1.2 pound Cave Surveying Tablet PC

[cavescom]

You guys are forgetting one thing. if you get too effecient at survey accuracy and producing maps that are instantly available by electronic media how will we ever get back into lech and carlesbad and other restricted caves to "fix" "bad" surveys:)

Just keep the paper guys busy there and you will be assured years of re-survey :)

Mark Passerby, Cavediggers.com

[cavescom]

I'd be happy to share my Freehand symbols, except for the fact that Adobe gave up on Freehand and who knows- in 10 years there may not be an OS that Freehand will run on, except for someone with a "vintage" XP or Vista box.

Export then to an .ai file from Freehand and send them my way. I will be taking different objects from different folks and assembling them into libraries for Illustrator users. On a Windows computer these can be simply dropped into C:\Program Files\Adobe\Illustrator CS\Presets into the appropriate folder i.e. symbols, brushes etc.

On the download page at InCaveDigitalSurvey.com each person that contributed to each library will be given proper acknowledgement.

So anyone who has done some great .ai work and wants to share their symbols etc. with others as part of a library collection please send me an email. Cavescom@gmail.com

NOTE: Maps you send me will not be shared with anyone only symbols, boulders etc. will be extracted for use in the collaborative shared libraries.

Mark Passerby, Cavediggers.com [/quote]

[hewhocaves]

I totally think all this technology is very cool AND I already own a tablet PC (a toshiba M200) but having said that...

...I'm still sticking with pencil and paper. Here's why -

1) It's lighter. Way lighter than anything else.
2) Proven technology - I won't have to worry about software crashes, hardware failures, loss of data and knocking or pinging.
3) Cost of replacement. Under $20- and that's if I lose everything. (those darn rite-in-the-rain books cost!)
4) It's exceptionally dumbed down. I learned how to use the equipment back in nursery school.
5) It's exceptionally versitile. If I want to open up a new document, I turn the page. If I want to sketch something on the side, I sketch it on the side.

I love my Tablet PC. The biggest problem with it is the battery life. I like the pen aspect of it - being able to draw on the screen (I'm an ex-art major) and I use it for lots of surface stuff. My topo maps are on it and layered - caves are one layer, hydrology the next, geology a third, landowners a fourth - so I can make tons of maps showing whatever I want.

However, for camping / caving / fieldwork what I really need is a tablet that is rugged, weatherproof, good with glare, easy to use, won't crash and will last a full day out in the field without adding tons of weight. Oh, and I want it all for under $500-. Until that comes out, I'm a PnP guy. And no, I'm not holding my breath.

I am reminded, however, of the 'Spaceship Earth' ride at EPCOT in Disneyworld. On the back side of the lunar surface there is a brief scene of people cave surveying using laptops! Someday....

[Steven Johnson]

I'd be happy to share my Freehand symbols, except for the fact that Adobe gave up on Freehand and who knows- in 10 years there may not be an OS that Freehand will run on, except for someone with a "vintage" XP or Vista box.

Yeah... FreeHand had a good run (I was an engineer on it for years) but it lost the battle to Illustrator years ago, and is now officially discontinued and unsupported (there's not even a "maintenance" engineering staff on it anymore). Honestly, I'm not even sure if it runs properly under Vista! (Not that that would be surprising, as Vista is pretty dismal IMHO...)

Anyway, the point of this is that VMWare (http://www.vmware.com/) is your friend here if you want to keep running FreeHand. Just set up (say) a WindowsXP virtual machine, install FreeHand on it, and you'll be good for as long as VMWare keeps working, which will probably be for quite a long long time...

[George Dasher]

Hewhocaves:

Your numbered reasons did not include that the survey book is extremely rugged.

Even I cannot break it.

[Jeff Bartlett]

wanted to weigh in here -

i am an Illustrator user myself, and have been working on a couple of survey projects where i am doing the final map cartography. 2 of the 3 projects are ongoing, and in both cases we are roundtripping. that is to say, we are not drawing electronically in-cave, but we are utilizing the SVG interface between Walls and Illustrator to marry the working map and line plot.

the first project is an ongoing cave with almost 8 miles of survey data and >50 loops to date. as we resurvey, fix past blunders, find new connections to existing passages and push the map boundaries, the ability to draw without fear of scrapping this work should a blunder or bad loop be revealed is fantastic.

the second project is a small cave that will be one focus of an upcoming work weekend, and the goal is to be able to present a map to surveyors on saturday morning, survey with multiple teams, enter the new survey data into walls, send the SVG back to illustrator for adding the new sketch data, and present the same surveyors with an updated map on sunday morning. i don't know that this would be possible without these tools.

BUT

right now i don't see the benefit of drawing electronically in-cave. forgive me for saying so, but the examples of this technique that i've seen so far have been underwhelming aesthetically, and appear to be lacking much of the detail that i've come to expect in a final map.

the only conclusion that i can draw from this observation is that drawing with illustrator in-cave, while certainly speeding up the sketch process (as well as providing the immediate gratification that often inspires and motivates the rest of the survey team), produces a sketch with less detail and artfulness than standard hand-drawn techniques.

if the end result of this procedure is a map of lesser value, then i couldn't imagine using it. efficiency is a wonderful thing, but not when quality is the compromise.

am i way off base here?

--

(that said, i applaud all the hard work Mark is doing, and will certainly be participating in the new ICDS forum when available. maybe we're 5 months from the tipping point, maybe 5 years, but we're pushing in the right direction).

[cavescom]

Jeff the equipment we used in the past is laughable when compared to what is inexpensively available now.
The results as well of the past to what we can do now in-cave(benefits of experience and equipment) will be equally laughable. I'm in Egypt for 2 weeks in Nov. but will be scheduling some ICDS once I return.

http://www.incavedigitalsurvey.com is up and running so I will have more posts and some Walls video tutorials coming there.

[Jeff Bartlett]

Mark
if you look, you'll see i was the first registered user =)

Jeff the equipment we used in the past is laughable when compared to what is inexpensively available now.
The results as well of the past to what we can do now in-cave(benefits of experience and equipment) will be equally laughable. I'm in Egypt for 2 weeks in Nov. but will be scheduling some ICDS once I return.

http://www.incavedigitalsurvey.com is up and running so I will have more posts and some Walls video tutorials coming there.