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Awesome caving and speleology resources

awesome-speleo

Awesome caving and speleology resources. Add new suggestions in Issues or ready entries in Pull Requests.

Surveying hardware

Data collection:

• BRIC BRIC5
• DistoX2 discontinued
• Disto XBLE, DistoX2 redesigned by Siwei Tian (China)
• SAP (Shetland Attack Pony)
• Cave Sniper

LIDAR:

• Caveatron
• Poor Man's Laser Scanner (PMLS) continuous scanning firmware for DistoX2, discontinued
• Prometheus, upcoming

GNSS:

Software and hardware for precise (<1 m) object location:

• Location fixing for cave surveys: How to obtain a fixed point for a cave survey tutorial on the challenges of precise cave entrance location
• Trimble Catalyst used Trimble DA1 can be purchased at reasonable prices
• ArduSimple RTK Calibrated Surveyor Kit

Surveying software

Mobile

Mobile apps used underground for data collection and sketching:

• Qave, Android
• SexyTopo, Android, open-source
• TopoDroidX, Android, do not install app from Google Play Store as it's outdated

Data management and sketching

Cave survey data management and sketching apps:

• Compass, Windows
• GHTopo, Windows, Linux, open-source
• Survex, Windows, Linux, open-source
• Therion, Windows, Linux, open-source
• Tunnel, Java, open-source
• Walls, Windows

Other

• CaveWhere, Windows, MacOS, Linux, open-source - visualise cave surveys as 3D models
• TerrainTool, Java, open-source create surface topographic data for the cave survey packages Survex and Therion

Photogrammetry

Computing 3D models and cave surveys from cave videos.

• Photogrammetry for 3D Mapping of Caves tutorial
• 3D Cave Surveys
• micmac photogrammetry software

Caving gear

Headlights

There's plenty of headlamps on the market, so only lighting designed or suitable for caving is listed here:

• Earth Worm
• ElSpeleo
• Fenix HM series
• Little Monkey
• MidiLED
• Petzl Duo series
• Scurion
• StenLight
• Zebra Lights US only

Cave communications

Please read Through-the-earth mine communications first for introduction to cave comms. Below only operational systems are listed:

• HeyPhone, through-the-earth at 87 kHz
• Systeme Nicola, through-the-earth at 87 kHz
• CaveLink, through-the-earth at 20-140 kHz
• Sybet, relay-based, proprietary protocol at 868 MHz
• Vangelis, relay-based on open-source Meshtastic protocol and LoRa hardware
• Persefon, single-wire

Reading:

• ECRA Communications Catalogue from European Cave Rescue Group (ECRA), listing deprecated and current cave communication systems
• CREG Journal (British Caving Research Association: The Cave Radio & Electronics Group, requires subscription)