Ask Cavers: Are There Any Mobile Apps for Caving?
July 31, 2013
Android phone travel screen. Photo by Rich/flickr
While we all know that mobile phones don’t get any service under the ground, there are plenty of apps that don’t require a signal.
With the recent report of the upcoming Carlsbad Caverns app, iCaverns, we did a quick search on the Google Play store for other cave related apps. Unfortunately it appeared to only return games, specifically games where primary goal seemed to be escaping caves or running through them looking for treasure.
So readers, do you know of any apps that would warrant bringing your phone along underground?
Let us know in the comments below.
Comments (10)
– compass – apps
– angle and slope measures (clinometer)
There is Android application TopoDroid from Marco Corvi for in-cave surveying and sketching. Import from DistoX. Export to therion and DFX (+ sketchings) and other formats (not sketchings).
http://code.google.com/p/topolinux/wiki/TopoDroid
We’ve used the camera function to have a lit-up version of the cave map. Simple, but effective. Maybe not the sophisticated app answer you were looking for, but it works, nonetheless.
Itunes has an app called ispelunk (I think). It’s basically an app to track your trips with notes, pics and gps locations. It’s nothing you can use underground but kinda useful if you’re into keeping detailed records of what caves you’ve been to.
For iphone : ‘distance meter bat box ‘ (and probably other distance meters
Together with the compass and clinometer you can start surveying. I didn’t find a app with all 3 in-one app. But perhaps it exists.
For iphone : Spelunker – ideal for prospecting purpose – ridgewalking 🙂
I use my iPhone to take pictures and videos while caving. Other than that, I’ve used Google Maps and MapQuest to find a place to eat when we’re done caving…
Speleoliti Online … it is not 100% mobile, but it is web-base app which can work in the absence of internet connection as an offline application (html5).
http://www.speleo.net/speleoliti/online/info_en.html
But … usually I’m not taking my iDevices in to the cave 🙂 …
For france there’s Infoterre :
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=fr.brgm.iInfoTerre&hl=fr
It’s the app from our national geological office, it’s a mapper where there’s several layer like geological map, cave position, and more. Usefull to find cave with gps.
Recently, we have released beta version of a cave surveying Android app Abris. It is aimed to help cavers do all the surveying work on their devices in the caves.
If anyone is interested in helping us with testing, please join our testers group: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/abris-testers
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