SW Maps - GIS & Data Collector

Softwel/Aviyaan Tech

About this app

SW Maps is a free GIS and mobile mapping app for collecting, presenting and sharing geographic information.

Whether you are conducting a full scale GNSS survey with high precision instruments, need to collect large amount of location based data using nothing but your phone, or just need to view a few shapefiles with labels over a background map on the go, SW Maps has it all covered.

Record points, lines, polygons and even photos and have them displayed over your choice of background map, and attach custom attribute data to any feature. Attribute types include text, numbers, an option from a predefined set of choices, photos, audio clips and videos.

Conduct high accuracy GPS surveys using external RTK capable receivers over Bluetooth or USB Serial.

Draw features on the map by adding markers, and measure distance and area.

Reuse the layers and attributes of a previous project for another survey, or create templates and share them with other users.

Share the collected data with other users as Geopackages, KMZ or shapefiles, or export them to your device storage. Also share and export recorded data as Spreadsheets (XLS/ODS) or CSV files.

Features
-Online Base maps: Google Maps or Open Street Map

-Support for multiple mbtiles and KML overlays

-Shapefile layers, with attribute categorized styling. View shapefiles in any coordinate system supported by the PROJ.4 library.

-Add multiple online WMTS, TMS, XYZ or WMS layers and cache tiles for offline use.

-Connect to external RTK GPS receivers through Bluetooth or USB Serial for high accuracy surveying using RTK. Also record data from external receiver for post processing.

-Define multiple number of feature layers, each with a set of custom attributes
Feature Types: Point, Line, Polygon
Attribute Types:Text, Numeric, Drop down Options, Photos, Audio, Video
Save as Template for re-use or sharing

-Record GPS tracks, with distance measurement

-Draw features on map and export as KMZ, Shapefiles, GeoJSON or GeoPackages.

-Label features based on attribute values.

-Import feature layers from templates or existing projects.

-Share or export collected data as KMZ (with embedded photographs) , shapefiles, GeoJSON, Geopackage (GPKG), XLS/ODS spreadsheets or csv files.

-Share templates or projects with other users

-Stake out points and lines on the ground using high accuracy GNSS receivers.


To load MBTiles, KML, shapefiles, GeoJSON and GeoPackage from external SD card, create the following folders in the SD card root and copy files to the relevant folders.
SW_Maps/Maps/mbtiles
SW_Maps/Maps/kml
SW_Maps/Maps/shapefiles
SW_Maps/Maps/geojson
SW_Maps/Maps/geopackage

For Android 11 users, the SW Maps folder can be found in Android/data/np.com.softwel.swmaps/files.

This product is made in Nepal and is FREE (no Ads). If you find this useful, please let your friends know that you have used a product from Nepal. Spare sometime to visit this wonderful country and know the Nepali people.

Ratings and reviews

The app has a reasonably simple user interface for simply recording tracks - which is my primary use case. However, once you draw a track, it shows no details such as start and end time, time traveled, etc. I guess you can get all that from looking into the kml file in detail, but my use case is simply to track my drives using a simple app that gives me all this info automatically once I hit end. I'm sure the app is very useful for what it is meant for, but it is not meant for my use-case.

SW Maps enables you to do GPS/GNSS data logging on the fly. Design a data dictionary in the field as you collect. This was a big point for me. Most other data loggers require data dictionary creation in the office or online prior to collecting. Also, I can email a shapefile to myself whenever I want. I have not yet used the external GNSS options, but I look forward to doing so soon. I also want to add that I'm thrilled SW Maps is a product of Nepal!

Seems to work well. Have a question though: I went out and recorded a bunch of points but when I import the kmz to Google Earth it doesn't display the point numbers, which I need it to. It just says "Layer 1" next to each point. Only if I click on the point does it show the point ID. Any help?

What's new

Improvements in handling of NMEA 4.11 sentences.

Fixed shapefile attribute not showing decimal points in some cases.

Improved support for SparkFun RTK Torch receivers