I posted about a related issue here https://surveyorconnect.com/index.php?mode=thread&id=75660 and I appreciate the help that was offered regarding the duplicate point numbers, which I think has been solved.
I would like to follow up with related questions. What conversion utility are Survey Pro users relying on to convert the RAW file to the RW5 file? I searched within the menus in Survey Pro on the data collector, but didn't find anything. I searched within Foresight DXM 3.4.0 at the office, but didn't find anything. Then, I pulled up Survey Link 7.5.5, and found that it offers a conversion utility from RAW to RW5. Is this the latest and greatest conversion utility?
I tried using Survey Link 7.5.5 to convert a RAW file to a RW5 file, and I get an error message "The input file has alphanumeric point names and cannot be converted". We used alphanumeric point names on this job. My associate used a conversion utility to convert the RAW to RW5 for import to Carlson SurvNET. The resulting RW5 file was missing key observations in the network, and I am suspicious that perhaps this utility did not properly deal with the input RAW file (perhaps as a result of alphanumeric point names, or perhaps in other ways).
I looked at TDS's Raw Data Record Specification dated October 2, 2002 (SP Version 3.6) and compared it to the same specification dated June 28, 2006 (SP Version 4.2). Spectra Precision recently confirmed to me that the latter specification is the latest. There is not much of a difference as pertains to conventional surveying observations. The latter specification added Point Slope Stake Records (PL and PR) and Leveling Raw Data Records (LL, LB, LF, LP, and LC), but none of these record types were used for this survey project.
Any suggestions or assistance would be much appreciated. Thanks.
My suggestion, look into if it is possible to do all of this using the LandXML file format.
If you want to stay in Survey Pro and convert to RW5 you're gonna have to get rid of the letters.
It may be tedious to go through the RAW file, depending upon the number of points you've collected.
If you open your raw file editor, go to File/Import/Import .raw to import your raw file and then save as .rw5
If it is total station data, you may get the results you are after by copying the .RAW file and simply change the extension to .RW5
This was confusing to me when you do the .JOB to .CR5 conversion, the software always creates an .RW5 file along with it. But that file is empty. I have come to see that as an attempt to provide an RW5 file to go along with the newly created CR5 assuming you'd be using that file on a data collector that used the CR5 file.
Don't know if that will get you where you need to be or not.
That's what I'm thinking I'll have to do. That will be a time consuming task, as I've got a couple of thousand points in the job. The RAW file is long. On the positive side, there were only a handful of shots that were recorded as alphanumeric. Thanks for the suggestion.
I use NotePad to view the RAW file. Are you just suggesting to change the file extension is sufficient?
If the RW5 format does not allow for alphanumeric point names, then simply changing the file extension from RAW to RW5 will produce a file that is inconsistent with the RW5 format.
Why not just use the JOB file to create a .CR5 or .TXT file?
Well, the purpose of creating the RW5 file in this case is so that it can be imported into Carlson SurvNET to analyze the network and adjust it using least squares algorithm.
My thinking is that a RW5 file actually contains raw observation information while a CR5 or text file from TDS is simply a coordinate list. Take a guess at which you need to do LSA...
Yes, that's right. I need the RW5 file that contains the observations.
Seriously, take your file and export it to landxml. Open it with a text editor and see if you can see angles and distances instead of just a coordinate list.
The secret is
since it's all text anyway, right click, rename the extension to *.rw5. This works for every cad package that I have (i.e. Carlson, PacSoft, etc.). I used foresight to do it for a while, but it's just text. Rename it how you wish.
Trimble is a different animal though. 🙂
The secret is
I acknowledge that I can simply change the extension of the file from RAW to RW5. But, that doesn't make it the correct thing to do. I think the problem is that I've used alphanumeric point names, "12", "12A", "12B" and the like for this job, and these point names are stored in the RAW file. If I convert to RW5 by simply changing the extension, then the alphanumeric point names are carried forward for importation into a program (Carlson SurvNET) which wants the input file as RW5 format. That format does not allow for the use of alphanumeric point names.
Probably wouldn't be having this discussion if I used exclusively numeric point names....
Big Al
So dig this, go into Settings>Configure>General Settings> and select Carlson Alphanumeric under coordinate settings. This will allow the coordinate file to recognize your point numbers and allow the raw data to process.
Hope this works for ya!
> That's what I'm thinking I'll have to do. That will be a time consuming task, as I've got a couple of thousand points in the job. The RAW file is long. On the positive side, there were only a handful of shots that were recorded as alphanumeric. Thanks for the suggestion.
Any chance there is a pattern in the madness? I'm a novice with regular expressions, but it seems that this problem could be solved very quickly by using a find/replace routine tied together with a regular expression.
Find any instance of an obs code followed by an alphanumeric and replace it with obs code + numeric.
I agree. I am going through a find and replace routine right now using NotePad. Very effective, but time consuming.
Big Al
Kris,
Thanks. That's a great suggestion. I will look into that.
True. I missed that part of your dilemma...
