Advance Australia Fair

G'day and kia ora Jim. Queensland cadastral surveyor here who works with your namesake, has a namesake in Western Australia doing same job, and few years ago dragged your Excel add-in into this century. Small world. Well, small antipodes.

Sydney here.

The question I have for you is...

What does the survey deliverable look like to lodge a subdivision plan for approval?

Here in NZ we have LandOnline, the gateway to the government cadastral system. We use it to prepare a 'package' of documents. Lots of pdf's or tiff's etc.

The survey information part of it is a LandXML file, which has probably come from 12D

How do you guys do it?

Presumably is different for different states?

@jimcox Either a black and white A3 multi-page paper plan, or a TIFF of same in Queensland. Tried a landxml submissions similar to LINZ that never got off the ground around 8 years ago.

You'll need the plan itself in PDF form, as well as the two corresponding signatory sheets. There'll also be a letter required and possibly a report. If you needed to place a state survey mark during your subdivision then there'll be extra submissions for that too. The man with the big stick requires 6 FL/FR readings for those.

So do any of the Aussie states have electronic survey-data lodgement - not counting a pdf or scan of a paper-plan?

@jimcox Electronic survey data lodgement? I'm not sure to what extent you mean. The push at the moment is for NSW (I can't vouch for the rest of Oz) to convert to a fully coordinated cadastre. For example, each new plan must tie in (and show connections) to at least two existing coordinated points that exist in the SCIMS database. There are rules regarding the distance to the third. In some cases it can be ignored, but they are phasing that out. Being exempted from that task would be quite the challenge these days I'd reckon. Generally - and increasingly - the surveyor must place a third state survey mark on behalf of the Grubberment and provide readings to the third mark by tying it in to the existing coordinated network. Those readings must be 6 face left and 6 face right readings, but the mark can also be placed via GNSS. This part of the lodgement is most certainly "electronic survey data lodgement", but the plan itself is still an old-school scan of your plan.

If you're asking whether the deliverable includes a copy of your CAD plan then no. Not yet.

@micheal-daubyn-2-2-2-2 

NZ survey is very like Aus - we have to include at least three existing reference marks.

But in the survey lodgement we don't submit a plan - but rather a LandXML file of the survey data.

There are automated (and some manual) tests that check this data.

Then once your survey is approved, this file gets used to update the government records.

I am interested to see if there are other Torrens title countries using such a system, and to learn how that file is created.

(So far it looks like A: None and B: only 12D has that capability)

@jimcox I run & prefer 12D here, but also have Topcon Office (Magnet). 12D is (or at least used to be) mandatory for capital road works, but aside from that it is viewed as being rather complicated by a lot of guys I know. After purchasing Magnet I found out that they are right- Magnet is easier. But unfortunately it just doesn't do what 12D can do. The guys at Topcon still have a lot of work to do in my opinion and have a lot of gall charging what they do for it.

But if we go down the same road as NZ then I cannot imagine the Grubberment mandating a particular software. Both modelling programs are well and truly entrenched in the profession these days, and Civil 3D is winning new hearts every day.

The thing that annoys me is the fact that we need to submit 6 FL/FR readings to prove a new mark, but the type of instrument is ours to choose. It should be a minimum 1" instrument if they are going to force us do anything like that. Furthermore, we are tying in to a network of existing marks that more often than not have a PU of >20mm. So what's the point? GNSS static surveys have trounced 20mm PU for a couple of decades now.

I came into surveying from toolmaking, so a PU of 20mm is embarrassing. Our Grubberment needs to sort that out. We need to do what they do in Germany- each regional city has a "Vermessungsamt" (Survey Office) with government surveyors who go out and tidy up the network (among other things).

@micheal-daubyn-2-2-2-2 

Our government has not mandated particular software - its an open spec.

But, so far, only 12D seems to have provided the tools to create an acceptable file

Posted by: @micheal-daubyn-2-2-2-2

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The thing that annoys me is the fact that we need to submit 6 FL/FR readings to prove a new mark, but the type of instrument is ours to choose. It should be a minimum 1" instrument if they are going to force us do anything like that. Furthermore, we are tying in to a network of existing marks that more often than not have a PU of >20mm. So what's the point? GNSS static surveys have trounced 20mm PU for a couple of decades now.

I've never heard of this before. I've been through several cadastral companies and all the marks I put in where either through GPS (RTK with 2 minute occupations over two periods of the day, i.e. before and after lunch) or through cadastral traverse. In fact, out of all the companies I worked for, only one did rounds or sets of angles for the marks they put in. 

Is this in any of the regulations, because having to do 6 rounds and doing the adjustment for each new mark would be beyond the capabilities of many of the old time surveyors that are still kicking around with 20 year old instruments, at 5" precision. 

@minbarwinkle You might be in a spot of bother here.

Go to the Surveyor General's directions: https://www.spatial.nsw.gov.au/surveying/surveyor_generals_directions

Go to Direction No. 12 and download the PDF.

3.1 talks about minimum equipment requirements for total stations, but doesn't mandate a particular type of equipment as I mentioned earlier. It does, however, dictate the class of mark placement that each class of instrument can achieve- after SDs have been propagated. More on that in the next point.

3.3 states that each observation may be read once, but this single observation must include 6 FL and 6 FR for Class B, 3 FL and 3 FR for Class C and 2 FL and 2 FR for Class D. A simple traverse is a no no. You've gotta get those SDs down.

For RTK you are correct- minimum 2 minute obs x 2, as long as you touch on a minimum of 3 other permanent marks and are no further than 20kms from a CORS base. You are also not allowed to claim better than a Class D using this method.

Any Class better than D must be done via a static survey (minimum 20 minute obs for a baseline under 5km, and a minimum of 20 minute obs + an extra 10 minutes for every kilometre over 5km in your baseline. It also must be GNSS. GPS is only allowed for Class D (regardless of the survey type).

Regarding 3.3, I can appreciate that a 10" instrument can only read to (slightly worse than) 3" after 10 sets of angles, and you might be out in the field with a 1" instrument trying to achieve Class D results. But if you ever get audited......

For Class B for example, a 3" instrument reading 6 FL (only) will achieve an SD of 1.22", so a 1" instrument still betters that. But if you ever get audited......

Mick

How is everyone in NSW going with the digital plan builder integration?