Online Map Service Help

Introduction

OBIS-SEAMAP Online Map Service is the cutting-edge mapping application for all data available from OBIS-SEAMAP.

This help page explains basic usage of the service. If you are looking for a quick anwser to your question, you might want to try FAQ first.

If you have experience problems, check Known Issues.

Features & Functions	How to	Description
Add dataset layer		Add all the observation points in a dataset. If the dataset is accampanied with effort/tracklines data, they are also added. There are several ways to add dataset layers.
Add species layer		Add observation points for a specific species across all the datasets. If there is a home range map for the species, it's also added.
Extract observasions		Add observation points and associated effort lines, if any, based on criteria set in Observation Query & Summary page. This feature extracts observations from the entire OBIS-SEAMAP database.
Add environmental data		Add environmental data. Available data are: geostrophic currents (commin soon) chlorophyll sea surface height sea surface temperature sea surface winds (comming soon)
Add WMS layer		Add external WMS layers.
Filter items in layers, change item for color classification		For dataset layers, filter observations by species. For species layers, filter observations by datasets. For telemetry layers, filter observations by individual animals. Change color classification by species, dataset or series.
Show statistics		Calculate summary of the layer selected. For dataset layers, species counts over year and month. For species layers, species counts over year with associated effort summary.

To use the navigation tools, first click on the icon you want to use to hilight it and follow the instruction below.

Features & Functions	How to	Description
Zoom in/out		To zoom in, you need to define a rectangle on the map where you want to zoom in. First click on the map to point one of the vertices of the rectangle. While pressing the mouse button, drag the mouse to the giagonal point of the rectangle. The red guiding line appears. Then release the mouse to fix the rectangle. See the image below. To zoom out, click on the map once. The map is zoomed out at a pre-defined factor, re-centered on the point you clicked.
Identify Feature		Zoom in so that the point you want to identify is clearly visible without overlapping other points. Select the Identify Feature icon. Click on the point. The popup window will appear. Be patient as it may take the results several seconds to show. See "How can I find whose dataset a specific point comes from?" and "How can I find what species a specific point is?".
Measure Distance		Click on the map for the start point, move mouse to the end point. Guide lines are drawn. The distance is shown in 'Dist' field under the map image. Press any key to finish. Click mouse instead of pressing a key to make multilpe point distance. Press 'ESC' to start over.