CNS Junior Writing

Prior to constructing your multi panel figure it is a good idea to first install an image processing program. I chose to install Inkscape. Installation is pretty straight forward. You may need to go to your security settings and allow the software to be installed. Additionally, you will need to install Xquartz the operating system that runs Inkscape. 

            For my images I chose a garden nasturtium plant that I found at the northern edge of the permaculture garden on UMass campus. I took to images one showing the entire plant and one showing the leafminer activity. I used a one-dollar bill t placed directly behind the leaf for a scale reference.  After the pictures were taken, I emailed the pictures to myself so that I would be able to access them from any computer that has access to the internet.

            On the computer I created a folder to put the components of this figure into. I then retrieved the images from my email and downloaded them into my newly created folder. Next, I opened Inkscape and imported the images. Once the images were uploaded onto Inkscape I created a map of the area that I found the plant in. It is important that you use a map that you have the rights to when creating your multi panel figure. For this project I used open street map. The map that I selected was not the correct size, so it was necessary to crop it. This requires another program; for this task I used Gimp. This is another free program that allows you to edit images.

            Once all the images are on your sheet it would be a good idea to save this to your folder. Next you will need to place the images together in a logical manner. If the images are not the same size, you need to resize them. In order to not stretch or distort the image make sure that you lock the image by selecting the lock it the middle of the Inscape task bar. Next using the measuring tool fit your images together. Once you have completed this you can now add panel identifiers. First create a text box and put your first panel ID in it. I set the font to Ariel and used a 40 for size this fit well. Now once you make your first one selects it and then duplicate it two more times. Once you have finished that change them to the next sequential digits. Next on the full plant image you need to put an arrow pointing at the leaf that you selected for the close-up image. Select straight line maker on the left side task bar. Click near the location of the leaf and move the cursor away a satisfactory distance away and double click. Then open fill and stroke. Select your line and make it the width that you desire. In the same menu select the arrow head that you find to be appropriate.  The final step is to set the background to white by making everything 255. Save your file as (your name)_original.

Multi panel figure directions:

Upper Right Corner: Should be the location of where you have found the affected plant.

Upper Left Corner: Should be the affected part of the leaf

Bottom Right Corner: Should have an arrow pointing towards the affected part of the leave in the whole plant. 

Bottom left Corner: Should be a measurement scale on the plant indicating how long the plant.

There are many leaf miners out there. I found a leaf miner in the Franklin Permaculture Garden. I decided to make a multi panel figure illustrating what I found. I took pictures of the leaf miner and an object to measure the leaf miner with it along with the location of the leaf miner. I made a figure on inkscape. I made a figure that showed the leaf miner that can be published in a scientific publication. As I made my figure I kept in mind that I make sure my pictures are perfectly equal in size. I laid my pictures and made them into a figure by rearranging and sizing them equally and making sure I don’t stretch my pictures out because the picture should be clear. I also labeled my pictures so that they are clear when published into a publication. I also remembered to point the leaf miner out in the whole plant in my figure. I also needed to make sure I leave no background so that the figure can be seen perfectly. I made sure that my figure looked scientific when published in a book or journal.                                                       

One of the things you will need to do when creating your multipanel figure is to use an arrow pointing to the leaf on the affected plant. You can use the line tool and add a marker which can be an arrow. Make sure to make the arrow a contrasting color to the image of your leafminer plant. You also want to adjust the opacity on your background. You can do this by sliding the bottom bar all the way to the right on the colors menu. I think what I am going to do is to do a dry run with my current recollection on the process I undertook with the software and see what I come up with. 

Once you have the image how you want it, you will have to adjust the page size to the image size. I can’t quite remember how to do that. You also must adjust the the quality to 1080 by (I can’t remember right now) 724? 

Photographing Leaf Miners

Methods

Location

    The location for this project was the University of Massachusetts’s Amherst campus. The specimen was found at the shade tree laboratory(?) located at 272 Stockbridge Road. I had walked the perimeter of the building and found leaf miner activity in a weed located 6 feet to the right of the front entrance of the laboratory which is on the left side of the building that contains the University Club.

