I did something I've never done with my trusty old Trimble 5600 - I did a topo, and for the last 20 shots I managed to change my mode from "angles and horiz distance" getting xyz coordinates, to "angles only", so for those shots I do not see an xyz, and I don't know my distances. while doing the topo, I heard the "click" it always makes when obtaining the observation so I had no idea it wasn't giving me NEZ.
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My question is, is there a way to manipulate the toggles after the fact, and recalculate those shots to display the distances?
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Download and look at your raw data, it may include the slope distance without having done any calculation with that information. If so you get to now hand calculate that info.
If all you have are angles you could still do something with that info. You have a horizontal and zenith angle your rod height should not have changed. Layout those vectors on a plot with your known shots. You should be able to see the areas you need to fill in. Make notes on how you remember the order and approximate distances that you took those shots. Use distances to the nearest 5' and fill in your topo. I have hand sketched plenty of topo from a minimum of known locations so would not hesitate to see what I could do. If all you took were shots marked "G", did you in fact shoot a swale or some curb? The Zenith angle should give you a hint which ones were swale shots and swales do not generally zig-zag around, so sketch in your swale line and use a distance to the nearest foot. Curbs are generally straight or a fixed radius curve and a fixed distance from the opposite side curb. Again sketch in your lines. For on lot topo work I always shoot top face of curb. For more complicated work I shoot top back of curb and bottom face of curb.
For all my recent work I download state available ortho aerial images and lidar generated contours. Almost always they are within less than 1/2 the contour interval to any field topo work, so they are within tolerance. Even with only elevations on house corners, edge of driveways, utilities, ground shots at fences and property corners I am confident to use the lidar data for pool or septic system design.
Paul in PA
in your opinion, how best to download raw data file - without tampering or ruining it worse than I already have
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Downloading raw data is something you should do at the end of every day that you survey. To ask how now may be a moot point because in fact you may have been surveying for all these years? and never had "store raw data" even turned on. Have you ever even worked in an honest to goodness survey office? Because, I am aware that quite a few require raw data to be downloaded, printed and stored electronically with the i-man or crew chief signing that day's raw data sheet header. It may even be a legal requirement to do so in some states. It becomes very important if you ever have to show up in court. If a field crew happened to have raw data turned off, I know surveyors that had them go out and redo the whole thing. I know I have had to go to raw data to find and fix instrument setting blunders. The best check on your raw data is to compare it to your traverse and survey notes written in your field book.
Paul in PA
I agree with this. IMO, we should always be downloading the raw angle and distance data. Most of the time I run that data through StarNet to generate coordinates. Only very occasionally do I just accept the coordinates the dc spits out.?ÿ ?ÿ
When measureing in angles only no distances are measured.
The click is always instantly with angles only, while it may take slightly longer when you add a distance measurement.
on the controller exprot to xml, transfer to pc.
Install Sublime Text for opening and you will be able to read the xml.
Go to the section with observations and there you will see when and what is stored.
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Chr.
Agreed. The first thing we do when returning to the office is to download the instrument data and PRINT IT OUT. Paper is much more durable than any electronic medium and you can recover at any time in the future even if it is partly "corrupted" - unless the building burns down!
It may never get used, but just in case.
thats what I thought - I did the same thing but can't capture the distances because they were not collected in the field. when I inadvertently turned distances "off", then I made it so there is no way to retrieve them.
OK, I've got to ask: why would one store angles only without a distance??ÿ I only surveyed for 20 years, so I could be missing out on something good.... ?????ÿ
Good question! I did a topo with reflectorless - I run a control net with my total station, input the adjusted coordinates to the robot controller, and set up A, HD, VD, storing NEZ. most of the topo did exactly what I intended, but somehow, the last 20 shots show up as "angle only". I don't know how that happened. I touched no buttons from start to finish. I didn't notice any change until I started to download. I didn't even know I could change my output to angles only. If there is a way to recover distances even though I mistakenly ordered it not to take distances - then this is the board that could tell me how. I would understand if I did the whole topo with a bad set up, but I cant fathom doing most of it right, then switching to wrong. I thought I had made every dumb mistake you could make, but no.
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And I didn't mean to imply that you had done angle only storage on purpose.?ÿ But if the option is available in your DC, I simply fail to see what purpose it has.
One of those things, we all have done something similar, just have to go back and re locate the points.?ÿ
A 3 pt angle only resection off distant towers or other landmarks that have known coordinates is one use I can think of.
Solar/Astronomic observations is another.
OK, I've got to ask: why would one store angles only without a distance?
There have been a few times where I couldn't get a good reflectorless return off of an object (usually a wire, or something at a very oblique angle), and was working solo. Tie it with the same point number from a different setup using "angles only", tell it to average the observations, and you'll get a 3D point at the averaged intersection of those angles.
It's pretty rare though, think I have done it maybe a handful of times in 15 years. And I always measure distances with resections...
@rover83?ÿ?ÿ you may be on to something - about 1/2 of these shots were end of white parking space stripe - which had never given me trouble before. but, the other half were solid concrete angle points which should give me solid distances -
the good news is that I took enough supplemental GPS shots that I can piece together this one area that is surrounded with good data (both GPS and Robot), but I am inclined to punish myself and return to the site and do it correctly - sort of an idiot trip - maybe I'll pay attention next time.
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@rover83 you do this in TBC? I've never been able to get that to work, though I thought it should.