a map app for your tapping updates

[thbarrons]

Hey All. I wrote another web app for sugarin this year that I want to share with you.

Some of you used my web app last year that calculates the temperature when your sap becomes maple syrup based on local barometric pressure, using your mobile devices gps location and a realtime weather lookup. That app still exists with some upgrades and now I made another. Both still free to use.

The new web app is for logging how your sap is flowing and sharing it on a google map. When ever I look at the tapping updates threads here at mapletrader.com I always think how cool it would be to see what people are saying about how their flow is on a map. So I wrote that. I tried to make it simple to use so that people will want to participate. The first time you log in just create a profile for your sugar bush, then in the future you just log how many gallons or liters you collected since the previous collection. Then I make some calculations about volume per tap and plot it on a map.

I used Googles heatmap technology which I think will display the data nicely. This type of mapping is used with scientific data to display things like population density or seismic activity. Of course as I write this message the map is blank. Until somebody starts collecting sap and logging it nothing will show up. Still about a month away from when I normally tap in Northern Michigan so I haven’t posted any logs yet myself. Meanwhile I hope some of you south of me will want to participate.

You will not find this in your app store. You don’t download anything. These are web apps. They work like any website on your computer but are designed to look good on your mobile devices and take advantage of the GPS capabilities. I may need to make adjustments to the map colors and radius etc once we get some real data, we’ll see. So here it is same address as last years app...

https://www.saptapapps.com

Besides just plotting on the map I’m also collecting the current weather data from the National Weather Service about the closest observations to the location of your sugar bush for the time frame of each log entry. It’s my plan in the future to do some analysis of this data to share back on the site. We’ve got plenty of old school, hand me down knowledge about what makes the sap run and averages per tap per tree, not to mention plenty of university studies that are made available to the public. But I also thought it would be modern to crowd source some data collection and make my own analysis from collections provided by both commercial and hobby producers here too.

I hope no one thinks this is commercial spam. I’m not charging to use the apps. I simply wrote them because I wanted to be able to use them myself and I’m just offering to share. I’m going to post a link to this message in the tapping update of my own home state of Michigan. I don’t want to spam all the thread so if anyone is interested in getting people from your state to participate too, consider sharing a link to this thread in your states tapping update.

I’ll keep an eye on this thread for any questions or pm me. The web apps also have a contact form I’ll monitor. Thanks for your consideration.

[Urban Sugarmaker]

Nice work. I noticed the syrup temp calculator used the local airport altimeter setting for the barometric pressure. They are not the same thing. Does your calculator correct for this? An altimeter setting is the barometric pressure corrected so that an altimeter will indicate the correct elevation above sea level.

[Scm]

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[thbarrons]

I noticed the syrup temp calculator used the local airport altimeter setting for the barometric pressure.

That's curious. The app should NOT be using the altimeter reading. And yes my calculator should correct for the elevation reading at your device vs the elevation from the reporting station. That's something new I added this year by getting your device elevation from google map at the time it gets your lat/lon. The feed that comes from National Weather Service provides multiple pressure values though. I did just switch from using Weather Underground to using National Weather Service feed. I will double check my code in the morning. What is your local airport I'd like to double check it on the weather.gov site to compare it to what I'm getting in the data feed. Thanks for the feedback.

[thbarrons]

Thanks for the apps. Great work. Used the temp one last year.
We really need a “tapcast” app to help forecast when might be a good time to tap. Taking into account long range weather forecasts from multiple sources, Snow pack, and user observations. What type of taps you use, etc..... I wouldn’t expect precision forecasting, just a general idea. I’m no programmer so I won’t be doing it

Funny, your thoughts about the forecasting, I started work on that one all ready actually. Assuming some people use my logging application I'll have some real historical data to build good forecast models from. And you almost got the name right. I'm calling mine a "Sap Flowcaster". Coming soon watch for it. Meanwhile hope you continue to use what I've built so far and provide some logs. Thanks for the feedback.

[BSD]

awesome! I will give the data logging a try when i get tapped, hopefully by the weekend. I was just telling my father about your app that does the temp adjustment per geo location/barometer.

