Primeros pasos

Su primer muestreo

Esta página recorre el ciclo completo desde la instalación hasta la exportación: abrir la aplicación, descargar el área en la que va a trabajar, elegir un protocolo de registro, introducir observaciones en el campo, revisar lo recogido y sacar los datos. Cada paso enlaza con una página específica que contiene todo el detalle.

Abrir la aplicación por primera vez

When you open EarthCape for the first time, no sign-up is required. The app creates a project for you automatically, named after your device, selects it, and assigns the Casual / incidental protocol. The project is empty — it contains no sample data, no demonstration observations, and no pre-loaded species lists. Use it as it is, or rename it before you begin.

The home screen carries the Record button, quick actions for a new observation or locality (camera, gallery or blank form), and the weather card. Everything else — the map, your data lists, protocols, projects and Admin — is reached from the Menu button at the bottom left.

1. Abra la aplicación. La pantalla de inicio se carga con el proyecto creado automáticamente ya seleccionado.
2. If you want to rename it, open Menu → Projects, tap the project and edit its name.
3. Take note of the protocol shown — it is Casual / incidental by default. You can change it before you start recording; see Setting the protocol below.

Descarga del área del mapa

El mapa base cubre todo el planeta mediante teselas vectoriales servidas desde nuestra propia infraestructura: sin clave de API, sin límite de uso. Antes de salir al campo, descargue el área en la que va a trabajar para que el mapa, el terreno y el relieve 3D funcionen con la radio apagada. Consulte Mapa y servidor de teselas y Mapas sin conexión para todos los detalles.

Descargar una región

1. Open the map (Menu → Map).
2. Vaya hasta su zona de trabajo y encuadre en la vista el área que necesita.
3. Tap Tools in the toolbar at the bottom of the map screen, then tap Offline.
4. The panel shows "Download current view". A region name is suggested automatically while you are online — for example, "Bostanlik district, Tashkent Region, Uzbekistan"; otherwise type one.
5. Check the coordinates and size estimate. The estimate depends on the area and terrain — the district-sized example in the screenshot is about 11 MB at z6–14 — and includes the map and the 3D terrain model.
6. Toque «Descargar esta área» y espere a que termine la descarga antes de quedarse sin conexión.

Añadir la vista general del mundo

The world overview (z0–5, approximately 80 MB) gives you a rendered basemap at all zoom levels, so the map is never blank when you zoom out beyond your downloaded region. It only needs downloading once.

1. In the same Offline panel, scroll down to World map. The detail line reads "Detail: z0–5 · ~80 MB"; the slider lets you change the depth (z0–7).
2. Toque «Descargar el mapa mundial».

Fijar el protocolo y el formulario

A survey protocol defines the structure of a recording session: what a visit is, which fields appear on the observation form, and how the data is organised for export. Every observation in a project is recorded under the project's active protocol. Seven protocols ship with the app, including Casual / incidental, which is assigned automatically to new projects. You can change the protocol, clone a built-in one to edit it, or write a new one in the Protocols Studio — all on the device.

The Form builder lets you control the field layout for each entity type: show or hide fields, reorder them, group them under headings, and add custom fields. Custom fields defined before the season starts travel with the project, so the whole team's form looks the same from the first day.

1. Open Menu → Protocols. The list shows all seven built-in protocols and any you have created.
2. Tap a protocol to view it. To assign it, open Menu → Projects, tap your project and under Survey protocol tap Assign a protocol (or Change).
3. To add a custom field, open the protocol in Protocols, switch to the Form builder tab, choose the Entity type (for example Observation) and tap Add custom field. Set the caption, key, data type and section, and whether the field is Required and Show in list.
4. To share the configuration with colleagues, open the project under Menu → Projects and tap Share; the app writes a .ecsurvey setup file with the project, protocol, forms, custom fields, sites and vocabulary. Colleagues open the file on their device, or use Import under Menu → Projects. To move the records as well, export a Frictionless Data Package from Menu → Admin → File Import & Export.

Registrar en el campo

Recording a session means starting a GPS track, which creates a visit for the session, and entering observations as you work through the site. The Recording observations page covers all of this in detail.

1. Open Record from the home screen or the Record tile in the Menu.
2. Check the GPS status fields before you start: Latitude, Longitude, Accuracy, V-Accuracy, Altitude, Speed, Bearing, Satellites and Timestamp are all shown. Wait until Accuracy reaches an acceptable value for your work — ±5 m or better is typical in open terrain.
3. La pantalla muestra «Proyecto en el que registrar» con el nombre del proyecto activo. Confirme que es el correcto.
4. Tap Start recording. A visit is created for the session automatically, and observations you add while recording are linked to it.
5. Añada observaciones mientras avanza por el sitio. Cada observación abre el formulario del protocolo; rellene el taxón, los campos del protocolo y, si quiere, adjunte una foto.
6. When the session is finished, tap Stop & save. The track and all observations are saved to the on-device database.

Comprobar lo que ha recogido

The data lists give you access to every record in the project as a filterable list. After a day in the field, use them to check completeness, find entry errors and open records for correction.

1. Open Menu → Observations (or Visits, Localities, Taxa, or Files depending on what you want to review).
2. The list opens with the default column set. Tap the columns icon (Choose columns) to add, remove or reorder columns — for example, add Accuracy or Altitude to check GPS quality.
3. Type in the Filter… box to narrow the list; it matches text in any shown column. In the wide (tablet) grid each column has its own filter cell, and tapping a column header sorts by it.
4. Toque cualquier fila para abrir el registro completo y editarlo.

Sacar los datos

EarthCape exports to twelve formats. The right choice depends on your destination: Darwin Core Archive for a biodiversity repository, GeoPackage for a GIS, Excel for spreadsheet work. If several people are collecting data on the same survey, Google Drive lets you push each person's contribution to a shared folder and merge them — without an EarthCape account or a server (a Google account is needed for Drive). See Export formats and Google Drive collaboration for the full procedure.

1. Open Menu → Admin → File Import & Export.
2. Elija el formato que corresponda a su destino. Los doce formatos figuran en la pantalla de exportación.
3. Tap the format to generate the file. The filename is set automatically from the project name, its id and a timestamp.
4. Comparta el archivo mediante el menú de compartir de Android (Quick Share, Drive, Mensajes, Bluetooth, Gmail o cualquier otro destino instalado), o envíelo directamente a un destino en la nube configurado.
5. Alternatively, open Menu → Admin → Integrations and tap Export to Google Drive to push the current project — setup, your contributions, photos and an analysis-ready merge — to a shared Drive folder.

Qué leer a continuación

Cada tema tratado en este recorrido tiene una página de referencia específica con todo el detalle.