Tools
and Utilities
The FIS and VFD have a range of tools and utilities to aid the user in
understanding, analysing or simply navigating through the packages.
Some of these tools are of a specific nature and require separate menu
items of their own (e.g. climate profiles, similarity analysis, vegetation
classification, full data export) while others are features which may be
built into one or more of the parts of the packages (e.g. place name
index, glossary of technical terms, map export, general export, printing).
Simple Tools
Many of the smaller features - not really utilities just helpful
components to make life easier - are often overlooked by the user and as a
consequence he or she will not get full value from the FIS or VFD.
Examples of a number of these are listed below.
Printing
Just about all species lists, maps and photographs that are displayed in
the FIS-VFD can be printed in pre-defined layouts using both local and
network printers.
Nomenclature
Animal and plant nomenclature changes all the time (particularly plants)
and the name you know an organism by may not be the one that is in
standard use today. To help you deal with this there is a facility
that allows you to enter an old name (e.g. Helichrysum
bracteatum or Spur-winged Plover) and the current name (Xerochrysum
bracteatum or Masked Lapwing) will be displayed and
found. In addition, in each description the previous names will be
displayed.
Map Locations
There are several map scales and a range of map themes in the FIS-VFD and
determining where site and species records are may be a little
confusing. All Viridans maps have a scale displayed on the
bottom-right of the screen and the latitude-longitude as well as MGA grid
coordinates are tracked continuously as the cursor is moved over the
map. Where higher resolution maps are used each map tile is
represented by a rectangle on an inset map of Victoria.
Conservation
Any list of species displayed on the screen, sent to the printer or
exported to another file contains information on the conservation status
of each species. The conservation codes represent the Victorian
Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act (FFG), the Commonwealth Environment
Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act (EPBC), and the Victorian
Rare or Threatened Species lists. These codes can be also used in filters, so
the list can be narrowed to contain only those species.
Distribution Maps
When the distribution of any species is plotted on the high resolution map
tiles the main map display shows the records (if any) on the current map
tile. In the top-right corner of the screen there will be the
statewide distribution on a small map of Victoria. This map can be
enlarged, printed or exported as a Windows Metafile.
Help
All professional software has help and both the FIS and VFD have online,
standard help accessible through buttons and menu items. There is
also help for the on-screen species list available through clicking on any
of the column headings. These will explain the contents of the
columns and how they are to be interpreted. |
Climate
Profiles
 |
Similarity
Analysis |
Any site or group of sites can be assessed for climate using 16
categories including mean annual rainfall, mean minimum temperature of the
coolest month, mean maximum temperature of the warmest month. These
profiles can be used for comparative purposes as well as simple
predictions (see 
Tutorial 9
PDF
3.1 Mb)
|
Any range of sites can be compared to a wider range of sites based on the
similarity of their floristic composition. These analysis can be
used as a means of predicting which locations where poorly known or
cryptic species might be found. (see
Tutorial 8
PDF
4.0 Mb) |
Vegetation
Classification
 |
Plant
Identification
Tools |
Any set of floristic quadrats can be classified into identifiable
vegetation groups using a nearest-neighbour analysis in combination two-way table displays.
The character-species and data summary facility allows the user to
define the characteristics of each vegetation unit and hence help
determine the Ecological Vegetation Class (EVC) is relates to
best.
|
The FIS and
VFD both have filters for narrowing down a species list (e.g. all
species listed under the FFG) but the FIS has an added facility to
aid in the identification of plants. This works in the same
way as the standard filter but incorporates a wide range of ID
characteristics on plant morphology, leaf shape and size and
hairiness, flower type and colour etc (see
Tutorial 7
PDF
2.4 Mb)
|
Data
Export
 |
Place
Name Index
 |
| Users may
wish to put lists, maps or even raw data into packages outside of
the FIS-VFD suite. There are several methods within the
Viridans software to generate export files which are compatible with
other desktop publishing, spreadsheet or database packages
(see Tutorials page
and refer to tutorials 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 11)
|
The process
of finding search areas is aided in both the FIS and VFD by an
on-line place name index which contains over 20,000 names of towns,
lakes, mountains, points, capes, parks, rivers, air-fields etc. |
Glossary
of Technical Terms |
Site
Enquiry
 |
| The plant and
animal descriptions are written, as much as is possible, in general
English, and technical terms are kept to a minimum. However,
some parts of plants or animals have no general English name so the
technical name must be used. To aid the users understanding of
the descriptions there is an on-line glossary which can be accessed
by simply highlighting the word and then clicking the right
mouse button.
|
After and
area has been searched or as species distribution map has been
plotted the user is confronted with a series of dots on the map
which represent the sites that have been found. Any one of
these sites can be identified and dated by clicking on them with the
SiteID tool. The site can also be viewed with each species
displayed. If there has been a photograph taken of the site it
can be be viewed using this option. |
|