[thbarrons]

awesome! I will give the data logging a try when i get tapped, hopefully by the weekend. I was just telling my father about your app that does the temp adjustment per geo location/barometer.

I see from your signature you're in Connecticut. Several people from there have logged collections the last couple days and are showing on the map now, https://www.saptapapps.com/saplog/sapmap/
Good luck to you and thanks for the feedback.

[BSD]

I shared it with a CT local maple group on FB. WX doesn't look great for tapping this weekend unfortunately, but we'll see.

[Cjadamec]

I'm going to see temps in the 40's today, southeastern CT on the coast, so I might get a small run today. The last two weekends have flowed really well. I'm at about 3 gallons of syrup and 275 gallons of sap so far. I have mostly reds that are buried in the woods so my sugar is low.

Nice app the logger is going to help me keep me keep track of what I actually collect I was already starting to loose track.

[Sinzibuckwud]

Nice setup on the site!
Suggestion, a print log or send log to email button would be awesome.

[littleTapper]

Nice! I've always wanted to build apps like you are but I'm just not much of a developer :) I noticed the confirm email link I received wasn't formatted as a link so it had to be copied/pasted into a browser. I'll add my little sugarbush later today and log once I tap. Thank you for building these apps!

[thbarrons]

Nice setup on the site!
Suggestion, a print log or send log to email button would be awesome.

Thanks for the feedback and the suggestion. I had another user recently ask for something similar by having a way to download the data they collect. I just added that today which may suffice for your request to print or email. At the bottom of the Sugar Bush list is a download button. This is a comma separated values file, suitable to put into a spreadsheet and make your own analysis, you could print it too. I'll consider a more printable format too, maybe a pdf.

[thbarrons]

Nice! I've always wanted to build apps like you are but I'm just not much of a developer :) I noticed the confirm email link I received wasn't formatted as a link so it had to be copied/pasted into a browser. I'll add my little sugarbush later today and log once I tap. Thank you for building these apps!

Thanks for the tip on the confirm link. I hadn't noticed that because my email software automatically makes links even if they aren't formatted. Meanwhile I've fixed it so the outgoing messages actually contain the link and not just the text for the link. Future users won't have to do the copy and past thing. I really appreciate the feedback. Thanks.

[medic5794]

Love this idea, all signed up for the app and can't wait to input data into it!

[Sinzibuckwud]

Thanks for the feedback and the suggestion. I had another user recently ask for something similar by having a way to download the data they collect. I just added that today which may suffice for your request to print or email. At the bottom of the Sugar Bush list is a download button. This is a comma separated values file, suitable to put into a spreadsheet and make your own analysis, you could print it too. I'll consider a more printable format too, maybe a pdf.
Downloading is a perfect solution.
Thanks and keep up the good work.

[Shirlsaw63]

I'll be giving this a try. Just set it up on my iPhone.

[BSD]

Just submitted my first bit of data, but appears the "heat map" isn't accurate.

also, is there a way you can get information about other users sap averages?

[BSD]

another thing i just noticed. there is only way to enter the number of taps at the time of original data entry. I will be phasing in more taps into my collection tank in a few days.

Perhaps pull the taps as a "last known value" for each data entry? this way if the tap count goes way up the data will still be useful

[bcarpenter]

Just signed up here in Bedford, NH. Looking to tap this week, work permitting.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Scm]

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[thbarrons]

Hey thanks for the feedback. I'm really happy that others are using this and helping me work the kinks out. So first of all...


Just submitted my first bit of data, but appears the "heat map" isn't accurate. also, is there a way you can get information about other users sap averages?

Thanks for submitting your data. I'll download the database and double check how it's representing on the heatmap. Just to be sure you're not talking about the location being offset a few miles because of the privacy option on your sugar bush? If not I won't be surprised if I have a bug here. No matter how much I tested with my fake data before the season, it's not like getting the real thing from you all. So I'll dig into that asap. If you want to PM me with what the specific details are about your sugar bush and collection log post that might help, otherwise I'll see what I can come up with. I do want this to be accurate.

