As the world Turns

They want a description for the easement too?

Sounds like you’re fixing to hurt someone’s feelings and project budget….

Posted by: @rankin_file

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Sounds like you’re fixing to hurt someone’s feelings and project budget….

I just got off the phone with guy that did the field work and set up a meet out there. He said he's going to set up his base and localize to some point or another and rotate onto the job, to which I stopped him and asked him if he's working in State Plane, which he said he was. Why are you doing a two point localization and rotating onto the job if you're working in State Plane? The software is applying a mapping angle to all of your measurements on the fly if your controller software is set to that projection, there should be no need to localize to anything or bare minimum a single point. Oh boy, this should be interesting. If you're not set up in State Plane and using some other plane projection and localizing and calling it SP, it may look like SP, but it's not. Localizations, love them or hate them, I know of no better way to make a total hash out of things. 

 

Posted by: @williwaw

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Honestly I've never run into this before.

To me, this sounds like just another day at the office.

At one employer the guys would set up the GPS base over a point and do an autonomous position. At the end of the day they would download coordinates. CAD guy would pump the coords into a drawing. Next day the crew would set up their base over the same point and do another autonomous position and download coordinates at the end of the day, which the CAD guy would dutifully add to the drawing. Repeat as many times as necessary. What could possibly go wrong? There was a written policy to collect check points but these were rarely taken and never checked. Eventually the CAD guy would present his map to the PLS, who would, and could only, review for spelling errors. 

Another employer - I'm in a meeting with 3 other PLS's, including the department head. They have a road staking job with control and design in state plane. Long discussion about what scale factor to enter into the dc to get staking to "work". At first I couldn't believe what I was hearing. After listening to the back and forth for about 10 minutes became convinced.  Then spent the next half hour convincing them that the solution was incredibly  simple. I'm not sure that they left convinced, but the job went ahead without a hitch in that department.  

 

@norman-oklahoma oh I have had those Mondays on every day that ends in Y. Here position autonomous whatever verbiage you want. My last one 70 acre boundary. Set up out front day one located some corners some improvements etc. day 2 set base in back here position again located more corners more improvements. No tie to front and back all here positions. Not even a simple let me check into the front. 

have had it happen with conventional surveys. Resection on front pins. Locate some house corners improvements etc. pick up go to rear resect off rear pins locate a few more house corners improvements etc. no way to tie front to back with anything other than calls. lol. Got to love those days. 

Dude!!

"I'm going to localize to control points I recently surveyed" 

WUT?

I had a coal mine client. Their process was to calibrate each day, separate crews, each day. 

"It's the only way machine control will work" 

It is a mine, so who cares about a foot here, a foot there. Or more!

 

So I met with their field guy and uncovered what they’ve been doing. He goes out and sets up the base and surveys from a here position and gives his files to the people in the office. They get an OPUS and move everything the the OPUS solution and then rotate the entire project in the office to some plat bearing or another, at which point the field guy localizes to two points and applies the rotation to his survey. I just looked at him and told him that by doing that, you just blew up every reason to be working in State Plane and made it near impossible for me to follow you, because it looks like SP, but it ain’t.

Sounds like the new guy is just making trouble …. 😂 

@rankin_file Who. Me? 😜

You've got your job cut out for you now. That's a pile of steaming mess.

Surveyors don't let friends scale to ground without truncating.  Anyone that leaves bastardized grid coordinate looking like the real MacCoy should be thrown in a ticket of poison oak.

It’s a pretty big ask but maybe you could get the pre-rotated coordinates, etc. and use that to put the thing on a proper basis.

@norman-oklahoma No need. Today tied a half dozen of their points fully covering the job. In 2888’ have a difference of .1’ and a rotation of something like 30 minutes. I’m going to move everything back where it belongs and get on with life. At least that way the note stating SP bearings is factual and not wishful. I told the powers that be to file this under how to make a simple job, not so simple.

Posted by: @williwaw

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So I met with their field guy and uncovered what they’ve been doing. He goes out and sets up the base and surveys from a here position and gives his files to the people in the office. They get an OPUS and move everything the the OPUS solution and then rotate the entire project in the office to some plat bearing or another, at which point the field guy localizes to two points and applies the rotation to his survey. I just looked at him and told him that by doing that, you just blew up every reason to be working in State Plane and made it near impossible for me to follow you, because it looks like SP, but it ain’t.

He sounds like a lot of the guys I read on the Facebook Surveyor forums that thinks they know everything because they can push buttons, don't need no schooling, old Party Chiefs are buttholes, don't get paid enough, PLS need to get out of the office, I should be able to get my license because I've been doing house stakeouts for two years, you get the picture.  It's maddening but something like this proves the point.  

 

Hey, the DC does a calibration, so we have to do a calibration each time.

"Standard of practice" when those three words are combined together; they can be very destructive.

 

He sounds like a lot of the guys I read on the Facebook Surveyor forums that thinks they know everything because they can push buttons, don't need no schooling, old Party Chiefs are buttholes, don't get paid enough, PLS need to get out of the office, I should be able to get my license because I've been doing house stakeouts for two years, you get the picture.  It's maddening but something like this proves the point. 

 

My favorite is, 'well, that's just the way we've always done it.' 

At which point I just want to drop my professional demeanor and burst out in expletives.

Tell me you don't know what you're doing without telling me that you don't know what you're doing.

 

I went to a seminar/training about 1997 put on by a manufacture that taught us to calibrate after static control was adjusted. I balked at doing that and asked why I couldn't simply occupy control with SP loaded in the DC. The presenter said you need to calibrate to get on the system or something. Never did understand that. Point being, calibration was really, really pushed as SOP. 

@mightymoe I don't get it either. If anyone has some insight as to why this is a good idea, tell me more. I think some of it comes from surveyors that were weened on using local systems and didn't think twice about rotating their survey to match some record bearing, through calibrating or whatever. It has it's place on a little conventional lot staking job, but not a large project spanning distance where you want to move a base around and having to calibrate every time. It's just not necessary and big part of why State Plane was developed. This mixing up bearings business, no good can come out of it.

I've never understood the point of rotating to match a bearing.  Did data collector software kinda suck back in the day and that made it easier to generate search calcs in the field?  It really makes no sense to me.