00:00.00 archpodnet Welcome back to episode 99 of the architect podcast and we're sitting here talking to Heather sorry we're so you're talking to Heather Mcdaniel Mcdevit about the her gis and and her gis work and and the stuff that she does at her firm. She's not a Gis specialist. But. This is just such a great conversation because I mean even if you don't feel like you need to learn gis in your life for whatever reason you're using Gis products and it's helpful to understand mechanism around this thing even if you just have a cursory knowledge of it. 00:23.71 Heather Sydney. 00:33.46 archpodnet Ah, to understand how these things are put together so you can better articulate to the people at your firm that do do these things what you need right? because there's always 2 different sets and that's what we were just kind of talking about is you've got the people putting data together. 00:41.22 Heather Um, oh. 00:46.97 archpodnet And and putting all these maps and things together. But if they can't put an output in that either you understand or somebody can understand in a way that you actually need it then everybody's just kind of wasting their time there and you had some more to to kind of talk on that subject Heather before the break. 01:03.10 Heather Sure, um, yeah, that's a really good way of of putting it Chris I think that you know it goes both ways. There's a lot of so when let's say you're trying to get an archeology job and the job description says that you must have some some kind of command of gis. 01:19.30 archpodnet Er. 01:20.73 Heather Typically what and a ah Crm firm is looking for is somebody who can create figures. Um, it's not analysis and so if you know if anybody's ever really? Um, you know, looking for a job and they look at that and they so. 01:28.30 Paul Um, me. 01:37.60 Heather Just being able to take yeah gis and create appropriate figures which are typically the same thing almost every time you want a project location. You want a a project vicinity. Ah there are 2 different types and this may be more specific to California where I work. But. I know you have worked outside of California too. We use those as well. Basically a overview where does your site project site fit in the grand scale of things and where then where is your site actually so so a lot of times that's more of a zoomed in. 02:10.54 archpodnet Sure. 02:12.47 Heather Um, where you can look at the the characteristics traits of the site and then um, then you have a ps site plan and those types of things and so most of those are just yes, you're you're working with Gis to communicate aspects of your project but you're not doing analysis. What's the difference between. Creating a figure and doing analysis analysis is just bringing in all this data and trying to figure out something that you wouldn't be able to figure out or wouldn't be able to communicate both figure out and communicate without a tool. 02:35.76 archpodnet Ah. 02:51.87 Heather They can take all this data and spit out things that overlap if just to make it as simple as possible. So you know if let's say 1 thing you're trying to look at the um you know predictive modeling you you put in the traits of the sites that you do know that are there and then. 02:54.64 archpodnet Right? yeah. 03:11.16 Heather You look at the commonalities between those sites and then you try to find that on your landscape in areas that you don't let's say you have a larger area ah County or city and you apply this. 03:29.79 Heather Um, you you apply this set of ah data that overlaps and you put it on your your um area that you're looking at and it allows you to have certain airs that pop up and tell you Okay, this. 03:36.50 archpodnet M. 03:48.86 Heather This fits your this fits your parameters here. This may have a higher probability of having ah a site. So all this is that's analysis. Um, you see it a lot in biology. Um and a lot of with Habitat and you know we're. 03:49.92 archpodnet Yeah. 04:03.43 Paul Move. 04:06.70 Heather Humans right? Habitats important to us too. So um, in biology I think Gis is probably used more more in biology than than a lot of the other technical disciplines if you work in an environmental firm that has multidisciplines. Yeah, so. 04:18.48 archpodnet Oh for sure. 04:23.43 Heather Yeah I mean I think that that that's 1 thing that people need I think a lot of people don't realize that when a CM company is asking that you have some gis knowledge is typically so you can make a figure and a figure is important but a figure's not analysis that makes sense. Yeah. 04:37.24 archpodnet Right? Yeah, yeah, it's more of a more of a representation right of of something right? and I like to think of it as yeah, yeah, and and I like to think of you know. 04:37.43 Paul No, that makes sense. 