Meanwhile I've had a couple of other requests for seeing more details about others collections instead of just the heat map. So I have actually all ready started working on another map view. It will have the ability to hover over pins which will float a window with the the log data, probably a summary but I'll fit in what I can in the popups. And of course for that map too, for those who check the privacy option on their sugar bush it will be randomly offset by a few miles. Should have that new map view done by the upcoming weekend so check back.


another thing i just noticed. there is only way to enter the number of taps at the time of original data entry. I will be phasing in more taps into my collection tank in a few days. Perhaps pull the taps as a "last known value" for each data entry? this way if the tap count goes way up the data will still be useful

You know what, this one I actually planned for, because I too was thinking of adding another line once the season got underway. And that got me to thinking, everyone is always upgrading their sugarbush on here it seems like. So at the time you enter your volume collected I take a snapshot of the values of your sugarbush, all the details about taps, collection method, etc. So overtime when you upgrade your sugarbush, like we ALL do, the logs calculations remain historically accurate. You can edit your sugar bush record easily, just click on the name, it will take you to the same screen you did at setup. Go ahead and edit it anytime you make changes. The next log entry you have will capture that data. Probably wouldn't hurt me to make a note on the sugar bush list page that you can edit that, so I'll put that in. And I can easily show the number of taps on the onscreen log page so I'll make that edit too some time this week. It's also currently available in the download data.

Thanks again for the feedback.

[BSD]

the randomize location makes sense now! i was wondering why my sugar bush kept bouncing around the map.

will try to submit my next bit of data tonight, going to collect today's take momentarily. Another thought I had was perhaps a column for sugar content (if known?) i tend to check each tank load i pump

[thbarrons]

the randomize location makes sense now! i was wondering why my sugar bush kept bouncing around the map.

will try to submit my next bit of data tonight, going to collect today's take momentarily. Another thought I had was perhaps a column for sugar content (if known?) i tend to check each tank load i pump

Sounds like we solved your map question. Now I have a question for you. If I were to add a field to log the sugar content, and make it optional, for those of you that measure it. What would that measurement value be entered as? Brix or a percent or something else? And does that measurement differ in US/Canada? Not sure since I don't measure that myself. I'm thinking of adding the field and just want to capture it accurately. Thanks as usual for the feedback.

[BSD]

Sounds like we solved your map question. Now I have a question for you. If I were to add a field to log the sugar content, and make it optional, for those of you that measure it. What would that measurement value be entered as? Brix or a percent or something else? And does that measurement differ in US/Canada? Not sure since I don't measure that myself. I'm thinking of adding the field and just want to capture it accurately. Thanks as usual for the feedback.brix can be adjusted for temperature. so, i would vote sugar content as percentage, that's how i measure.

[Scm]

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[thbarrons]

It’s fun to watch it spread. Really starting to show something now. My measly 27 gallons is barely visible, but it’s there.

I'm enjoying watching it spread too. The fact that I'm getting some data to use for future analysis is also exciting to the nerd in me. Just wanted to let you know one thing about your "measly" 27 gallons shows on the map. It is measured at a flow rate of, units per tap per day, the same as everyone else. The intensity of the plot is based on your flow rate. Technically a guy with 10 taps and a good flow rate could show hotter than a guy with 1000 taps and a bad flow rate on an individual plot.


It looks like the app is randomizing each log entry on the non detailed heat map. Not sure if that what you were shooting for Or just one dot for each bush.

And that leads nicely to answering your question. What I was shooting for was technically a moving target. I wanted the heat map to be a good overview of the intensity of the season as it moves across the region.
But without having data to plot and seeing how many people would end up participating it was hard to predict how this would look. Consequently I've all ready adjusted this view a handful of times.

What currently happens is the more flow rate plots per sugar bush should stack up and intensify a location, indicating that location is getting good flow rate over time and the sap season is heating up in that geographic area. Oral tradition tells us the sap flow season is 4 to 6 weeks, so the map is only showing a snap shot of time, also a variable I'm playing with, currently set at the past 30 days. This is so plots of individual logs, will start to fall off of the heat map, not whole sugar bush worth of logs, as the season cools in south, while they start to get added to the map in the north. When the season's over I'll compile an animation of the map over time and post it here, I think that would be cool to see.

