I was wondering what any of you guys have done in order to maintain a database for control points on long term projects that are in different State Plane Zones. I realize this isn't necessary for every project but we have alot of projects that we continue to go back to. Sometimes it may be 2 years before we are back on a project and it can be difficult to remember what control is good and where it is at. Right now I just go back to recent CAD drawings and search through the data for points. I thought that maybe this could be a good use of a GIS application. I have been trying to find out ways to use GIS in my everyday work but I am struggling to implement it in efficient ways. I get very frustrated having to go back through countless drawings looking for points. Most were done before I got here so I am having to search through every drawing that was used for each project. I figured this would be a good project to start on this nasty Monday.
> I was wondering what any of you guys have done in order to maintain a database for control points on long term projects that are in different State Plane Zones. I realize this isn't necessary for every project but we have alot of projects that we continue to go back to. Sometimes it may be 2 years before we are back on a project and it can be difficult to remember what control is good and where it is at. Right now I just go back to recent CAD drawings and search through the data for points. I thought that maybe this could be a good use of a GIS application. I have been trying to find out ways to use GIS in my everyday work but I am struggling to implement it in efficient ways. I get very frustrated having to go back through countless drawings looking for points. Most were done before I got here so I am having to search through every drawing that was used for each project. I figured this would be a good project to start on this nasty Monday.
we keep a control database for future use, and the use of others that might call in for 'data sheets'. since we are county d.o.t., we don't span spcs zones. if we did, however, i want to say we would save our master values as lat. lon. ellipsoid ht. and ortho. ht., just to make transformations from a more 'global' origin.
there are other approaches, presumably better than mine. best of luck, and hopefully some other people might weigh in on this.
i can send you an excel of what we use if you want to see it. my email is in my profile
This is what we use. It is probably too complex for most applications, but we work over a wide area, and need to share information between offices. I have about 30,000 points in it and should have another 30,000 in a year or so
usmart.usace.army.mil 🙂 :beer:
That is something similar to what I was looking for, but as you said, it does look a little more complex. I am wanting to put together something that anyone in the office can access and navigate through in case I am in the field. I might try to play around with it and see how this works though. Thanks.
One of the things I really like about U-SMART is that you can search for NGS regular and OPUS DB points all from one site. A very easy way to add data to U-SMART is to use the PDF form. It is a web based application that will only allow users with admin rights make any changes. Anyone can view and search for control with it though.
Come up with a tabular format that works for you and put everything into an excel file. Make sure you include a column for Lat and Long. Convert your SPC to LAT/LONG, then you can import that database into Google Earth. The free Esri ArcGIS explorer works nice too. You could also dump all of the data into a Google Fusion table and access the database from your smartphone in the field.