by taking small steps over the years you can build the program by yourself, and your surveying experience will make the program right.
for android one needs to download Eclipse Classic from this long list of IDEs here http://www.eclipse.org/downloads/
and than this looks like a good first step http://developer.android.com/training/basics/firstapp/index.html
but, unfortunately, tablets and smatrphones do not have serial ports, and almost all instruments output data via serial port. so the instrument needs serial to bluetooth adapter. This is not a big problem - they can be purchased. The problem is to get Interface Manual from a manufacturer for their instrument (you need to send some command over serial line ( bluethoothed one ) to instrument to take a shot, and then an instrument sands back to you the measurements). So interfacing is the bigest problem. Datacolection code depends only on you so you just need time here and endless patience, no other third party, restrictions.
Looks like I am encouraging in the first part and than discouraging in the second part of this massage.
Thanks so much. That's the kind of info I was looking for.
I want to make it run in Tablets, with graphics in the background.
N
Ah, those were the days. 🙂
It landed me my job at HP building calculators (still there), but unfortunately I had to stop any work or association with any business related stuff due to conflict of interest clauses in my HP contract. Me leaving, and the recession and lack of people buying things were the 2 reasons it ended though.
Also, the fact that instrument manufacturers were starting to do things like encrypting their communication was starting to really put a dent in the ability to support equipment.
TW
It was a great experience, I wish it'd have worked out better for John.
Hope you're doing well at HP, Tim!
There is one way to figure out the bytes sequences being sent to and from instrument. I was using this one for debugging purposes for my system.
If there is similar program for WinCE than one could start any data collection program (TDS, Trimble Survey Controller) and monitor what is being sent to and what data are received from different kinds of total stations from different manufactures.
if a data collection program can be run on an emulator on PC Windows than the above serial port monitor program could be used.
But I am not sure if this would be entirely legal to do so 😉
> Jim, that would be John Evers.
Oops! There's a John Evans here in town, and that's probably what confused my aging memory cells. Apologies to the *real* DC50 creator for the mixup.
I, too, had a lot of voice and email exchange with both John and Tim, and once the database reliability glitch was fixed, the DC50 was rock-solid reliable. As noted above, I still use it with my Topcon.
Not highjack the thread but Excel is a good way to learn programming.
Excel has built in data base, graphing . It will plot coords , boundary line and vertical profiles , Based on data sets , The power in this program is huge.
I wrote a fairly complete data collection program inside excel . I was at the stage were I needed to communicate excel to a serial port and instrument and found that to be the tough and specialized programming . It can be done but would have to spend money to do it.
The cool thing about excel is you can customize the interface (buttons , tabs etc) any way you like . The program has a built in VBA compiler and you can write any program you need in using either VBA or eXcel formulas .
I was able to get the Robot codes using a serial sniffer . Just stuck at getting excel to the serial or bluetooth .
OK, here is what I want.
I want it to run on a screen, where it has BUTTONS all around the top and sides, that activate various items.
So, if you just inversed 2 pts, then hit the button at the top of the screen, you are now in STAKE. Hit another button, and you are now in offset, as in "Inverse to line". It gives you the INVERSE of the LINE, as well as the Point to the line. It then has another button to create coord at INT.
to keep it from being cluttered, it can MULTI task, so that it is collecting data, (from GPS) while you are doing Cogo.
You can run it on ANY computer.
It is windows based.
ALL your basic functions are accessed from the buttons at the top of screen.
Ent (For entering Coordinates)
View (For viewing coordinates, and searching for stuff)
INV for inversing
TRV for traversing, conventionally. Hit this, then hit P and it inserts the PREVIOUS inst BS and assumes the next sequential pt. It is a MANUAL input, for cogo.
Hit Trv and it asks for inst @___Tell it 1, hit ENTER. It prompts for BS___ IF you enter a pt, it then displays the brg, az, and dist to the BS. If you hit enter, without a pt no. it asks for a FS pt. so you are now traversing by BRG and DIST.
I could go on, but you get the pic.
For GPS DC, and TS DC, those are buttons on the RIGHT side. This allows EACH item to be separated from the rest of it. OTHERS can write the code for some of each of these.
Big E could write the code for INV
Radar could write the code for TRV
ION could write the code for STK.
So that this whole thing could bypass the NORMAL channels, and would essentialy be SHAREWARE, and as other added functionallity, they also become available to all the project workers. ALL of it is working from the same COORD FILE, which is nested in the DATABASE for COORD FILES.
And there is a DATA BASE for RAW data too.
The whole thing becomes a monster, that allows the USERS to do as they want.
I can write out all the functionality for EACH piece of this thing. ENTER is the MAGIC button, that takes you to the next step. HIT a button at the top of screen, and IMMEDIATELY you are at that location. Not MULTIPLE MENUS. NOT scrolling. IMMEDIATE.
Nate
Nate here was a prototype of the layout I did a while back on the data collector I was working on in excel. it's basically what you said.
You do realize that what you described I can pretty much customize and do in Leica Viva Smartworx. Plus if I have trouble (which with 10 crews running is hardly ever with our Leica gear) I can call my dealer at any time.
Not saying what you are wanting to do cant be done, but from much trial and error, I have found out that no third partyt software or collector works as well as the one from the manufacturer.
not sure if VBA has access to system resources like Bluetooth serial port profile, or serial port itself - for windods pcs. Never used VBA.
(I keep my code in ?++. If one separates GUI code from working code than it is easy to recompile the program for android or apple products, the only thing to be changed is the GUI. It is possible to compile C++ libraries for Android - NDK. (Android is Java))
I was able to get excel to talk to serial port and was receiving NMEA sentences from a garmin etrex . So its works was not able to keep working on it got to busy to get it working with total station ..
I want my data collector to have cut sheet programs that are easy to use, easy to manipulate data such as in/out/rim with one shot, print including diagramed cut sheets. I would to also like to print (built in printer) the individual stake information at each staked point. Then when working one man I could have the data collector do the work and just print and stick on the lath. It seems that all the hard ware is robotic but no one has caught up with the software being set up for robotic and one man with 2 arms. My 2 cents, Jp
I agree with that. The smoothest combinations I have used are same manufacturer on everything.
We were using a Leica total station with a TDS Ranger (ca 2000) which worked very well but Caltrans gave us 2 S6s with 2 TCUs and 2 TSC2s (with their Access software) and they work very well (they were considered by Caltrans to be at the end of their service life but they will give them to other Departments if wanted rather than sell them-the State calls selling old equipment "surveying out" believe it or not). We don't have radios for the TSC2s but the TCUs have robotic cradles or can be clipped onto the instrument which is handy in forest traversing (less weight to carry). The whole operation runs very smoothly. There are some annoying things lacking in Access that TDS had like it doesn't remember codes already entered; you pretty much have to have a code list. Overall the operation is so smooth and fast those little things don't make much difference.
