Just finished reading the article about surveying and mappingin Professional Surveyor.
I would be interested in thoughts, especially from the Florida surveyors.
Oregon law is very similar, there is nothing in our law that says hey Mr. Unlicensed, if you only measure to x meters you are golden, BUT if you measure to less than x meters you are violating the surveying laws. It is a misconception by almost everyone BUT surveyors about that concept, just like Florida, the police out here survey accident scenes with TS and scanners and so on, in fact there is a article in The American Surveyor this month that describes the use of GPS for mapping accident scenes in Canada by the RMCP.
I think the author of the Professional Surveyor article makes some valid points about tons of activities that we try to make surveying, BUT it is probably too late to chase that horse for surveying exclusively.
One issue that I can see is that aerial camera systems, aerial LiDAR systems and mobile mapping systems are so expensive that they are cost prohibitive to only keep working in a single state or two, those folks are all ready roving and performing mapping work, are they violating the law? I know for a fact that many aerial acquisition firms are processing their own airborne control (nothing more than positioning an aircraft using post processed kinematic, yes the same tools we use), are they practicing surveying without a license? If so, I think external market forces will demand a correction, I say as surveyors we either need to be proactive in the effort as the author suggests or we are going to get what others dictate to us.
It may be that a licensed professional does need to be in charge of these activities (and I think surveyors are the logical folks to do that), however I think this could be handled by a national surveying license, I fail to see how these activities are state specific.
SHG
In CA a surveyor's license is needed if the mapping shows boundary lines or contours or if the principles of photogrammetry are involved.
As it should be. The public should have the protection of State laws requiring that the mapping was performed by someone competent in the principles of photogrammetry, topographic mapping and/or relating physical features to boundaries.
Is photogrammetry or topographic mapping state specific? I contend that state to state this is the same, any PLS or perhaps a new federal license would be adequate. Is a contour the same in California as Maine?
SHG
The author of the article states this towards the end: "What I am is a proponent of the regulation of the surveying profession at a national level, where there can be one such profession, not 50, and the formal recognition of a mapping profession that exists separate from the surveying profession."
I think I can agree in concept with that for ALL classical surveying EXCEPT boundary.
Can any currently Licensed Land Surveyor tell me why anything we do EXCEPT boundary law should be different from one state to the next? A state driver's license allows you to drive in all 50 for the class of vehicle you are licensed to drive in your home state, I see little difference in surveying outside of boundary law, either any state PLS should be adequate OR institute a national PLS designation for all "surveying" activities nationwide EXCEPT bounday work. I know at least one western state that considers ONLY boundary / property rights surveying as surveying, the Board has told me that topo, stakeout, control, etc. is not regulated.
A partial list of tasks that in many states require a PLS, BUT which don't vary enough to worry about from one jurisdiction to the next, in other words if you have a level of competence in one state, why don't you have that same competence when you cross a political boundary?:
Topo
Stakeout
Machine Control
Aerial Mapping Control
Geodetic Control
LiDAR work to include terrestrial, aerial and mobile
Photogrammetry
Deformation monitoring
There was already a couple attempts this year to basically eliminate surveyors from the licensing laws at the state level. I think we either wake up and join into some proactive discussion or we will see an even greater erosion of our "protected" status.
SHG
> Oregon law is very similar...
Oregon Law is so vague that it is almost unenforceable. That is why virtually every OSBEELS case against surveyors involves failure to file.
> ....I say as surveyors we either need to be proactive in the effort as the author suggests or we are going to get what others dictate to us.
That was already done a few years back when the "Practice of Surveying" was redefined.
If I'm not mistaken, some of the Canadian provinces have a two tiered license system where the first level is basically measuring and mapping and the second level is "legal" (boundary) surveying. I'd love to see a system like this in the US where the first tier license is portable from state to state.
I think a lot of the emphasis on "protecting the public" by state licensing boards is just market restriction. I can see no possible argument that the citizens of Maryland are in any way "protected" by allowing me to perform a deformation survey of a dam spillway and prohibiting John Hamilton from doing the same job.
Well, certainly food for thought. Seems like a hard sell considering it would require a new federal oversight effort (read federal $$) with authority to supercede existing state control. I'm guessing the few number of licensees would not cover the $$ necessary to perform the nationwide oversight.
I see it as step away from providing consumer protection. Plus it will be more of a disadvantage to the surveyors (and civil engineers in CA) who would then be subject to federal regulation for some of their duties, while state regulation for others.
Chewing on this, but it is not something that appears to benefit the public or profession as a whole, but rather just a few individuals who specialize in aerial mapping. But maybe that's me coming from a large state where I have little to no need for licensing in other states.
As to the question of state specific duties vs duties common to all states, well you could say the same for the branches of engineering, doctors, dentists, hair care professionals, mechanics.....etc. etc. Why then not make all business licensing a federal function?