04:45.66 Heather Um, you know roots your communication of your findings. 04:54.27 archpodnet Js work is is more the end product and working backwards I do this with my my other job too I ask a client. Well what are you actually trying to achieve here and then I try to work the steps back to to create that result right? and you know Paul and I paul worked with me in my company on a project out in Nevada a couple of years ago and 05:06.18 Heather Um, event. 05:13.16 archpodnet You know we we another company was partnered with us to do the gis work and and also some of the survey and you know we basically needed to know well, where can we survey because the variables were slope. The forest service didn't want us looking at anything over 30% and then also. 05:20.53 Heather Um, right right. 05:31.70 archpodnet We needed to know like access and in you know properties and and then the segments that we were actually serving at that time because there was a lot of different segments out there. So those are all the variables and and they needed to have you know pretty high-solution topographical maps of that whole mountain range because there's a lot of topography out there and ah. 05:46.26 Heather Um, right. 05:49.35 archpodnet And then understand you know some other bits and pieces too and they put all that together and you end up with a map that says survey there. Yeah and we try to shade all those in. Yeah, so and that's all I needed. Yes, right right? exactly? so. 05:56.91 Heather Um, for me here. Yeah right right? are. 06:00.25 Paul Um, more importantly, for that was don't survey here because you're gonna fall off the side of the hill. 06:08.22 archpodnet It's so it's so handy and you know I don't necessarily need ah a heavy knowledge of yeah gis to get that I I need somebody and I need to be able to give them the information that I need and articulate it in a way that that I can use but also in a way that they can understand to provide the result because the the Gis department sometimes especially at bigger firms I've noticed I don't know how it is where you work. But. They're not often archaeologists right? They're gis specialists right? Yeah yeah, that's good. That's good so you can translate those you know those those differences back and forth right? You have to be that person that can interpret both sides. 06:28.61 Heather Well, that's why I's hired. That's exactly where I was hired I was that hired to be that liaise home. Yeah. 06:33.96 Paul Um, no. 06:42.30 Paul Yeah, that idea of being able to translate I think is really important Chris you raise it twice now about what's your end result you know if your end result isn't to have a drill. It's to have a hole the right size and the right place. 06:43.78 Heather Um, right right? um. 06:47.56 archpodnet Go ahead. Paul. 06:55.24 archpodnet Yeah. 06:58.44 Paul Um, and that's something that in it I was asking constantly. People would say oh I've got this problem and they'd tell me what they tried to do to solve it without actually explaining what the problem was in a way that that was broken down to the I tried to do X and Y happened and's you know So I'd always have to roll back all their. 07:00.77 archpodnet Yeah. 07:11.17 archpodnet Mm. 07:17.52 Paul Unk questions back to that point and ah and it seems to me that because we use gis so heavily in you know in its basic just using the tool form for making figures like Heather saying and in more advanced forms like what she's advocating for as analyses. It seems to me that that having people in. 07:17.88 archpodnet Sure. 07:37.40 Paul Business that can translate or can speak this common language I think is really useful. Um I just I would like to hear what what Heather has to say about that because I'm sure that's something she bumps into all the time. 07:51.00 Heather Um, you mean how to communicate what. 07:52.46 Paul How to communicate Effectively What the what the sets of expectations and goals are when you're talking about products that intersect with gis that either they're there whether they're figure creation or analyses but are part of that workflow. 08:02.50 Heather Right? right? I Think that's such a good I Good A very good question. Um, so just we we have people we have ah a fairly large gis. Department and we have some that we really prefer to work with and we have some because you know they either. They just get it. You know they've caught on they're into Analysis. They're very like detail oriented. They're really interested in Archeology. So Even though they're not archeologists. They love doing the figures because it. Gives them at least some kind of window into what we do. Um and then there's others that we've worked with for a while so they know exactly what we want and um so communicating I think the best way if you've never done gis The best way to think about it is that gis works in layers. 