So the answer to your questions is technically that I did intend to plot the individual log entries. However when I was testing with my own data and not checking "privacy" I didn't notice that they were each plotting random individually, that of course makes sense now, and I will likely change that so the privacy factor is applied at the bush level and not the log level. Currently the privacy randomization is about 5k or 3miles, and you do see the heat map plots separate when you zoom in below a state level. I think the map is still quite valid and meets the intent when zoomed out a bit more, your dots show as a single intensity in your region. But yeah I noticed it now that we've got some real data here and lots of folks using the privacy option. I'll probably merge those so they do stack directly on top of each other in a single random location per bush so it's more accurate as you zoom in.

I might not get this tweaked for a few days as my flowcast is looking good and I'm thinking about tapping. Looking forward to adding my own logs, I'm in Northern Michigan and I see it's heating up south of me.

Thanks as always for the feedback and your participation in logging. I really do appreciate it.

[Scm]

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[thbarrons]

Another thing. When I change the number of taps in a new entry, it doesn’t happen. I added another 8 to my bush.

You're great at debugging. I might have to put you on payroll. :)

Thanks for finding that and pointing it out I'll get it fixed asap.

[Scm]

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[Johnson1jj]

Could you add ability to remove a sugarbush.

[thbarrons]

Does this mean I’m flowing .05 above the average gravity setups?

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news but 0.1 is less than 0.4. I wish for you that it wasn't though.

And glad to know you're paying attention to my updates. I just pushed that change early this morning. This past week I did a handful of updates to fix or change some things I've gotten feedback on here from you and others.

I think we're finally getting enough data here now I can start to play with statistics. What you see there is just the beginning. I intend to ultimately put up complete analytics page with lots of things for you to see and filters to adjust. Like I think it would be pertinent to filter those same average but based on date ranges and on a radius from you, and let you select the radius, 50 miles, 100miles etc.

Currently that average takes into account parts of the map that are just starting to report in, as well as those that are in full swing. But ultimately I think that is one way we will want to see each of our own bushes data, by our average over our whole season, and we'll have hi and low periods individually too, just like the system as a whole does. I've used a standard deviation based calculation to remove outlier data, which is why I needed a certain amount here just to start weeding out likely errors and get a baseline.

But yeah those are the current system averages as it sits right now. Check back, those values are updated hourly from all the data in the system, so you'll see it change over time. I think it will be curious to see if they do deviate much.

On a side note I finally got to use my own app for logging myself for the first time yesterday. I'm in Northern Michigan, just got my taps in and started collecting late Saturday. Check it out, I too am below system average currently. I've been looking at everyone else's data for a month now and really I'm just happy to get into the syrup season officially myself.

17836

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[helptheold]

Great app, my kids love the bucket key!

Could you add an option to delete log entries? I made an oops as I was trying to enter in old data :)

[thbarrons]

Could you add an option to delete log entries? I made an oops as I was trying to enter in old data :)

There actually is a way to delete a log entry. You have to click on the view/edit button first, then the delete button is down at the bottom of that screen to the right of the save button. I purposefully buried this button one click deeper like this, I didn't want it to be to easy to accidentally delete data. Maybe I buried it too deep?

Thanks for the feedback and thanks for logging your data.

[helptheold]

There actually is a way to delete a log entry. You have to click on the view/edit button first, then the delete button is down at the bottom of that screen to the right of the save button. I purposefully buried this button one click deeper like this, I didn't want it to be to easy to accidentally delete data. Maybe I buried it too deep?

Thanks for the feedback and thanks for logging your data.

Ah, I see it now. I was entering data on my phone and wasn't holding it in landscape mode :) Thanks!

[littleTapper]

This might have been suggested or thought of. On the sugar bushes page, under elevation for each entry, it'd be nice to have current total and G per Tap per Day. Also, a grand total on that page as well. Would be a nice summary in one spot.

[thbarrons]

This might have been suggested or thought of. On the sugar bushes page, under elevation for each entry, it'd be nice to have current total and G per Tap per Day. Also, a grand total on that page as well. Would be a nice summary in one spot.

