What are the contents of the CEP file generated by Collect?

Dear Ulpu,

When you export a survey through Collect Survey Designer and choose to use the "Collect Earth" target a CEP (Collect Earth Project) file is generated.

This file is really a plain-vanilla .zip file that has been renamed to .cep so that is can be linked to Collect Earth (so that double-clicking on it will open the project directly on Collect Earth instead of having to go through Collect Earth's menu Tools->Properties->Projects tab).

So, if you rename the project.cep file to project.zip you can open it with your WniZIP, WinRAR or whatever compression software you like to use.

The contents of this file are:

• balloon.html - The file that contains the pop-up design
• earthFiles - a folder where the CSS, JavaScript, images and other files used by the balloon.hml are contained
• collectEarthCubes.xml.fmt - A file where the Saiku/Mondrian cube for the survey is defined
• kml_template.fmt - The template used to generated the KML according to the plots in the sample design
• placemark.idm.xml - VERY IMPORTANT : this is the file where the definition of the survey is stored
• project_definition.properties - The file that contains the initial properties for this project, like the size of the plots, the name of the survey and the plot file that is used as default ( see the line that starts with csv= ) when Collect Earth starts
• test_plots.ced - This file contains the "dummy test plots" that are used when the CEP file is loaded in Collect Earth. These are 15 plots location in places like Papua New Guinea, Senegal and Burkina Faso

Once you are happy with your survey you should open the CEP file ( in your compression software), include the sample design files you actually want to use (as opposed to the test plots contained by test_plots.ced) and then change the line that starts with csv= in the project_definition.properties file to point to the CSV/CED file that contains your sample design.

VERY IMPORTANT : Note that the sample design files (CSV/CED plot files) you include in the CEP file must have the EXACT SAME columns than the test_plots.ced file! Otherwise the survey WILL NOT work.

Other files that might be contained in the CEP file are the region_areas.csv or areas_per_attribute.csv . Please see this post for more info on these files that are used to calculate the expansion factors of the plots

Good luck with your training!