A Camera As an Angle-Gauge
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INFORM-C: Interactive Fast Online Reports and Maps for Multi-County FIA Statistics
inform-Carbon: Interractive FAST online reports and maps for Multi-COUNTY FIA statistics
R. Ingvar Elle1, Chris J. Cieszewski2, Roger C. Lowe3, Shangbin Liu4, Yong Shan4
1Research Professional, 2Associate Professor, 3GIS Analyst, 4Graduate Student
Warnell School of Forest Resources,
University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602
Abstract. This report describes the general use and various functionality of the county based InFORM online software that displays USDA Forest Service FIA data summaries. The USDA Forest Service Southern Research Station FIA Unit sponsored the development of this software. The Fiber Supply Assessment program team at the Warnell School of Forest Resources, UGA, developed the web pages as a result of collaboration with various members of the USDA Forest Service FIA Unit. The webpages display county scale forest statistics and enable those unfamiliar with the FIA datasets to quickly evaluate FIA forest inventory summaries relating to carbon, volume, number of trees, land area and other forestry data.
See pages at : where “XX” stands for any of the SE states abbreviations (e.g., GA for Georgia).
Key words: USDA Hypermaps, forest statistics, webpages, southern states
1 Introduction
As part of a research project funded by the USDA Forest Service, Southern Research Station FIA Unit, members of the Fiber Supply Assessment (FSA) project team at the Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources, University of Georgia, and members of the USDA Forest Service Southern Research Station FIA Unit developed the Interactive Fast Online Reports & Maps (InFORM) applications for displaying Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) data in tabular, map and chart formats. The project was headed by Dr. Chris J. Cieszewski of the WSFR FSA project. The online software application allows users to display in tabular, map and chart formats FIA data according to counties for selected states. See pages at: where “XX” stands for any of the SE states abbreviations (e.g., GA for Georgia). What follows is a description of the main features of the Carbon InFORM application.
Displaying Data by Hovering the Cursor
When you hover the cursor over a county on the Carbon InFORM map the hovered county will turn blue and summary statistics for the hovered county will display in the table in the upper right hand side of the page (Figure 1).
The information that displays will depend on what has been chosen in each of the 5 menus within this table. Each menu allows the choice of displaying for coniferous and deciduous trees the amount of forestland (acres), timberland (acres), volume (cubic feet), growing stock (cubic feet), carbon (cubic ton), merchantable carbon (cubic ton), and number of trees, all at the county level.
Directly below this table and to the left displays the amount of total land (acres) and percent forested land for the hovered county. To the right, colored bar charts represent from left to right the relative amounts for the forestry variable values as they appear from top to bottom in the table above the charts.
The default for menu values is to show them as totals for the counties. You can also display them as per acre values by clicking the TOT icon in the icon row at the top right.
Figure 1. Statistics show in top right window for the county (in blue on map) being hovered over. Alternately, they will display for the county last hovered over when the selection arrow is moved off of the map.
2 Selection Tools
Displaying data through single and multiple selection
Hovering over a county allows you to display data for only one county at a time. When hovering you must keep the cursor over the county for which you are displaying data, or the data will change. To help address these limitations there are, in the Selection palette (top left of Figure 2), several tools for making semi-permanent selections for one or more counties. Semi-permanent selections are made by simply clicking, instead of just hovering, on a county or counties, and allow you to move the cursor off the county in order to select other menu options. The clicked county or counties are termed “semi-permanent” because they will remain selected until clicked again. To invoke the Selection palette, click the arrow icon in the Icon Row at the top right. The first tool on the Selection palette (which is also the default for selecting counties) is the arrow tool. Clicking on an individual county within a state page with the arrow tool will turn the county yellow. Data for the selected county will show up in the “All Selections” window (Figure 2). If you click one county after another the sum of all these selected counties will then display in the “All selections” window (Figure 3).
Charts and tables relating to the selection
Extensive data on the selected county or counties are also available in the form of reports and charts (Figure 4) that can be generated by clicking the “Generate Charts” icon in the icon row in the top right hand side of main InFORM display. The data for counties selected using the selection arrow and all of the selection tools mentioned below will appear in the “All Selections” window and in the Charts and Reports.
Figure 2. Data for a county shows in the “All Selections” window after the county has been selected through clicking.
Figure 3. For multiple selected counties the summed values of the five chosen variables display in the “All Selections” window.
Figure 4. Clicking the “Generate Charts” icon displays summary charts for selected counties. Clicking the “Tabular results” link below the charts will display 26 Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) tables with data for the selections.
Circle, Rectangle and Polygon Tools
The next three options on the Selection palette allow you to select single or multiple counties by circle (Figure 5), by rectangle (Figure 6) or by arbitrary polygon (Figure 7).
Figure 5. Circle tool illustrated.
Figure 6. Rectangle tool illustrated.
Figure 7. Arbitrary polygon tool illustrated.
Eraser Tools
There are 2 separate eraser icons for clearing all selected counties from the map. One is in the icon row at the top right of the InFORM display. The other is the last tool on the Selection palette.
Figure 8. Clicking either of the eraser tools will clear all counties selected by any of the Selection tools.
Selecting by Name
After expanding the Selection palette by clicking on the gray diamond on the left side of it, you can also select counties by county name (Figure 9).
Figure 9. Selecting counties by name.
