I bought a different type of scanner today. It is an overhead device where you put the open book on the plate and it takes an image from above. I will update here how well it works. Still not as east as putting sheets in a feeder, but hopefully a little easier to use.?ÿ
When I was working in Kansas, we would use electronic field books (point dump, cut sheet, export file from DC, etc.) except when a sketch was necessary to pass on the appropriate information to the tech/client.
Working in Texas, everything goes into the field book and they are stored once that project is complete. One project to a single field book, sometimes multiple books are needed for a single project and are assigned accordingly.
I kept my own field book while in South Dakota, I felt kinda "lost" without one. Needless to say, it came in quite handy when I left that project and handed it off to the next surveyor. They called and told me that thanks to my notes, they didn't need to contact me for questions because I have "booked it" which made me feel good.
But, nowadays the client usually just gets a pdf of the scanned field book pages.
John,
?ÿ
Just curious as to who your clients are that want copies of your field notes? Most of my clients couldn't even read our proposal or contract, much less field notes.?ÿ
Scan of one job's field books.?ÿ
Each one had 200-250 pages, something had to give and now all that's here are the scans.?ÿ
I've been asked twice for my field book, once by a lawyer, once by a GISer.?ÿ
I sent the lawyer my hand field book, the GISer I sent 300 pages of a PDF of my DC file.?ÿ
@andy-j Quality Control.?ÿ In the office, we check instrument heights and rod height changes for topo against what was entered in the controller.?ÿ If you are trying to solve an issue in the office, it's invaluable.?ÿ On a large topo, who hasn't fat fingered or missed at least one rod height change or instrument measure up??ÿ How about more detail on a shot than a single descriptor code can convey??ÿ I will trust the field book entered values over the controller entered values any day of the week.
Data collectors are wonderful tools to store data, I would never go back to doing a topo without one.?ÿ But come on guys, don't forget our roots.?ÿ And the importance of quality control. Your clients won't give you an A for being correct 95% of the time.?ÿ?ÿ
@scrim?ÿ ?ÿare you saying you record in a field book every change in rod height while collecting topo??.... and then I suppose you'd have to record at least every point group between the rod height changes.?ÿ I'm all for spot checks and backsight/setup verifications, but with that level of hand writing, you might as well just book the whole thing.
@andy-j?ÿ
Yes.?ÿ It's not a burden, it's what we do.?ÿ?ÿ
If you are a one-man band, and you have been surveying for a quadrillion years, I get it. I might (ok, I will) take short cuts myself.?ÿ But if you are managing multiple crews, and training and mentoring new surveyors, this is how it's done. It's not as important to get it right to them as it is to you. It's your reputation on the line. You need to get it right. All the time.?ÿ?ÿ
@scrim?ÿ
?ÿ
I agree, just not sure how that limits the possibility of blunders.?ÿ ?ÿThey could just as easily forget or write the wrong info down on paper.?ÿ ?ÿ I was a one man show for a long time, so I do think that has affected my outlook.?ÿ ?ÿThe one or two times that come to mind where I did find a mistake, I found it was easier to just go re-shoot the area in question to be doubly sure my "office fix" was correct.?ÿ ?ÿI try not to lose sleep over the blunders I never found.?ÿ ?ÿthat's the tough part!?ÿ?ÿ
I agree, just not sure how that limits the possibility of blunders.?ÿ ?ÿThey could just as easily forget or write the wrong info down on paper....
I'm with Andy on this point. Booking every rod change is too much. It is equally likely that the book will be wrong.
?ÿ
It's easy to forget to edit the rod height in the controller.?ÿ If you see it written in the book, it happened.?ÿ?ÿ
The same with fat fingers on the key board.?ÿ Easy to punch in the wrong number, especially in the winter.?ÿ If you see it written in the book, it happened.
I guarantee it.?ÿ?ÿ
When I worked with Pumpkin Head, he would change the rod height without telling me. When he got close enough to the instrument, I could tell.
I would call out to him, "you changed the rod height and didn't tell me!" And he would say that he changed it about 5 observations ago.?ÿ
You can always count on human error to negate any efforts with the field notes, whether electronic or otherwise.
Pumpkin Head was a human error.
It's easy to forget to edit the rod height in the controller.?ÿ If you see it written in the book, it happened.
Agreed. Like anything else in precision measurement, it's a double-check. Not all double-checks are failsafes, but they help, especially if it only takes 10-20 seconds to jot down the number and rod height.
Even if I'm solo I'm usually still keeping a two-column record in my book. It's pretty rare for me to make a lot of changes during a setup, but then it becomes even more critical.
It gets even more exciting with distance & angle offsets, especially when the crew has the option to pick the reference point (instrument or rod). We still book those during topo work, and we still seem to make money. Booking rod heights is way way down on the list of things we could save time on a project.
Plus, given how much time it takes to find the error in post-processing, check to make sure it seems like it is actually an error, talk to the crew to see if they remember what happened, decide that it is a problem, find a slot in our schedule to do the work, mobilize a crew, go back to a site, set up and re-observe points, reprocess, and dump back into the deliverable...
....versus the 10-20 total minutes per day it takes to just book the critical stuff? Eh, I'm OK with booking rod heights and offsets.
?ÿ
It's the same reason we measure in feet, write it down, then re-measure in meters and write it down, then plug meters into the DC and let it convert to feet and check it before starting a static session. The tiny amount of time it takes to ensure we do it right vastly outweighs the massive amount of time it takes to re-do it.
?ÿ
You can always count on human error to negate any efforts with the field notes, whether electronic or otherwise.
Pumpkin Head was a human error.
And this is the real issue. Double checks are still good, but they only work when we ensure human error is kept to a minimum.
Unfortunately right now our leadership and HR are employing the "see lightning, hear thunder" test for hiring, because "it's so hard to find good people". As opposed to "we want good people, so we're going to do what it takes to hire good people and train them".
The only paper field notes now are level runs; but don??t do them on every project. I don??t take paper into the field. PDF, DXF, JPG, all into the TSC7 baby.
