Mapping trees - new seminar

[Paul Barton]

Thanks for the feedback Gary - glad you got home before work on Monday! I'll make sure not to run another event on the Friday before half term 😫

 

Give me a ring sometime and I'll talk you through my current setup and the costs involved.

[Gary Prentice]

I will do soon.

 

Don't worry about my moaning, I'm a cup half empty guy - think its an age thing:biggrin:

 

Jokes aside. It was well worth attending for someone in my position, or anyone with their PTI whose doing some tree condition surveys/BS5837's and struggling with getting Tree Restraints/ Tree Protection Plans together. when you start it's difficult to know where, or how, to begin and there's a real feeling that you're going to spend a lot of money but may not get what's best to meet your requirements.

 

I hope you get sufficient interest to run this again.

[Island Lescure]

The 130 mile/four and a half hour drive home gave me plenty of time for reflection on the days discussions.

 

What I would have liked to have learnt was what data collection device and what software would fulfill my requirements, what I learnt was 'it depends!'

 

James England, the first speaker, from GIS Solutions was brilliant, explaining what GIS actually is, what to look for in the drawings we - the surveyors, receive and how to work round the real life problems that occur. His enthusiasm, knowledge and experience managed to entertain everyone til lunch. A bit disappointing that he wouldn't fly the drone around the conference room, but you can't have everything.

 

Mike Shilton, the Product Director from Keysoft Solutions, took the floor for the afternoon, taking us through the ins and outs of CAD. Attempting to teach a dozen arbs how to operate autocad in an hour and a half may have been a tall order, but I think even the more experience users learnt something to take away with them.

 

For someone with limited knowledge or experience of both CAD and GIS the day was a steep learning curve, answering many questions and creating a good foundation to go forward. Whilst not answering my own sole question - What do I need to buy to do what I want to do?, I learnt what the hard- and software can do and the key elements of them that I actually require.

 

Paul explained over lunch about the absence of training in this technology in current education and his desire to fill the gap by this event. Well, I would hope he went home happy, because I think he ticked the boxes in this one. If another day is organized I'd definitely advocate attendance because it was money well spent. Thanks Paul.

 

Edit: and it was good to meet both Paul and Island:biggrin:

 

It was nice to meet you too and Paul. Though as you say it was a bit intense and therefore there was not much time to just chat. I definitely agree with your summing up of the day.

I think what a lot of people surveying mostly struggle with(I am quite new to this so it may mostly apply to me) is data capture on the field that they don't have to copy onto soft formats when they get home.

GPS seems a lot less important for most jobs.

On the other side, the making of the plan; I think people are quite content letting a cad guy do a professional looking plan in a half an hour when it would take us(me, if at all possible) 2. This is all dependent on how much survey work one is getting...

Another thing I can point out for those that did not attend and are thinking about what to use to survey, or in this case to make maps with: QGIS is good for making tree safety maps, but it is not practical for even small BS:5837 surveys as you can't make uneven crown spreads and if your architect needs the file in a DWG or DXF format, you can't send it as a completed map (with north arrow, legend, scale etc...) as they won't be able to read it. I also have no idea how to modify a RPA(chopping one side and adding to another whilst keeping the same area).

As to what I am going to use to do surveys in the near future:

1: for data capture i will stick to using a spreadsheet on my Sony Xperia z3 tablet(waterproof, ok battery life) until I can find something more efficient.

2: I will use QGIS for tree safety maps

3: I will use a cad guy for BS:5837 maps and will look into some of the other options out there such as the basic PTMapper, but basically I need to look into this myself more when I have the time as I still have no idea and I cannot justify spending much at this time.

I hope this helps somebody and if you have any ideas, please share them.

 

Cheers!