Curious if anyone thinks VRS is overused by some crew chiefs that don??t understand it??s limitations??ÿ
For instance: say crew chief #1 is first on site to do preliminary work. They VRS a point to get on SPCS then setup a base and rover to establish control and start tying down boundary and locating utilities.?ÿ
then say crew chief #2 arrives on site a year or two later, don??t bother looking for existing control and VRS a new point, sets up base and rover, sets more control and does some other work on site.?ÿ
then crew chief #3 arrives a couple months later, VRS one of crew chief #2s control points, sets up base and rover only to find out they??re 0.2?? off in elevation from crew chief #2s control. Then they find one of crew chief #1s control points and are almost a half foot off in elevation.
I??ve also helped a crew chief once that VRS two points, set up the RTS on one and BS the other, then took off setting stakes. ???ª?ÿ
I just see a lot of crew chiefs that think if they VRS then they??re on SPCS same as the guy before them.?ÿ
That's not the overuse of VRS. That's lack of supervision, bad communication, poor planning, no documentation, bad procedures, etc.
Sending a crew out with them not aware control has already been set ? ?
come on people, redundancy and checks are what make us.?ÿ as any work, if 0.2' is within acceptable tolerance. go hard and work. if not make adequate ties. if you talking elevations, strong ties with a well adjusted level is the way to start. certainly checks to as-built things have to be shot. just because you looking at old stuff don't mean crap to get the project completed, make it WORK, that is a whole lot of our stuff.
Sending a crew out with them not aware control has already been set
They assume VRS means they are on SPCS same as the last guy and they??re good to go I guess.?ÿPerhaps they??re overestimating its abilities?
bad procedures
I agree. Makes it hard to keep everything consistent and adds unnecessary error to the project. Some say they don??t want to waste time looking for existing control if they can just VRS a point and get to work. I guess that??s fine depending on what you are doing.
My thoughts on VRS aside, I'll say this much for the world of modern surveying...
...behind every poor decision by a crew chief is a supervisor or project manager who either screwed up, or didn't do their job in the first place.
And seeing all the misinformation (at the PM/manager level) floating around about the tools we have available to us, as well as the lack of understanding of the fundamental concepts that make those tools work, I'm frankly surprised that crew chiefs aren't being told to click their heels three times and stand on their head to "get a good base position".
Curious if anyone thinks VRS is overused by some crew chiefs that don??t understand it??s limitations??ÿ
For instance: say crew chief #1 is first on site to do preliminary work. They VRS a point to get on SPCS then setup a base and rover to establish control and start tying down boundary and locating utilities.?ÿ
then say crew chief #2 arrives on site a year or two later, don??t bother looking for existing control and VRS a new point, sets up base and rover, sets more control and does some other work on site.?ÿ
then crew chief #3 arrives a couple months later, VRS one of crew chief #2s control points, sets up base and rover only to find out they??re 0.2?? off in elevation from crew chief #2s control. Then they find one of crew chief #1s control points and are almost a half foot off in elevation.
I??ve also helped a crew chief once that VRS two points, set up the RTS on one and BS the other, then took off setting stakes. ???ª?ÿ
I just see a lot of crew chiefs that think if they VRS then they??re on SPCS same as the guy before them.?ÿ
?ÿ
Not over used but abused in my opinion. It's not just crew chiefs that abuse either. A former supervisor at a government agency, who was a know-it-all PE & PLS (just too smart/arrogant for his own good), had INSISTED on several occasions using NC's VRS network for not only topo work but occasional staking - in a pretty heavily urbanized area with plenty of buildings and trees. I informed him that I could set up on the same #60D control nail, using a Trimble R8S that was tracking all constellations & an older version of Trimble Access on a TSC3 running off a Verizon MiFi, at any given point during a day or night, with no canopy coverage nearby, and get results that varied by a two tenths depending on conditions and circumstances. It got to the point I felt the need to bring in my own robot instead to insure things were good.
?ÿ
He argued with me to the point of harsh words that the "blankety blank GPS receiver reports the same blanking coordinates every blank time!!" So I made it a point to set a mag nail in a parking area's concrete joint in the back parking lot and logged a few shots over 2 days then showed him just a points' file dump of only the coordinates and how each varied. He had the nerve to tell me that the concrete was settling or that it was potentially expanding & contracting with the sun & heat LMAO. I said yea that makes perfect sense seeing as the concrete isn't cracked or busted but it's moving that much while heavy off road vehicles drive over it...
?ÿ
Can't fix stupid, and when stupid is in charge, watch out.
Actually you can fix stupid. ?ÿCE requirements could go a long way to solve this problem if they offered and required courses that kept surveyors up to date on the use of current technology and advancements in hardware and software.?ÿ
What??s available in some states is inadequate and that is being kind.
Sounds like a more high tech method of the old "here" positioning misused by folks who don't understand what they are working with or when/how certain functions should be used.
