GrottoCenter Blog

  Loris and Dino, 5th year students at Polytech Montpellier, decided to work on a new version of the Grottocenter Mobile application for their project. At the end of February you will be able to use it in French or English, take photos and view the documents associated with the entries, and make sketches. We also hope that they will be able to offer a version for IOS.  

  For several years Grottocenter has hosted the BBS, development work continues and today more than 200,000 documents about Karst are referenced  

  Thanks to Ferdinando, the Wikicaves association is a partner of the Syphonia 2024 event which will take place from October 30 to November 3, 2024   This will be an opportunity to present the work carried out around data sharing with Grottocenter, the BBS, the Wiki  

  At the initiative of Ferdinando Didonna, the National Museums of Kenya and the Wikicaves association signed an agreement which has the primary objective of establishing an inventory of Kenya's caves using Grottocenter   We are very happy with this partnership and are calling on you to help us collect data regarding caves in Kenya  

  The Swiss Speleological Society has just entrusted a mission to Thomas Philippe to develop the network of UIS documentation centers and to lead cooperation around the BBS / SA.   If you have questions, ideas, or if you would like to participate, you can contact him at the following address thomas@grottocenter.org  

  Primero empecé en la zona centro (Cuenca, Guadalajara, Rio Lobos, etc), con el grupo Standard de Madrid y, después de un traslado por motivos laborales a León, en la zona Cantábrica, fundamentalmente, con el G.E. Matallana de León y algún grupo de Montaña, aunque implicándome muy poco en el funcionamiento de estos grupos y federaciones. Mi interés por el mundo subterráneo ha pasado del correteo por cualquier cueva que cayera a mi alcance hasta el estudio de geomorfología de las mismas, hidrogeología, acuíferos, etc Es más, estoy convencido de que los espeleólogos como colectivo podemos generar un gran caudal de información para el estudio de este mundo subterráneo, pero, en el momento actual, este conocimiento se está aprovechando de un modo muy escaso: Publicaciones escasas, memorias de campaña enviadas a las Federaciones Territoriales y a las entidades de protección de la naturaleza del Estado que parecen caer en pozos sin fondo donde no se sabe nada más de ellas,...

  Vincent ran a script which updated all the administrative location information for caves on Grottocenter (country, region, etc.) And for several months this information has been determined automatically when you create a new entry or edit an entry by moving it significantly.   This makes the results of advanced searches much more complete and secure.  

  A year ago, thanks to funding from the UIS and FSE, but also thanks to the work of volunteer developers, it was possible to use Grottocenter to capture complete information about caves.   Today contributors are working on the inventory of Vercors, Tarn, Hérault, Aude, Meurthe et Moselle, Cantabria. Thank you all  

  A few days ago Vincent released an update that updates the process to install Grottocenter. He also rewrote the documentation https://github.com/GrottoCenter/grottocenter-front This is an opportunity for you to install Grottocenter on your computer, test the program, improve it, test new features    

  Michele Sivelli has carried out a very important work of listing caving magazines all over the world. This information has been ported to the Grottocenter Wiki to enable BBS contributions. Bernard Thomachot has just done a very important job to facilitate navigation between the pages, the translation and to improve the formatting.     https://wiki.grottocenter.org/wiki/GrottoCenter:En/List_of_speleological_publications   We invite you to discover (almost) all the caving magazines from around the world and to help update the information essential to all lovers of the underground environment.  

  The Wikicaves association was created in January 2013 to take responsibility for Grottocenter, which had been developed by Clément Ronzon from 2008.   To celebrate these 10 years of activity here are some data to visualize the evolution of Grottocenter.  

  Benjamin has just published the Grottocenter Mobile application which is now available on the Google Play Store. We are very proud of it   https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.grottocenter.mobile&hl=fr&gl=FR   It allows you to work on the karst, with or without an internet connection.   If you are connected to Grottocenter, this allows you to update the information on the site, either directly or later, when you have internet access.   Please download it, test it and leave a review on the Play Store  

  We offer you a new way to promote Grottocenter: buy and wear the Grottocenter / Wikicaves t-shirt.   For the past few days it has been possible on the Hello Asso platform     https://www.helloasso.com/associations/wikicaves/boutiques/tee-shirts-wikicaves-grottocenter  

  The Grottomap site uses data from Grottocenter in order to allow you to visualize them differently.     On the map, the points are colored differently depending on the size of the cave or the quality of the data available.   The site offers you detailed information but also nearby caves or highlighted keywords, which allows you to view all the caves associated with these keywords.  

