Having spent the last couple years concentrating on my license, most of my time and energy has been spent on legal principles, state regulations (Massachusetts), and standards of practice. Speaking with a friend of mine the other day who uses GNSS, specifically RTK, I’ve come to realize how little I actually understand of Geodesy. I’ve been doing static GPS for a while using OPUS with good results, but now I’m looking to get a little more involved.
Does anyone know of any course work in the northeast, maybe online, or decent reading material they can recommend? I’ve read some of the NOAA manuals, Basic Geodesy, Geodesy for the layman, etc.. , but maybe there’s a more recent text using examples from modern GPS applications. Thanks in advance.
-V
Howdy,
I recommend
Required Textbook: Geodesy for Geomatics and GIS Professionals (Second Edition), by James A. Elithorp, Jr and Dennis D. Findorff, XanEdu Original Works, Ann Arbor, 2009. ISBN 13: 978-1-58152-658-5, ISBN 10: 1-58152-658-X http://www.xanedu.com/copley/elithorp.shtml
NAVSTAR Global Positioning System Surveying - USACE Engineering Manual. Download from http:// 140.194.76.129/publications/eng-manuals/
GPS Positioning Guide (University of New Brunswick Lecture Notes 58). Download from: http:// gge.unb.ca/Pubs/LN58.pdf
The textbook is less than $100, the last two are free downloads.
The Ohio State University geodesy program has posted a large number of their dissertations ans technical reports on line for free download.
I teach the undergraduate course in geodesy at Texas A&M U-Corpus Christi and maintain a publically accessible course web page. It is found here: http://geodesyattamucc.pbworks.com/w/page/13931102/FrontPage this is an "in person" course so the materials are not intended to be "stand alone".
HTH,
DMM
Penn State Wilkes-Barre
http://wb.psu.edu/Academics/Degrees/surveyingcertificate.htm
Penn State has three online Geodesy and GPS courses.
What is your education background to date?
There are three reference texts for the first course:
•Smith, James R.Introduction to Geodesy: The History and Concepts of Modern Geodesy. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
•Halliday, David, Resnick, Robert, and Walker, Jearl. Fundamentals of Physics. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (Having had 3 college physics courses as an engineer, I agree on this inclusion)
•Torge, Wolfgang, GEODESY, 2nd Ed., de Gruyter, New York, NY. (I have and use)
Contact Dr. Chuck Ghilani cghilani@psu.edu <cghilani@psu.edu 570-675-9127 to discuss any recommended prerequisites.
Twelve years ago before these classes were online it was easier for me to drive to NJIT Newark, NJ.
Paul in PA
Penn State Wilkes-Barre
Howdy,
You may it interesting that Torge's (now with Jurgen Muller) Geodesy text is now in its fourth edition. It includes the tag "Graduate." I would not recommend it to someone looking for a "Geodesy for Dummies."
Cheers,
DMM
Penn State Wilkes-Barre
BS in Civil. Extended coursework in survey. Other than a few seminars, no real GPS training.
-V
Excellent. Thanks for the links. I will check them out. I looked at a few of your class overheads. Seems like a fun class, too bad I'm a few miles away.
-V
Penn State Wilkes-Barre
> Howdy,
>
> You may it interesting that Torge's (now with Jurgen Muller) Geodesy text is now in its fourth edition. It includes the tag "Graduate." I would not recommend it to someone looking for a "Geodesy for Dummies."
>
> Cheers,
>
> DMM
Exactly what I was thinking....Torge's book is not for beginners. The Smith book is great on the general concepts and perfect for getting your feet wet on the subject.
ANdy
Geodesy For Dummies Is Called Plane Surveying
Plane surveying is 2 dimensional.
Plane surveying with elevations is 3 dimensional/
Spherical geometry is 3 dimensional but more complex.
Ellipsoidal geometry is 3 dimensional but even more complex.
Surveying on the geoid adds a 4th dimension, gravity.
Accounting for refraction involves the curvature of the earth's atmosphere and gravity.
