iDAI.field 2: A Modern Approach to Distributed Fieldwork Documentation

Title

iDAI.field 2: A Modern Approach to Distributed Fieldwork Documentation

Creator(s)

Cuy, Sebastian

Oliveira, Daniel De

Gerth, Philipp

Kleinke, Thomas

Schierenbeck, Julian

Watson, Juliane

Date

2017

Is Part Of

W. Borner, S. Uhlirz (eds.), Proceedings of the 22nd International Conference on Cultural Heritage and New Technologies (Wien 2017)

Pages

1-ago

Language

eng

Publisher

Museen der Stadt Wien – Stadtarchäologie

Short Title

iDAI.field 2

Zotero BiDiAr

https://www.zotero.org/groups/5293298/bidiar/items/FH5MZ828/item-list

Abstract

An archaeological field research database that can be used for different projects poses an advanced technical problem. It does not only have to deal with different needs of a variety of disciplines and methods like excavation and survey but also be usable for architectural or object studies. Therefore, a generic data model is required that can deal with most circumstances while also trying to maintain standardization where possible. Another requirement is the ability to support distributed work and data entry in the field even in places with no internet coverage. This creates the need for a very robust synchronization between the clients and the server. As the use of GIS is still gaining importance in archaeological fieldwork, an additional focus lies on the integration of spatial data and descriptive documentation. This paper presents iDAI.field 2, the field research documentation system currently being developed by the German Archaeological Institute. This solution will be Open Source and relies heavily on web technologies. It makes use of CouchDB/PouchDB for data storage and synchronization. The cross-platform client application is realized with the Electron and Angular frameworks using TypeScript as the main programming language. The client also provides an open interface for import and export. This allows the integration of other fieldwork software like for example QGIS, iDIG and survey2gis into the toolchain.