How to Measure Field Area and Distance with your Smartphone

August 30, 2021April 7, 2023 Agrovista 0 Comments

How to Measure Field Area and Distance with your Smartphone;

Introduction;
All the farming community of the country faces a lot of problems in regard to the measurement of a particular field area, distance, and perimeter for their daily farm requirement
Several Question always arises in their mind like ;

Table of Contents

1) What is an area of a pond near my field?

2) What is the size of the Pasture/field near me?

3) How long fence require to protect the farm?

4) How far is the nearest water point from my farm?

5) How long irrigation pipes require to cover the far side field?

6) How much area of the farm was damaged due to some natural calamities?

All kinds of these questions come into farmers’ minds on a regular basis. Manually measuring the area and the distances are quite a tedious job and sometimes it is impossible too. (ex- measuring the crop area of your competitor field )

Now by using your smartphone, All of these kinds of questions and more can be answered very easily whether you are at your farm or you are sitting at your home or from somewhere else.

If you want to know answers to all of your questions that arise in your mind particularly in regards to the measurement You must take your first step please download the free GPS Field Area Measurement application for your iOS and Android smartphones

Importance of GPS Field Area Measurement to the Farmers;

1) It is convenient for agricultural land surveys

2) This tool is so practical for field pasture area measure

3) Helpful in garden and farm work or planning

4) Great to keep area records.

5) It’s great for construction and agricultural fencing.

6)This application is practical even for solar panel installation, roof area estimation, or trip planning.

7) Knowing the area of a pasture or field is very useful information, especially when calculating the application rates of a sprayer or determining stocking rate.

8) It allows you to assess the area in a multitude of units including square feet and acres.

How to use GPS Field Area Application;

Hoping you have already installed the app to your smartphone from the google play store Now we will learn how to use this application step by step ;

1) Firstly open the application; You will find the google map interface on your smartphone screen

2) Now press the button as shown left upper side of your phone screen

3) Go to the setting option select the units as per your requirements

4) Return back to Map interface click the button as shown on the left lower side of your screen represented by + Sign. After clicking you will find three options measurement Area, Distance, and POI. let us start with the option to measure the area hence click the area option

5) Now the users have two options to retrieve the area of the desired field/space –

a) Manual Measurement

b) GPS Measurement

Let us now explore both the given options one by one —

1) Manual Measurement of Field Area by Using Smartphone ;

This method can be used from anywhere your physical presence does not require a location. it entails dropping markers on your smartphone screen

How to use the manual method for Area Measurement;

Step1- Go to the screen of your device and firstly search your desired area (Fig1) which you want to measure

Step 2- Now go to the options area measurement (Fig 2) opt for the manual option(Fig3) afterward drop the markers on the area which you want to measure and adjust all the marker points properly by using your fingertip ( Fig 4)

Step 3 – Now you can see the final reading of area and perimeter which has been displayed on the upper side of your device screen(Fig 4)

Step 4 – Now you can save your measures in the form of a photo as a KML, KMZ, or PDF file format and can further share it by using WhatsApp, email, or in form of text file, etc.(Fig 5)

B) GPS Measurement of Field Area by using a smartphone

Field area measurement by using GPS can be defined in a very simpler way It means that your smartphone follows and track your movement as you walk the perimeter of the given space /area.

How to use the GPS method for Area Measurement;

Step 1- Go to the screen of your device and firstly switch on the GPS

Step 2 – Locate your position by clicking the button that is given on the upper right-hand side of your smartphone screen. Step 3-Your device will automatically locate your position Now start walking around the area which you want to measure by just clicking the start button given on left lower side of your device screen

Step 4 – After completing the entire round push the botton done which is given on rightside for your device screen Now you can see the final reading of area which has been displayed on the upper side of your device screen

Step 5 – Now you can save your measures in the form of a photo as a KML, KMZ, or PDF file format and can further share it by using WhatsApp, email, or in form of text file, etc.

This option of field measurement has more accuracy because you would not be able to achieve the same level of accuracy dropping markers by using your fingertips on the smartphone screen. It is just like Google Maps or the built-in map function on your smartphone, users have the option to choose from four map layouts; normal, satellite, hybrid, or terrain. You can save and share your file in a similar way as described in the Manual field area measuring

C) Measurement Distances by using a smartphone

This tool is also helpful in measuring the distance between two points with high accuracy. Once again, you can select your desired unit of measurement from the various given options which include feet, meters, and miles.

Follow the same steps that have been already described in calculating the Field area measurement, you may select any one of the given options between the manual or GPS measurement.

a) Measurement of Distance manually by using Smart Phone;

If you want to measure the distance between two points manually then just drop the markers on the Distance which you want to measure and adjust all the marker points properly by using your fingertip and now you can see the final reading of distance which is displayed on the upper side of your device screen you can save and share it as described earlier

b) Measurement of Distance by using Smart Phone GPS;

Follow the same steps as discussed earlier in GPS area measurement

Point of Interst ( POI) ;

A feature to add the point of interest or POI on the field helps to avoid stones, mark fences or boundaries of paddocks, graze territories for dairy cows, cattle, beef and other livestock.

Conclusion;

This information can be quite handy to have while estimating the cost to build a Pond, fence, or road, lay an irrigation pipeline, or simply calculate how far livestock has to travel to water. Through a GPS Field area map, you can also track and know about the elevation change of a particular area.

I personally use this application and I am very satisfied with the provided function and overall design of the app

How to use Keyhole Markup Language (KML) file format to display geographic data in an Earth browser such as Google Earth. I will discuss this in the next blog post

Explore More; Units of Agricultural Measurements Which Are Most commonly Used in India