DistoX tablet question

[caver.adam]

I used the Hydro Edge (4.0 inch screen) this weekend in an actual cave. As long as you keep your hands fairly clean it works fine. Had to use the zoom function and do some scrolling.

Downside is that the claimed 8 hours of battery life is not 8 hours of survey. Got about 4 hours of survey on a battery with airplane mode on except for bluetooth which was on. Batteries cost me about $4 each for this phone.

Now I just have to get the data from topodroid into therion or another program. The png files are low res and blurry. And the .th2 files I have are not 100% compatible with therion. Maybe I'll try the dfx files tonight.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/elb86plo7flu18v/2-14p.png?dl=0

[AndrewA]

(Sorry for delay in answering, I do not visit often)

I do use a waterproof case, for the Vivo tab, a seawag one. Pen works fine through it. Makes no difference to accuracy. I have noticed,with or without case, keeping the pen at same angle and accuracy is good, fine on sofa at home but I find it dificult to keep it at the same angle whike head first down a crawl, which seems to be far too much of my surveying at the moment.
The wacom pen from my desktop graphics tablet is not compatable, which is annoying, not got round to buying correct one as yet.

Andrew

[Martin Sluka]

Anyway, there are plenty of Panasonic ToughBooks CF-18 and CF-19 which you may use as tablet too on eBay. You may buy 7.65 Ah battery too. They are not too light! But you may run Therion on it too :)

Just my 0.02 $

[apocalypso]

I tested number of PDA and PocketPC device running the WM 6.5 after assembling my DistoX2 and so far I found that older smartphones powered with Windows Mobile are the best possible solution, especially devices with higher resolutions screens, 480*800 or so...

Here are the couple of screenshots from testing trip around my house :)

[caver.adam]

I just got a new samsung pen with eraser for my VivoTab Note 8 ... and yes, it works much better.

There is one spot on the screen about the size of a dime where I have to press a bit harder, but the pen does work on the entire screen now.

This pen has a slight offset from the nub when writing, but I haven't tried calibrating to account for this. It is also predictable and I don't even notice it when writing.

[Tony C]

I have been trying a Asus Vivotab Note 8;

I ordered an Asus Vivotab Note 8last week and tried it out. Nice little tablet. But, the Wacom digitizer was DOA, the stylus didn't work out of the box. After spending a hour on the phone with Asus support, they finally wanted me to reinstall the OS from the recovery partition. I bailed at that point -- it was brand new -- and am returning it to Adorama.

It also doesn't keep a charge. It would not turn on when I took it out of the box -- with the current LiON batteries, devices usually come with some charge. I had to charge it for a couple hours before it would turn on. I then charged it to about 80%, turned it off, and went to bed. When I got up the next morning, the battery was dead again and it would not turn on.

Guess I got a lemon.

T.

PS turns out the internet will provide many stories of the Wacom digitizer in this device failing, the stories report that the digitizer cable goes bad frequently.

[caver.adam]

P.S. I've found out the hard way that there are reports of the stylus failing. My Asus Vivotab Note 8 had the stylus fail after 1 year. :(

[Tony C]

P.S. I've found out the hard way that there are reports of the stylus failing. My Asus Vivotab Note 8 had the stylus fail after 1 year. :(

Hey Adam, how did you fix it? Crack it open and replace the cable?

[caver.adam]

Well, I tried that...but the plastic connector that held it was cheap and broke when I tried to push the new cable in. Now my screen doesn't work at all...

[Quatsino]

So I'm awaiting shipment of my DistoX2. I've never used one before.

I am trying to figure out what the best tablet is to use with it. I am using Therion but I am new to that as well. I used to use Walls and before that On Station.

I have zero experience with paperless cave surveying. I have never used Pocketopo or Topodroid which makes it hard to decide between windows or android. Topodroid seems to be set up well for use with Therion, but again I have no idea; I've never used an android device only iPhone and iPad. I see the new ipad pro has a stylus - are there cave survey/disto apps that run on iPad?

A new windows surface pro3 tablet seems like a good idea but are there good waterproof cases?

Xperia Z4 tablet claims IP68 - can it handle a cave without a case? I can't seem to find any suitable rugged cases for it.

If price was not a factor what set up would you use?

Thanks

[caver.adam]

There's a lot of dicussion on the Therion mailing list which you found so i won't re-hash that. But I wanted to mention that you can use "Andy" at http://www.andyroid.net/ to try out TopoDroid on your computer. Just remember that you MUST 'Deny' Bluetooth when asked. Emulators can't use bluetooth or they crash.

This is a great way for you to see the differences in the program. If you have any question about using topodroid send me a message via email. You should have my email from the response I sent on the Therion mailing list. I keep meaning to finish making a tutorial but have been very busy. So far I only have a tutorial on making a survey and making a sketch. I need a tutorial on entering data still.

Adam