ANALOGUE vs DIGITAL survey

While the science of surveying is much more technological and automated now, the art of survey still has a part to play, certainly in landscape architecture site survey. The physical human presence on site enables a visceral more subjective appraisal of the context and conditions obtaining there, confirming the validity of the old adage that you learn more through the soles of your feet (than say looking at a screen plan or photo). Even using traditional equipment such as tapes and levels has a part to play as it trains the student in consistently precise measurement and the appreciation of scale.  So it was that last Tuesday year one landscape architecture students on the Cheltenham course undertook a line-and-level survey of the campus front lawn and learned how to estimate tree heights using an Abney level and basic trigonometry.