Record complete bat emergence (roost-exit) surveys on a tablet — guided step by step, built on the NABat Bulk Emergence Count standard, and fully offline. Count visually with no cameras at all, or pair it with ThruTracker for automated thermal-video counts.
Windows 10/11 tablets and laptops. A no-install Field Mode is available for locked-down devices. Android & iOS builds are on the roadmap.
Survey is more than a companion to ThruTracker: it's a general emergence-count tool. Choose the counting method per exit — visual, video, or both — and use only what your survey needs.
Counting by eye? Survey stands entirely on its own — no cameras, no desktop software, no account. Tally per exit, capture roost metadata, weather, and photos, and export the NABat CSV and PDF report straight from the tablet.
Recording thermal video for automated counting? Flag those exits as video-counted, and ThruTracker's automated counts join the same survey record through the cloud — manual tallies and video counts together.
Run the guided survey on a tablet — sites, exits, equipment, weather, photos, and live tally counts. Everything is stored on the device; no connection needed.
Sign in and tap Sync now — surveys, sites, and photos upload to ThruTracker Cloud. Sync is bidirectional and entirely opt-in: if you never sign in, your data stays on the device.
The desktop app pulls your surveys in. Exits you flagged as video-counted pair with ThruTracker's automated counts — manual tallies and video-based counts come together in one survey record.
Recording the video itself? That's ThruTracker Recorder — Survey handles the survey data around it.
A numbered flow — Survey → Set up → Observe → End — that's hard to get wrong in the dark. Pre-fills from a site's last visit, resumes in-progress surveys, and runs a completeness check before export.
Data collection follows the NABat Bulk Emergence Count template: the full NABat species code list, state & county auto-fill, and on-device GRTS cell lookup from your coordinates.
Reusable sites own the stable roost metadata — roost type, habitat, structure or tree details — organized as site → feature → exit. Capture coordinates from device GPS with a live map preview, or auto-pick the nearest site.
Large +/− tally counters for count out and count in, per exit — with batch add, min/max estimates, count confidence, and a derived estimated emergence. Crews can split observers and equipment across exits — and mix visual and video methods in one survey.
A prompted photo checklist (roost from camera, equipment & wiring, whole scene, team), camera-to-roost distance and height, and a tiered equipment picker — thermal, IR, night vision, acoustic, or visual. Observation method is derived automatically.
Local conditions fetched in one tap: temperature, wind, cloud, humidity, sunset, and moon phase — all editable for manual entry. Sunset is computed on-device, so start-time suggestions work offline too.
A polished one-page PDF report with branding, photos, weather, and field notes — plus per-survey NABat CSV and a bulk CSV of all completed surveys, named Location_YYYY-MM-DD.
GPS, counts, photos, and PDF/CSV export all work with no internet — only the optional weather and map lookups need a connection. All data lives on the device until you choose to sync.
Quick field-note presets, a species picker with common emergence species and your recent picks up front, a timer that counts down to your planned start then up, and data backup & restore built in.
Installs Survey as a regular Start-menu app. Code-signed by ThruTracker Analytics, LLC. Works fully offline once installed.
For tablets where installing software isn't allowed — unzip and run, no admin rights needed. Same app, running in the browser, still fully offline.
Before heading out: turn on Windows location services and confirm the GPS button returns coordinates while you still have internet. Release notes: latest release. See all downloads.