I ran across this page this morning from The Support Group documenting how to get your iOS geolocation data into a FileMaker Go database on a supported iOS device (the iPhone and the wifi+3G models use Assisted GPS). This can simplify point documentation for those who work on more regional projects. You have to register for the database file but the resulting file is unlocked so you can see how it works.
You can download the latest version of the PARP:PS database structure here.
I finally got around to altering the PARP:PS database to run on FileMaker Go almost as it ran on FMTouch. I added the iPad layouts to the main database and altered the opening script so that it now determines which type of device it is opening upon. If it is an iOS device, it opens to the iPad layout. If a desktop machine, it opens to the normal layout. I also had to add an extended privilege to the document so that leaving the FileMaker Go software doesn’t close out the database and force you to re-enter your password when you need to open it again. Read the rest of this entry »
Last spring, while preparing the team to use iPads in the field, one of the features I was really excited about was the ability to take audio notes with the built-in microphone. When discussing which app to use for notebooks, one of the contenders was Notability. It had a quirky interface but it was (and still is, as far as I know) the only app that acted like a word processor with drawing and recording tools. It didn’t require a text box to enter text, and it didn’t require endless arranging and rearranging of elements while in use. But it was the voice recorder that I liked most of all. Since some people have a hard time getting used to the on-screen keyboard, I thought that they would jump at the chance to get their thoughts down while in the trench looking at what they wanted to describe and then transcribe and clean it up for the final notebook entry. But I was wrong, they didn’t want to use it at all. It was the best unused feature of the iPads that summer. In the end we went with Pages, simply because it was a word-processor and if there is anything grad students understand, it is a word processor.
After the summer, when we started talking about how we used the iPads, one of the most common comments was “if only it had a camera.” And a camera would have been nice, but only for general information or research shots. You can’t publish images from cell phone cameras. They just aren’t that good yet. And I don’t like to have two levels of photography, one for research and one for publication, that is too much work (it is hard enough getting people to write captions for the pictures they take with the excavation cameras) and before you know it you forgot to take the ‘good’ photos of a wall before you started dismantling it.
Don’t get me wrong, I wanted a camera on the iPad. But I wanted it for video recording, not still shots. Each Friday at the end of the day we have a trench tour for the entire team. It is there that we get to see what everyone else has been doing, and there that we get to see how the features uncovered in one trench might interact with features excavated in other trenches. I want to record that. We could have been doing this with a movie camera, sure, but I want the team members to get used to doing it themselves so that they see the potential of short explanatory movies that might convey much more than stills and drawings.
So now that the iPad2 has been introduced with a video camera (cameras are also included in all of the other tablets shipping this spring and summer) I want to know: will the camera be the best unused feature of the new season?
Since we are excavating an urban center with existing architecture, the main environment for spatial documentation is CAD at PARP:PS. This doesn’t exclude the use of GIS, as they are easily interchangeable, but CAD is where our base documentation lies. We have always used AutoCAD but, like most projects, get stuck with sharing the dxf or dwg files that AutoCAD produces, with both people who don’t have AutoCAD or people on Macs. Our old workaround was to use Illustrator to open those files, but we lose the accurate measuring ability. There have been two recent events that have changed all of that within AutoDesk.
The first is their Education Community. Here students can get a free version of AutoCAD to help them learn the software. It even includes the new AutoCAD for Mac. With that I can send documents to our trench supervisors (who are all grad students) and they can use the files to help them write their reports. The downside is that once a document is opened and saved with a student version, there is a permanent watermark on the file that can’t be removed, even with the professional version of the software.
The second, even better method is their free AutoCADWS website. I have written about AutoCADWS and their iOS app before, but I haven’t focused on the web version. Here you can upload your drawings in (they promise) a secure environment. You can invite others to look, comment upon, and even edit the files directly from the website. The interface is also much, much friendlier than the traditional AutoCAD interface, and thus can be used by mere mortals.
This has already changed our workflow. While we still house the main drawing on our file server, we host a copy on the WS website as well. Our architect can work directly off of the WS website version (a plug-in for AutoCAD allows connection to the WS hosted files), and everyone else on the project can view and comment on the document. If they want, they can also download the document from the WS website and keep a local copy (we traditionally put the AutoCAD drawings into Illustrator to clean up for publication). The website has group features that allow for a chat session while two or more people look at a document at the same time, and has a timeline feature to allow you to step back to previous versions of the document.
The only downside to the WS website so far is that it doesn’t handle 3D. I assume this is temporary but since we have only published plans so far, this hasn’t affected us yet.
Field projects generate a huge number of photos. Those photos are also used at every phase of the project: writing field reports at the end of the project, research during the off-season, presentation of preliminary results in lectures, illustration for publication, and finally repository in (hopefully) some useable searchable form for others to use.
Too often projects rely on their own folder techniques. That is, someone creates a series of folders and sub-folders to hold the images and that folder follows them wherever they go. There are obvious problems with this approach. The most unfortunate is that the images never get cross-indexed. Whether you file things by date or subject, you often end up wanting a particular photograph for a different context. If you file all photos by trench and photo date, how can you find all photos of water pipes, for example? The second most obvious issue is that, if the photos are organized by subject, who does the organizing? I have worked on projects where the trench supervisors organize their own trench photos and then hand them in at the end of the season. The result is a series of folders with idiosyncratic organizational schemes that promises time wasted looking for a particular photo.
I have worked a long time to get a technique that fixes all of these problems, including the archival issue, and while it might look complex at first, once set up it is fairly painless. And it allows you to search for an image that you want without a database. Read the rest of this entry »
Paperless Archaeology 