Digital Calculations? 1

[Brad805]

I am taking a course online and have been watching the professor produce very nice notes with a digital pen. This got me to thinking about creating all of my calc's digitally. Given the current pen technology this seems possible. I did find one young engineer in the UK that seems to be doing so (UK ENG). I got tired searching for documents on my Samsung tablet, so for Christmas I bought myself a new Surface Pro 8. I have been testing this idea with Microsoft OneNote and I think with practice it can be done without any extra time. We had a very enlightening discussion about bluebeam not long ago, and I was wondering if anyone else has tried this and if so, what note software have you tried and what did you find?

 

[phamENG]

Microsoft just revamped their Whiteboard application which should be on your Surface. It's nothing special, but it works great as a notepad on my pen display and I've used it to produce a few calculations for my file. Most formal stuff I still write up in SMath.

 

[Celt83]

Onenote -- Awesome for organization and free flow notes, breaks down completely if you ever have to print anything. The current iteration made it very difficult to implement page size limits and templating, a work around is to open a notebook in Onenote 2016 set a default template for the notebook containing the page size constraints allowed in that version which will then carry through the next time you add a page.

Word -- same ink engine as Onenote, gain better print formatting but lose the organization from Onenote.

Krita -- gain custom brushes for things like drawing steel deck, CMU block, etc., templating, and ability to snap to guides for straight lines. Lose central organization.

Bluebeam -- The ink engine is a bit garbage works best for just markups, for calcs it works better if you use the annotation tools to "draft".

Drawboard -- Better ink engine than bluebeam but have had some long term stability issues.

My Personal Open Source Structural Applications:

https://github.com/buddyd16/Structural-Engineering

Open Source Structural GitHub Group:

https://github.com/open-struct-engineer

 

[dik]

Except for calculations done on my calculator that I save to a file, and store on my computer.

Rather than think climate change and the corona virus as science, think of it as the wrath of God. Feel any better?

-Dik

 

[IRstuff]

Some of the TI calculators, like Nspire can download their calculations into a computer. Only time I use a calculator is if it's going to take too long to fire up Mathcad or SMath.

TTFN (ta ta for now)
I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg

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[dik]

My TI nspire CXII CAS does exactly that...

Rather than think climate change and the corona virus as science, think of it as the wrath of God. Feel any better?

-Dik

 

[Brad805]

I use SMath as well. I am not sure there is many on here that have not seen one or two of Dik's posts about SMath.

I would like the ability to embed all my .pdf files from all software packages into one location. Far too often our projects follow an irregular path and when I go back to my notes they can be difficult to navigate.

Celt, I was wondering about the print option from OneNote. I figured it might be a problem. I will look at the other tools. Evernote is another I found mentioned. Thank you.

OneNote has an object converter that is helpful to convert hand sketches into objects, but I have not found it works as well for simple lines as others I have watched in videos.

 

[Celt83]

Evernote is a nice text aggregator but last I checked they abandoned their efforts on hand written notes, so you would need to generate the hand written/inked calc in something else export it as an image and then import it into an Evernote note.

My Personal Open Source Structural Applications:

https://github.com/buddyd16/Structural-Engineering

Open Source Structural GitHub Group:

https://github.com/open-struct-engineer

 

[rscassar]

Just when I though pens were going to be completely replaced by keyboard typing and CAD drawings, they make a comeback.

I love being digital and up to date with latest technologies, but there is no substitute for handwritten notes and sketches.

 

[JoshPlumSE]

I have a Template in Excel that I print out which is just just calc paper (1/4" grid) with room for a header and footer. I do hand calcs on that, and scan it into a PDF. Combine that with all my computer calcs and such in PDF with common headers and footers. It's great. Makes for a complete electronic submittal package.

Note: I haven't yet done this with SMath (which would just require some changes to the built in headers and footers), but I think I will.

 

[dik]

Josh, something similar... I print the Excel file to the desktop using Doropdf giving it a prescript of the project numberl; I then save the pdf file to the project... no paper involved. The nice thing about doro is that it remembers when you print select pages.

I use variables for my excel files at the front end, so I can copy half a dozen lines of code and re-use them, maybe 20 times.

Similarly, I can run a 15 page SMath and print out pages 13-15 and save it. I can then edit the sheet and print and append the output for the new 13-15 pages to the original file. I may have half a dozen variants of the same program in one *.pdf file.

Rather than think climate change and the corona virus as science, think of it as the wrath of God. Feel any better?

