Creating Planned Sample Locations

Created by Info Admin, Modified on Thu, 11 Jan at 2:35 PM by Info Admin

A plan for sample locations can be created using the View tool or the Zone/Locate tool.

For a detailed look at creating Grid Soil Sampling Plans see: https://pctagcloud-support.freshdesk.com/support/solutions/articles/51000381901-creating-grid-soil-sampling-plans.

For a detailed look at creating Zone Soil Sampling Plans see: https://pctagcloud-support.freshdesk.com/support/solutions/articles/51000381776-creating-zone-soil-sampling-plans.

View

In the 'Layers' tab, load a layer or multiple layers as required to visualize.
Use the 'Add Map' button to view multiple layers at once.

Select the 'Soil Data' Tab.
Select 'New Plan' to create a new sample plan.
Points can be added by clicking on any of the map layers.
Points can be moved by clicking and dragging.
Points can be deleted by clicking on a point and selecting 'Delete'.
Grid Mode allows a grid of points to be created for grid sampling
- Clicking and dragging a point will move that point and realign the grid.
- Turning grid mode off allows a point to be moved independently of the remaining grid
- Individual points can be deleted by clicking on the points and selecting 'Delete'.
Once satisfied with the planned sample locations, select 'Save as Sampling Plan'.

Under the 'Sample Plans' tab, plans can also be downloaded for use in other systems.
Plans can be deleted by 'Delete Selected Plans'.

Zone/Locate

Under the 'Zone Locate' tab in the Zone/Locate tool, select a layer or multiple layers and click 'Create Zones' to create a zoned layer.

Zones can be modified using the 'Edit' button.
Any previously planned or actual sample locations will display automatically.

Planned sample points can be added by clicking on the zone layer.
Points can be moved by clicking and dragging.

Soil sampling points can also be generated using either stratified random sampling with the 'Generate Random Sample Points' button or conditioned Latin hypercube sampling with the 'Generate LHC Sample Points' button. For both options, you may select a buffer width to prevent sampling on the edges of fields or boundaries between zones.

The 'Generate Random Sample Points' option only utilizes the developed management zone layer and allocates the given number of samples randomly within each zone.

The 'Generate LHC Sample Points' option considers data in the input layers to optimize where the sampling sites are located. The samples are positioned so that they capture the maximum amount of variability in the input layers from the given number of sampling locations. This minimizes the correlation between sampling points and increases the overall efficiency of the sampling plan. LHC will not necessarily put an equal number of samples in each zone.

Once the points have been plotted, click the 'Save points' button at the bottom of the page. The points in the example below were created using the LHC option.

Points can be deleted by clicking the ' X ' button located on the right of the Locations list below the zone image.
Once the points have been set, choose an 'Event Date', review the points list, and click 'Save Points'.