Training Guide

To use this guide, you should have already received a DigitalRockart login ID and password, the name of your training site, and a copy of the field recording form. You may wish to print this guide for reference or just keep this page open in a separate browser window.

Objective

The objective is to guide you through the steps required to record rock art using the web-based DigitalRockArt application.

For this exercise assume the field recording has been completed by others: the recording form was filled out; many photos were taken and sorted; and the best photos were uploaded to the server. As a general rule, computer recording for an experienced recorder (excluding writing the survey report) will take as many hours as were expended in the field.

Browsers

You may use any current browser to access DigitalRockArt. IE 6, 7 are obsolete and will not work. IE 8 will work, but has a few problems. IE 9, IE 10, Firefox, and Chrome are frequently tested and work well. Opera and Safari should work but are not frequently tested.

Many browsers now have a built-in zoom function to increase the size of text and images. While zoomed text is displayed clearly in a larger font size, zoomed images become larger but always appear fuzzy. Turn the image zoom off. For Firefox, click on the toolbar View, then select Zoom, and be sure the checkbox for Zoom Text Only is checked.

For Internet Explorer, click on the toolbar View, then Zoom and select 100%. If you wish to have the text displayed in a larger size, click on the toolbar View, then Text Size and select Larger or Largest. IE may sometimes adjust the zoom size automatically and may not change the text size when a different setting is chosen. For this to work correctly, you must have at least one box checked within the Tools, Internet Options, Advanced tab, Accessibility grouping. If nothing is checked, Reset text size to medium while zooming may be a good choice.

If your browser is set to disallow popup windows, you must change your browser settings to allow popups from the DigitalRockArt site.

Application Overview

The DigitalRockart web site hosts three applications. The DigitalRockArt application displays recording forms and reports with data and images obtained from the database.

The DigitalRockart Wiki hosts web pages that are mainly textual. You are reading a wiki page now. Wiki pages sometimes display data and images from the database through the use of macros.

The Image Server crops and resizes images. The other two application access this application whenever an image is required.

It is common to work with multiple browser windows or tabs open. In many cases, a new window or tab will be opened to view a larger image or additional detail and closed when no longer needed.

Almost all browsers will open a new window or tab if you hold down the keyboard shift key while clicking a hyperlink. Hyperlinks can be created that will automatically open new windows or tabs. On the DigitalRockart web site, hyperlinks that open new windows are preceded with the new window icon: . Within tabular reports, the new window icon may appear in a column heading or table heading to indicate all hyperlinks in the column or table will open a new window.

Logon

Open the DigitalRockArt home page: http://www.digitalrockart.org . Read as many or as few articles from the left sidebar menu as you like and then click the Logon hyperlink.

Bookmark (or add favorite) the Logon page for future use. Logon using your ID and password. Both are case sensitive. After a successful logon, the next page is the main menu.

You should now have two browser windows or tabs open, the TrainingGuide and The Menu. Go to the TrainingGuide window and do a browser page refresh to change the sidebar to a logged in version, then click the Subscribe hyperlink to add the TrainingGuide to the sidebar Quick Links. Return to the window with The Menu.

As you proceed through the exercise, you will be opening and closing additional windows. Closing the wrong window will slow you down. Not closing the transient windows may become confusing.

Password

Change your password.

Image Preferences

DigitalRockArt resizes images to fit your monitor and your personal preferences. Click on the Image Preferences hyperlink in the upper left corner of the menu. The help for DigitalRockArt pages are written within the wiki. Click the wiki button in the upper right corner and read as much or as little as you like. Follow the instructions and click the Submit button to return to the home page.

Warm Up

Start by using one of the Reports and Research tools, click the Search by Attributes hyperlink, then click the Anthropomorphic class. Under the anthropomorphic Legs attributes select Bent At Knee and under the Gender attributes select Male (click left side selection, right side is for attribute "not" present). Click the Submit button at the bottom of the page to see all surveys with elements having both attributes. Click Submit at the bottom of the page to see all the elements. Clicking the Wiki button at the upper right of the page will open the wiki page describing the function.

The images for your assigned survey may be viewed by selecting All Images by Category on the upper right side of the menu. Click the Ref Nbr next to your assigned site from the list of sites.

The first 3 images match the first 3 sketches on the recording form. The 4th image is an overview or the cluster (in this case, a boulder). The last 2 images are of the red rock used as a datum and a site overview.

Click the Menu button.

Categorize Images

Click Categorize Images from the center column and then select your site on the next page. The file name at the top of the image will give you a clue as to the intended category of the image and the cluster and panel number (if the image is a rock art panel).

The Wiki button in the upper right corner is the help. Click the button, read as much or as little as you wish, and then close the window.

