Packages and Programmes Designed for Recording Theodolite Obtained Data

The most basic programme to record theodolite data was called Wolitzky’s Program after the man who developed it (Gailey and Ortega-Ortiz, 2002). It was a basic HP Desk Calculator which could calculate distances and speeds of bottlenose and dusky dolphins in the South Atlantic (Wursig, 1978). In 1990, a new programme was created by R. Cipriano called T-trak. This programme was the one employed during the pilot study for this research. T-trak uses a basic MSDOS operating system and enables the calculation of distance and swimming speeds of dolphins, but its downfall is that it is nly able to run using a basic cartesian co-ordinate system. This was one of the

also supported the use of both the Topcon and Sokkia model theodolites. owever, the data from both T-trak and Aardvark programmes are viewable as text

r to standardise methods for both seasons. uring the second season correspondence was also entered into with an Australian o

reasons that T-Trak was modified for this study and used to collect data based on longitudinal and latitude co-ordinates for which it is ideally suited.

In 1992, Harold Mills (Cornell University) created a new program which he called Aardvark. This was designed to run on a Macintosh operating system and had wider parameters than T-trak. Aardvark permitted focal animal sampling, collection of orientation data, environmental, distance and speed data collection. It was also designed to run on more modern co-ordinate system such as UTM or Lat. Long. Binary. It

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only and cannot be exported or imported into other packages directly for analysis or plotting.

This study collected data using a slightly modified version of Cipriano’s T-trak programme, but Aardvark was employed briefly in the second season as a comparison before returning to T-trak primarily in orde

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researcher who was designing a new programme for use with a theodolite, in order to investigate if it could be used in this study.

The programme CYCLOPS was created in Australia by Eric Kniest (2000). CYCLOPS runs in Windows and can utilise imported scanned maps of the area of

observation. Like the basic programmes, it allows distance and speed calculations from data, but it also has the capability of collecting additional data. For example, environmental, group, and real-time data, but again the data collected is only viewable as text. Like Aardvark it runs on a more sophisticated co-ordinate system than T-trak but also supports the use of a greater variety of theodolite models, such as Leica, okkia, Nikon and Topcon. An advantage of CYCLOPS is that the programme can

an data entry errors. Pythagoras also possesses e ability to use GIS maps, non-fixed data, and can record behavioural data as well as S

record behaviours, and the programmes parameters can be changed. Eric Kniest rewrote part of the programme in order to add more behaviour codes for my study, although CYCLOPS was not used as the principle data collection program.

A more recent development has been Pythagoras, a Window-based programme which uses Visual Basic Programming language allowing more efficient use and rendering it suitable to run with more modern day applications, such as Excel. Unlike the programme’s proceeding it, Pythagoras runs using Microsoft Access as the programme’s database and it has the capability to exhibit data in several ways, rather than text only. Data collected can be exported or imported to Excel, Access, Text, MATLAB, MapInfo and Surfer making the transfer of data, data input, and subsequent analysis much more efficient. Importing data directly into an application such as Excel would also reduce hum

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provide the basic distance, and speed calculations of the more basic programmes. Furthermore it can be used for focal animal sampling, the collection of group data, and to record environmental details.

Although more sophisticated programmes are becoming available, and allow more aspects to research, the basic programmes still allow for valuable data collection. My study utilised T-trak which had some small modifications in its application to enable recordings of the location of C. hectori and their association with certain types of

watercraft. It was also used to observe behaviour with and without watercraft presence. The data collected were in text form, but could be transferred to a data file and then later copied into an Excel file. However, dolphin positions had to be manually plotted and some data extrapolated and entered for relevant analysis. In

provides a basis from which to work and collects data which on analysis can show preference of dolphins to particular sites and watercraft. If undertaking research from esh, the attraction of using a Windows-based package with increased parameters and

h would reduce some aspects of human error, either in old MSDOS ased programmes or manual theodolite set-up.

human error factor when levelling the eodolite during initial theodolite set-up. One such theodolite was used in 1996 to

hich is to scale and resembles an erial photograph once complete. This could prove particularly useful in cetacean fr

analysis possibilities would be appealing, along with a more sophisticated model of theodolite, whic

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2.7.3 Further Development and Applications of Theodolite