How does Catalyst work? Trimble Catalyst features a lightweight antenna that plugs directly into an Android phone or a tablet’s USB port. Once it is connected to any Catalyst-ready or third party location-enabled app, you can start measuring, locating, and sharing the things you map. This makes the little dot on your Android phone a lot smaller and more accurate – centimeter-accurate data-collection systems.

Basically, Trimble Catalyst requires a few components, namely:

• Any location-enabled mobile app;
• A Catalyst subscription, with accuracy options ranging from one meter to centimeter level; and,
• Trimble’s small, lightweight Catalyst DA1 antenna that plugs directly into Android smartphones and tablets.

Trimble offers four kinds of subscription to the Trimble Catalyst GNSS Receiver based on the level of accuracy you need:

Trimble and third-party development teams have produced a range of Catalyst-enabled applications for geographic information data acquisition, cadastral land management, topographic mapping and ground control for unmanned aircraft systems (UAVs). Among them is the free Trimble Mobile Manager app to handle your Catalyst subscription and manage a connection to the Catalyst softGNSS engine, then choose the workflow app you need to get your job done. Other Catalyst-ready apps from Trimble and partners are: Esri Collector for ArcGIS, TerraFlex, Trimble Penmap, UAV Ground Control, and K-Mobile. To see a complete list of third party location-enabled apps, go here. If you are a developer and wishes to integrate your app with Trimble Catalyst, go here and register you interest.