Will PCs die for CAD/GIS users?

With what it has cost us to take out the drawing board from the office… Do technical drawing-men have to return to that position?

The issue is being discussed in general terms, and not without reason. I’m sure we’re about to see the PC desktop as the print post office, only for special mailings. This month’s PC Magazine dumped the heavy tech-smoked equipment on the subject, although its main line focuses on 45 ways to twit in every sneeze.

It’s a pity that is the farewell time of another, in this case Carlos Mendoza. If I had known about this, I would have sent him a message for a toast in honour of any Lennon’s theme in some socket corner during my chance with the bicentennial.

But in the world of graphics does not necessarily happen. To believe that the conventional PC die deals with the separation from the production and consumption of information. Or as friend fallen from the Canary Islands would say, raising the flag at bishops or being in the middle of the infantry.

PC dies for information’s consumers

It is now possible to access data from different devices, it is a waste even does so from an awkward – but right – position in the office, till up to hanging from the hammock with the Wii while children distract on the TV. Whether for entertainment, for helping the nanny in her social sciences task, for viewing the statistics of the blog or e-mail; a finger is enough.

And in our CAD / GIS environment, consumption requires no more than an Acer Aspire to open, print, and send to the barrel (datashow), consult or redlining using Bentley Map or gvSIG. On field, a MobileMapper 6 can deploy CartoPad and with it make editing before returning to Cabinet. As well as TV, nobody holds a license or special program, only a device to view it, with the variant of interacting.

Indeed. Consuming data does not occupy a GPU, because almost all science of this work is in (produced) data and in light interaction with them. It doesn’t matter whether these data are shape files, topology within a space base, or imaginary virtual stables.

It does not die for producers

But a user who works in video editing, CAD drawings or GIS programming definitely can not drop its conventional position in front of a monitor, which only has become flatter, less width and less harmful for the eyes. Not by data, but for processes where the business is, and this does not address comfort.

It is likely that graphic designer feels comfortable with a pencil in hand, as in the former days over a Wacom screen. But I doubt we can return to tilt a technical drawing man on a table, with the effort that took us to put him out of there and convince him to throw the parallel rule and swivel eraser.

I do believe that interaction and local storage devices will change as the hard disk and outdated mouse which is a literal 20 years dinosaur with its two buttons at the front; it hardly changed its ball between legs to a bright light that rises from the cervix. Those toys that make 3D maneuvers may make further progress, as well as flat screen that can make real time Photogrammetry with what so far we call 3D models, but remains in 2D representations. And with the journaling, the time component will add to operate in 4 dimensions, as in the real world.

But from running a gdi export line from the Geographics fossil to a Python’s clean routine, it will be needed a capable team to make us feel certain that we are producing new content. Just as TV, consumption will be light, but production will remain a conventional art. The processes will do, but not the data. So a mapping office for a long time will continue to have a head unit that navigates with light apparatus, with holographic keyboard and a monitor hanging in his retina; in order to supervise processes in his busy days and update his podcasts the loose ones.

But in the stalls, there will always be five guys in a marsupial position operating a PC to make lines from laser scanning in real time.

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And to follow Carlos, we should expect him to put back into the fetal position. ¡Si manches!