  Vincent has just set up a service that makes it easy to download all Grottocenter data.   This takes the form of a compressed file which contains a json file per type of data (inputs, cavities, organizations, massifs, documents). The update is carried out once a month.   This service is accessible to members of the Wikicaves association and partner organizations. If you are interested in this service, do not hesitate to contact us .  

  Vincent has just released a much-awaited feature: now the latest changes on Grottocenter are displayed on the homepage. The service offered is very complete, it concerns caves, documents, organizations, massifs, their creation, their modification and soon their deletion.  

  Tristan, "Magic Salève", offers you an application that allows you to create a pdf file from the data available in Grottocenter.   You can find his code here https://gitlab.com/magicsaleve/grottocenter/entrance2fe  

  It was possible to declare that a document was a "text" or a "book" but this was not appropriate for proceedings, reports, CVs of a study, a conference or an expedition.   Now it is possible to associate a document with the "Report" type  

  The Gard CDS and the Wikicaves association have just signed an agreement to define how these two organizations will collaborate in terms of data on caves.   CDS du Gard is authorized to present data from Grottocenter in the VMap Speleo application and has direct access to this data. In return Vmap Caving data for which the authors have given the right to share their work will be gradually integrated into Grottocenter.   In addition, VMap Caving data will be archived on the Grottocenter infrastructure in order to secure them, without this data being able to be used.  

  From now on, the analyzes of journals published in Switzerland that have been carried out within the framework of the BBS are easily accessible on Grottocenter and from a dedicated page on the Grottocenter Wiki  https://wiki.grottocenter.org/wiki/GrottoCenter:En/List_of_speleological_publications_SWISS

  The animators of the IKARE project have made part of their data available for integration into Grottocenter.   They are now available.   Thank you for sharing    

The Dictionary Sub-commission's Glossary Project has now published Stage 1 of its UIS Cave and Karst Glossary, English version. This is the initial stage of what is planned to become a significant multi-lingual multi-discipline speleo glossary. And it will at last provide definitions for the bare terms in the Cavers Multi-lingual Dictionary. In due course we will be calling for help with improvements, new terms, further languages, and further karst disciplines. You can keep in touch and/or participate in the project via its forum on the "cavedata" board. Glossary:                        http://uisic.uis-speleo.org/u isglossary-en.html Project background:      http://uisic.uis-speleo.org/l exgloss.html Forum:                          http://uisic.uis-speleo.org/fo rum/viewforum.php?f=19 Peter Matthews Glossary Project Leader  

  Vincent's work has been published. From now on the country, the state and the city where the cave is located are determined automatically.   We use the services of Nominatim, which relies on data from Open Street Map, which is licensed by OdBL.   This improves the quality of information available in Grottocenter and simplifies the work of contributors  

  Benjamin has just set up a page, accessible from the menu, which provides access to the list of all the countries in the world.   By clicking on the name of the country you reach the page which concerns it, statistics and all the cavities which are there.  

  The IKARE project is a speleological-karstological inventory of North-East France.     This is a partnership between the Rhine-Meuse Water Agency, the Grand Est Speleology League (LIGES), the GEREE design office and the LOTTERR laboratory of the University of Lorraine, which has made it possible to build a very comprehensive database.   The data contained in this database have been partly made available to the Wikicaves association so that they can be integrated into Grottocenter. This work will be carried out gradually, it relates to nearly 1400 karstic phenomena.  

  Take part in the General Assembly of the Wikicaves association The Wikicaves association publishes the site https://grottocenter.org which allows information to be shared on the underground environment. It invites you to participate in its general meeting which will be held from April 16 to 23, remotely by exchange of emails, with a conference on Thursday April 20 at 9 p.m. (Paris time) This will be an opportunity to find out how it works, who is involved in the project, how it is financed, etc. You will also be able to give your opinion on the priorities concerning the features you expect for 2024. If you want to participate, to get involved, it will also be possible to discuss with all the people who contribute in 1000 different ways. To participate in the general assembly of the Wikicaves association, tell us by sending a message with your email address from this form https://en.wikicaves.org/contact See you soon.  

