Do you know which state senate district you are in? What kind of rock are you sitting on? Which school district is this house in? Where is the closest railroad? Are you in a floodable zone?
Geograph VA is
the Virginia version of the first GIS (geographical information system) for the iPhone. With its 40 (and counting) layers of information,
it will help you understand your surroundings and become aware of the geography around you.
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| Terrain, main roads and bathymetry of eastern Virginia |
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Unlike Google Maps, Geograph VA is completely self-contained, which means that it is
always available, even without any cellular or wireless coverage. It can be used in the field, in the middle of nowhere.
It can of course take full advantage of the iPhone's built-in GPS receiver (this is more limited on the iPod).
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| Public land, ZIP codes and mineral resources of northwestern Virginia |
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HOW DOES IT WORK? |
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Geograph VA contains a selection of geographical information in its internal
database. By default, it comes with 26 different layers. Each layer can be individually
shown or hidden, moved up or down, and made more or less transparent. This allows an almost
infinite number of possible displays.
In addition, a lot of extra layers (14 as of this writing) can be downloaded right from the application, extending
the capabilities of the application even further.
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| Geology and USGS quadrangles in northern Rockbridge county |
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Each feature of most layers has additional information which can be displayed by
tapping the feature. This brings up a list of all the data in all the displayed layers at that point.
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The user can then select the desired layer and get all the available information. For instance,
tapping an area of the Congressional Districts layer brings up a screen similar to the following:
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With Geograph VA, you can finally access data that is relevant to you
without needing access to a computer or a network.
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