00:00.00 archpodnet Welcome back to episode 85 the architect podcast and we're wrapping up this discussion on getting started with q Js with Ed Gonzalez tenant and on the last segment we had the system installed. We've got base maps. We've got a couple other cool plugins. Let's talk about actually bringing data into the system and I want to start real quick because I haven't used it but I heard about this maybe a year or two ago I can remember the exact timeframe but somebody I don't know if qjs as an organization is even a thing with this being open source but somebody developed an app for Android called I think it was fieldnotes or something like that it was called. That you could actually use as almost a designed direct input for q Js do you know anything about that and if there's an Ios version yet. 00:45.55 Ed So yeah I do um and I believe well so um I'm aware of of ah an app and it is I think currently only available on Google play. So that's a problem called. 01:02.38 archpodnet Right? Oh Q Field you're right? That's it. That's totally it. Yep. 01:04.45 Ed Q Field. Um and Q Field basically acts as like I mean basically like a little mini Q G I S um. Sort of integration sort of like a mini quegis on your phone or Tablet. Ah that you can you know, basically use to collect data in real time right? So it's it's It's basically like having qgis right? there? um and they offer ah. 01:30.24 archpodnet Ah. 01:40.20 Ed Integration right? And so I haven't used this much because I am using open source. Ah Gnss like Rtk Gnss receivers that I actually bought from a company in Colorado um, and I'm using a different program to interface with it on my phone. Um, and then I just save everything as a shapefile. So I'm doing something a little different ah but you know this is something I'm I'm interested in There's certainly been and there is a qgis organization. You see it at http://qgis.org. 02:01.31 archpodnet Okay. 02:10.34 archpodnet Ah. 02:18.30 Ed and every year and I think it's it's just happened or I think it's just happened or it's about to happen. There is like a user conference I know the everyone just happened. Um, but I believe there's a qgis one as well. That's pretty much always online and last year there was a big workshop about q field. 02:25.71 archpodnet Oh cool. Yeah. 02:36.93 Ed Um, and so you know it's you know obviously I think ah Esri offers a collector I think is what they call it. Um, and. 02:46.30 archpodnet Yep, that's right. 02:47.68 Ed And it's basically right like have it on your mobile devices I think they all support any sort of external antenna that you would you know connect to your mobile device. Um so like an RtkGnSs so you get like you know centimeter accuracy in Real-time. Um. So Yeah Q Field is something that I have not worked with that much. But I know that there is a lot of energy going into it because a lot of people I mean you can imagine if you're in the esri ecosystem and you're using Collector. You know I think you can imagine how attractive it is to make something basically like that available to people for low to no cost I Do think there's like subscription plans to like let you store more data and stuff like that. But um I think. 03:28.66 archpodnet Yeah, yeah. 03:37.50 archpodnet Ah. 03:41.74 Ed Everyone can use it to a certain degree. Um you know and I don't I haven't looked at this closely to a certain degree for free. 03:49.19 archpodnet Okay, okay, now let's talk about data formats then I'm curious as to and this is anybody familiar with yeah gis is going to be a pretty pedestrian style question but just to get it out there. Obviously you can take in shapefiles if you're familiar with Gs at all. You know about shapefiles and that's kind of like the bread and butter of a of a gas system but what other kinds of data sets. Can you bring into q js and by extension pretty much any gis I'd imagine um, what kind of data sets can you bring in there and then work with as far as maybe file types and stuff like that. 04:21.97 Ed So that's I mean I That's really important in fact, like the you know if you look at my arcgis for or Q Js I can't play whether the qgis for Arc Youtube playlist. Um. 04:36.31 archpodnet E. 04:38.87 Ed You'll see like the none videos install it and then the next 2 videos are right working with the None most common data models vector or raster and talking about that and what's really cool with qgis and partly this is because Esri um has made some. Of their formats if not open at least they've shared. You know that so other people could so yeah, the shapefile you can use that those of you who've added you know, ah tabular data that have an x and y column. You know that that. 05:00.95 archpodnet Brett. 05:15.87 Ed Our x and y coordinates northern eastings or whatever. Um, you can do that. It's the same way. Um, you can add. Ah I mean there's a whole hope right? all sorts of different raster layers. Um, you know things you've georeferenced but also rasters that are produced by Esri saga. 05:16.67 archpodnet Sure. 05:27.32 archpodnet Okay. 05:35.20 Ed Grass and other software. Um, you can add geodatabass right? So this is a proprietary format from Esri and a lot of people if you work with like federal clients in the us the federal government they have specific. 