  Grottocenter is free software that you can download at any time. You can very easily request new features, report a bug or participate in development. All information is here https://github.com/GrottoCenter  

  Vincent has just published 3 improvements on the maps:   The scale is indicated, which makes it possible to quickly have indications of distance ; A button allows you to choose whether our location is used to center the map and to display a point where you are ; The map URL can now be shared, it contains positioning and zoom information.      The cave where I organized an outing last weekend is located here   https://grottocenter.org/ui/map/45.72423528362707,6.093984246253968,20

  Benjamin has just reorganized the menu bar and added a link to the online help, so that it is accessible from all pages.  

 Benjamin has just released an update that makes the pages more user-friendly.  The most visible evolution concerns the buttons which are better organized, their role is easier to understand

  Vincent has provided us with an enhanced quick search. As soon as you type 3 letters you have a list of proposals with more information: the summary of the document, the location, the development and the depth for the caves  

  Benjamin has just made new base maps available to us, including the long-awaited TOP25 from IGN, for France.   He took the opportunity to improve the pop-up that opens when you click on a pictogram: now it contains the development and depth of the cave.  

  Cécile and Julien, 5th year students at Polytech Montpellier, have just completed a feature that allows you to have a view of all the modifications that have occurred on the page of a cave.   Thus the CC-BY-SA license is fully respected because it is possible to attribute to each contributor what he has brought to Grottocenter. To discover this feature, just click on the button below which has just appeared on the entries page.  

  From the page of a country or a massif, a button allows you to view the list of cavities associated with this country or this massif with an indication of the quality of the data available on this territory.     At the bottom of the page you can find the explanations on the method used to build this index. All you have to do is contribute to improve the quality of the data available on your favorite sector.  

  Since this morning you can discover new key figures on the Grottocenter home page, in a block that has been redesigned to make it more dense.   Let's keep in mind that when these new statistics were put online, Grottocenter offered information on caves located in 126 countries for a total development of 30464 km.  

  Ophélie and Margot, 5th year students at Polytech, have just provided you with statistical data for each country and for the massifs which are described by a polygon.  

  A new feature has just arrived on Grottocenter: the history of contributions. So you know who contributed, when. Just click on the new icon attached to each element that makes up the page of a cave.  

 The Fosdem is one of the biggest European event around free software. It is held each year in Brussels; Christopher Peeters will give a presentation of Grottocenter on Sunday February 5 from 10:40 a.m. to 10:55 a.m. in room H2215 https://fosdem.org/2023/schedule/event/grottocenter/  

  Vincent has just published a new page allowing you to create or modify entries, organizations and beds on Grottocenter.   The main developments are as follows:   Everything is done on one page rather than in stages It is possible to locate the entry or the organization directly on the map.   Language and country is suggested from your location     It is possible to indicate the year of discovery of the entry   The massifs can be described by a polygon which can be made up of an unlimited number of points  

  On Grottocenter we don't delete objects, they become "ghosts". That is to say that we can no longer find them thanks to the search engine but they still exist, differently.   This makes it possible to keep the history of the actions carried out, possibly to cancel them and to give a clear answer if another site has stored the URL of a deleted object.     Benjamin created the page of deleted objects, "ghosts". Often these objects are deleted because they were duplicates, the new reference object is then indicated  

 Vincent took over the code so that it is much lighter to download, that it downloads gradually and he added a waiting page... But it's so fast that you won't be able to enjoy it!  

From now on it is possible to indicate a country by its code but also by its name in English, French and in the language of the country.  

Benjamin has just transferred the Apis server to a new machine on Azure infrastructure.   This should bring better quality service to users. From now on the update will be carried out in a fully automated way and for the Wikicaves association this new solution is less expensive.  

Vincent has just done a major job of reorganizing the entrance and network pages on Grottocenter. Basic information is better displayed, clearer, a new link allows you to view the caves on Google Map in addition to OSM.   And now it's possible to put a description on the page that describes a network   It may be necessary to reload the site to see the new version (Ctrl + R under Windows)