Anyways, at first shot, this doesn't look like a battle I'm going to support.
Agreed
SHG
Apparently the author of the article thinks Florida is also vague, however the Florida Board had a different opinion and refused to elaborate further.
There have for a fact been unlicensed individuals in Oregon performing airborne GPS processing and LiDAR QC ground checks over the past few years, not sure if that is any longer true, but it has happened in the past. Is that surveying by the "vague" Oregon law? I say yes, however you are correct in that I have yet to see any cases before the Oregon Board.
Interesting side note, in the last Washington Board newsletter, hydrographic mapping in Washington is required to be performed under direction of a Washington PLS, remotely measuring contours below water is the same as remotely measuring contours from an aircraft in my view, neither one of which is different in any of the 50 states in my opinion.
SHG
I have been a map maker sincs 1969. The U. S. Army assigned me an MOS of 81C and I have been at it ever since.
I am not a surveyor, nor will I ever claim to be. It's not what I do. Oh, I have spent my time being drug through the woods by some big Bozo on the other end of a steel tape.
I have spent time bending over a light table with a sapphire tipped engraving tool, peeling peelcoats, and hours running a photo lab.
When my company first started, we had our own twin engine air craft loaded up with a Wild aerial camera. I have made tons of scaled, rectified photo enlargements from that film along with glass plates for our Kelsh plotters. The costs of pulling anuals on a twin engine aircraft and having that camera calibrated anually got cost prohibative.
I say all of that to say this: EVERY map I ever made depended on reliable horizontal and vertical control points set by survey crews. We set aerial targets to control each and every model that was set up in the Kelsh plotters. There is no other way to do it. Not and have any accuracy at all.
The idea of flying LIDAR and somehow "rubber sheeting" it to some source strikes me as a bit "iffy". Perhaps not all crews do it this way, but I have heard of it.
Bottom line is that you cannot produce any kind of accurate mapping without accurate ground control set by competent surveyors.
I see no reason to combine the title, but I would like to see certification by state boards that the tested surveyor understand how to lay out control for mapping projects.
We went through a lot of pilots that claimed that they were "mapping pilots". If you cannot stay on the predetermined flight lines, you are not a mapping pilot. If you do not know how to figure target locations and forward and side lap computations, then perhaps mapping is not for you.
Either way, the surveyor must be the controlling element in this issue or we will have people running "boundary surveys" off of Google Earth images. The GIS folks are pushing for a system very similar to that.
The Standards of Quality are getting lower every day. Look at what the Corps
of Engineers did to their drafting "satandards" from 1969 to today. The current manual is awful. They had it down to an art form, now they create "sketches".
> If I'm not mistaken, some of the Canadian provinces have a two tiered license system where the first level is basically measuring and mapping and the second level is "legal" (boundary) surveying. I'd love to see a system like this in the US where the first tier license is portable from state to state.
>
I believe Australia has the two tier system that you describe, I would favor that.
> I think a lot of the emphasis on "protecting the public" by state licensing boards is just market restriction.
Agreed
The activity you described doing is called surveying in some states and requires a PLS license to perform said duties.
I believe strongly that a PLS needs to oversee the "control" portion of mapping. I also believe it shouldn't require a PLS in all 50 states if you work for a firm or agency that compiles mapping data in more than one state. I ask again, how is it different in one state to the next and how is the public protected or not protected if I don't have a license in the state next door, but have proved competency in some other state? Not talking boundary here, if I was only doing boundary, I would limit myself to not only one state, BUT probably a geographic region in a state, it varies so much from even county to county. A control survey does not, to my knowledge, if I am wrong, I would gladly like to be educated as to what the differences are.
The industry is changing, Trimble/Applanix now offer the "RapidOrtho high-performance workflow option for the Digital Sensor System, a complete airborne digital mapping system for rapid response and commercial mapping applications. The streamlined workflow delivers rapid, highly-accurate orthorectified imagery without the need for time-consuming and expensive ground survey." (copied off of their web site, the eliminating the expensive ground survey is their words, not mine, I am not convinced you can map anything without some ground control, if you want the end product to fit the ground that is.) An aerial acquisition firm who may of traditionally used ground control and or airborne data processed by a surveyor can now dispense with that expensive surveyor entirely! Where is the oversight by a PLS in the process? If someone buys a system and starts flying without a surveyor does it matter, is the public protected? This equipment is being sold and used right now and I will venture in most cases without a surveyor being involved.
I still think the author of the article brings up some valid points, and ones that probably shouldn't be ignored by the surveying profession. If we ignore some of the points he makes, others will decide for us what requires a license and what kind of license if any.
SHG
Is Mapping = Surveying? -> Canada
Since someone brought up the wonders of Canada in this thread, I thought that I'd share this post that I recently uploaded to the LinkedIn Geomatics group...
