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Research & Science

From study area to reproducible result

Academic and applied researchers spend more time wrangling coordinate systems and stitching together public datasets than they do on the actual analysis, and the result is a map nobody else can reproduce. Smart Site Plan lets you draw a study area, pull authoritative open datasets onto it, filter and summarize their attributes with no-code Smart Query, and hand reviewers a study-area link that reopens the same layers and view.

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Principal investigatorPostdoc / research scientistGraduate research assistantSpatial data analyst
Durham, NC
The Open Data catalog over the Durham corridor study area, adding Census ACS tract layers to the research map

Real Research work over Durham, NC, captured in the product

The old way

A study area starts as a set of agency downloads in mismatched projections and a script that only runs on one person's laptop. The figure in the paper cannot be reopened or rebuilt by a collaborator, so reproducing the analysis means re-downloading everything and guessing which version of which layer was used.

With Smart Site Plan

Define a study area, run the analysis, share it reproducibly

The data, already on the map

Drawn from 20 million open datasets, one click each. No agency portal hunting, no format wrangling.

Census TIGER boundaries and demographics U.S. Census Bureau NHD hydrography and watersheds USGS Land use / land cover USGS / MRLC USGS elevation and contours USGS NWI wetlands U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service NOAA climate and weather observations NOAA Soil survey (SSURGO) USDA NRCS

Workflows

How Research work gets done

End to end, in the browser, on one map.

1

Define and characterize a study area

  1. 1. Draw

    Draw the study-area boundary and read its area off the live readout to fix the extent of the analysis.

  2. 2. Open Data

    Add Census TIGER demographics, NHD watersheds, land use / land cover, and NWI wetlands scoped to that boundary.

  3. 3. Smart Query

    Filter the scoped layers by attribute and summarize them by class to characterize land cover and population across the study area.

  4. 4. Style

    Apply a data-driven color ramp and labels so the characterization reads cleanly in a figure.

  5. 5. Share

    Send a study-area link that reopens the same layers, study area, and view for a co-author or reviewer.

2

Field observation campaign

  1. 1. Forms

    Build a custom form for the protocol's variables and fill drafts offline at each remote sampling site.

  2. 2. GPS

    Track the survey route live so every site sits on a recorded path.

  3. 3. Photos

    Pin geotagged photos of each observation to its exact coordinate for the record.

  4. 4. Smart Query

    Filter the returned observations by attribute to check coverage and flag gaps before leaving the field.

3

Reproducible analysis and dataset release

  1. 1. Import

    Bring in model outputs or a collaborator's dataset, reprojected from its native EPSG to WGS84 on import.

  2. 2. Smart Query

    Filter the imported data by attribute and summarize the matching features the figure reports.

  3. 3. Share

    Publish a view-only study-area link so reviewers reopen the same layers, study area, and view without a re-download.

  4. 4. Export

    Export the analysis layers as GeoJSON for the supplement (Personal and up), plus GeoTIFF on Pro for raster results.

What you can do

Assemble a study area from authoritative open data

Search across 20M+ public datasets and add Census TIGER demographics, NHD watersheds, land use / land cover, NWI wetlands, and NOAA observations onto your study area, each scoped to the current view so you only pull what the analysis needs. Every layer carries its source agency, so the data provenance behind a figure is explicit.

Run attribute analysis in the browser

Use no-code Smart Query to filter features by attribute, combine conditions with AND and OR groups, and apply unit-aware area math, all on your scoped layers directly, with no server to stand up and no local install to keep in sync. Summarize a variable by census tract, draw the study boundary and measure its area off the live readout, or screen observations by attribute without exporting to a separate stats environment first.

Bring your own datasets onto a common frame

Import field collections, model outputs, or a colleague's Shapefile, GeoPackage, GeoJSON, CSV, GPX, KML, or FlatGeobuf, and it reprojects from State Plane, UTM, or any EPSG code to WGS84 on import, up to 50,000 features per layer. Sensor points logged in a UTM zone and a national boundary in a different projection finally line up in one analysis-ready view.

Run a field campaign and pin every observation

Build a custom data-collection form for the variables your protocol records, fill drafts offline at a remote site, and submit them on reconnect, with live GPS tracking the route and geotagged photos pinned to exact coordinates. Field observations land on the same map as the open datasets, so the campaign becomes another analysis layer instead of a separate spreadsheet to merge later.

The capabilities Research teams lean on

Provenance-tagged open data

Census TIGER, NHD, land use / land cover, NWI, and NOAA layers drop in scoped to the study area with their source agency attached, so the data behind a figure is documented, not guessed.

In-browser Smart Query

No-code attribute filters, AND and OR groups, unit-aware area math, and summaries by attribute run on the scoped layers directly, so a researcher does the analysis without standing up a server or syncing a local install.

Reproject in, GeoJSON and GeoTIFF out

Datasets in any EPSG reproject to a common frame on import, and results export as GeoJSON from Personal and GeoTIFF on Pro for the data supplement of a paper.

Reproducible study-area links

A share link reopens the same layers, study area, and saved project state for a co-author or reviewer, so they see the same map you do.

In practice

Characterizing wetland loss in a Chesapeake tributary watershed

A research scientist draws the study-area boundary over a Chester River tributary watershed on Maryland's Eastern Shore and reads its area off the live readout, then adds NHD watersheds, NWI wetlands, and land use / land cover scoped to that extent. Smart Query filters the scoped wetland and land-cover layers by attribute and summarizes them by class, a color ramp styles the result, and last season's field plots come in from a UTM-zone Shapefile that reprojects on the way in. At submission, a view-only study-area link lets reviewers reopen the same layers, study area, and view, and the layers go out as GeoJSON for the data supplement.

What changes

  • A study area assembled from authoritative open data with provenance on every layer
  • Attribute filters, AND and OR groups, and summaries run with Smart Query in the browser, no server or local install to maintain
  • Datasets in mismatched projections lined up on one common coordinate frame
  • Field observations pinned to exact coordinates and merged with the open layers automatically
  • A study-area link a reviewer can reopen to the same layers, study area, and view
  • Results exported as GeoJSON for the supplement from Personal and GeoTIFF on Pro for raster outputs

Research, answered

Yes. A study-area share link reopens the same layers, the same scoped open datasets, the same study area, and the same view, with any saved project state, and viewers need no login. The map stops being locked to your laptop and becomes something a collaborator can reopen and check.

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