BSLA Fieldbook BSLA 2014 Fall Fieldbook | Page 30

BSLA

/ TOOLBOX VIEWPOINT

TOOLBOX IN
A TABLET
No per s o n i s los t
with a t ab le t
STEPHANIE WEYER, ASLA

T

he beauty of the tablet is its
multi-functionality. Though
it might most obviously replace
Olmsted’s pencil and/or pen,
the tablet is also a shipping tube
through which designers may send
messages, drawings, and other
project work. The tablet is a photo
album, multiple albums… a library
in which pictures, documents, and
notes may all be stored, organized,
and called up with a few taps of
the finger. The tablet is a device
through which the user may both
locate him or herself on a map
and also create data full of shapes,
text, and images to describe the
surrounding environment. Finally,
a tablet is a promotional tool
through which a user may present
ideas to clients and send the latest
updates to social media followers.
The tablet is the toolbox.

Paper and pen, with a
battery
As evidenced by discussions
on LinkedIn and Land8Lounge,
some designers use tablets and
styluses to make quick sketches
and handwritten notes, both while
exploring sites and in presentations
with clients. At my firm, Kyle Zick

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BSLA

Landscape Architecture (KZLA),
we explored a free iTunes-based
app by Big Blue Pixel© called
Photo Measures Lite that allowed
us to draw dimensions directly on
photos. Sketching on a digital device
eliminates the need for scanning.
It is not unreasonable to imagine a
day when designers will sketch on
super thin, super light, yet much
larger surface area devices that
replicate trace paper and pen.

The tablet as data driver

In the same vein, tablets can be
used for note taking through typed
text, though some users may find
that the small keyboard of a tablet
becomes cumbersome when typing
copious notes. Fortunately, tablet
(and smart phone) technology is
increasingly offering programs and
apps, such as Evernote®, that turn
the spoken note into text. If the
user is collecting data, companies
such as ESRI® have created apps for
both tablet and phone that minimize
the need for typing. Rather, the user
prepares a data collection layout
ahead of time, and then selects
from dropdown boxes or command
buttons in-field. Data collection is
one of the tasks for which a tablet is
increasingly useful.

We use a map-based app called
Garafa© through which we view
our location, set points, lines, and
polygons on a map, and attach
notes and images to all of those
shape features. For instance, we
often set points to denote spots
with interesting views, draw lines
to mark social paths, and draw
polygons around areas where plants
are perhaps not succeeding as they
should. We also simply reference
data created by ourselves or others
while walking around a site. All data
transfers onto or out of our iPads we
make through iTunes. We transfer
the points, lines, and polygons into
GIS software (specifically, ESRI
ArcGIS® for Desktop) to make maps
and run analysis on data, and we

Inventory, analysis, and base mapping
are tasks common to most landscape
architects. While paper and pen serve
many designers well, at KZLA we have
found the GPS-based functionality of
the tablet invaluable. While the GPS
function is not as accurate on our two
mini iPads as on a device like a Trimble,
we find tablet mapping services to be
plenty good enough. For starters, we
are never lost in the woods.