Materials

    Three photographs of the infected plant were obtained in a simple manner.(Consider revision or deletion) The first photo showcases the entirety of the plant in the center of the photo and was taken at an angle from a five foot distance. The wall of the building was left in the top of the photo to aid in orientation and the next largest weed is centered on the right hand edge of the photo while the subject is in the center of the picture.

Yesterday in class we created a multipanel figure for leafminer activity. I am going to go about trying to outline the process I undertook to create my mulitpanel figure in preparation for my final draft. I am going to skip the part about collecting the photos for the speciman because that seems pretty straightforward to me thus far. 

Open "Inkplot" Don't worry about the size of the page in the center. Ignore it for now. We will adjust the size later. Go to file and import your pictures. You can zoom in by hitting the magnifying glass and zoom out by hitting the shift key and the magnifying glass. Hit lock icon. This prevents you from distorting the image when resizing it, I think. This is hard to do without the software or the lecture recorded. I should have taken notes or something. You can type in the size you want the images to be, if I remember correctly. Adjust the pictures to the sizes you want and arrange them. Okay, this isn't exactly MY process but this will help me to go over this again. Once you have the pictures arranged the way that you want them to be, you can go on to use the text tool. Use the font that looks neat and doesn't have serif. Label each photo. You can create the proper spacing by hitting the shift and arrow keys. Once everything is the way you want it, you can select all the elements of your multipanel figure and use group to make it one unit. 

Prior to constructing your multi panel figure it is a good idea to first install an image processing program. I chose to install Inkscape. Installation is pretty straight forward. You may need to go to your security settings and allow the software to be installed. Additionally, you will need to install Xquartz the operating system that runs Inkscape.  

            For my images I chose a garden nasturtium plant that I found at the northern edge of the permaculture garden on UMass campus. I took to images one showing the entire plant and one showing the leafminer activity. I used a one-dollar bill t placed directly behind the leaf for a scale reference.  After the pictures were taken, I emailed the pictures to myself so that I would be able to access them from any computer that has access to the internet.

            On the computer I created a folder to put the components of this figure into. I then retrieved the images from my email and downloaded them into my newly created folder. Next, I opened Inkscape and imported the images. Once the images were uploaded onto Inkscape I created a map of the area that I found the plant in. It is important that you use a map that you have the rights to when creating your multi panel figure. For this project I used open street map.

            Once all the images are on your sheet it would be a good idea to save this to your folder. Next you will need to place the images together in a logical manner. If the images are not the same size, you need to resize them. In order to not stretch or distort the image make sure that you lock the image by selecting the lock it the middle of the Inscape task bar. Next using the measuring tool fit your images together. Once you have completed this you can now add panel identifiers. First create a text box and put your first panel ID in it. I set the font to Ariel and used a 40 for size this fit well. Now once you make your first one selects it and then duplicate it two more times. Once you have finished that change them to the next sequential digits. The final step is to set the background to white by making everything 255.

4 photos were used in inkscape
The 3 photos taken were of shrt weed 1ft tall. Located at tree lab, go to left hand fence and walk 5 feet to the right. Weed is by garden hose.

All images came sized in squares of 1688.00, this size was kept

Three arrows were made and kept horizontally, they are 150 pixels long (top slider), using the third arrowhead listed and 3mm wide

All images are labeled by 100x100 black boxes with white sans serif letters at 80 size font

All boxes are in inner corners

All images are 15 pixels away from each other.

The map snapshot covers the shade tree lab in the middle left , clark and wilder hall fills the top left and bottom left completely, then stockbrige road is showcased along with the french hall on the right and the franklin garden.

Picture 1 - Top Left Corner - Picture showcasing largest gallery from miner. The hand holding the leaf is visible on the left side of the photo as the plant had to be slightly rotated to showcase the leaf from the same angle as the rest of the pictures. The thumb brushes away the top leaves while the base of the stem is held by the tip of the middle and index fingers and the rest of the fingers are curled back. The garden hose is coiled around the base of the plant and the leaf is showcased in the center of the photo. The base of the stem and the tip of the leaf take approximately 70% of the photo heightwise while being fairly centered left and right

Picture 2 - Top Right Corner - This photo is taken a few feet from the plant and was rotated to make the brick of the building visible along the top edge. Another smaller weed can be seen in the right hand side of the photo. 2 arrows are used to showcase the infected leaves and the tips were placed on the edges of the center of the leaves

Picture 3 - Bottom Left Corner - The photo was taken very close to the less infected leaf with the back of a business card used for scale. There is no writing the card is completely blank. And takes up roughly the center 3/5ths of the left hand edge. The plant wasnt manipulated and as such the two top leaves are in the photo as well. Theres a very small weed (approx 6 inches tall or so) that can be seen in the bottom right of the photo to help judge distance

Picture 4 - is of the map

Wake up.