05:40.84 archpodnet Love no. 05:53.93 Ed Geodatabase formats. They want their data in so you can at least access that data writing to it is is not supported in quite the same way. But you know if somebody sends you or like a lot of us who go to like state and federal data repositories. It's like you could download the whole state in geodatabase format. 05:54.86 archpodnet Right. 06:12.60 Ed Like well okay thank goodness qgis reads that because if I don't have Esri I couldn't read that otherwise um, and again if if q js doesn't read like a file geodatabas and I know I'm getting a little technical. There are different kinds of geodatabas and they exist because they have different. Capacities and Dadada if you don't know what a geodatabase is just know you can use it if you do know what it is and you know the differences between like personal and file and and so forth. Um, know that some can be read. With q js out of the box others might require a plugin but you can get it up and running and that's the cool thing about open source. You go to Google your favorite search engine I don't know if any sponsor the podcast duckduck go. We're talking to you? Um, um, but you you know Geotabase Q js and you're going to find. A whole host of um, you know how tos to to get that up and running. Um I'm trying to think of other ones you know those are the ones I use most commonly and so yeah I mean there are other ones that can be used that I haven't even. 07:04.35 archpodnet Yeah, okay. 07:13.84 archpodnet Yeah. 07:19.59 Ed Like explored personally because they just don't really come up for us as archaeologists. 07:23.17 archpodnet Indeed and along the lines of ah you already mentioned you know, common exports and and things that people would accept you know sometimes and a lot of times when I started using Q Js just for my small company with a rudimentary knowledge of gis to begin with I mean I took ah a course in grad school and things like that. But. And do enough just to be dangerous and sometimes all you need to do is produce maps right? produce like ah like a pdf map or ah, a sketch map of something of your site that you can just put into your site record or to your report. Can you talk a little bit about the.. What is it called the print templates that they have inside of there I had a hell of a time trying to figure those out without any like tutorial information and the little widgets and stuff you put in there for the map and the other stuff and and the things that you can do do you have any tips or tricks on how to just produce regular maps. Maybe I was even doing it wrong using those templates I don't really know. But some thoughts around that. 08:18.57 Ed Yeah, absolutely. So yeah, obviously I think producing maps. Um, you know that really is for archaeologists. It is in many ways our bread and butter with gis. Um, and I know that you know producing Graphics Producing Maps It is like an order. 08:30.95 archpodnet Um, yeah. 08:38.22 Ed Of gis use that a lot of people um, particularly like researchers or academics. You know I say that as one sort of looked down on like oh it's so simply just making a map. Um, but it's probably it's got to be none or more of. All archeological use of Gis right is producing map for reports for public outreach you name it ah publications right? So there is um, you know if you're familiar with Esri and I'm talking about arcgis desktop. But I think it's the same in pro. You know you've got sort of the um. 08:57.73 archpodnet Yeah, for sure. 09:15.56 Ed You've got like a map document and a layout view I believe um or public review at him or what it's called. It's like 2 little tabs that are hidden. Most people don't notice them until they need to but in qgis it does this is one of the differences between I think the two ah ecosystems right. 09:18.32 archpodnet Um, yeah. 09:34.21 Ed You use? what's called print layout and it operates in a very different way. It's it's more like if you would think of like the Adobe ecosystem where like maybe you use Adobe photoshop to work on images. But then you use um. 09:37.34 archpodnet Amo. 09:52.59 Ed I'm blanking the the Adobe program that you use to like lay out a book or something. 09:56.82 archpodnet Oh yeah, um Jesus I can't think of it either I know what you're talking about though illustrator. 10:04.34 Ed Yes, well illustrator and yes, go right? So you're using you know if you're in the Adobe ecosystem you're used to using. It's like design. What is it called? Anyway, you're using 2 or 3 programs to. 10:14.76 archpodnet Yeah. 10:18.88 Ed Manipulate images manipulate vector drawings and then put that all together in a a nice publication. Even if you're in windows you're still doing. Maybe you're working in. You know, word and publisher or something else. So it's. If you're coming from. You know a software ecosystem that has multiple programs to handle different things. This is where you'll feel more comfortable in qgis because it's almost like using a completely different program to create your maps and I do have a video. Um. In that playlist is called creating maps of qgis and then in parentheses it says print layout and I go through all of the functions of print layout. Um, and honestly there was a time you know I do a lot of contract work. Um either for state grants or federal grants or even you know private. Ah, agencies or private groups companies. That's what they're called um and at one point sort of mid-report I remember this for the state I was doing for the state of Florida because we had a grant for one of our projects this was years ago and I say we I meant I had this through Ucf Ah University of central Florida where I used to work. 11:12.80 archpodnet Um. 11:27.56 archpodnet Chirp. 