Digital Sketching Contd.

Happy New Year!!! I wonder what the big news in the world of land planning is going to be this year. Certainly sustainability is going to continue to gain momentum as it all begins with a green plan. Explosive growth, particularly in places like China and Brazil also seems assured. The APA is offering a China Study Tour in June that sounds incredible. See http://planning.org/apainchina/studytour/

Back to the issue of digital sketching. The main question concerning the issue of digital sketching has to be whether land planners will give up the freedom found in the hand drawn sketch, in favor of a digital environment that may not offer the same level of creativity, but in the end streamlines their work flow. I am sure that the answer is, "it depends", but I would like to get your input on exactly what you think the critical issues are.

For instance, is it a hardware or a software issue, meaning is it the fact that a digital sketching environment will not have the same feel, or touch that will be objectionable, or is that he/she will be forced to conform to certain rules, no matter how well designed the solution?  Or is it a scale issue? I know there are some very large digital working surfaces being produced. Could these be modified to meet the sketching needs of the land planner?

A leader in the digital pen tablet arena is WACOM. For product info see: http://www.wacom.com/productinfo/intuos.cfm?gclid=CMezu87MwokCFTzqJAodHk1XTw

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