Fill out the form using the data from the field recording form. When complete, click the Submit button to add the data to the database and bring up the next image.

For the 4th and 7th images, check the Cluster overview radio button and then Submit -- there is no need to fill in any other form data. For the 9th image, select the Datums radio button, then submit. For the 10th and last image, select Site Overview and then submit.

Select Default Survey and Topo Charts

When recording a site, you can save the step of having to select the same site over and over by temporarily selecting a default survey. Click Select Default Survey, and choose your site.

Assuming you entered the topo data from the recording forms, you can view the automatically generated charts by clicking Topo Charts on the right side of the menu page. The cluster numbers on the topo charts are hyperlinks, you can view the images and recorded data by clicking on them.

Identify Rock Art Elements

In this step you will process the 6 images that were identified as rock art panels. You should know the drill by now -- select the function from the main menu, then select the site, read the wiki help page, and process the queue of images -- you should have 6.

Do not be too concerned about cropping an element exactly right at this stage -- it is easier to fine tune the cropping in the next step. You may also easily change the element class in the next step.

When complete, you can check your progress by clicking on All Elements by Class on the right side of the menu.

Define Rock Art Element Attributes

This is the most time intensive activity because there are usually several times more elements than panels. Read the wiki help to gain an understanding of the overall function. The rows of check boxes are preceded by hyperlinks to the General attributes and class-specific attributes -- click on these to view definitions and images of examples.

When working with badly weathered panels or panels that have overlaid elements, it is often helpful to see a larger image as an aid in fine-tuning the cropping edges. In this case, click the upper-left image to open a new window with a jumbo-sized image. Use the controls in the upper right to zoom in to a full sized image and turn the element number overlays on and off. Clicking on the Cluster Number hyperlinks in may be helpful orienting one's self when an image shows a portion of an adjacent panel.

When complete, check out the All Elements by Class, Panel Reports, Element Reports, and Survey Recaps.

Check Survey Data

If you spotted an error or inconsistency while recording data or viewing the reports, then the way to fix it is through Check Survey Data.

Check Attribute Set

This function is not very useful on this small demo site. On larger sites, it is frequently useful to review things like General.Visibility and General.Repatination to ensure consistency.

Customize Topo Charts

This function is not very useful on this small demo site as the default chart will suffice.

DigitalRockart topography measurements are made using the panel center as a reference point. On most sites the topography measurements for B, C, D... panels are skipped to save time. If they are made, the B, C, D.. measurements are taken from the center of the A panel to the center of the target panel.

In most cases this requires estimating the measurement through the rock. The end result is the topo chart will show the facings of the panels of the boulder and possibly the relative size and shape. Doing this on large sites requires some planning and many secondary datum points -- otherwise the panel letters will overlay each other on the topo chart making much of it unreadable. In this case the easy fix is to check the chart A panels only box.

Annotate Images

More work needs to be done to complete the survey. Use annotate images to indicate where the panels are located on the 2 cluster overview images. Use it again on the site overview image to indicate the location of the clusters.

Check your work by going to All Images by Category and viewing the cluster and site overview images. Click on a small image to view a jumbo-sized image in a new window. Move your mouse pointer near a cluster or panel number and clicking when it changes to a pointer -- you will get a new window showing the recorded data.

Survey Reports

Finally, it is time to write the survey report. This is usually the last task done before completing a survey. For surveys of large sites that span multiple years, an interim report is completed annually and a DVD is created and presented to the land manager. Click on Survey Reports -- a new window will open showing all the survey reports that you are allowed to read and update.

The initial survey report is created from a template filled with examples and hidden comments that will help you get started. Click on the edit button or double-click anywhere within the survey report to open the editor. Once you are in edit mode, the sidebar changes. Read the Editor Help pages to learn more.

The survey reports may be as simple or scholarly as you wish. Anything from "I don't know what it means, but I find this interesting..." to a full-blown report with quotes and a bibliography may be created. If you are doing several pages of text, you may find it more convenient to edit the text with your favorite text editor and copy and paste into the wiki text editor.

You may adjust the height of the editor textarea to fit the size of your monitor. If you are in edit mode, make a guess as to how many lines need to be added or removed from the edit textarea. Cancel or Save Changes. Choose Settings, Preferences, key in a new number for Editor size, and click Save. For more information on other settings, see HelpOnUserPreferences and HelpOnPreferredTheme.

Questions

If you have a question, you may ask it here. Clicking the Discussion link in the sidebar links to the same page. While you must be logged on to edit most pages in this wiki, you do not need to be logged on to edit the discussion page -- you must double-click on the right side page content to get into edit mode.

If that fails, there is always email or telephone.