-Dik

 

[kissymoose]

JoshPlumSE - you can print your excel template to pdf, convert it to a good quality image somehow (I use bluebeam export) and then use that image as a new background for Smath. That way your hand calcs, excel calcs, and Smath calcs all have the same template.

 

[dik]

and cut and paste lines 38 to 83...

Rather than think climate change and the corona virus as science, think of it as the wrath of God. Feel any better?

-Dik

 

[IDS]

I don't understand this wish to convert hand written calculations to a digital format.

I have been doing my "hand calcs" in a spreadsheet since 1985, and I still think that's the most efficient option.

Doug Jenkins
Interactive Design Services

http://newtonexcelbach.wordpress.com/

 

[Agent666]

We use onenote for calcs (company has used it for 5-6 years I think with Surface pros and laptops, I've only been there two years), definitely sympathise regarding the printing. Takes a bit of getting used to at first writing on the screen, but like anything it is ultimately a lot more efficient than pen and paper. In hot weather when Surface pro gets really hot it melts your hand, so be prepared for that!

I tried word for a bit but you don't have the calculation engine that's present in onenote. So it was a hard ask to get others to give up onenote and change because they were addicted to it despite its faults.

Surface Pen works OK on surface, but once you get used to it typing out text is probably faster in onenote. Onenote does basic dumb calculations by typing out equations, but suffers from a lack of precision in some instances which can be frustrating. The ability to come back and change calculations or create templates and reuse bits and pieces is invaluable.

The best print quality I've managed to come up with ie to use Adobe pdf printer and create a print profile with the quality maxed out. Anything else seems even on max quality (I.E. Bluebeam) to just look like garbage (like you scanned it on lowest dpi with lots of compression.

Also using vector images helps a lot with printing quality if you need to cut and paste images into your calcs.

You also cannot use any highlighting using pen tool as it just converts to a solid mess with no transparency hiding anything you highlighted if you print to pdf.

Really need something that is a hybrid between excel, jupyter notebook, onenote and mathcad.... Unfortunately nothing is perfect for producing calculations the way I want to do it.

https://engineervsheep.com

 

[IDS]

Really need something that is a hybrid between excel, jupyter notebook

I've had a go at linking Excel to Jupyter notebooks via pyxll.

My immediate reaction is to ask why anyone would bother, but people who like working the Jupyter way might be more positive.


Doug Jenkins
Interactive Design Services

http://newtonexcelbach.wordpress.com/

 

[Brad805]

IDS, I am still not sold on the idea at this point. This is the time of year when I have these ideas since the temp gauge reads as the image shows below. 5 years ago I would have never thought I would adopt the electronic review of dwgs, but today the thought of printing, redlining, stamping, and scanning sound ridiculous. The guy teaching the python course produces nice notes in very short order, so that got me to thinking.

I appreciate the real world experiences Agent.

 

[TLHS]

I did the electronic pen thing on and off for a number of years. It never stuck because it's really not as convenient as a pen and paper to me. It's trying to force computers into a different paradigm instead of playing to their strengths. I was a pretty early adopter with a convertible tablet laptop 15 years ago.

I do the majority of mine in MathCAD right now, insert pictures from other software and then combine with reference material at the end into one big pdf print. It's not ideal, because MathCAD has garbage handling of photos and outside file references. I'd rather have my default environment be a math workbook. When I try to do it in notekeeping software I never get around to actually pulling all my sources into it, because the software isn't part of my mental workflow.

I thought about Jupyter notebooks last year when I was playing around with Python more, but it's a bit more screwing around than I'd like as my day to day solution.

 

[Agent666]

For jupyter, this might be of interest, it helps turn it more into a valid prospect for calculations following a handcalc mentality, especially if you already have a lot of your code checks in python already.

https://engineervsheep.com

 

[AaronMcD]

I'm with IDS. I almost never break out the notepad, and when I do (maybe once a month) it's just to do a quick FBD check, or an occasional perforated shear wall. I can then simplify it to an approximation on a CAD sketch or Excel file for city submittal.

If I need a sketch I do it on CAD - it's quicker and looks better than a hand sketch. Then I can either paste it into an Excel sheet, or just type out the calcs by the sketch, title the sheet, and print. For diaphragms, wood shear walls, collectors, beam key, etc. I just copy my CAD plan, eliminate unneeded layers, fit it to a sheet size I want, and use that.

I acknowledge that the type of project you work on might affect how much you need to work by pencil and paper. Most of my projects are custom residential, where it's often best to be quick and approximate with the design.

http://www.hellodwell.design