Hi, so I'm a very new professional land surveyor - lots of experience doing residential and rural surveys and construction stakeout.?ÿ No educational surveying background - just working day in and day out for many years.?ÿ I'm working on learning new procedures and don't know how I feel about the topic of Relative Positional Precision.?ÿ I understand that the concept is rooted in standard deviation, error ellipses, and least squares adjustments.?ÿ I've actually run LS adjustments using TBC for several construction site control surveys.
From my previous experience, the only way for Trimble to handle a LS adjustment, you need to setup ON the mark.?ÿ For me, this was easy because I was doing site control layout so I have benchmarks and concrete monuments in clear and visible locations.?ÿ I would run the loops up and back, process data in TBC, get my results and coordinate values.?ÿ Done.?ÿ But how would I apply this technique to a boundary survey where I cannot set up over the mark??ÿ Say a city lot where the corners reside in a party wall or right next to a tall building - or next to a fence with an unruly dog on the other side jumping on the fence - let's just say anywhere where setting the total station up is not an option.?ÿ I understand for ALTA standards, the RPP needs to be provided.?ÿ If I can't provide an RPP value for for one boundary line because I physically couldn't set up, I see that deviation being simply to explain, "I couldn't setup on this mark due to physical inability of setup, but here's the RPP of the remaining traverse". ?ÿ
So here's my question... How in the world would I provide any RPP value for a property survey where I cannot physically setup on any boundary mark or run a closed loop traverse on the property??ÿ If all my measurements of boundary marks are sideshots, even if repeated - I can't get a RPP.?ÿ Or can I??ÿ What if I can't setup a traverse on the property and the boundary positions are actually being calculated from positions on adjoining properties and not monuments on the property (maybe the property doesn't have any anymore)?
Maybe I'm making this more of an issue than it is, but I figured I'd reach out for some clarity.
Thanks in advance for any input.
Ryan D.
