Hot take: I was wrong about using a 3D scanner on a dig site

I brought a consumer-grade scanner to a site near Tucson last month, thinking it would save time on mapping. It actually picked up so much surface detail that it made it harder to spot the subtle changes in soil color that mark a feature. Has anyone else found that simpler tools work better for initial survey work?

2 comments

2 Comments

dakota_burns961mo ago

Remember the tech is just a tool, not the method. Sometimes the best sensor is still a trained person looking at the dirt. All that extra data can just bury the signal you actually need.

sullivan.elliot1mo ago

Yeah the "picked up so much surface detail" thing is real. My buddy had the same problem scanning a dry creek bed, said all the little rocks looked like a million false positives. Went back to string grids and his eyes.