7267
traffic,ship,8.966,47.7245
traffic,ship,8.96557,47.7234
traffic,ship,8.9651,47.7226
traffic,ship,8.9642,47.7214
traffic,ship,8.96356,47.7203
traffic,ship,8.96244,47.7185
Loading this file in Firetail will produce the following result
The example above features colored categories. To enable coloring by one of the fields, right-click on the Field Feature in the grouping in the Open Files Viewport and choose Color points by field values.
GeoTiff Layers
Firetail can load GEOTiff files to overlay existing maps. An ‘epsg:3857’ projection is required.
Night/Day – Sunrise
For behavioral studies, information about sunrise and sunset may be crucial. Firetail features a sunrise mode to embed this information in the current viewport.
Contrast Layer
Darken the background map to improve visibility of trajectories.
Point Map
An overlay of all points in a cloudscene. See Cloud Scenes.
Heatmap
A cloud scene heatmap for massive point data. See Cloud Scenes.