Friday 15 January 2010

Contenta-images2pdf ~ Photo Printing

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Apart from the occasional Victor Meldrew moment, I occasionally like to share information or post about useful software I’ve found to assist me in my day to day non-CAD or BIM activities, so this posting is slightly off BIM and Revit.

The other hats I wear during the day are Structural Engineer, Party Wall Surveyor and CDM-C.

Now when I’m undertaking these roles, I have cause to produce Inspection / Engineers Reports, Site Appraisals and Condition Surveys.

These usually mean taking a large number of photographs and commenting about them within the report. Now depending on the amount of defects found and recorded/photographed the Condition Surveys can consist of a schedule that points to a vast quantity of numbered photographs, or if not too may defects or problems are found then it’s nice to load the photographs on one side of the page and describe the observed defects next to the photograph in Word.

Needles to say this can be prove to be extremely time consuming and ultimately expensive for the client, so I’m always looking for ways to process this information more quickly.

I recently found, Contenta-images2pdf, which is a simple and powerful tool to create PDF photo albums. It is simple to use because of its intuitive interface that gives you control over what you are doing. It is also powerful because you can configure important settings and automate common tasks.

In two sentences, here is how the software works:-

First, select which photos you will add to the album.
















Then configure how you want the album to look like. That's all there is to do!
















You have very easy control over how many photographs per page are printed


















2 comments:

Frances said...

Since you are a party wall surveyor, I'd like to ask how you remain "impartial" to both parties which ask for your assistance in their construction project.

cadalot said...

The appointing owner is the one having the work done and is called the Building Owner (BO) He/She/ They pay the surveyors fees to act for him he also pays for the surveyor to act for the Adjoining owner (AO) to resolve disputes if they agree or the AO can appoint their own surveyor and the BO still normally pays. Our Party Wall Surveyors (PWS) role and duties are defined within the Act see http://www.swh.co.uk for flow charts that explain the BO duties and the BO Surveyor and AO Surveyor duties