So after a week of diving head first into the other major player in the Geospatial arena, and suffering the reprogramming and lobotomy like process of beating my head against the wall, I'm starting to almost feel capable and soon to be productive with the Swiss army knife of the geo world.
Jeebis this was a serious lift.
anyone else played and changed teams after more than a decade of one vendor then jumping into another?
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Share away!
I switched to a firm running Leica four years ago, after being Trimble (with a bit of Carlson and Topcon) for a little over a decade. The switch would have been a lot more difficult if I didn't already have a good grasp of the fundamentals.
(We switched to Trimble about two years after that, and although I didn't mind Leica too much, it was nice to go back, Trimble is just...intuitive. I had to get current on the latest & greatest Trimble gear all over again even though it had only been a few years.)
For me, what makes or breaks the switch is the software interface, closely followed by whether there are sufficient help files, tutorials, explanatory videos and the like to assist me in learning. Leica is definitely not as intuitive as Trimble in my experience, but they have gotten better at putting out videos and help files. Trimble still has a far more comprehensive library.
In my experience, with any of the major brands, a savvy surveyor should be able to get up to speed and be moderately productive within a week or two (hopefully with assistance from someone already running the gear!), and within a month or two can be hitting their stride.
I still think it takes a good 6-12 months to get to true power-user status, and if you don't keep up you're going to fall behind. I'm constantly doing workflow development and improving processes to incorporate the newer functions and routines that are getting rolled out regularly.
I've used Trimble since ~2008 through early 2021. Went to TopCon for about 8 months and now back to Trimble. No huge gaps and it's the same procedures though some of the buttons have different names.
I realize I'm simplifying it A LOT but that helped me make the jump from Trimble to TopCon.?ÿ
@rover83?ÿ
agreed.
the Ford versus Chevy?ÿ Comparison is too simple, but yeah the intuitive part of Trimble is that. Leica has the laser plummet for setup neato.?ÿ
They both have their software and model glitches, for example Trimble access will crash badly if you try to asbuilt a curve too close to the math engines abilities.
similar in Leica, the stake line routines have end of line and station issues with adding point or being unable to calculate and display the elevation of that point unless you extend or better reduce the line a few hundreds.
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fun times I'm having.?ÿ Add a possible failing ATR camera or edm and it's unfathomably frustrating.
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back to work.
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I was rebooting my data collector.
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anyone else played and changed teams after more than a decade of one vendor then jumping into another?
Over the last 20 years I have about a decade in with Trimble TSC & Access, and a couple years each with Leica Viva, SP Survey Pro, back to Access, Topcon Magnet, and now Leica Captivate. There is some good and some bad in each.?ÿ ?ÿ
I had about a decade of fieldgenius and almost that of the old Access on tsc3, plus survey controller on the tsc2. I used magnet field on the sokkia ix for about a year. Now using the latest bug filled access. I also tried Carlson surv PC with the Leica for a day.?ÿ
I've always been more of a Trimble guy, and before that a Geodimeter Orange type.?ÿ ?ÿWhen I moved to the office, they used Green stuff.?ÿ I was constantly asking my crew chief why he couldn't do simple things.?ÿ ?ÿThe software was HORRIBLE.?ÿ ?ÿpersonally, I still like the DOS era Swedish stuff.?ÿ I could do just about anything with that stuff and the files were all super small.
