PDA or Laptop to assist on site?

[Nic M.]

What is your experience on making notes / sketches / appointments ,when checking -visiting the construction site?
Currently we just scribbel it on a paper and put it on computer once back in the office.
It works for the moment, but if we could optimise it...

Are the current hardware solutions up for the task (PDA, laptop, ...)

[aaronrumple]

PDA sucks. Way too small and under powered.
Digital camera a must.
Tablet would be a perfect solution, but boss won't buy one - so we use a laptop.

[PeterJ]

Nokia and Logitech both do a magic pen that writes on paper and then squirts a digitised image as atiff (I think) into your PC via a USB cradle. I have used a similar device from Seiko when I had a Palm Pilot as a way of getting data in quickly, but without losing it in the mass of papers on my desk. It was very useful, however it didn't work well with a Pocket PC that I replaced the Palm with so I stopped using it, it also had some odd issues with auto-power off and pagination, but once these were addressed it was good.

I am considering getting the Logitech Io as it is only a £1-150 and so affordable as a what-if decision. It comes with OCR of some sort too and can use templates that you tick to indicate to the software just what to do with the sheets it reads. The system works by using a dot pattern on the page and reading those dots so consumables will be expensive. I think a Black & Red pad was around £25..

PDAs are excellent for keeping your diary up to speed, but you will have a mobile phone too and a camera so why not get a hold of a Sony Ericsson P900 which will do all those things tolerably well. I have a P800 and although it has stopped synchronising with Outlook (a software conflict I haven't found time to address) it is very good. Certainly it frees me up a lot but you cannot use it or any of the PDAs I have owned for notes and sketches.

[Dimitri Harvalias]

A combination of digital and analog. I carry a set of 1/2 size plots (depending on the stage of construction it could be as few as one or two plan sheets, just to be sure I get grid references correct), a digital camera and a digital voice recorder. Talking and using one hand beats writing and I transcribe back at the office. I like the idea of a tablet PC so all the Revit drawings are available in point and click fashion but my experience tells me that larger electronic devices and rain don't get along so until the develop a waterproof PC I think I'll stick with paper I can tuck nto my jacket.

[Nic M.]

A tablet pc would indeed be ideal
but they don't seem to get a lot of credit in magazines and hardware reviews

99% of our work is small residential so the construction meetings are on site, standing next to the concrete truck,... not the right place for fancy technology
Maybe DeWalt would come up with a tablet pc in a flight case

[gregcashen]

A tablet pc would indeed be ideal
but they don't seem to get a lot of credit in magazines and hardware reviews

99% of our work is small residential so the construction meetings are on site, standing next to the concrete truck,... not the right place for fancy technology
Maybe DeWalt would come up with a tablet pc in a flight case

Panasonic beat them to it...

[hand471037]

I thought about buying a tablet recently when I was looking at laptops, and while it would rock to have one, there are only two on the market that I could find that are really able to use Revit effectively. Most of the tablets are set up for Executives running Word, not Architects using CAD.

Also those two tablets (Toshiba's and some other one I can't remember) were both well over $3000 in Revit Trim (gig of ram, decent 3D card, Centrino 1.7). While I would love one, I can't justify the cost yet. Also Linux can't make full use of the Centrino wi-fi, and at the time I thought I was going to be dual-booting the laptop (which I'm not, I now ssh to a home server and have it do my larger Radiance jobs).

I've got one of those Logitech Magic Pens. It's cool. Anything you write with it shows up later on the computer as a graphic. It's great for e-mailing sketches and such to people, and for taking notes. But I haven't used it in the feild for anything.

What I do when I do in-field as-builts is simply set up my laptop and Wacom on a flat surface somewhere, quickly sketch the floorplan of the space/building, and then run around taking measurements. As I do, I enter them directly into Revit as locked dim strings, and the model grows organiclly until it's correct. It works well. And it would go faster with a tablet, or an assistant.

[Dimitri Harvalias]

Iquickly sketch the floorplan of the space/building, and then run around taking measurements. As I do, I enter them directly into Revit as locked dim strings, and the model grows organiclly until it's correct. .

Sweet! I'll have to try that next time I do a reno.
Once again proving, it's not the tools but how you use them

[Nic M.]

Panasonic beat them to it...

Verry nice Tools
Not so nice price...

[dg]

I do building surveys and extensions etc, and got a tablet to enable me to take site notes which I could transfer straight to my main PC to draw up the plans.

The concept was to do away with the clipboard and pen and save a bit of time, I also liked the idea of being able to show an initial concept sketch to clients within a sort time of arriving on site.

I have tried Sketchup, Arch/Studio, ADT and Revit on a a TabletPC but its not as easy to use via pen and is best left to a laptop and mouse - its a bit fiddly when inputing numerals and trying to build up the model and navigate the screen. I also think current Tablets are very underpowered for CAD work.
But they are OK to demonstrate pre-made avi's and rendered pages..

I now use Visio 2003 to do basic floor and elevation plans. The drag and drop of walls, doors windows etc is very quick and easy with the pen. I just convert to dwg and transfer to the office PC for proper design work. Plus the screen layout of Visio is just made for easy use on the tablet screen.

In addition, any pre-drawn plans can be inserted into OneNote, and marked up on site with text and voice notes. Brilliant.

The only real problem with my tabletpc - a Viewsonic, is that the screen is virtually unreadable in bright daylight.

In essence the tablet is great for basic site notation and is a valuable time saver, but I would not recommend it for prolonged use of any CAD program - that is best left to your desktop PC. But having all construction documents, images, photos, and Outlook etc with me at meetings is great.

I notice that Leica now have a Bluetooth Disto, wich will automatically transfer dimensions to a PDA, and PowerCad Pro from http://www.givemepower.com/products/, will accept the info from the Disto and build up a model on the PDA. This software can also take voicenotes - so you can mark up parts of the drawing with a voice memo.
This may be worth a look.

Most of my work involves me measuring occupied homes and requires quick and accurate measuring. I think trying to input dimensions directly into a laptop and Revit, would take an unacceptable length of time for the survey.

I also have the SE P900 phone, and this has virtually made my PDA redundant for all but GPS use in the car.