A Gps Based System to Aid in the Acquisition of Spatially Structured Field Properties

The generation of human-friendly interfaces is an open field aiming at the development of tools that allow non-expert users to take out the maximum profit of the integration of GIS and GPS tools. In this direction, a flexible and open software environment that integrates such technologies with the main objective of supplying a support tool to record field properties in a database is presented. The system is mainly composed of two software packages. The first one allows the user to configure off-line the sampling plan and, with the given information, generate a standard spatial database. The second programme helps the user both to follow the previously designed plan and to fill out the spatial database, using as equipment a GPS, with real-time differential corrections, and a high-performance computer with a special screen to appropriately visualise under extreme illumination conditions. The system has been tested in cereal crop field experiments dealing with the generation of weed control risk maps.