Same purpose with the draw circular or rectangular boundary tool but similar to the measure distance tool in Google Maps (which can also measure area btw). The area I want to define is irregularly shaped, a university campus. I want to know what observations are within this campus and using either circular or rectangular tool will also include observations nearby but outside the campus.
Hi, I am not the person who knows but someone who knows a lot about how to work data on iNaturalist is @pisum. I hope you are able to generate the data you need!
If you want an irregular shape, you either need to create a new Place on iNat, or you need to download the data from a larger area and subset it after downloading.
(It may also be worth noting that obscured observations won’t be listed in a place as small as a university campus.)
3 Likes
You can make a place in any shape, but this is a permanent addition to iNat. If you just want to do a one-off check there are only the square and circle options.
Realistically, given the location errors with the GPSs in mobile devices, as well as people being a bit lax in their placement it’s best to actually have the border a bit larger than the area in question anyway, so one of the standard search shapes likely makes the most sense for an area that small.
Also keep in mind that observations of automatically obscured species (eg. endangered, etc) won’t show up if you make a place that small because most of the obscuring box will be outside the place boundary.
1 Like
If you are going to download the data you could break it down to smaller areas and combine the data.
Thank you for the answers, everyone. Have a nice day ahead!