Creating an Individual Track (IT)

Basic syntax

panbiotracks -m I -i INPUT_FILE -o OUTPUT_DIRECTORY

Where -m I is the flag that configures the software to do individual tracks, INPUT_FILE is a CSV file that meets the format established in Input file, and OUTPUT_DIRECTORY is the name of the directory (folder) where you want to save your file or files. If there's no such directory at the specified path, Panbiotracks will create it. For best results, it's recommended that your input file name and output directory name does not contains spaces.

Detailed instructions

Navigate to the directory where you downloaded Panbiotracks and open a terminal or console window as mentioned in Running Panbiotracks. From there, you can run the program with the syntax described above. Note that you need to type the exact name of the executable, or the program will not run. This includes the .exe suffix in Windows.

Input file name

You need to type the exact path where your input CSV file is located after the -i flag. For example, if your file is in your Downloads directory, the syntax will be

.\panbiotracks.exe -m I -i C:\Users\YOUR_USER\Downloads\INPUT_FILE.csv -o OUTPUT_DIRECTORY

if you're on Windows, or

./panbiotracks -m I -i /home/YOUR_USER/Downloads/INPUT_FILE.csv -o OUTPUT_DIRECTORY

if you're on Linux.

You can use relative paths, like ../../INPUT_FILE.csv. Note that if there are spaces within the file or path names, you must enclose the path with apostrophes (') or double quotes (").

Output directory name

The output directory is specified after the -o flag, and can be one that already exists, or can be a new one, in which case Panbiotracks will create it. You can type the exact location of the output directory, or use relative paths. For example, if you want to save your tracks to a new directory named "results" in your Downloads folder, the syntax will be

.\panbiotracks.exe -m I -i C:\Users\YOUR_USER\Downloads\INPUT_FILE.csv -o C:\Users\YOUR_USER\Downloads\results

if you're on Windows, or

./panbiotracks -m I -i /home/YOUR_USER/Downloads/INPUT_FILE.csv -o /home/YOUR_USER/Downloads/results

if you're on Linux. The condition about enclosing the path with apostrophes (') or double quotes (") in case there are spaces in the name or path remains.

CSV file format

The input CSV file must have three columns: species, lat, and lon:

species,lat,lon
Pinus arizonica,24.983,-105.883
Pinus arizonica,23.423,-104.26
Pinus arizonica,26.60556,-101.91667
Pinus_aristata,36.2942,-105.246
Pinus_aristata,38.183333,-106.207222
Pinus_aristata,38.65201,-105.13944
Pinus_aristata,35.911883,-105.647453

You can use spaces, underscores, dashes or any other combination of characters for the species name, but be aware that some symbols and characters may be forbidden to use by your operating system.

Output files

Panbiotracks will build an individual track for each species, and will save it to a file using the names in the species column.

After running the program, there will be a set of files in the output directory. For each track there will be three files:

• A SHP file that contains the track geometry.
• A DBF file that stores the database associated with the SHP file.
• A SHX file that is a companion file to the SHP.

All of the three files are necessary to import your track into a GIS software, so be aware of that in case you want to rename or move these files.