Lucid Newsletter - October 2014
Special offer ends soon
In the previous Newsletter we announced a special offer for those Lucid users who have Lucid 3.3/3.4. You can now upgrade to the latest version (Lucid 3.5) and have access to a number of enhancements (Click here) for an upgrade price of $360.00 AUD, a saving of 40% on the regular price. To take advantage of this offer, please click here before the 31st 0ctober 2014, when this offer will end.
New keys
The long-awaited Lucid key "Rainforest Plants of Australia - Rockhampton to Victoria" is about to be released. It will be officially launched at Brisbane Herbarium on 11/11/2014, with the New South Wales launch at Sea Acres Rainforest Centre, Port Macquarie on the 20/11/2014.
This interactive identification key contains over 1100 species of rainforest trees, shrubs and climbing plants of mainland eastern Australia from Rockhampton to Victoria. The key is based on the information in the updated "Red Book" and "Green Book" by Gwen Harden, Bill McDonald and John Williams, published in 2006 and 2007 respectively.
It includes over 11,000 photographs by Hugh Nicholson, expanded species descriptions, additional line drawings and explanation of key features by Gwen Harden. The Lucid 3.5 key uses vegetative features, fruit and flower details as well as habit, bark, family, rainforest type and geographic distribution.
For more information about this key please contact Gwen Harden Publishing or Terania Rainforest Publishing.
Popular keys update
A set of existing patches for popular CD and USB based keys has been updated with a new Java security certificate. The keys covered by these updates are:
- WATTLE Acacias of Australia
- AusGrass
- Euclid;
- Australian Orchid Genera
- Families of Flowering Plants of Australia
- Environmental Weeds of Australia
- Suburban and Environmental Weeds of South East Queensland
- Pest Thrips of North America
- Pest Thrips of East Africa
- Thrips of California
- Sweetpotato DiagNotes
- What Wasp Is That?
For further details click here
The good news is recent Java changes means that security certificates applied to applets that are valid, but have expired, will in the future no longer be blocked from loading. This will negate having to apply updates just for expired certificates.
Lucid Mobile apps - recent updates and releases
Lucid mobile application has now been updated to support Apple iOS 8. It is also now available as a universal application that supports all iOS device types and size.
Diagnostic tools
The previous newsletter announced the release of diagnostic tools for sweetpotato and rice as Android and iOS apps. A number of other diagnostic apps have been released or are about to be released for use in Western Australia, South Pacific countries and the USA.
In Western Australia the MyCrop tools are part of an online and smartphone extension program. Visit the following site (https://www.agric.wa.gov.au/mycrop/mycrop-tutorials-0) to access:
various online tutorials, including videos, on diagnostic techniques
online versions of the three field crop diagnostic tools (wheat, barley and canola)
links to Google Store and the iTunes Store to download Android and iOS versions of these three tools.
To support crop diagnostics in the Pacific region a fact sheet app based on the Lucid Mobile app has been developed to give immediate help and advice when a crop pest or disease is discovered. The app covers 160 fact sheets divided into several sections such as damage, biology, life cycle and management. A new edition of the app is expected in the coming weeks that greatly extends the species and disease coverage. The project was funded by the Australian Centre for International Agriculture Research (ACIAR) under sub-regional IPM project (PC/2010/090).
You can download Pacific Pests and Pathogens from:
In the USA an app for diagnosing problems on Ash trees is about to be released called Eastern North American ash tree insect and mites’ by John Fritzler-Strazanac – further details including links will be provided in the next newsletter.
If you want to convert your Lucid identification or diagnostic tool to a mobile version or are interested in having a custom Mobile add-on to a Lucid Mobile application (such as the RiskIT module mentioned above) please contact Matt ([email protected]).
Other Projects
Online cattle genetic database
While Lucid development, projects and support take up the majority of our time, the team at Identic is also involved in other projects. One major project we are currently working on is the development of a cattle genetics analysis web application for the Animal Genetics Laboratory (AGL), based in the School of Veterinary Science located at The University of Queensland's Gatton campus.
This project benefits from our prior experience in developing the equine DNA analysis software for the Australian Equine Genetics Research Centre (AEGRC), which is used by the entire Australian thoroughbred industry in Australia. The new cattle DNA analysis and data management tools we are developing have already increased the efficiency of various AGL activities and allowed them to adopt cutting edge analysis techniques.