08:40.97 Paul Mm. 08:57.70 Heather And it's um and I'm going to age myself here but before Gi yeah when I was younger and I was into you know certain I was into like history. It was kind of nerd and I was hit to history and and I was always curious. Yes, we all were um. 09:09.69 Paul We all were. 09:11.23 archpodnet Who. 09:16.24 Heather I was curious. How a an area changed over time and I thought to myself you know I could take you know transparencies that you put on an overhead. Um and draw each you know have a map. 09:24.40 Paul M. 09:32.23 Heather Of each time period and then put those things on top of each other and look at how things changed so that was what was in my head and since that's what's been in my head. That's how I always see gis and so when you're looking at when you're communicating with a gis Analyst you need to explain to them. 09:32.46 Paul Yeah. 09:50.52 Heather What how you want your information layered. That's like very key um and sometimes I'll help you with that too. Another thing that ah, that's important is how do you symbolic? How do you use symbology to communicate so many different pieces of information. 10:03.14 archpodnet Yeah. 10:04.37 Paul Move. 10:07.73 archpodnet Yeah. 10:09.37 Heather That's hard and it you know, not everybody not every gis Analyst is good at that and that's where I think I wish that Gis programs spent more time on Cartography um than than some do there's There's some that don't spend hardly any and there's. 10:13.40 Paul Right. 10:19.46 Paul This. 10:19.75 archpodnet But. 10:27.90 Heather There's a whole theory behind cartography. There's a whole. There's an art behind it. There's some amazing books out there that are literal art pieces. You don't even know you're looking at a map and you're looking at a map if you're looking, you're looking at it you actually in your head your brain. 10:28.28 Paul Oh absolutely. Moving. 10:46.41 Heather Cognitive. Um, you know your brain tells you you're looking at the map. But if you just walked by it. You would think you're looking at a piece of art if that makes sense and so you know, um, you don't have we all think we have to have a box and we have to have roads and we have to have you know these these things that. You know every map has to have and then you realize that's not true. There's so much noise on maps that don't need to happen. Um, that's the art of Gis is figuring out what is noise and what is important and um, but then also with you know in the our business when you're working with environmental firms. There's also. 11:10.80 Paul Me. 11:19.30 archpodnet Ah. 11:25.54 Heather Has to be some kind of consistency so people expect a map to look a certain way so you can only play with it a certain amount. But what I love are those projects where we're actually working on a project right now where um, it's a really important village site near our office and at one point it was. 11:27.92 Paul Moving. 11:44.78 Heather Ah, it was an island in the middle of a very large slew and yeah, it's it was big and the island in the 40 s was just taken down by I don't know like ah it was I know three quarters of it was taken and used as Phil. 11:46.88 archpodnet But wow. 12:04.20 Heather To fill in a slew so they could have an airport there during wartime and so um, you know quite a bit of it's gone unfortunately but being able to communicate we have one figure that worked I worked with Gis quite a bit to show. 12:07.53 Paul Who. 12:08.39 archpodnet Um, um. 12:22.97 Heather Demonstrate How the island was that thankfully that didn't happen until like the 40 s so we have a decent amount of historic aerials that have this the the island and then where you know what happened to it and then looking At. All the different excavations that have happened. It's actually one of those sites that people would give their right arm to excavate at we actually happen to be doing a day of recovery at it right now and you know being able to identify the areas that have been looked at already. Um, take all the data that so that we know where we have potentially intact or known intact deposits and it's a lot of information on one figure. But I think we came up with a pretty good, pretty good figure that anyone if even if they're not um, archeologists have. Ah, can look at it and understand it. 13:13.42 archpodnet Nice, Well, that's actually a good segue because I wanted to do some of the stuff you guys have worked on or are currently worked On. That's interesting and has some some good analysis or analytical techniques and things like that or some fun maps. And we'll do that on the other side of the break in our final segment back in a minute.