Avoiding Paper Field-Checking

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.

Comments

[Dan Armstrong]

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

[Art]

Thanks, Dan!