Modern total stations are goofy built. I mean, their encoder plates don't have to be perfect, JUST CONSISTENT. They have computers, which MAP the anomalies of the gun, and correct it.
Imagine making a real sloppy built gun, and then placing it on a machine that rotates it 1000 times, at a steady slow RPM, and mapping every bump in it, rotating the telescope, and reading a series of precision mapped dots on the ceiling, and running through a sequence, that makes it a fine instrument, due to computerized corrections, not due to precision crafting. That is a modern gun.
Possibly in the future, new guns won't even have optics... in the normal sense. ONLY a digital camera.
We are headed down a road, from which there is not alot of return. Kind of like a word processor, that finds your misspellings, as you type, and suggests correct English, so well, that you really don't have to know proper English, or spelling.
Same is true of GPS units. The new one from JAVAD does not even have to be plumb!
Where are we headed?
Virtual reality, so much, that reality is escaping us! Now all we need is a robot, gps on a pogo stick, with an attached brush axe, and we just walk behind it, as it clears the way, and sets pins!!
Time marches on.
N
> Time marches on.
Always has...although I think our life "backsight" gets a little harder to see due to the speed at which change has occurred.
In one short lifetime I have seen more changes in the surveying profession than happened from the construction of the pyramids to the sailing of the Mayflower. It makes your head spin. And surveying isn't the only thing that has changed...life in general has morphed so, so much.
Years ago (1970) I read a book by Alvin Toffler titled Future Shock. It was his insight on how technology will accelerate change in a society and what might lay ahead. Toffler was a thinker. He had actually worked with IBM on studying the effects computers might have on our lives....back in the 1960s.
Although he predicted a lot of things right, he missed a few also. One of his axioms was that "a society cannot run on data and computers alone". We really do seem to be heading in that direction, sadly. He reiterated in his writings that illiteracy would not be defined (in his future, which is our now) by simply being able to read or not. But it would be defined by our ability to learn. This has panned out to be so true. In today's world of digital gizmos if you cannot or will not utilize the technology necessary to stay stride of society, you will experience the social slings and arrows that in years passed were saved for the illiterate members of our world. Simply put: if you don't have an internet connection you will be missing out on basic knowledge that is required to function as a member of our society.
I guess time quit marching and started running...
The modern TS should have red florescent glow in the dark "FRAGILE" warning labels on all sides because they can get wiped out by a fast flying Junebug. 😉
I think the future of surveying, a "total station" will have GPS on top that gets network corrections for the base/occupy point, and the rod will have GPS/prism that can also get a network solution, so you can get your points by either robotic optical methods, base/rover GSP, or network corrections. Heck, why not have the gun automatically submit to OPUS or OPUS RS, and return and adjust to those coordinates as well ... most setups are at least 15 minutes. The software will select which data source(s) are best (i.e. it might exclude some GPS data if it detects it's inaccurate, or might exclude the TS data if you are behind a building, etc.)
I envision "real time" LSA constantly crunching all the data sources as you collect the data and take cross ties.
If Steve Jobs were the CEO of Topcon or Trimble, we would have been there by now.
The future may well bring all of the fancy tools described. The true mark of a Professional will still be the ability to properly apply the tools and evaluate the numbers they spit out.
The biggest obstacle to tools and data taking over our Profession is a few hundred years of Real Property and Title Law. I am more than OK with that...
The Hybrid option with Topcon/Sokkia is already there- a network rover is mounted on the prism and the surveyor can switch between modes with a toggle icon on the screen. You can use a base unit if there isn't a network available.
The SmartStation and SmartPole has been available from Leica Geosystems for many years.
> I envision "real time" LSA constantly crunching all the data sources as you collect the data
Pseudo, meet RTK. See also Kalman filtering.
Yeah, I know about the "Smartstation" and RTK and network RTK ... I'm talking about software/hardware that can collect, combine and adjust all three data sources simultaneously in real time, seemlessly, without you really even realizing it's doing it. Not hardware where you can flip back and forth as you need it, or need additional attachments to the gun/rod make it work. I'm pretty sure no one is doing that, yet.
If we were really smart...
we would put RFID chips in our plastic monument caps. Think how much better all our lives would be.
How about a solar panel on my robot...:beer:
If we were really smart...
I can see that eventually. So that when you come and point your data collector at it, it refers to all the plats that show that monument.
Neeto!
N