@rover83 Everything rises and falls on Leadership. ?ÿI see things that make me cringe especially in the use of rtk and vrs. And even robot stations. I keep saying it but i see so many LS that are so far removed from what the tools can and cannot do and so many assumptions by them a crew chief or an un licensed person including myself has no idea what we are doing sometimes. Every thing i am told i go read and i mean read not just a forum or google but from authoritative books and authors. Because i am at the point I see so many far out of the norm things that it is hard to trust what someone sais. I have been told that all you need is 1 epoch of data period. Rapid point on Trimble access. That is good as it gets for control. No joke. No need to double observe a point with rtk. Rtk is better than static its more accurate now than static. ?ÿWe scale to ground its close enough and don??t change the elevation when you scale like the book sais. This is from people i am supposed to be getting mentored by so i can be a good licensed surveyor. I don??t know where the whole elevation changes on computing grid to ground. I have yet to find that in any book lol. There are a few in my area that I trust. The reason is if i ask a question they don??t hesitate to say I don??t know so I don??t do that but i am studying before I attempt to do that. ?ÿThere is one i know that refuses alta surveys. He said i am still studying and such taking a class at the university on all the least squares and rpp. To me he is a true professional. He works in what he knows and goes out and learns what he doesn??t. These are surveyors that are both young and old. If they were not only solo operators i would have a fine place to be mentored.
@jon-payne have you ever seen someone set up do a here position rtk a point from the here position. Then move to the rtk point do another here position set another rtk point of that here position and so on like a traverse and then say see gps it doesn??t work. Me i take here position do the same exact thing traverse but do no more than the first here position and close same loop decent. For some reason that person thought here position had to be done every time. I said if you want everything relative don??t do another here position. That was not a crew chief not a office manager. But a LS. ?ÿSaid he had done it for years and sometimes he was good most times it was bad. How does that happen. I have used here position to get started so I could get things rolling keep it relative until better control could be brought in via opus or static etc. never anything like what i saw.
A former supervisor at a government agency, who was a know-it-all PE & PLS
...the "blankety blank..,?ÿ ...same blanking coordinates every blank time!!"
I've heard these words, I've seen these writings, I've known these people. They were called contractors. Apparently gov't is now the chosen group and has been ordained to use the "lost language".
A couple of "claims" might calm this person down... Or cause them to double down on the "colorful metaphors".
Do those that use Network RTK for 100% of their data collection, consider the recorded coordinates as their raw measurements? Do they adjust or rotate? How do they determine the accuracy of their sketch? Do they state their measurements to be in grid feet? Do they reference their bearings as grid north?
The few surveys that I have seen do not say anything different; US Survey foot, Bearings referenced to a deeded line, improvements located close, monumentation located real close and the reference benchmark is called NTRIP, FPRN or FDOT.?ÿ
I am not trying to be a butt, (I come about that naturally) but, is this the way of things to come. Will survey boards adjust their rules to accommodate this area of practice?
I was talking to a surveyor once whose office only used TS and didn??t have GPS. He said they tried GPS once and was getting poor closure on boundary surveys. Used TS on same surveys and had good closure. Said they got rid of the GPS and continue to use TS. I said huh? ?????ÿ
Now I??m wondering if they were doing the multiple ??here? setups. ?????ÿ
Not over used but abused in my opinion. It's not just crew chiefs that abuse either. A former supervisor at a government agency, who was a know-it-all PE & PLS (just too smart/arrogant for his own good), had INSISTED on several occasions using NC's VRS network for not only topo work but occasional staking - in a pretty heavily urbanized area with plenty of buildings and trees. I informed him that I could set up on the same #60D control nail, using a Trimble R8S that was tracking all constellations & an older version of Trimble Access on a TSC3 running off a Verizon MiFi, at any given point during a day or night, with no canopy coverage nearby, and get results that varied by a two tenths depending on conditions and circumstances. It got to the point I felt the need to bring in my own robot instead to insure things were good.
?ÿ
He argued with me to the point of harsh words that the "blankety blank GPS receiver reports the same blanking coordinates every blank time!!" So I made it a point to set a mag nail in a parking area's concrete joint in the back parking lot and logged a few shots over 2 days then showed him just a points' file dump of only the coordinates and how each varied. He had the nerve to tell me that the concrete was settling or that it was potentially expanding & contracting with the sun & heat LMAO. I said yea that makes perfect sense seeing as the concrete isn't cracked or busted but it's moving that much while heavy off road vehicles drive over it...
I??ve worked with guys that would average two shots on a point . I??ve also worked with guys that would set a control point in the morning then reshoot same point in the afternoon and average the two.
What the heck is a "here" setup?
An autonomous position determined by your receiver in the field. Generally used just as a starting coordinate so your vectors have something to be referenced to. Autonomous positions are at best +- feet from ??processed? positions.?ÿ
I??ve also worked with guys that would set a control point in the morning then reshoot same point in the afternoon and average the two.
We used to do that. Then it got changed to a minimum of four hours between sessions. Finally, people questioned the wisdom of two sessions, saying three sessions makes more sense. Their reasoning was that if one of those two sessions was garbage, you've got no average. Currently, we do one, fifteen-minute session. That's it. I watch the residuals and especially the connection status. I get the best results when the connection stays steady and doesn't start counting down like it's going to lose connection.