Selecting by Variable
Use the “By Variable” tool to select counties for which the value of a designated variable for each county is greater than or less than a given threshold value. There are two pop-up menus and one value range indicator for this task. Use the first pop-up menu to choose the variable (the default variable is Total Land) for which you would like to indicate a threshold value (Figure 10a). For the second menu you have 3 options: New Set, Add to Set and Select from Set. These options differ by how selected counties appearing on the map immediately before test invocation are treated.
New Set
New Set, as the name suggests, will, at the time of test invocation, ignore any counties selected on the map and test whether the threshold number is > or < than that for each and every county in the state. To use New Set, first choose a variable from the first menu in the By Variable section (Figure 10a). Retain the default set selection New Set (Figure 10b). Choose either the > or < symbol to choose whether counties to be selected will be greater than or less than the threshold value (Figure 10c). Set the exact threshold value by selecting the entire number at the bottom of the expanded Selection menu and typing in the number you wish to test against, and then click the test invocation button. What will appear on the map are any counties in the state meeting the greater-than or less-than test.
Figure 10. Steps illustrated for finding counties with > or < a certain amount of a chosen
variable. Note that by choosing New Set (Step b), all previously chosen counties are cleared
when the test is run (Step d).
Add to Set
Add To Set (Figure 11) will select from all unselected counties those with values either greater than or less than the chosen threshold number, but will keep all previously selected counties, regardless of whether they themselves have values greater than or less than the threshold number. To use Add to Set, you can start by selecting your initial set of counties, choose Add to Set, select the threshold value, designate either > or <, then activate the Add to Set Function by clicking the test invocation button. What will appear on the map are all counties originally selected, plus any previously unselected counties in the state that meet the specified threshold test.
Select from Set
At the time of test invocation Select from Set selects only from any already selected counties whose values are greater than or less than the displayed threshold value (Figure 12). To use Select from Set, select your initial set of counties, choose Select from to Set, select the threshold value, designate either > or <, then activate the Select from Set function by clicking the test invocation button. From the originally selected counties Select from Set will select and display those counties meeting the threshold test.
Figure 11. Selecting counties by variable using Add To Set (a) means that initially selected counties will remain, while counties with values meeting the threshold criteria will be added (b).
Figure 12. In using Select From Set the only counties tested for the threshold criteria are the ones that are selected at the time of test invocation.
3 Classify Tools
The Classify palette in the InFORM Carbon program allows you a range of options for constructing a map that illustrates for every county the relative amount of various forestry variables. There are three levels for the Classify palette (Figure13).
Figure 13. The icon for opening the Classify palette is the multicolored one in the Icon Row in the top right. The Classify palette itself contains three buttons corresponding to its three levels.
Level One
Clicking the multicolored, Classify icon in the Icon Row (Figure 13) opens the Classify palette to its default level 1 with the default variable being total land. The relative value of the variable in this field can, for each county, be represented on the map by a range of 3, 4 or 5 colors (Figure 14).
The variable in this field can be changed by clicking directly on it, which will open the Quick Classify menu (Figure 15), which allows you to choose from total, deciduous and coniferous classes for forestland (acres), timberland (acres), volume (cft), growing stock (cft), carbon (grn ton), merchantable carbon (grn ton), and number of trees. To choose a variable simply click on it in the QC menu. To choose another variable for that row you must first click the existing variable in the menu again to unselect it.
Figure 14. Level 1, showing “Total Land” as the selected variable and showing the number of colors that can be used to illustrate the range of values of the selected variable.
Level Two
Level 2 (Figure 15), which can be opened by either clicking the variable value for row 1 in the Classify palette or by clicking on the double dash symbol in the palette, shows the Maximum (Max), Average (Ave) and Minimum (Min) values for the selected variable. These values will also display for any of the values in the QC menu over which the cursor is hovered.
Level 3:
To represent more than one variable on the map the user can open level 3 using the triple dash symbol on the Classify palette. In this level all 6 QC rows are visible (Figure 16). As mentioned earlier, for the first row a range of up to five colors can illustrate the relative values of the selected forestry variable for each county on the map (Figure 14). The forestry variable for QC row 2 is represented by graduated circular symbols (Figure 16). Each forestry variable in rows 3 – 6 is represented in the map as a bar graph (Figure 17). For the graduated circle and the bar graphs the color can be customized (Figure 18). For the Classify section, to clear graduated circles left on the map by using row 2, and bar charts, left by using rows 3-6, shift-click on the row for which you wish to clear the elements. To easily clear all elements, including selected counties, simply refresh the page using your browser’s refresh function.
Figure 15. With Classify palette open to level 2, summary statistics are shown for Quick Classify row 1.
Figure 16. The Classify palette open to level 3, and showing the use of row 2, which uses graduated circles to illustrate forestland values for each county.
Figure 17. The Classify palette open to level 3, and showing the use of rows 3-6, which use bar graphs to illustrate relative variable values for each county.
Figure 18. Color menu expanded in order to allow choice of color for the graduated circles displayed by use of Quick Classify row 2.
4 Layers
Clicking the gray diamond on the left side of the layers palette opens the palette (Figure 19), which allows you to turn on and off Roads, Rivers, FIA regions and Physiography and to show locations of major cities. Click the name of the layer to display it, and to cancel the selection, click the same name again.
Figure 19. One possible combination that can be displayed using the layers menu.