Volume Reports - BETA

Ever since we released Plot Hound, the top feature request has been volume calculations.  We've been hard at work and are proud to announce a limited beta rollout of volume reports!  We calculate volumes with stem profile equations from the Clark '91 paper.  We'll include details in a future blog post, but if you have questions in the meantime, please contact us.

Redesigned "Stand Details" page

The first thing you'll notice when you log in is that we've totally upgraded the old stand details page.  We've increased the screen real-estate of the map and moved the more detailed reports to their own tabs on the left.

Order Volume Report

Besides the standard "Basic" and "Cruise" report tabs, you'll notice a new "Volume" report tab.  After you upload your cruise, click the "Add to Cart" button to order a volume report.

Specify Product Rules

You'll be taken to a page where you can specify the product rules (what species/diameters are classified as Pulp, CNS, Saw, etc.).  We've provided 2 default product rulesets from the FIA product definitions (one for the East and one for the West).  If you need something more advanced, you can upload a spreadsheet with your own rules.  As shown above, we've put together an interactive demo that shows how to create your own rules, but if that seems too complicated, please contact us and we'll help you create your rules.  

$1 Early Bird Special

We're eager to hear your feedback about the volume reports.  Although we eventually plan on charging $30 per report, in this early phase you can get volume reports for $1 each.

Plot Hound 2.50 - Save cruise progress and more

Version 2.50 of Plot Hound is now available for Android.  The iOS version should be released shortly.

This is a major release for Plot Hound, introducing a number of highly requested features.  You asked, we listened:

Save your cruise progress

Many Plot Hound users have been requesting a way to save their cruise progress without uploading the whole cruise.  After several days of hard cruising, it's no fun to drop your phone in a creek and lose all of your data.  We heard your concerns and developed a simple way for you to backup your data as you progress through your cruise.

After you've completed a few plots, simply press the "Save" button on the cruise dashboard page (you'll need a data connection for this step!).  You will be asked whether you want to "Drop" or "Keep" the incomplete plots in the cruise.  If you choose "Drop", the incomplete plots will be deleted from your phone and the cruise will be considered finished.  If you choose "Keep", the incomplete plots will remain on your phone.

Your completed plots are saved to the SilviaTerra website, so even if your phone gets fried, your data is safe.

Change Plot Sampling Method on the Fly

Sometimes your cruise protocol allows you to switch to smaller plots if you're in a really dense area.  Now you can!  Just select your desired sampling method from the list at the bottom of the plot dashboard page. 

Age and Crown Ratio Fields

We're always trying to walk a fine line between accommodating feature requests and keeping Plot Hound simple and intuitive.  Over the past few months, we received many requests for "age" and "crown ratio" fields, so we've added those to the "Add Tree" page.

Improved User Interface

As you can probably tell from the screenshots above, we've put a lot of work into the design of Plot Hound 2.50.  Many cruisers told us that the small menu buttons in earlier versions of Plot Hound were hard to press accurately, so we added dashboard pages for cruises and plots (see above) with big, easily pushable buttons.  We also upgraded our mapping pages to be more finger-friendly:

Coming Soon...

This is just the beginning!  Be on the lookout for new upgrades to be rolled out continuously over the next few months.

Plot Hound - Tutorial Videos

We've just put together a few videos that show how to use Plot Hound.

In the videos below, I'll walk you through how to set up cruises on the website, wirelessly download them to your phone or tablet, add tree measurements in Plot Hound, upload the cruise to the website, and view the results.

I'd recommend watching the videos full-screen and at 720p resolution so that you can actually see what's going on!  Click the button in the bottom-right of the video to go full-screen.  Then click the gear button at the bottom to change the video resolution.

Creating a cruise

Downloading cruise and navigating to plots

Adding trees and uploading cruises

Viewing cruise data

Creating a new stand

Plot Hound - Stability and User Interface Improvements

Version 2.21 of Plot Hound is now available on both the App Store (pending Apple's approval) and the Android Market.  This update makes Plot Hound faster and more responsive than ever before.  We also tweaked the interface a bit to make the app simpler and more intuitive - moving some of the commonly-used buttons to the top of the screen.

Comment below to let us know what you think about the new version of Plot Hound!

Recent Press - Bloomberg & Forbes

SilviaTerra was recently profiled in both Bloomberg and Forbes:

Zack Parisa's Forest Inventory Software - Bloomberg: July 5, 2012

All-Star Student Entrepreneurs - Forbes: August 1, 2012

(Photos from Bloomberg and Forbes respectively)

Plot Hound - Shapefile, KMZ, and KML Import

We are proud to announce the launch of a much-requested feature for Plot Hound - shapefile and KMZ import.  To import stands, simply click the "Upload" button on your stands dashboard page and select the file to upload.

Before any of these stands are saved in Plot Hound, you'll be asked to verify and name the stands.  You can choose to name each stand manually or select a field (pulled from the shapefile or KMZ) to use to auto-generate the names.

To import a shapefile, create a zip folder with the .shp file all of the associated files (.prj, .dbf, etc.) and then upload the zip file.  


To import a KMZ file, simply upload the .kmz file.  (Useful tip: KMZ stands for "KML-Zipped" - if you unzip a KMZ you'll find a KML file inside)


KML uploads are still supported.

Plot Hound - iOS Login Bugfix

Several Plot Hound users on iOS alerted us to an issue with logging in to Plot Hound on their iPhones and iPads.  After entering their username and password, they were presented with an "index.html Login failed - error()" message.  This issue did not affect Plot Hound users on Android.

This error was traced back to an issue with one of our SSL certificates.  We have replaced the certificate and the issue has been resolved since June 16.

We understand that many people use Plot Hound as a core part of their business and we have put in place safeguards to ensure that service interruptions like this do not occur in the future.