You could always carry it in a pocket.Originally Posted by JohnnyC
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You could always carry it in a pocket.
I actually just received a response from Sebastien. There is indeed a hole on the bottom for some bungee or cave line. It's not in the 3D model.
Absolutely it'll be stowed in a pocket until use, but I like to clip things off inside my pockets just in case. People lose enough spools as it is, I'd hate to lose this because it fell out while digging out some wetnotes or something. And in the event you need to briefly stow it, easier to clip it off to a d-ring than have to dig it out of a pocket again. Truthfully, it's entirely because I get twitchy when things aren't secured. Hold over from being a rigger I suppose.
Every dive thingy deserves a way to clip it in. Divers can choose whether to use it or not, but it needs at least that much.
I think this is a cool device, and it's a step in the right direction. Here's some quick thoughts, on it:
1. Don't stop knotting line. Knots are used for more than just survey, but ultimately the best reason I have for not to stop knotting is that my survey book has never run low on batteries, failed to boot, or had problems uploading data. The device is pretty cool, but until it gets widespread use and most of the kinks worked out of it then it shouldn't be considered reliable. Redundancy dictates we carry a book as a backup, or risk coming back with no survey.
2. Once people start getting their units, it'd be good to see some validation on survey. It's cool to see Sebastian testing the repeatability of the unit, but I'd love to see independent results as well as the same tests compared against traditional survey to see how they compare. Until some of that is worked out, I'd be skeptical of the results.
3. How do distance measurements compare? With a device like this, how much tension is needed on the line? In traditional dive survey we don't stretch the line, will the type of line we use give us different distances compared to traditional survey. It might seem petty, but we won't know how much it matters until someone runs the tests. Sources of error in surveys are important to understand, especially if you're trying to connect caves or find new entrances. Ask me about the time I spent combing the side of a ridge looking for a cave entrance that was so close to being there only to find glaring survey errors.
4. How does keeping track of tie-in points work? In dive survey, individual survey stations can be very hard to keep track of unless we are very clear about this in our dive notes. For instance, dropping an arrow is an important marker to keep track of on a survey. Is there a way to mark that an arrow/marker was dropped using this device? I suppose simply "ending" a survey segment would make it clear, and I'm sure there's a way to start and stop survey segments during a dive.
5. Is there an easy way to download the dive data to software other than Arianne's line? Like this survey tool, Arianne's Line is a pretty cool thing, but it's not universally used and won't ever capture the whole market of cave surveyors so it's important that it be easily useable by other survey softwares (like Walls).
This could be an interesting discussion, mods feel free to move to a separate thread if you think it's warranted. I'd love to hear Sebastian's thoughts on some of the above.
-Jon
Wish I had know, I would have ordered one also. When are you expecting it?
He said they won't be shipping until February.
I missed the first batch, mine won't be in until March.
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