Ice District Project - Canada

some more..............

some of our 1000ft laser and the temperature discrepancies we would get on the steel structure

Cool! Thanks for sharing.

The "Rogers Place" building is a beautiful piece of architecture. Sure hope you have gnats ass tight control. 😉

Nice! Those are some great pics, and it seems like a very challenging yet rewarding project to be working on.

You've got a lot going on there. I see you have Topcon and Trimble total stations, Leica style prisms, and Spectra Precision and Topcon GNSS receivers.

Why such a variety of equipment? Is it just stuff you've accumulated over time? I don't think I've seen anyone use the Leica prisms with Topcon or Trimble instruments.

Ok, I'm not a city person, or a big building person, but thats cool!

Dan Patterson, post: 392342, member: 1179 wrote: Nice! Those are some great pics, and it seems like a very challenging yet rewarding project to be working on.

You've got a lot going on there. I see you have Topcon and Trimble total stations, Leica style prisms, and Spectra Precision and Topcon GNSS receivers.

Why such a variety of equipment? Is it just stuff you've accumulated over time? I don't think I've seen anyone use the Leica prisms with Topcon or Trimble instruments.

We use Leica style prisms with our S7 total station.

I write the 11.3mm on my Leica 360 too because the offset on the label is the Leica offset. And I have -34.4mm on the Leica circular prisms.

Dave Karoly, post: 392402, member: 94 wrote: We use Leica style prisms with our S7 total station.

I write the 11.3mm on my Leica 360 too because the offset on the label is the Leica offset. And I have -34.4mm on the Leica circular prisms.

What's the reason? Why don't you use the Trimble prisms? Just curious......I always used Trimble prisms with Trimble guns and Leica prisms with Leica guns......

Dan Patterson, post: 392403, member: 1179 wrote: What's the reason? Why don't you use the Trimble prisms? Just curious......I always used Trimble prisms with Trimble guns and Leica prisms with Leica guns......

Because we already have the prisms, some were given to us by Caltrans.

Trimble makes it very simple to use any prism.

If I had Leica gear I would use Leica prisms just because my experience is it is more painful to use non-Leica prisms with a Leica TS.

Dan Patterson, post: 392342, member: 1179 wrote: Nice! Those are some great pics, and it seems like a very challenging yet rewarding project to be working on.

You've got a lot going on there. I see you have Topcon and Trimble total stations, Leica style prisms, and Spectra Precision and Topcon GNSS receivers.

Why such a variety of equipment? Is it just stuff you've accumulated over time? I don't think I've seen anyone use the Leica prisms with Topcon or Trimble instruments.

Good question. as for the Leica prisms. at ground level i still use all of my trimble/spectra prisms with my specta/trimble robots. Our low level permanently mounted control points are also trimble prisms. However when we designed this large control network we decided upon the Leica 360 prism as it has angled faces that allow us to face the prism down towards site and then reverse them and face them up as the towers rise. This is the only reasoning. as i am the lead surveyor i took input from all of the surveyors working under me as to what prisms we should use up high and this was the general conclusion was to use the leica grz4 even though i had no experience with it. if thats what everyone wanted to use and was comfortable and happy with that then thats what we would use. it also has the largest reflective surface of any of the 360 prisms that i know of on the market which was important shooting longer distances. no replacement for good glass. There are up too 10 other surveyors working on this site with all sorts of different equipment but mainly leica so the prism selection had to work for everyone. simple for us trimble users just make a prism with -11.3mm. As for my GPS receivers........my company currently runs about 15 field crews all GNSS equipped aswell as we have 2-3 full systems at our facility as extras so i essentially use whatever is available at the time of my static surveys to get 7-10 receivers going at the same time. We have always been a topcon company from total stations to GPS however we are Married to survey pro before any equipment. Trying to make a software change in this company would create way too many issues so we are essentially purchasing equipment now that we like that will work with survey pro. that is why we have the epoch receivers and the Hiper V receivers as they are the last to work with survey pro. Same goes for the total stations we have been testing and purchasing different brands to see what we can be comfortable with moving foward but as of now we have topcon/spectra/trimble robotic total stations. for this project specifically i started out with a Spectra 2 second robotic. the topcon you see in the photos i only had out a couple of days because my spectra was in for repair as someone had knocked it over to the tune of 5000$. just recently i decided...you know what....this project is a massive undertaking and i am the lead surveyor why am i using a 2 second spectra and the surveyors working under me are using better equipment? i needed equipment to fit the project needs so i tracked down the most accurate trimble S8 i could find in canada it is a 0.5 second with 0.8mm EDM. most total stations are 2mm edm. Hope that helps explain our mashup of equipment haha!