To put a provincial legislative spin on it, the scope of both the 'practice of surveying' and the 'practice of land surveying' are defined in the 'Land Surveyors Act' in Alberta.
Among the distinctions is that the latter contains clauses that deal specifically with surveys related to boundaries; the former deals with just about everything else as well as land surveying. The act adds that a land surveyor 'may' engage in the 'practice of surveying'...but no person other than an Alberta Land Surveyor, surveyors corporation or surveyors partnership shall engage in the 'practice of land surveying'.
The result is that in this jurisdiction anyone can perform a 'survey' that does not include boundary delineation or any distance/direction to a boundary where the relative position of a thing can be determined. This would include much of the work for geodesists, photogrammetrists, mappers, geomagicians, etc.
The act does go on to restrict usage of '...any title, name, description, abbreviation, letter or symbol representing the name Alberta Land Surveyor, surveyor or land surveyor to a licensed Alberta Land Surveyor.
And nowhere is the term "Geomatics" mentioned in the act. But in a simple Euler diagram kind of a way, the act does essentially codify 'land surveying' as a subset of 'surveying' with the latter commonly referred to as 'Geomatics' up here.
I would say Florida's definition of what constitutes surveying and mapping is most definitely NOT vague:
From Chapter 472, F.S.:
(4)(a)?“Practice of surveying and mapping” means, among other things, any professional service or work, the adequate performance of which involves the application of special knowledge of the principles of mathematics, the related physical and applied sciences, and the relevant requirements of law for adequate evidence of the act of measuring, locating, establishing, or reestablishing lines, angles, elevations, natural and manmade features in the air, on the surface and immediate subsurface of the earth, within underground workings, and on the beds or surface of bodies of water, for the purpose of determining, establishing, describing, displaying, or interpreting the facts of size, shape, topography, tidal datum planes, legal or geodetic location or relocation, and orientation of improved or unimproved real property and appurtenances thereto, including acreage and condominiums.
(b)?The practice of surveying and mapping also includes, but is not limited to, photogrammetric control; the monumentation and remonumentation of property boundaries and subdivisions; the measurement of and preparation of plans showing existing improvements after construction; the layout of proposed improvements; the preparation of descriptions for use in legal instruments of conveyance of real property and property rights; the preparation of subdivision planning maps and record plats, as provided for in chapter 177; the determination of, but not the design of, grades and elevations of roads and land in connection with subdivisions or divisions of land; and the creation and perpetuation of alignments related to maps, record plats, field note records, reports, property descriptions, and plans and drawings that represent them.
Perhaps the author only read the definition in 5J-17.050 F.A.C.:
(12) Surveying and Mapping: a process of direct measurement and analysis specifically designed to document the existence, the identity, the location, and the dimension or size of natural or artificial features on land or in the air, space or water for the purpose of producing accurate and reliable maps, suitable for visualization if needed, of such documentation.
I just read the article last night. It was well-written and it raised some good points. Quite a little brou-ha-ha going on between author and FSMS. I think I would like to hear their side before I make any strong judgements one way or the other. But author sure raised some good questions. Extra good questions about the (paraphrasing) "paradox of state law enforcement officers performing surveying contrary to state law".
As I am now working at a company that specializes in LIDAR mapping, and am providing GPS control to the choppers, I see it is incumbent on me to explore this issue fully.
Also, I am a Florida PSM. I personally haven't been sent to Florida for the company, but it is probably only a matter of time, we just wrapped a large utility line project there. I should add that we do have at least one other PSM that has been on board for a while.
Stephen
"Trimble/Applanix now offer the "RapidOrtho high-performance workflow option for the Digital Sensor System, a complete airborne digital mapping system for rapid response and commercial mapping applications. The streamlined workflow delivers rapid, highly-accurate orthorectified imagery without the need for time-consuming and expensive ground survey."
Funny that these experts obviously do not know what an orthophoto really is.
They say "delivers rapid, highly-accurate orthorectified imagery". Rectified to what?? That requires points at known locations and that sounds like ground control to me.
Are they saying that this system has a data base of known control points all across the United States already built in?
I have produced hundreds or actual orthophotos in my time and do not see how this statement can be true at all. Will these "magic pictures" be "edge matched"? Do they know what that means? I really doubt it.
Here come the GIS Gurus with their wild claims again and the general public does not know any better.
Surveyors, you have a fight on your hands and you and your state boards and associations better get this under control as quickly as possible.
My understanding that this is all from GPS/IMU and post-processing the GPS using exisiting CORS, I have only read the ads/website. Pooint is, this stuff is being sold with the claim and I am sure somebody somewhere is trying to pass off orthos from the system. From what I know, all that gee wiz stuff helps, BUT you still need some ground control if you want to match the features on the ground.
SHG