GPS requires inculding the dimension of time.
For geodesy to be acuurate one must account for the rotation of the earth, since rotation is an acceleration, time is now squared.
Precise geodesy is sufficiently accurate that one must also account for Einsteinian physics and the speed of light.
So how simply can we explain 6 to 8 dimensions?
Early in my engineering education I started a course in Topology, (the mathematics of multiplly curved surfaces, rotational ellipsoids and parabaloids and toruses). Do you know that those complexly curved concrete cooling towers you see are simply a series of straight lines? I then switched to Civil Engineering where it was assumed that things were usually simple and stationary.
Paul in PA
Then You Want All Three (or 4) Courses
The First texts I posted were for SUR 351.
SUR 441 text is:
Wolf, Paul R. and Ghilani, Charles D. Adjustment Computations: Statistics and Least Squares in Surveying and GIS. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (I have that from class)
There is a prerequisite for the above, as I said talk with Ghilani.
SUR 451 text is:
Hofmann-Wellenhof, Lichtenegger and Collins. GPS: Theory and Practice. 5th Ed. Springer-Verlag, New York, NY. (Also have from class)
Paul in PA
Geodesy For Dummies Is Called Plane Surveying
That dummies thing was a joke, I'm sure you caught on. I should have used the sarcasm text.
-V
Howdy again,
In your neck if the woods, one of MIT 's contribution to OCW is http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/earth-atmospheric-and-planetary-sciences/12-215-modern-navigation-fall-2006/index.htm by Thomas Herring. It is excellent. Gilbert Strang's Intro to Linear Algebra is also highly recommended.
BTW, I never found the Dummies books very useful. Finding the appropriate level to present complex topics with an audience at widely varying levels of preparation is challenging.
Cheers,
DMM
One last note, the geodesy course may be migrated to on-line in the next few years.
You can take the course taught from the book "Geodesy for Geomatics and GIS Professionals" from one of the authors online from Great Basin College. I just did it last fall. Don't expect it to be easy and you will learn quite a lot.
You may find some very useful material in the NGS webinars -- http://www.ngs.noaa.gov/corbin/online_learning.shtml
Nice course syllabus. Thanks for posting the link.
Thanks for the post, I just reviewed your course; "Class 17: 27 March 2013 - NAVD 88 and Vertical Datums in the United States" and enjoyed it very much. A great refresher for an "old" surveyor. Even at 62 learning is still fun.
Have a great week! B-)
Having spent the last couple years concentrating on my license, most of my time and energy has been spent on legal principles, state regulations (Massachusetts), and standards of practice. Speaking with a friend of mine the other day who uses GNSS, specifically RTK, I??ve come to realize how little I actually understand of Geodesy. I??ve been doing static GPS for a while using OPUS with good results, but now I??m looking to get a little more involved.
Does anyone know of any course work in the northeast, maybe online, or decent reading material they can recommend? I??ve read some of the NOAA manuals, Basic Geodesy, Geodesy for the layman, etc.. , but maybe there??s a more recent text using examples from modern GPS applications. Thanks in advance.
-V
ardusimple.com?ÿ I got the survey kit and I run field genius 11 on a windows 10 tablet.?ÿ I love it
I use MaCORS and my phones wifi hotspot for the rtk reference
GPS for Land Surveyors 3rd Edition, Jan Van Sickle
Basic GIS Coordinates 3rd Edition, Jan Van Sickle
Geodesy for Geomatics and GIS Professionals, by James A. Elithorp, Jr., Dennis D. Findorff
To get started and no cost except for your time. ?ÿGo to ?ÿNGS website under there training. There are free presentations you can listen to and watch covering datums projections etc. also many documents on websites defining nad83 even for each state. ?ÿOld documents. ?ÿGeodesy for the layman is a great book I have read over the years. ?ÿWhats good is the wife just posted something on Linked in about how you can get the ceu credits for the old classes. ?ÿIts a great resource. ?ÿ?ÿ
@paul-in-pa also a gruyter book, satellite geodesy by gunter seeber
