One booth at the 2008 ESRI user conference that was truly fun and required first-hand demo was the Adapx booth where visitors could get a glimpse of the way cool Capturx technology. Essentially, Capturx for ArcGIS enables your field workers to mark up printed maps, bring them back to the office and have the data integrated directly into ArcGIS.

Here’s how it works: your GIS tech prints out a paper map of your field study area on any kind of paper you like. The print is normal in every respect except for a background pattern of tiny dots (millions of them on a grid) on the map – these are used to geo-encode your field markups. Using the special, digital pen your field crew then marks up the paper with points, lines, polygons, and notes. The digital pen digitizes and stores the handwritten notes using a sensor, image processor, and memory. The paper with dots is the key here as it provides a digital watermark that is read by the pen. Upon return to the office, the digital pen is uploaded via USB (this also recharges the batteries). The data is then able to be easily incorporated into MS OneNote or ArcGIS (via the Capturx ArcGIS extension). This demo was fast, simple, and way cool… the technology essentially selling itself. A definite “WOW” technology – simple and it works! See www.adapx.com