Smaxwell, post: 392408, member: 8822 wrote: Good question. as for the Leica prisms. at ground level i still use all of my trimble/spectra prisms with my specta/trimble robots. Our low level permanently mounted control points are also trimble prisms. However when we designed this large control network we decided upon the Leica 360 prism as it has angled faces that allow us to face the prism down towards site and then reverse them and face them up as the towers rise. This is the only reasoning. as i am the lead surveyor i took input from all of the surveyors working under me as to what prisms we should use up high and this was the general conclusion was to use the leica grz4 even though i had no experience with it. if thats what everyone wanted to use and was comfortable and happy with that then thats what we would use. it also has the largest reflective surface of any of the 360 prisms that i know of on the market which was important shooting longer distances. no replacement for good glass. There are up too 10 other surveyors working on this site with all sorts of different equipment but mainly leica so the prism selection had to work for everyone. simple for us trimble users just make a prism with -11.3mm. As for my GPS receivers........my company currently runs about 15 field crews all GNSS equipped aswell as we have 2-3 full systems at our facility as extras so i essentially use whatever is available at the time of my static surveys to get 7-10 receivers going at the same time. We have always been a topcon company from total stations to GPS however we are Married to survey pro before any equipment. Trying to make a software change in this company would create way too many issues so we are essentially purchasing equipment now that we like that will work with survey pro. that is why we have the epoch receivers and the Hiper V receivers as they are the last to work with survey pro. Same goes for the total stations we have been testing and purchasing different brands to see what we can be comfortable with moving foward but as of now we have topcon/spectra/trimble robotic total stations. for this project specifically i started out with a Spectra 2 second robotic. the topcon you see in the photos i only had out a couple of days because my spectra was in for repair as someone had knocked it over to the tune of 5000$. just recently i decided...you know what....this project is a massive undertaking and i am the lead surveyor why am i using a 2 second spectra and the surveyors working under me are using better equipment? i needed equipment to fit the project needs so i tracked down the most accurate trimble S8 i could find in canada it is a 0.5 second with 0.8mm EDM. most total stations are 2mm edm. Hope that helps explain our mashup of equipment haha!

Thanks! Very interesting write-up and explanation. I hope you can post more photos as things progress.

Bump TTT

I've been watching this project come up over the past year. Seriously cool work you guys are doing OP

Great Pics. Thanks for the explanation about mixing equipment, I had that same question.

Why does the level have a data collector attached to it? Not a bad idea, but I am pretty sure it is not possible with the model we use (Dini). To me a great idea would be to use a android phone or tablet to interface with the level. We run a lot of levels, and the only complaint I have is the limited capability to enter names and notes into the level. Since there is only a numeric keypad with each key having multiple letters, it can be cumbersome.

Survey pro has a pretty nice leveling module

Looks like one corner of that big oval building melted and flowed across the street!

Way Cool!
James

John Hamilton, post: 392781, member: 640 wrote: Great Pics. Thanks for the explanation about mixing equipment, I had that same question.

Why does the level have a data collector attached to it? Not a bad idea, but I am pretty sure it is not possible with the model we use (Dini). To me a great idea would be to use a android phone or tablet to interface with the level. We run a lot of levels, and the only complaint I have is the limited capability to enter names and notes into the level. Since there is only a numeric keypad with each key having multiple letters, it can be cumbersome.

this is why i went with the topcon/sokkia level. it was the only one that would work with the survey pro levelling module that was in my price range. i would check and see if you can make the trimble work with survey pro leveling module it is a trimble product now. The leveling module is amazing. to be able to download our data easily and create whatever descriptions we want. not to mention it creates a full leveling report showing HI,FS,BS, etc aswell as the distances to the back sights and for sights so we can check if proper procedures are being used.

I have been surveying in and around Edmonton for about 7 years (in and out), good to see city I lived in, thanks a lot!!!.

Way too cool! Is GRZ4 accurate enough for this kind of work??