This is a really great idea! It happens to be really useful to me right now, as I'm in Hawaii (big island, Hawai'i) and study things very much related to rock composition and age.
There is so much history one can observe driving almost anywhere on this island, and Hawaii Volcanoes National Park is nearby for even more fun with "rock" stuff. Kilauea is burbling new material all the time, too.
I've been thinking about doing something similar for classifying flora via morphological analysis (lots of yes/no questions after selecting a best guess of one of the larger groups, eventually getting closer w/ pictures, narrowing to very specific detail question about patterns, arrangement, inflorescence, etc...
So far I've just been polling people who study plants or are involved in conservation/reforestation. I haven't thought of a satisfactory way to do tentative ID's that are "close enough". Close enough to go home, grab a textbook, and confirm as well as possible. That can be difficult here, even for experienced professionals; there are so many plants that are not well-known, so many rare species, so many "misbehaving" plants, and so on.
Ideally, it would have the ability to analyze samples via the camera by comparing to a corpus of known good species pictures. I don't have a clue how to do that, though. Train algorithms, machine learning, etc, etc... If I was sure it would work, I d do it. Otherwise it's much easier to just ask a couple of knowledgeable people.
I think it needs a collaborative effort, something kind of similar to what I see on Rockd... It would be fantastic if people could post, share, and consult with each other.
I will give this app a test drive on my next field work day.
Thanks for posting!
Not sure if this is intentional or not, but on your web interface I can't select any of the text. I wanted to Google the geological terms but couldn't without typing it out manually.
1. If I try to sign in using Facebook, typing in my username, does not result in anything appearing in the text box. When I try to enter it in anyway, assuming it is being entered but not displayed, it shows me that the username has not been entered.
2. The opening screen tells me to swipe left, but it shows me the next screen only when I swipe right.
I actually had an app a while ago with this feature, specifically designed for flying or driving long distances. It let you save maps in advance for offline use and had Wikipedia links built in. I wish I remembered the name!