11:29.80 Ed And so um I switched actually halfway through that report preparation and I was able to mimic perfectly my arcgis ah you know like maps and set them up in ah print layouts. So now you know again. 11:41.66 archpodnet Nice. 11:48.47 Ed For me I would say that Qgis can do you know probably 90% of what crm folks need to do out of the box right? Access data symbolize data put it into a map print those maps out stick it in a report and a few other things. Um, so yeah, print layout. 11:55.53 archpodnet Ah. 12:07.38 Ed If you're coming from the from ezreen it's confusing. Um, if you're like ah you've never used Gis and you can find a good tutorial. Um I think it becomes much easier to make sense of that and so I do have that it's part of the playlist will we'll link below or in the description. But yeah. 12:23.36 archpodnet For sure. Okay, well speaking to that we will link to all of this including your detailed Youtube videos on on doing every single one of the things that we talked about and a heck of a lot more but in the last few minutes of this podcast is there anything we did mention that we just need to get out there for. Novices. Um I wouldn't say novices in Js but people knew to q Js that you'd like them to know before we end the show. 12:49.29 Ed Um, you know I think maybe the best thing that anybody can say to anyone else about using a new program or a new technology is and we talked about it last week but you know don't be afraid to Eff it up. 13:05.71 archpodnet Um. 13:07.55 Ed Um, don't be afraid to abandon a qgis map document and start over everyone who spent more than one semester or more than a few months using Esri products knows the importance of walking away from something either for a few moments or completely and starting from scratch and I would say. 13:24.59 archpodnet Red. 13:27.40 Ed You know, give yourself ah permission to Eff it up. 13:30.35 archpodnet Right? Okay, well that is some really good advice and ah, again, check out the links in the show notes for all this. Um, it's it's a lot of really good information and. It's just ah, it's really valuable stuff to know. Even if you're not a gas person. It really helps you to know, especially when you can download something like this and you can play with it for free. You know you can download those base maps. You can you know you can you can just play around and and have fun with it and that will allow you as an archaeologist to really understand. What your Js department has to deal with if you understand how to give them good data and how to play with that kind of stuff and if you have a common frame of reference over you know what? you're collecting and and and what they're dealing with I think even from that standpoint it's good to to really understand all this so you know it's free. Go download the thing go watch Ed's Youtube videos and you know be smarter for it. So all right? Well I think with that I'm just going to mention one time. Ah, we as this episode's being released. We released a special episode of the serum archeology podcast last week and it was in response to the young woman who died actually in Louisiana on her very first day of fieldwork and we don't know if it was heat related but the heat index was 107 and you know it just said she had a sudden medical event but we recorded a special episode with some professionals in crm talking about. 14:38.26 Ed Um. 14:54.77 archpodnet Nothing about that company or her circumstance but talking about knowing your limits when to say when you know knowing you brought this up ed to me. It's actually admitting that you can fail at something and saying listen this is too much for me right now or or this situation or something like that and I just want to point that out on this podcast because there's a lot archaeologists and heck a lot of people. Ah, listen to this that might be in a similar situation. It's okay to it's okay to back away and admit that you know you just can't do it and you need to move on to something else or speak up and try to get some assistance from the company you're working for so I just want to acknowledge that and. Go find that episode. There's no ads on it. There's no anything and it's a nice long discussion of us just just talking about this stuff so share with somebody who needs to hear it I think with that ed thank you very much I don't know if Paul's going to be on next time we might have you for None more round but we'll ah we'll find out. But yeah indeed. Ah. 15:42.19 Ed And that'd be great. 15:48.60 archpodnet And if you guys are liking these episodes please send us some feedback send send ed some love and and we'll see what we can talk about next time if you guys have any suggestions let us know we have a lot we can talk about but we're always happy to take audience suggestions. So with that I think we'll say goodbye and we'll see in two weeks