MerginMaps
suggestion/idea: allow initialize digitizing a feature/asset not from geometry first
When surveying assets/feature in the field there is a pretty common use case, one where there are some information/attribute that need/must be taken from a distance from the asset/feature, sometimes at 10/20 or more meters from it. Think about the need to measure the height of a building or a tower with a digital hypsometer and/or the need to take a picture of that asset/feature so that the whole of it is pictured in the photo.
As it is now the workflow is:
- you go by the asset/feature (frequently with your mobile phone/tablet stick to a pole with an RTK antenna on top of it)
- add the feature/point, fill the attributes that the form needs
- move away (10/20 sometimes even more meters) from the digitized point so to take a measurement that can only be taken from a few meters away
- go back to the feature, all the above by carrying with you some "heavy" equipment
When a technician has to repeat that tens/hundreds times a day it adds up to a lot unnecessary steps each day.
Yes, I know that with Mergin one can digitize away from the feature and then when the antenna is close to the feature click again in "edit geometry" and the position gets corrected automatically with the antenna position, but this leads frequently to the operator forgiving that he/she needs to do it.
A nice addition (and solution for the above scenario) would be an option that would allow to start editing the form without entering the geometry as first step of the workflow, and allowing to enter/digitize it further down in the form filling.
Hey @gioman, thanks for the detailed feature request!
We've actually been thinking along similar lines, especially when we added the option to create geometry-less features in geometry-less layers.
To implement this, we could add an "add" button to the feature list within a survey layer (similar to how it works for geometry-less tables). This would allow users to start by filling out the form and then add geometry directly from within the form if needed.
Would this solution fit with what you described?
@tomasMizera Hi Tomas! Yes, I think that would do the trick, with a pair of important things: adding the geometry must be of course made automatically mandatory, and then I guess that when pressing "add feature" the form would need to leave space to the map, so the user can actually see where he/she is creating the geometry.
Many thanks for your consideration.