Community-Based GIS with ArcPad
Marc Schlossberg
Planning, Public Policy and Management (PPPM)


Technical Specifications

This page gives an overview of some of the gadgets we've used on a variety of community-based GIS projects.  Each of these Community-based GIS projects emerged from a seed grant from the northwest Academic Computing Consortium (NWACC). With that original grant we purchased 7 PDAs, 4 PDA digital cameras, and 2 PDA GPS units.  Below is some technical information on this hardware.

Our GIS analysis is conducted with several ESRI products, which the University of Oregon owns a site license for: ArcPad, ArcPad Application Builder, ArcView, and ArcGIS.  More information on these software packages are avialble from ESRI (www.esri.com).

Ipaq 4100/4150/4155 (2 units)
  • 400MHz Intel® XScale™ processor
  • integrated WLAN 802.11b, Bluetooth®, IrDA
  • 64MB SDRAM
  • Integrated SD slot
  • rechargeable Lithium-Ion (1000 mAh)

Our upgrades:

  • 1800 mAh battery
  • 512MB SD memory card

ASUS MyPal A716 (5 units)
  • 400MHz CPU
  • integrated WLAN 802.11b, Bluetooth®, IrDA
  • 64MB SDRAM
  • CompactFlash Type II Card Slot (3.3V)
  • SD Card Slot
  • 1500 mAh Lithium Ion Removable Battery

Our upgrades:

  • 3000 mAh battery
  • 512MB SD memory card

Pretec Pocket PC Compact Flash Camera (4 units)

The nice thing about the ASUS PDA is that it has 2 expansion slots - SD & CF.  We used the SD slot for our added 512MB card.  In the CF slot, we inserted this little camera so that we could incorporate digital photos into our GIS database.  The quality isn't fantastic, but does well for 'good enough' uses.  There is no flash, so the camera is for daytime use only.

Pharos Bluetooth GPS (1 unit)

Because our Ipaq PDAs only had one expansion slot, and that slot was dedicated to file storage, we purchased one of these GPS devices that connects to the PDA via wireless Bluetooth technology.

As of December, 2004, we have not found it necessary to us GPS for our data collection; instead we have used GIS base maps that provided us with 'accurate enough'  abilities.
 

Teletype GPS - Bluetooth (1 unit)

We purchased one of these GPS units to fit into the compact flash slot of our ASUS PDAs.

As of December, 2004, we have not found it necessary to us GPS for our data collection; instead we have used GIS base maps that provided us with 'accurate enough'  abilities.


  Main Community-Based GIS with ArcPad Page  
       
Neighborhood GIS Walkability GIS Housing Condition GIS Teaching GIS

 

 

 For more information:
 Marc Schlossberg
 541-346-2046
 schlossb@uoregon.edu
 http://www.uoregon.edu/~schlossb/PPPM/

   

Last edited on: March 10, 2005