Put on watch

Walk down stairs and make coffee

After being greeted by the dogs I bring them outside for their morning rituals

Drink coffee and watch the news paying particular attention to the weather

Take medications and eat breakfast

Begin the chore list

Complete chores

Eat lunch

Take a bike ride

Shower

Make/eat supper

Take dogs for walk

Watch more news

Read book

Watch show on tv

Go to sleep

Morning routine

Work

Caring for dogs

Eating

Personal care

TV

When I awake in the morning I put on my watch grab my phone and make my way downstairs and turn on the coffee pot. When I get downstairs my dogs great me with their wagging tails awaiting their morning scratch. After their scratching and petting I bring them outside so they can take care of their business. After this I pour myself a cup of coffee and sit down and turn on the TV to watch the morning news. The local news has generally gone through all of their stories in about a half an hour. Once I am satisfied that I know what the weather is going to be like for the day I plan for what to do next. During my planning stage I eat breakfast and take my medications. Mowing the lawn and weedwacking takes about 2 hours. In the process of mowing I generally notice things that need attention, and take care of them. In between this the dogs need to be let out a few times, plus I play with them for some time so things take much longer then they should. When this is finished I eat some lunch. Next up is my long-awaited bike ride. I collect my gear and place my bike on the carrier and head out. The bike ride lasts around 3 hours plus about 30 a minuet of travel each direction. I return home and put my bike and gear away and take a shower. I prepare food for supper and eat a decent dinner. Now it’s time for more news watching to see what happened that day. After that disappointment I take out my book and read for a few hours. Now that I have relaxed I take the dogs out for their final trip outdoors for the day and go to bed. I watch tv for about an hour then I go to sleep.

Today I pulled into campus driving 25mph listening to metallica until I arrived at the parking garage.
When I arrived at the parking garage I clicked the ticket button to give me my slip and raise the front gate.
Once gate was open I drove in and traveled up two levels higher in the garage before parking next to three other vehicles.
Once parked I finished my coffee turned the music and car off and gathered all my materials for class.
When I had all my stuff I started making my way out of the parking garage and towards the campus pond.
On the way to the pond I passed a few different groups of people students, faculty, campus police and a military member.
After I had finally reached the pond after about 5 minutes of walking I started to search for leaf miners to document for our class project.
I slowly walked around 3/4 of the pond checking all the plants and flowers and trees before I finally found a good single leaf example of the leaf miners.
After taking the pictures that I needed I proceeded to class to start making the figure.
I walked another 7 minutes from the pond up to Morrill building 3 room 311
Once in class I found my spot and started logging on and loading up the computer.
I then emailed all my new photos of the leaf miners to myself so I could open them online.
After getting all the pictures online I opened and used inkscape and gimp photo editing software to construct my figure.

Categories

-Driving
lines 1-4

-Walking
lines 5-10

-Class
lines 9+

I woke up at 9am. I checked my phone. I spoke to my parents in India. Then, I went to the bathroom and brushed my teeth. I took a shower. I did my prayers. I headed to the kitchen. I made pancakes and had orange juice to eat. I got ready for college. Before, I went to the bus stop I checked my mail. I got on the bus. I got off the morrill center on the umass campus. I came to class. I went back downstairs to look for a leaf miner. I took pictures of a leaf. I came back to class. I went back downstairs and took more pictures of the leaves. I came back to class. I finished class and headed to Walmart. I took the bus home after grocery shopping. I cooked Indian food.    I ate. I did homework. I watched Netflix. I spoke to parents. I watched a documentary on the anatomy of the heart. I brushed my teeth. I went to bed.