Cam IncollFieldwalker has a dedicated mobile interface built for field work — dropping observation pins at your GPS location, recording notes and photos, and viewing your design layers on site — so the observe step of the permaculture design process happens on the land, not at a desk.
Permaculture design starts with observation. You walk the land. You notice where the water sits after rain. You see which trees are thriving and which are struggling. You feel the wind direction on the exposed ridge. You spot the patch of soil that stays damp all winter.
These observations are the foundation of every design decision you'll make. And until now, most people recorded them in a notebook, on a phone note, or in their head — disconnected from the map they'd eventually design on.
Observations belong on the map
The gap between "I noticed something in the field" and "that observation is on my design map" is where information gets lost. You write a note about the wet patch, but when you're back at your desk a week later, you can't quite remember where it was. You take a photo of the healthy soil under the oak, but it's buried in your camera roll with no spatial reference.
Fieldwalker's mobile interface closes that gap. When you're in the field, you open the app on your phone and see your property — the aerial image, the contours, your design layers — with your live GPS position shown on the map. You're standing on your land, looking at your design, in real time.
Tap a button and a pin drops at your exact location. An observation panel slides up and you write your note, snap a photo, record what you're seeing. That note is now on the map, at the precise spot where you made it. When you're back at your desk, it's right there in your design.
Built for the field, not shrunk from the desktop
The mobile interface isn't a cramped version of the desktop editor. It's a different tool for a different job.
On a phone in the field, you don't need 12 design tools and a properties panel. You need to see where you are, drop pins, write notes, attach photos, and toggle layers so you can check whether the contour you're standing on matches what the map shows.
That's what the mobile interface provides. A bottom dock with the tools that matter in the field. Bottom-sheet panels that slide up for pins, layers, contours, and a one-tap export that goes straight to your phone's share sheet. Everything designed for a thumb on a phone screen, not a mouse on a monitor.
Design work — placing swales, drawing zones, laying out garden beds — stays on the desktop or tablet, where you have the screen space and precision to do it well. The mobile phone is for observation and data collection. Each device does what it's best at.
Notes and photos that stay connected
Each pin can hold multiple observations over time. Visit a spot in winter and note that it's waterlogged. Come back in summer and record that it's bone dry. Each observation is timestamped and kept in sequence, building a picture of that location across seasons.
Photos attach directly to observations — snap from the camera or choose from your library. On desktop, you can drag and drop photos or paste from clipboard. The photo is linked to the pin, to the location, to the observation. It's not just an image in your camera roll; it's part of your site record.
The same observation system works from the desktop too. A Pins tab in the editor gives you access to the same notes, the same photos, the same pin list — so the workflow is consistent whether you're adding a note in the paddock or reviewing your observations at home.
From observation to design
The pins you drop in the field don't just sit there. They're part of the design conversation.
A cluster of "wet patch" observations along a contour line tells you something about water movement that the contour map alone might not reveal. A series of photos showing seasonal change at the same spot gives you the evidence to support a design decision. A note about prevailing wind direction at the exposed northern edge of the property informs where you place a windbreak.
This is the observe-reflect-iterate cycle in practice. The mobile interface is the "observe" tool. The desktop editor is the "reflect" and "design" tool. The same data flows between both. And the design gets better because it's grounded in real, located, timestamped observations — not memory.