Customize ArcPad to Associate Sound Recording Files to Point Features

[YurikoHashimoto]

Hi,

I need to explore the customization of ArcPad to programmatically associate voice recording files with point features captured by GPS location for its application in aerial waterfowl surveys. The problem was first posed here in a previous thread in the old support forums but I had to work on other projects before I could explore possible solutions.

In a nutshell, waterfowl biologists want to be able to record GPS point location sightings of birds with the descriptive information about the species, age, sex and number, etc recorded by voice during the aerial survey and later transcribed in the office.

Has anyone worked on something similar? If a solution is developed I will of course make such a tool publicly available.

What is desired is a custom "Aerial Survey" toolbar with a Voice Recording ON/OFF button and  a custom tool that will:

1. Ensure a layer called "aerial_survey" exists and ensure it is editable--"aerial_survey" is a shapefile with the following attributes:
-       timedate, NMEA timedatestamp
- dbl_x, double, records longitude in decimal degrees
- dbl_y, double, records latitude in decimal degrees
- wave, hyperlink that stores filename of an associated wave file

2. OnClick Event with a left mouse click:
- create a point in the layer based on the GPS location and record the timedate and coordinate information
- Launch a Windows PC Tablet-based sound recording program and begin recording a wave file in your project folder

3. On a second left mouse click event:
- pass the timedate value to your Sound application
- stop the voice recording, save the sound file and incorporate the timedate value into the filename
- exit the Sound application
- enter the name of the recording file in the "wave" attribute column of the point recording

Any thoughts and input will be greatly appreciated! Many thanks in advance!

[RolfBroch]

Hi Yuri, the workflow you outline below is feasable but require customisation to several components and programs.

Have you given any more thought to use the ArcPad out-of-the-box as outlined in the old forum?

It would require you to
1) record the sound and save the soundfile with a unique name in a specified folder
2) register the point by clicking the CapturePointFromGPS tool and populate the datetime, nmea_datetime (this can be done automatically)
3) register the above soundname in a field (this can be done using a combobox which is populated by reading each file in the specified folder from pnt. 1). This combobox can be further refined by only listing filenames that have not already been used

This would require a minimum of programming and the time from observation to record should be just a little more than the time to record the sound

Rolf