develop process to incorporate track files (GPS bread crumb trails) into QC obs files

[eosnas]

The GPS track files should be part of the normal record of aerial survey data as it records the survey effort independently of any design files. As such, it is a record of the actual survey effort and does not depend on the density of bird observations. A record of the plane position also can serve as a check on transect mislabeling or data data quality problems. The easiest way to indicate GPS observations from human bird observations would be to make a code under Species or Obs_Type and use GPS as the code.

Put another way, the GPS record of the plane track records the "zero bird" observations, whereas the human observer only record there position observation of birds and do not record the frequency or density of "no birds". Also, in displays of the data, it would encourage users to display survey effort as well as bird observations and thus highlight differences in survey effort across space.

[eosnas]

@cfrost3 Here is a proposal to consider for incorporating track files. Why not add them to the transcribed obs files before the points2line function is called? A processing step could be to snip the track for each transect based on start end times from the obs file. This would give a visual to the observers and promote QC early on by the observers. Not sure how this would fit in to any revisions with Scribe.