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Screen Shots in Lieu of Field Notes
What’s the point of drawing streets and lots in a field book showing located right-of-way points when I can just take screen shots of my project’s map view in my DC?
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28 Replies
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I happened to see this youtube by Adam Savage, of Mythbusters fame, about the value of paper maps just last night. I believe that the thinking applies to field book sketches as well. There is just something that things on paper convey that photos on (or of) a screen cannot. For one thing, a photo will show everything – that which is important as well as all the minutiae that is not. Your sketch will naturally emphasize what is important to the task at hand, and completely ignore that which is not.
Not saying that there is no value in photos. Far from it. I take them by the hundred. But there is a certain je ne sais quoi in a sketch.
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The rules of evidence often require contemporaneous notes to be in a bound book, no erasures, and pages serially numbered. I had that exact issue come up in a case a few years ago. The electronic file was allowed in because it was referenced in the notes. The hearing officer made a point of stating that he would give the digital data less weight…
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Gotta be a rebel, don’t you?
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I asked my wife one time why she was such a stickler about having her crew make a sketch of the site, she responded that if they could not sketch it then they did not have their heads wrapped around the site or the task.
I don’t always make a sketch but I have come to appreciate her perspective.
I lean more heavily on notes for narrative than anything else and similar to what Norman is getting at, I think that words hand written in the book have something special that a .txt note does not carry.
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While I agree fieldnotes are a good idea; I’ve been doing it that way since 1975. But, I don’t think we will still be doing that in 20 years.
I hope everyone has a great day; I know I will! -
For me there’s just something special about good field notes and a quality sketch when things get a bit involved. Just the process of drawing the sketch in the field book forces me to really think about how all of the facets relate to each other. If I can’t sketch it reasonably accurately, I probably don’t have any business laying it out on the ground for others to follow. I had a mentor whose sketches were works of art, all drawn to scale and just beautiful to behold. I lack his patience and attention to detail, but it’s the attention to detail the sketch forces me to work on and helps me to keep it all straight.
Willy -
Good field notes are exactly that a work of art. A way for the person to express what they see. However I feel a lot of notes that are mandated are out dated and unnecessary and time consuming. Now we still do sketches were needed and we still cary field books on every job and i have them in front of me when qa/qcing. We do take lots of pictures. My boss is a big picture lover. I told him he should scan everything every time as he wants so many pictures. If i could figure out how to easily get notes out of Trimble access even less would be in a field book. We can already take pictures of a point Or several pictures of a point and have them right in the office software for me to click on. Here is something i see as a product in the future. Surveyors will not only do a plat but also provide the new land owner with some app thing that as they where there fancy glasses or have there phones as they walk the property they will see the lines in that. So a husband can tell his wife we can’t plant flowers there sweetheart it’s the neighbors property.
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Thanks everyone for your opinions.
MH -
I don’t see much value in sketching out improvements unless there is something unusual about them that cannot be captured in the point/line observations plus digital notes for the points.
A photo of the improvements (stored with the field data and attached to the point in question) is plenty good enough for most office staff to draft and note something in a CAD package.
Now, if we’re talking about boundary monumentation, that does need to go in the book. But that’s only because as was pointed out above, for legal purposes we still consider paper somehow “better” than digital. There is no functional difference between putting notes into the DC and writing the exact same notes down in a book – only a legal difference.
Apart from the legal aspect, the most compelling argument for booking boundary work is to double-check what is entered into the collector. But just like blown rod heights, it’s more than likely that the bad value is entered in both places rather than the bad in the collector and the good in the notes.
I’d rather have the standard 3-photo set of each monument, taken at the time of observation and tied to that point in the job file, than the exact same description entered into the DC and the book. Those time-stamped photos tagged with the point number, depicting the monument and its surroundings should carry at least as much weight as paper notes. But since it doesn’t…we book those monuments.
“…people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think.” -Neil Postman -
I love me some good field notes. Like others have said, they require a level of thought about the field survey process that just making screenshots of digital data doesn’t. Plus, the level of description can be much greater: give me “3/4″ open iron pipe, 0.9′ high, leaning southwest, base at entry point to ground tied” over “IPF FND” any day of the week.
On the other hand, I still collect, restore, and use film cameras and develop my own film, so I’m firmly on Team Luddite in some areas.
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I’ll take the contrarian view on sketches or at least most of them. I am a horrible sketcher. Always have been…probably always will be. I only spend time on construction sketches because these tend to get shared with people that need to understand what was staked. Ordinary topos, I take about 20-30 photos of a site and that covers the site well with the details to aid drafting. I do most of my own drafting so this simplifies things. I have seen quite a few award winning great sketches of a site and it can be an art for those that are able. While they are practicing their art, I am taking some extra shots or spending some more time on calcs to back check a decision. Not saying any one way is “the” right way just that there are plenty of paths to follow on this.
