About this project

Origin of the point-ID scheme

The 10-character point-ID string predates AS4QGIS and AS4CAD. It has been in use since the 2010s across eastern Austria for spatial recording, via ArchServ, an aging CAD plugin written by R. Thoma. AS4QGIS and AS4CAD keep the same point-ID string so that field archaeologists do not have to learn a new coding scheme, and so that existing raw survey data stays usable with the current tools.


FOSS

Spatial recording is a routine, everyday task in archaeological fieldwork. It should be accessible to every colleague in the field, not reserved for those whose institution or firm can afford a proprietary software license - the quality of a survey's or excavation's results should not depend on that. AS4QGIS and AS4CAD are released under the MIT license; the source code is open specifically to encourage its distribution and independent further development.


Implementation

AS4CAD reimplements the ArchSurv4QGIS Synthesis logic from scratch in AutoLISP - not a conversion of the original PyQGIS code, but a new implementation of the same point-ID scheme, shape-type spectrum, and attribute set, kept compatible with ArchSurv4QGIS output by design.

The code was written by Claude Sonnet 5 (Anthropic) through iterative, requirement-by-requirement dialogue with the author, an archaeologist and the domain expert behind every design decision in this tool - classification logic, symbol geometry, attribute handling, layer conventions. Disclosed here in the interest of methodological transparency, as archaeological tools generally should be.


Related projects

Two other open source tools cover related ground:



License

MIT - see LICENSE.