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I’ve been doing F2f in one form or another since 1993. Doing F2f greatly reduced the need for detailed field sketches, and the advent of Google Earth pretty much ended it altogether. I haven’t done a comprehensive field sketch in many years. I will occasionally sketch some detail or another.
F2f is 100% worth the time it takes in the field. Which, after the operator becomes comfortable with it, is practically no extra time at all. There is a learning period but that is usually much more brief than the denier believes. It is true that there is a point of diminishing returns, that the last couple percent of every drawing just needs to be drawn in. You rarely get 100% of the lines and symbols in a drawing done with F2f only. But 98% is very do-able.
I encourage all my competitors to refuse to do F2f.
@tim-libs
Agreed. I’ve been using F2F for over 25 years at this point. I keep to simple lines and descriptions and take notes when I have some weird stuff going on.
I’ve also worked with people who write meticulous descriptions, which in my mind, could be avoided by taking an additional shot or two. To each his own, though
For me, I do my topo, and later take a 11×17 field plots out to mark up with the inverts, and connect all the structures on the plot.
It doesn’t take much office time to reduce notes for the inverts. Much less time, in my opinion, than having the field crew adding rod heights and figuring how to shoot when there are 5 pipes and what’s going where, and how to shoot so it all makes sense.
I 100% agree that F2F is useful for linework, especially when the person drafting isn’t the person performing the survey. I mentioned that I personally don’t, since it helps me catch field mistakes easier during the drafting process since I will be physically looking at every point I shoot. I am talking about the situations where I don’t think F2F is of benefit, and I would say As-Builting structures would be one of them. I am comparing reducing As-Built notes in the office to entering each measurement into a tablet on the fly. I just don’t think it’s worth the extra hassle on the field person to have it done in the field, since they already have their hands full with what already going on in an uncontrolled environment. As I type this though, I think that if it’s a 2-person crew in the same rig, the passenger can input the measurements into a program on the ride home if it’s a long enough drive.
My feelings on F2F are kind of like my feelings on Civil3D. Automation is great for a lot of situations, but for certain applications it’s a pain in the rear end or just plain not worth the hassle.
Lots of good ideas here to make the OP question take about 0.000003 secs:
https://automatetheboringstuff.com/2e/chapter13/
Question: for those that prefer paper fieldnotes, would a template not help speed up the field process, provide clarity, and eliminate blunders? It was usually an 8.5″ x 11″ and the crew chief would have a construction binder with a neck harness that doubled as a small writing desk. When doing highway structure topos around 15 years ago, that’s what we did.
When I worked at an engineering firm around 10 years ago, they set it up so that you would code everything and then export out a csv back at the office. You could then edit in things that you missed coding/scribbled in the field (ie. PVC, 300mm, “clogged with debris” etc.) with the point number. You then imported that csv file into Civil3d and it drew the pipe network with diameters, etc. That along with the comments were placed in a Structures Table. It was pretty slick. If you preferred paper notes, you edited the csv back in the office. If you preferred digital codes, you learned the code order so that the import “just worked.”
There are a few options
1) in CAD
you can create custom point label style that use simple formulas to pull data from your description and manipulate it to generate additional data lines within the point label style.
2) in excel
add your csv data to page 1 inside excel. On page 2 create a formula that copies the data from sheet 1 into sheet two, together with ifthen statements to see if there is anything in the raw description after a space.
the problems I foresee with this method are a) determining the point number to use for the newly generated invert point that is not all ready used within the project and b) problems with other point coding that might occur with spaces in it.Thanks! Yes, those are issues for sure. A possible numbering workaround would be to generate new points for the inverts but retain the field point number. When importing, it will ask how to handle the points and we could just tell it to add some large number. I wish C3D handled alpha numeric, we could add the cardinal direction of the invert to the structure point number.
Andy
@andy-j You can use secondary field codes, field 1, field2, etc. For cardinal directions just use numbers for each quadrant.
Or field codes…Field code: 700 = Sanitary, Material = PVC 1, diameter = 8″, directcion, East = 2
Point field code would be 718.2
Field code 2 would be Invert = 12.4′
N= 10,000.00
E= 7,000.00
Z= 100.00
Code= 718.2
Code2 = 12.4
500, 10000.00, 7000.00, 100.00, 718.2, 12.4
This is a data management task. Sounds like a Technical Session one could put together for a one of those money grab Society meetings…
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