The H-Factor

Reducing Entropy

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Recently our previous blog service (Typepad) ended their business – so, we have a new home. It will take a bit to get images back and displaying properly, but we are working on it! Final pageview count of original Typepad blog: 387,232

Using a Non-Standard Pipe Type in HydraCALC

A customer called today asking how to enter a 1″ black plastic underground pipe for the calc. This particular situation sounded unique enough that I did not tell him to add that pipe type to our database, as I would have if he expected to see this pipe type used repeatedly. I told him to…

Using the Hydratec Software Download Area

Hydratec uses ShareFile to distribute our software installs and updates. New customers, or those without access, must request access to be able to get at these downloads. Access is only available to customers with a Hydratec subscription or those on an update plan. You can access the download area and request access by picking the…

April 2008
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A customer emailed today with the following question:

"We do a lot of work in the field,
doing lots of measuring and drawing/checking the buildings where we are
working.  I would like to be able to enter the data we generate directly instead
of copying to paper and then copying from there into AutoCAD back in the
office.

I have never used a tablet computer,
but it seems like the right thing.  Does anyone there have experience with and
thoughts on what capabilities are required to do the kind of field work that I
am describing?  I understand that there are stylus devices that can be used with
tablet computers, or if there are other input devices (besides a mouse or
trackball) that I should consider I would appreciate your
suggestions.

Also, once I return from the field,
I would presume that this tablet would also serve as my desktop, so it would
presumably be nice to be able to easily dock the tablet to a large monitor and
regular keyboard."

I do not know of any tablet PCs that would be strong
enough to run AutoCAD. However, one option is to get Autodesk Design Review.

This would let you take measurements and redline drawings and then transfer to changes to your ‘real’ AutoCAD drawing back at the office.

If any of you have any other ideas, please let us know.

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2 responses to “Avoiding Paper Field-Checking”

  1. Dan Armstrong Avatar

    We use a Dell Precision M90 with 2gigs of ram and the Nvidia Quadro FX 2500m Video card. I also have a docking station at the office hooked to a 24″ LCD.
    We recently did a hospital retoro fit and used carts to roll the laptops around and were able to do most of the design in the field. Of course you have to have an extension cord and a cart of some sort. I just used a usb mouse and it works great.
    I usually take my laptop to every field survey and make the changes in the field. This assures you have all the info you need before you get to the office and find out you missed something.
    Good Luck
    Dan Armstrong
    Industrial Commercial Fire Protection
    Lucedale, MS

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