Hi all,
I am currently a student in a 4-year degree program in Geomatics Engineering. As part of the program, we learn GIS, photogrammetry, a small amount of remote sensing, geodesy, but mainly focus of traditional land surveying, which is also what I am most interested in as well.
My question to you all: I am looking for some possible ideas of "Senior Project" worthy projects (for a lack of better term).
In the past, some students do boundaries that may or may not be a total PIA. There has been mapping of a penny using a microscope, mapping the hallways of our engineering building using LiDAR, etc.
My last semester is coming up (starting in Jan.) and I need to have a topic ready to go. I would like to avoid photogrammetry and GIS, as they are not my favorite subjects. So as experienced professionals, what is some sort of project that would be interesting to do research and conduct a survey on? What is something, as professionals, that you would like to see from a graduate as their senior project?
I currently hold my L.S.I.T., and I was part of the NSPS Student Competition last year, which we placed in.
(FYI, we are located in the Central Valley of California)
Any feedback is welcome! Thank you
> I am currently a student in a 4-year degree program in Geomatics Engineering. As part of the program, we learn GIS, photogrammetry, a small amount of remote sensing, geodesy, but mainly focus of traditional land surveying, which is also what I am most interested in as well.
Well, why not use Google Earth imagery and whatever other resources are available to estimate the postions of twenty boundary corners and compare the same to the actual positions of the corners upon the ground?
You might divide the corners subject of investigation into two classes: urban and rural, and compare how the resolution differs between the two.
Naturally, the corners should be sampled at nearly random intervals, not adjacent corners on the same tract that should have correlated errors.
You might pick a narrow, specialty field, area of practice and investigate that. For example, several years ago the NSPS Student Competition involved "Forensic Surveying". I think I have copies of the papers and would be willing to share them if you are interested.
Another subject might be high accuracy surveying for industrial or deformation practice.
There are certainly many specialty areas of practice.
Deformation monitoring and preparing elevation certificates for different building types and conditions are both good subjects. A report on how companies are utilizing 3D laser scanning would be interesting.
You could always go hang out with Scott Zelenak and learn how to build Freedom Towers. That would surely be unique!
Retrace part of the State line close to your area. Most State boundary have a famous Survey monument thats lost or not found in hundred years , go find it. Focus project on the research and the evidence . You may have to go outside .:-D
Perhaps do some research on the effects of plate tectonics as it impacts fixed ground control stations in your area. If you have any local fault lines nearby you can look up the changing control values east and west of the fault.
From Fresno that would be over Tioga Pass (closed in Winter). The slant boundary of California is an interesting problem. See Bud Uzses's book, Chaining the Land.
Since you are in the central valley, why not look to past/current records of passive marks and see how the subsidence in the area has affected elevation. This could be particularly interesting with the new FIRM’s that came out in the area.
I also think the changing positions due to crustal motion would be a decent topic.
Brad Luken, LS
There is a thread started yesterday entitled "US Deputy surveyor's Township/Range line analysis" which may give you some ideas.
A month or so back I started a thread about occupation times with RTK. How long should you occupy a point? If PDOP is poor, do longer occupation times improve the coordinate quality? If so, how long?
Running a traverse around a city block and breaking out the lot boundaries is always a good challenge that never gets old.
Check this out. B-)
I like it. Quick search led me to this.
Crustal Deformation Monitoring
Ready source of data from your neck of the woods.
Just because I'm paranoid, doesn't mean they aren't out to get me.
Compiling CA case law from different boundary issues. Research the cases and provide abstracts etc. Find the landmark cases and their notation. Lot of library work and online research through a legal finder.
As an appendix, you may want to follow up on the cases.
Karoly will help you with all of this.:-)
> My last semester is coming up (starting in Jan.) and I need to have a topic ready to go.
Well, I'm sort of confused. Assuming you've been in a four year program with a faculty mentor in the degree advising you concerning your thesis, isn't the topic obvious? When I got my B.A. the department Prof. clearly steered me into his area of interest, with non-cited labwork as a junior and six months of 40 hour a week to do a study which he referenced in his book later. Isn't you boss making suggestions? Don't get me started about grad school.
Sir... I need more explanation on this.. my initial project waz rejected and this seems a good one
You can try doing a topo survey by flying a drone in a relatively wooded area and compare your findings with that done with traditional equipment. If you have access to a Lidar drone you can even try and compare Lidar, photogrammetry (whether you use GCP, PPK or RTK) and traditional equipment. When I did my senior project, I was trying to shoot for something NASA worthy and got bogged down before even picking up a topic. My senior project was about getting into our local clerk's office and dig out plats and see if they all complied with the State's surveying board rules, and then reported in percentage how many of them complied or not. Simple as that. It was a bit controversial but the surveyors' identities were removed from the reports.
EDIT: I didn't realize this was a 2014 topic, why did this show up on the recent topic list? ?????ÿ
Hah?ÿ Yeah, I almost responded before I noticed the date as well.
It's an interesting question though and I was wondering the exact same thing a few years ago when I was faced with choosing a project.?ÿ I looked at the stuff previous students had done and it was all crazy complex things that looked like it was intended to knock he socks off the judges rather than necessarily demonstrate competency.?ÿ That's not to say it's not possible to do both but... when are you actually going to need to map the surface of a penny in the real world, ya know?
After kicking around various ideas I eventually settled on a straightforward chain of title research and boundary retracement.?ÿ I decided it would be better to leave school having done something an employer might expect me to do fairly early on that some flashy thing that nobody in the working world would really care about.?ÿ After graduating I realized my choice was perfect.
There was a new post on the first page that brought this back to the top.?ÿ?ÿ
November 14, 2020 5:14 pm
Where in the central valley??ÿ If you're close enough to the areas that are experiencing extreme subsidence, a project that monitors the movement on a daily or weekly basis might produce some interesting results.?ÿ?ÿ