21st April 2012, 06:45 PM
CARTOON REALITY Wrote:Just to be awkward . . . I draw by hand on site then scan and trace the drawings in Illustrator. They wind up looking like very neat hand inks. It's quicker than hand inking in some respects (great when having to draw hachures) but slower in others (wattle.) The great thing about it is that you can just start the digital tracing directly after the excavation ends without worrying too much about what goes where in what phase, that can all be decided afterwards once the stuff is on the computer. In the long term it saves time.
Also I would also argue towards hand drawing on site because a good draughtsperson will look more intently at features and therefore be more likely to spot details something like rectified photography won't - for instance reused carved stones built into a wall but obscured by mortar.
Each to his own, I don't think any of this is worth arguing about, so long as the people using the tools are doing their jobs properly.
:face-approve::face-approve:
As Jack knows full well there are a number of people in our office close to ending it all having spent the last month or so tracing over rectified photos of stone walls on CAD....Mr Smug here excepted of course, there are some advantages to being a technological Dinosaur
I've seen a number of instances where archaeology, notably skellies, has been photographed on site for drawing up later, only to discover than the smaller bones etc couldn't be distinguished against the background due to lack of contrast - bone-coloured gravel can be a b*****d like that...result - no proper plans! GET THE RECORD THERE AND THEN, rather than assuming technology will bail you out back at the office, you generally can't go back for another try!