Digital Photo Series

Internal Tool Developers: Roger D. Ottmar

External Tool Authors: Susan J. Prichard; Paige C. Eagle

Description

The Digital Photo Series is intended to complement, not replace, the paper and ink versions available now and in the future. While much of the 'look and feel' of the published photo series has been retained, the DPS diverges from the published volumes both in content and presentation.

Published volumes are more appropriate for use in the field and can be used with a stereoscope for a three-dimensional view of photo series sites.

• Data tables are displayed differently
• Layout is standard for all series
• Includes some previously unpublished data
• Measurement systems can be chosen by the user (metric or English)

Purpose and Scope

The Digital Photo Series (DPS) is a web-based application that provides access to the Natural Fuels Photo Series database and photographs. The interface allows you to browse, query and download photo series data and high-quality photographs. Planned functionality includes side-by-side comparisons and customized site generation.

Use

Click on the site search tab to query the natural fuels photo series database for sites of interest.

You can search for sites based on the following criteria:

1. Map location. Click on the U.S. map showing site locations color-coded by volume to view an enlarged subsection of the map for finer-scaled selecting as well as the selected volume's sites displayed as search results beneath the form. Clicking on the finer-scale map will return sites from the cluster selected, a cluster being defined as a group of sites undistinguishable at that scale.
   TIP: hovering your mouse over an area of interest will trigger a 'tool tip' listing the underlying sites.
2. Photo series. If you are familiar with the bound copies of the photo series, you might prefer to view sites from a given series. This drop-down box is organized by volume (in bold italics, ordered by volume number) and photo series (ordered by appearance in published volume).
3. State
4. Bailey's Ecoregion Divisions
5. Land owner. This select box is populated with public lands, organized by governmental department.
6. Cover type. This select box is populated with applicable SAF or SRM cover types.
7. Species. Select scope (general or overstory), name type (scientific or common), search match condition ('starts with', 'is', or 'contains') and enter species search string to locate sites based on up to two species of interest, related by either the "AND" or "OR" logical operator.
8. Quantitative measurements. Specify desired ranges for inventory data such as canopy closure, loadings, densities by size class, and forest floor depths for up to 2 variables of interest, related by either the "AND" or "OR" logical operator.
   DISCLAIMER: absence of a site from a result set could indicate nonavailability of data for given ecological variable, as sampling designs varied between photo series.

Between fields, search criteria are combined with the "AND" operator. Because there are so many potential search variables, it is easy to come up with no matches. If your query does not produce a match, try broadening your search criteria. When starting a new query, click the Reset button to clear the form of all previously entered criteria.

Search results are displayed beneath the search form as thumbnails of sites organized by volume and photo series. Depending on your screen resolution, you may have to scroll down to see the result set. Clicking on a site's thumbnail will transfer focus to the Site browser tab, opened to the selected site.

Release Notes

• In addition to the data published in the bound volumes, the DPS includes data that were collected but not printed due to publication limitations.
• Totals might deviate slightly from published values by fractions of a decimal.
• Absence of a site from a search result set could indicate nonavailability of data for a given ecological variable, as sampling designs varied between photo series.
• There are cases where totals calculated in the DPS, specifically in the Woody Materials and Shrub Biomass tables, depart from the published (print version) values by a tenth or hundredth of a decimal place due to rounding.

Citation

Pacific Wildland Fire Sciences Laboratory. [N.d.]. Digital photo series. https://depts.washington.edu/nwfire/dps/. (21 March 2018).

We acknowledge funding from the Joint Fire Science Program under Project JFSP 04-4-1-02.

Partners: University of Washington, School of Environmental and Forest Sciences; Joint Fire Science Program