All WildTools/TopoTools users owe a debt of gratitude to Eric Easter; without him TopoTools would not exist. Eric first contacted me about Paolo Rossi’s Topography Tools, saying that Paolo had a lot of good ideas but that the concept could be taken much further. I began working on TopoTools, and we had many video chats with Eric discussing what was involved in topography, the critical topo survey data from total stations, how to import and then process this to show topo contours and slopes, what a topo point object should handle, interpolating topo points, etc.
Then many other people got involved in the development of TopoTools, but Eric was always my resident expert who made sense of it all. Once in California we visited with Eric at his office in Santa Cruz and had lunch on the restaurant on the pier.
In creating this entry for the Drawing Room, I tried to get in touch with Eric, and I was saddened to learn that Eric died in October 2013. Eileen Leary worked with him for many years and reported “Eric struggled for years with his health and passed away peacefully with his family by his side last October. He continued to work up until his last couple weeks without complaint. Eric was a good person, and I miss him most everyday.”
I thought a lot of Eric, and I enjoyed working with him and learning from him.
Alfred Scott
Eric Easter [1956-2013]
Santa Cruz, CA
