30th January 2011, 08:20 PM
kevin wooldridge Wrote:I totally agree. Leica offer very good courses in undersanding their equipment, but don't necessarily understand the way that the equipment is used (abused!) by archaeologists....for example they don't understand why we want to record polygons whilst most surveyors are happy with points and lines!! But what would make such a course really useful would be if it were also combined with an introduction to ArcGIS or Intrasis or something similar......Survey for Archaeological Ends.... all at a reasonable price of course.
Early on being involved with research projects experimenting with GPS, GIS and TPS (total stations) recording methods (see http://anthro.ucsd.edu/~tlevy/Archaeolog...202001.pdf particularly pages 23-29), I was quite keen to make commercial use of it. I began looking at training courses (as CPD) without necessarily having to enroll in a degree program (i.e. Birmingham Uni) to obtain the necessary skills.
I picked up from a conversation I had with a rep, that they didn't quite understand the archaeological approach and the application of their equipment. It's been a few years so things may have changed since then. But at the time, I arranged a meeting with a Leica rep, had a demonstration of some of their equipment mapping a side road to where I used to live. The equipment was top notch but at the time there was a lack of understanding when explaining my purposes. The chap was a rep, whose job (granted) is to make sales. Anything more specific he made reference to the Milton Keynes training facility. That's pretty much where I picked up on researching into prices and courses etc. Being an individual and not a company (as pointed out in Kevin's post) it was way to pricey for my requirements. The software package was a version of Geo Office and contained software that I would have to pay for and never ever use. Never having used it, I can't really comment on what the learning curve is. When speaking to a rep this issue would have to be raised to see what sort of training could be provided. It might be that training in ArcGIS or Intrasis or other user friendly data transcription software aimed toward the needs at the user end might have to be taken up separately. ArcGis training is also quite expensive. For me, affordability has always been an essential issue.
A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort.