looking for suggestions on traverse/true-line field software

This is of no help in your current situation, but your post reminded me of the first large-ish program I wrote for the 41C. I was working in on a USFS contract in Trinity County, CA, and saw the potential to avoid a ton of the by-hand calcs we were having to do to stay on line. I coded most of the program during the long drives to and from the job each week, and in the motel at night. It saved us a bunch of work over the next couple of years.

Won't any of the major applications (TDS, Survey Controller, SurvCE, etc.) handle station/offset calcs? The angle-to-line might be a little harder to wring out of them, but there must be a way of doing it.

my total station (leica tcr 1103) runs a tds version and has an intersection command that allows me to use points to intersect, or points, and a turned angle for staking lines.
for instance, define direction as line between two points, then the second point to intersect from I can input an occupied point, a point to backsight and then enter the turned angle..

I assume that virtually all total stations have this function by now?

Give Traverse PC a call. They are owned by Surveyors and will provide some suggestions for your consideration.
jud

Every field soft I have used can do that, from what I have used Carlson is the most intuitive and Leica is the best once you get the hang of it.

Kind of depends on what hardware you are running.

I guess I'm mostly looking for something that is closest to the product I've been using called CEFB. It is made especially for this kind of work as it was made for BLM cadastral.

What I like about is that it has what is called a true-line screen that displays all the info necessary while traversing a true line. Such as offset and brg to line, angle and brg to end and angle and brg to parallel to true line.

Plus, and this is a big plus, it has a solar/polaris observation ability for in the field determinations.

I've used a few different modern field software programs and have looked at the brochures for others. Most if not all can get the offset and angles to end, but usually take separate operations. Few have the ability to calculate solar or polaris in the field.

Ideally there is something out there that can run on a fairly economical platform such as the HP50.

Perhaps even better would be direction to a hardware platform that can run the DOS-based CEFB program. It runs fine on a PC w/windows XP but I have not been able to load it on to a Topcon FC-2500 I have. Perhaps there is something I'm doing wrong or there is a another platform that can run it.

any help would be more than greatly appreciated.

thanks in advance.

Have you tried it on an HP-200LX (DOS 5.0)?

You can get them pretty cheap on ebay, and although NOT waterproof, they fit in your pocket and run quite a while on a couple of AAs

Loyal

Yeah, that's what we've been using. They've been out of production for quite some time and so I was hoping to go to a modern platform that had the same functionality.

Call BLM and ask them.

Wow, looking at it a little more it looks to me like you have the right soft, robust and free is going to be really hard to beat.

It looks like the Florida DOT is using it and developed their own soft as well, this is what I found by searching online real quick.

They have a bunch of manuals and downloads here:

http://www.dot.state.fl.us/surveyingandmapping/software.shtm

A few years back I used a IPAQ device in a environmental case, I bet you could pick up a used one for cheap and run with that.

It is really inspiring to see a data collection system that can be mobilized without dropping like 3 grand on a clunky modern DC.

I would be interested in knowing what you come up with.

Awesome.

I have stayed with HP48 and SMI v7.

Any data or construction version of SMI will do what you are wanting.

There are more HP48s there still available than the HP-200LX.

The HP50 package is a good route unless you want to move into the bigger money products of a Touchscreen controller.

FDOT has pretty much given up on using CEFB as they prefer to have their consultants use their in house developed software, EFB.

As for possible platforms, look into some of the field rugged netbooks.

When I gave up the HP 200, I used both the TDS and then the Carlson. Both computed distance and angle to true line. I have not found any of the new programs that I think have a decent solar program. I have a program for my HP nandheld programable calculator that I prefer to use. I would have to take an ephemeris page from the web with me though into the field. Since in the later years i usually started and ended on GPS points, I could always do my solar comps later in the office, and dump everything into StarNet. The BLM also has a DOS solar program that you could load onto a PC, you might be able to find a DOS based field computer. Traverse PC also has a nice solar program with their desktop program.

If you want a copy of any of them, it might take me awhile to find them, but you can contact me at kalb@chesebro-kalb.com

Evelyn

Seems like the thing about the CEFB/CMM/GMM stuff is that it calculates the geodetic lines, how important is that to your upgrade?

The Leica 1200 onboard has an application called "Reference Line" that will show where you are relative to a baseline or a stake line, chainages, offsets, etc. Might be a $500 one-time software key. They also have a traverse program, I haven't used it for years, no idea if it does what you need. Nice thing about the onboard DC is one less thing to carry through the woods.

http://www.stk4hp.com/index.htm does traverse and stuff, worth a look.

windows app called DOSBox, used by gamers for retro games. http://www.dosbox.com/
I think there is a Windows Mobile port, so you could run CEFB on some phones even.

Yep, tried dosbox in a fc2500 but had no luck. Could be the loose nut on the keyboard though. I saw that is what the FDOT uses so it probably is an answer. Just need someone smarter than me to make it work.

I would be surprised if Jeff's package didn't have something in there, way back in the mid 1980's when his package ran on the HP41, I wrote a routine that integrated with that package, even called some of his subroutines, he then burned it to a custom version of his EPROM for us, it was called "POST" and was used for posting true line on USFS line marking contracts.

Not as fancy as what you want as it was set up to do the offsets with a hand compass, was basically a line and offset program combined with a BB intersect using either N-S as the direction of offset on generally E-W lines or E-W as the direction of offset on generally N-S lines. You input the end points, and then the random line point number you were at (had to run a random line first to get points) and it spit out the direction to go and the distance and gave you the downrange distance so you could mark location tags at road crossings, etc. Saved a lot of time vs. calculating points by other more manual methods.

SHG