Tree Plotter

Kommentare: With Tree Plotter we engage the public to plot private yard trees on our map, view public trees, and take self-guided tree walks. This enables us to better understand the composition of our urban forest and associated ecosystem benefits calculations. Not to mention, people will learn about the trees around them and hopefully become more informed about trees and advocate for planting and proper care. Tree Plotter also allows us to track our organization's tree planting and tree care activities on a digital map, for the first time! We also engage volunteers to survey trees in several programs, providing regular data on the status and needed care for young urban trees.

Vorteile: Our organization needed a platform to 1) engage the public in plotting trees, and 2)help us manage our programs better. We reviewed several tree mapping software programs/providers, and chose to subscribe to Plan-it Geo's Tree Plotter system because we felt that the team and products would best suit our needs for the present and near future. The customer service is fast and attentive, with a skilled team that works with us to craft a custom map that we can use effectively. The software is user-friendly and highly customizable, which helps us create a tool that does what we want and looks how we want it to look. They also have several add-on tools that you can purchase when you have funding, or leave out if you don't need it. Being able to pay for what you need and not what you don't was a nice model for us.

Nachteile: As Plan-it Geo grows and evolves, we hope they will continue to take our suggestions to allow us (clients) the ability to customize some things on our own. It really helps speed things up if we are able to make some changes to our Tree Plotter map structure without asking them first. I think the only thing that is still an issue is some slowness and incompatibility with various Apple devices. It works great on android devices I've used, but many of our users with iPhones can have a tougher time with loading the map/features quickly. Any other things we've expressed a desire to see changed has been taken into consideration and they've shown that they value our feedback and make changes based on client wishes - which is awesome!

Vorteile: I work in the Idaho Community Forestry Program. The State is supplying Tree Plotter at no cost to Idaho cities so that a statewide tree inventory is developed. It's easy to train volunteers or employees to use, it's cloud based including photos of the individual trees. And, the reports generated from inventory results offer much needed information that influences urban forestry management and planning decisions. The accuracy of the GPS coordinates is terrific, this helps not only for street trees, but for locating trees growing in parks and green ways. Data collection can be done using any device that has an internet connection, eliminating the need for expensive equipment such as a Trimble.

Nachteile: Tree Plotter uses Bing or Google maps. It's been my experience that one or the other contains more current imagery. But when you log on to collect data, Bing maps are the default map, even though Google maps may be more current. I'd like it if there were a way to set the default to whichever map was more useful. Also, at least in the Idaho Tree Plotter program, when collecting DBH information, only even inch measurements can be recorded. Measuring growth over time, especially in younger trees, requires measurements to the 1/10th of an inch to accurately assess how vigorous a tree is growing.

Kommentare: The customizing process was very well handled by the Plan-It Geo staff. They asked lots of questions and made quick changes and updates as Forestry staff began to use the software and found things they didn't like or wanted in another place in the database. As Forestry staff have continued to evolve the database whenever they needed assistance with Tree Plotter by either sending an email or by using the in app support responses were quick.

Vorteile: Completely customizable to include whatever information you want to collect.
Scalable to your needs: Tree Plotter can be a simple, basic tree inventory database or by adding desired modules it can become a full fledged work management system. Or you can do appraisals or risk assessments. Its up to your needs and budget.
Information can be exported for use in ArcGIS.
Some lists you can edit yourself such as adding tree species, there by speeding up adding new trees to your inventory and not needing to send a support ticket to have a tree name added.

Nachteile: By fully customizing and scaling the software up with modules it can take a little while to understand where different parts of your data is located and how to use the filters to find what you want.
Cellular and Wi-Fi connections or having a very large database can slow down the process of adding data. However Tree Plotter does have work around for this such as off line data.

Kommentare: The simplistic user interface makes it easy to learn and use, but having the data input window scroll and reset each time a data field is entered takes time to scroll back to the next data field to enter and is frustrating. The background aerial photos work well, but we want to be able to zoom to smaller scale in the Google Earth Map than the overall Tree Plotter subscription for the aerials allows. We usually download the shp files and make our own ArcGIS maps so we can input our company title block and needed labeling, and to allow for setting the print scale to not have overlapping points.
We continue to use and expand our use of Tree Plotter, and continue to provide useful feedback and revision ideas to Plan It Geo staff for improving the program. Thanks for working with us for a better shared environment.

Vorteile: Operates well in any mobile device we have used from tablets and handheld data recorders to phones. The real time and multi user environment allows us to both monitor our staff in the field and also for everyone to work cooperatively in completing inventories and damage assessments. We use Tree Plotter for full landscape inventories and contractor work audits, as well as tree surveys and tree inventories.

Nachteile: We do not want our work, or our client list, to be visible to others, as we have many competitive advantages and legally protected work products in our projects. Having our Tree Plotter account visible to anyone who can enter the url has been an issue for us that we want resolved so our account is not publically visible at all.

Kommentare: My experience has been great. I love the customer service.

Vorteile: I think the best thing about tree plotter is the visual layout of the trees and the search capabilities. It makes it really easy and fun to interact with the software. Also, the fact that tree plotter can be customized to the needs of my organization makes it fit our work flow really nicely. Probably the best part about tree plotter is the customer service and the fast response I get from Tree Plotter developers.

Nachteile: I think some of the work flows to do with work management could be streamlined more. Also, it would be nice if tree plotter had some kind of calendar feature built in where we could pull up a schedule of work and due dates.