Laser Scanning vs manual recording on site.....

Mrs. MacGyver

Hi girleens and boyeens, just back from a 3 week dig in Roscommon where laser scanning was used to record the dimensions/inclusions on the archaeological site. since the last time i was on a site was 3 years previous where the recording was done manually with a grid frame, pencil and permatrace. It looks like laser scanning will have a profound affect on the future of archaeology ie it can save days of manual work on site and lead to objective recording of the site. does anyone think this will make the work of the archaeologist somewhat redundant? Just curious as to what your obs are on this issue!

boneless

I'm on a site at the moment where everything is done in the "old money"... I say roll on laser scanning and EDM and such... It can take hours to plot in the old way and on sites were there is a time limit the more you can dig the better!!!

It is satisfying though to do the old measuring from a baseline though...

Mrs. MacGyver

I miss the drawing as it was the only thing i couldn't mess up on site!!!

boneless

I can relate to that... I hate the context sheets:(

Sealrock

Mrs McGyver.

There's no chance Laser Recording will make archaeologists redundant, if done properly it will give archaeologists the chance to concentrate on the archaeology getting the description and the interpretation right. Not only that it should also minimise the amount of fudging that takes place during post-ex when the plans are made to fit.

My one caveat would be that the people using it, know what they are doing and understand the process, I heard of a site a few years ago where they did all their planning by GPS and because nobody backed the data up, they lost the entire archive.

By the Mrs McGyver, what was the system you were using and did you think it worked.

Sealrock

Mrs. MacGyver

A Mensi GS101 laser scanner, controlled by Pointscape 3.1 software hosted on an Itronix pen computer was used to scan the excavation surfaces. It was carried out by 2 trained surveyors who were not archaeologists. It was an amazing resource, the digital mapping was amazing, really impressive and i tend to agree wit you that it will give archaeologists the time needed to concentrate on the important excavation at hand. It is backedup and the co-ords etc are downloaded and saved so no chance of lost info like GPS. Pity though that the rain affects the objective recording of the site. I think its a mighty innovation but as i said above i'll miss the old drawing & fram method.

boneless

Don't worry Sister... we will do plenty of the old drawing in our first few weeks of the MA course!!!

Trench_wench

The laser recording really does speed things up and takes away some of the subjectivity involved in the recording process. However I can't see it taking over, there are some major drawbacks, namely the cost and the need for a certain skill base. Also you can't scan in the rain, big problem for Ireland, and there are limits to what the scanner can do, narrow trenches and deep cuts etc.

boneless

Trench_wench wrote:

The laser recording really does speed things up and takes away some of the subjectivity involved in the recording process. However I can't see it taking over, there are some major drawbacks, namely the cost and the need for a certain skill base. Also you can't scan in the rain, big problem for Ireland, and there are limits to what the scanner can do, narrow trenches and deep cuts etc.

We had similar problems with Laser Range Finders in the Arty... and they didn't looking over lakes!!!