I agree, I like that idea. Will add it on a future update.

Thanks for the feedback.

[Galena]

Hey Barrons, I am little confused as to why the altitude for my location keeps changing. It's been listed at 364 ft, 399 ft and just now at 503 ft!

[thbarrons]

Hey Barrons, I am little confused as to why the altitude for my location keeps changing. It's been listed at 364 ft, 399 ft and just now at 503 ft!

I haven't seen that behavior before myself...unless I'm running up and down hills :) For this response, I'll assume you're not doing that.

The altitude comes from google actually. Not me and not your phone. Your device gives its latitude and longitude to my app, and in the background I send that to google map, and get back what they say the altitude is for those coordinates. I don't think google would be changing it's topo maps like that so I can only guess that your device is giving different readings for lat/lon.

Can you take note and tell me if the latitude and longitude are changing too? In theory that can and sometimes should happen. GPS is not 100% accurate, and some phones can also triangulate off of radio to get more accurate. So that the longer you use a location based app in one spot, the GPS could be adjusting itself to get more accurate as you use it. So I wonder in your case if this is happening and the 364 is least accurate and the 503 is most accurate. It sounds like you also might be in a pretty hilly area so that if the GPS is moving a little bit there's some difference in ft like that.

The only other thing I can tell you that is good news is that the difference of 139 ft between those two readings is only going to affect the boiling point by about 1/4 of a degree F.

[Galena]

Hehe nope not running around up and down hills, and I don't have a cellphone *gasp* yeah I know...I do have fast-speed wifi but doubt that helps.

I don't know for sure but I think the info for my connection is being routed to me by way of Toronto, as that's where my ISP is physically located...would that make sense? I mention that cause every time I use a store locator info map, it always assumes I'm near the Eaton Centre in Toronto. Uhm nope! I'm approx 70km Southeast of Ottawa. I do recall in the past that when I used your app, like last year, the reading I got was, according to the app, from a tower in Spencerville, which made sense as it's 15min south of me.

Meantime I don't think long and lat have changed, it was elevation that caught me eye with all those discrepancies. I have asked another MTer who is quite close to me to check their lat/long so we can see if we're in the same ballpark.

Thanks!

[Scm]

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[thbarrons]

I don't know for sure but I think the info for my connection is being routed to me by way of Toronto, as that's where my ISP is physically located...would that make sense? I mention that cause every time I use a store locator info map, it always assumes I'm near the Eaton Centre in Toronto. Uhm nope! I'm approx 70km Southeast of Ottawa. I do recall in the past that when I used your app, like last year, the reading I got was, according to the app, from a tower in Spencerville, which made sense as it's 15min south of me.


Yes that makes sense and exactly why the store locator you mentioned works like that. For example for me when I use my computer I get a location that is about 2 hours south of where I am sometimes and yet sometimes it's in my home town. So without the GPS on a computer we're mercy of whatever the ISP says our location is and that sounds like what is happening with your situation and the altitude. I had smart phone usage in mind when I wrote this.

I don't have an immediate fix for you but I do have plans to put a preference in here manually put in and save the location of your sugar shack. When I get that added it should help you there. Might not be for a bit, having a busy week at work and I've got sap to boil this weekend. But hopefully I'll get it soon and I'll PM you or post it back here.

[Galena]

No personal tracking device. I envy you right now. How could you be so lucky.

Hehe I made the choice long ago to NOT jump on the bandwagon and have a device. The closest I've come is a pay-as-you-go flipphone, and it's great for helping me dodge bullets in slo-mo :-) I know most people don't get it and can't understand how I can live without one, but I just use the old-school computer in my head. Works and don't have to worry about it getting hacked or having to charge it ;-)

[PaulRenaud]

Now I have a question for you. If I were to add a field to log the sugar content, and make it optional, for those of you that measure it. What would that measurement value be entered as? Brix or a percent or something else? And does that measurement differ in US/Canada? Not sure since I don't measure that myself.
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Brix is the same in Canada. Some folks also use Baume which is a different scale. How can I get your app?

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[Timberwolf]

Nice job on these, looking forward to trying these out.