eBird Migration Visualization Tool Help -- Version 1.2

eBird Migration Visualization Tool Help - Version 1.2

Purpose

This program displays an animation of the bird observations in the Avian Knowledge Network database, providing a dynamic visualization of wild bird migration patterns in North America.

System Requirements

The program is provided in the form of an executable .jar file. You must have Java 1.5 or later to run it. To find out which version of Java you have, type java -version in a command window. If you do not have 1.5 or later, please visit http://java.sun.com/ and download and install the latest version of the Java Runtime Environment (JRE). Note: Versions 1.5 and 5.0 are synonymous. You must have sufficient memory available (see Starting Up below). You must have an active Internet connection.

Starting Up

Make sure you are connected to the Internet. In a command window, navigate to the directory containing the .jar file and type

javaw -Xms512M -Xmx512M -jar H5N1.jar

In Windows, you can just double-click on the H5N1.cmd script provided with the distribution. The options -Xms512M -Xmx512M are to increase the heap space allocated to the Java virtual machine. The program requires more heap space than the default provided by the system. A lower memory limit than 512M will still work (150M is minimum), but performance will be degraded.

Operation

Select a group or a single species from the initial dialog. Right click on a group to see the species in that group. Click "OK". The display will show all observations of that species or group in North America on each day of the year in succession. The current date is shown in the lower left corner. You can change the speed of the animation with the slider in the lower right. If you slide it all the way to the left, it will stop and display a set of buttons that will allow you to increment or decrement the current month and day.

The display shows all data available in the Avian Knowledge Network database for the selected species or group of species as of 5/31/2006. Each colored square is one observation. The color ranges from white to red, indicating the population density (white = low density, red = high density). All years are accumulated together.

Privacy Notice and Disclaimer

This software connects to www.ebird.org only to download data according to the user's selection. No personal information is collected or sent over the net. The software is provided "as is". No warranty is expressed or implied.