—Dan MacIsaac, PLS -
Several years ago, I started using a small whiteboard in my monument photos. I write corner location, date, direction of photo, and anything else deemed critical. I note the photo in the book to ensure it will be allowed as evidence.
The demise of field notes has been predicted for a long time. Surveyors need to understand we are not going to force a change in the rules of evidence. Digging in your heels on this simply makes it harder for your client to defend his real property rights…
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All my observations are recorded in my field computer, haven’t used a field book in 4 years except for level notes.
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I still carry a field book, but for the most part all it has is job numbers, dates and a bunch of instrument heights and manhole dips. Occasionally I’ll sketch something that I’m not able to directly shoot, and rarely I’ll make a note regarding a particularly unusual monument, but everything else is either in the raw data file or monument photos.
I’ve only been in court twice as an expert in a boundary matter, and neither time were my field notes, raw data or photos even mentioned. It was always about my personal observations and conclusions.
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With regard to screenshots: while I don’t often need to refer to them, I like the Javad convention of automatically storing a screenshot at the beginning of an RTK observation (after the specified number of resets, elapsed time and confidence value have been met) and another at the end of the session.
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There is no reason to believe electronic data is worth less than hand written field notes. Both can be wrong, and both can be fraudulent. The judge only cares whether your conclusions are correct of not correct. There should be no discussion of the methods in making your determination.
Historic Boundaries and Conservation Efforts -
We use go perform rubbings on control marks the disk and make a sketch with reference marks. I guess somewhat similar to what i kinda remember doing in Colorado for monument records. While in the USMC we still did fill out Field books and forms. So forms for logging angles and distances for traversing and such. Then one day i was tasked with recording the time for different task to allow the officers above do time in motion studies on things. During the time with multiple different crews doing all the sketches and rubbings A light bulb came on. So i had them time me as i set up a total station and used the same compass to orient myself and did a little mapping of everything we were sketching. Also took a digital photo and back to the office. We re created the same exact form and i did the auto linework and measurements in terramodel scaled it to fit the form inserted picture. Not a nickels different in time once we had it down. One of the real smart kids wrote me some type of thing that basically took everything and automatically did most of the coly pasting and filling of form. We sent that with all the other things we had done and the bureaucracy took months going back and forth to see if it was just as legal and such. Like we could only use black ink to do notes period. Not even allowed a pencil in field books. They eventually authorized us to do this but now we had to do both. Hand sketch and digital. I ended up doing the same thing for traversing eventually as all the raw data was recorded and all i needed was it to be placed in the form correctly. Again we did both hand written and stored on the cpu on instrument. I have heard all the arguments myths. Hand written is more legal more accurate. You are less likely to write down the wrong rod height s typing it in. I say it depends. For me knowing i am dyslexic i would rather type than write. I catch my own typos quicker than writing. If I write I write and the book is closed and onto next shot. If I type it in front of me for all the shots and it might be a few dozen shots later before my brain sees it correctly but at-least I caught it. Now for a sketch vs pictures. Sometimes a sketch is wits weight in gold. It does force you to see the details pause ponder what you might have missed while running from one point to another. Also my crews take pictures and i have been able to call them and say hey north east corner of the house there is a well head I don’t see you located that. So both are helpful. I do like and we are slowly implementing it for property corners and other unique items the ability to take a picture and connect it to the point so as i am drawing or qa qc i can just look at it. To describe the monument better like it’s leaning east or above ground etc. I actually considered adding it as a attribute requirement for certain things but crawl walk run. My two crew chiefs have only used Trimble period now for 6 months so the learning is coming along. I have one who has used nothing but carlson and it has been a big change for him.
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@not-my-real-name The rules of evidence are consistent across many jurisdictions. If the other side objects and the notes do not meet the standard, the Judge has no choice but to exclude them. I’ve had that objection in a hearing and prevailed.
Take notes that refer to the digital files. Make sure they have enough common data to tie them together with certainty. It’s cheap insurance.
On the flipside, if you are arguing objections something else has already gone sideways…
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Had to find the old 2018 article again, but:
Since 2017, the Federal Rules of Evidence have specifically addressed digital/electronic evidence with two new items in Rule 902. Evidence that is Self-Authenticating. It seems that if an attorney isn’t able to get a licensed surveyor’s electronic field notes admitted into evidence as a ‘record of regularly conducted activity (Rule 803.6)’, then either a different attorney is needed or the opposition was able to show that the surveyor/surveyor’s records were not trustworthy.
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