It is not static... it is moving. It is "Kinematic". It is sometimes RTK!
20 yrs ago, most surveying was total station. But, alot of folks were buying L-1 GPS units, for static work.
One solution that was embraced was L-1 static in the field, and total station back in the trees.
I predict that in another 20 years, when there are NORMALLY 20 to 30 Satellites in the sky, at ALL times, that basically ALL surveying will be RTK.
The loan industry does not care about a tenth here or there.
And, the MORE satellites are up, the better it will work.
What this means, is that all our fine traversing skills, will be a forgotten theory.
Multiple tripods, tribrachs, and 1:100,000 closure is already nearly gone. L-1 L-2 static got that.
And, all the bilby towers are coming down.
Triple Prisms are antiques.
I have not shot a prism in 10-15 years. I made my own targets, and covered them with DOT tape. They are BETTER than prisms, lighter, and less vulnerable.
It's all moving on.
The entire profession of surveying is being stood on it's side.
Those who "move with it" are going to have a good time. Those who FIGHT it, and such, will basically be left by the wayside.
Cars don't use carburetors any more. EFI is faster, cheaper, and can do stuff carbs can not do.
I am happy to see Topcon has come out with a full suite of gear, Robot, GPS, (It looks a little like an R10) and the whole 9 yards.
I am SURE the others are doing something similar.
The whole reason I bought the gear I did, is because that it does things that NOBODY else is doing... it's progressive!
My dad is a scrooge. He had us running 15 yrs BEHIND technology wise. Because he did not want any debt.
And, there is a learning curve for most advances.
Just like our cars. Used to be able to fix most stuff with simple tools, and logic. NOW we have to have a computer, to figure out what is wrong with modern cars. And, fixing it ourselves is out.
Tires often run 60,000 miles +. I was lucky to get 10k out of them, when I got my first Truck.
The whole industry is getting turned on it's ear. I do not have a favorite survey brand, or gear. I am SIMPLY TRYING TO NEVER BE 15-20 yrs behind again. That is why I bought what I did. (ask me, and I'll tell you)
IF Sokkia, or ANY other company came out with a better system, (worked real well in harsh environments, gave me solid answers everywhere, in less than a minute, I'd buy it) If some goofy guy in his garage then came out with something that did it in 30 seconds time, and gave me solid answers to 0.01' guaranteed, I'd buy his system, even if it was only 100 dollars. The price, and quality are not really related.
So, I honestly say, be progressive. Be educatable. Ride hard. buy what is the best. Ride this change.
This forum is the "Watering hole" for Land Surveyors. WE ARE ALL being shaken, stirred, and shook up. Don't get mad at others, who try to move foreward. Even if you don't agree.
Fundamentally, Kent Mc. wants to hold on to 0.01', and I appreciate that.
I am willing to sacrifice up to 0.10' to get things done alot faster. And, when need calls, that number is 0.05'. Or less. I know how to get that from my gear.
But, time marches on. I want to Thank Wendell and Angel for this forum. It's awesome. He has been a great moderator. Thank you Wendell, and Angel.
Share what you like, around the water hole. Be mature. Don't get your feeling hurt. Don't try to hurt others. Enjoy the Ride.
You do it to. Thanks everybody for all you do.
Surveying will never be the same...tomorrow, as it was yesterday.
Grace and Peace. And, a generous shake of salt.
Gotta go...
Nate
Surveying is changing. I feel like in many ways the art of surveying is disappearing, it's all being shoved into a computer. Every time I place a set of coordinates on a plat at an old survey corner, I wonder just how long it will be before it's OK enough to just use those coordinates to stake a well from, instead of going out physically and locating that monument for themselves.
Monty now that you bring that up I think it will become part of minimum standards for all states that physical monuments must be placed I think that's a reasonable area for minimum standards should come into play I think the surveyors do have to have some leeway because some places just aren't suitable for a monument.
I'm talking to my phone so punctuation is bad sorry about that
Nate The Surveyor, post: 384287, member: 291 wrote: It is not static... it is moving. It is "Kinematic". It is sometimes RTK!
20 yrs ago, most surveying was total station. But, alot of folks were buying L-1 GPS units, for static work.
One solution that was embraced was L-1 static in the field, and total station back in the trees.
I predict that in another 20 years, when there are NORMALLY 20 to 30 Satellites in the sky, at ALL times, that basically ALL surveying will be RTK.
The loan industry does not care about a tenth here or there.
And, the MORE satellites are up, the better it will work.
What this means, is that all our fine traversing skills, will be a forgotten theory.
Multiple tripods, tribrachs, and 1:100,000 closure is already nearly gone. L-1 L-2 static got that.
And, all the bilby towers are coming down.
Triple Prisms are antiques.
I have not shot a prism in 10-15 years. I made my own targets, and covered them with DOT tape. They are BETTER than prisms, lighter, and less vulnerable.
It's all moving on.
The entire profession of surveying is being stood on it's side.
Those who "move with it" are going to have a good time. Those who FIGHT it, and such, will basically be left by the wayside.
Cars don't use carburetors any more. EFI is faster, cheaper, and can do stuff carbs can not do.
I am happy to see Topcon has come out with a full suite of gear, Robot, GPS, (It looks a little like an R10) and the whole 9 yards.
I am SURE the others are doing something similar.
The whole reason I bought the gear I did, is because that it does things that NOBODY else is doing... it's progressive!
My dad is a scrooge. He had us running 15 yrs BEHIND technology wise. Because he did not want any debt.
And, there is a learning curve for most advances.
Just like our cars. Used to be able to fix most stuff with simple tools, and logic. NOW we have to have a computer, to figure out what is wrong with modern cars. And, fixing it ourselves is out.
Tires often run 60,000 miles +. I was lucky to get 10k out of them, when I got my first Truck.
The whole industry is getting turned on it's ear. I do not have a favorite survey brand, or gear. I am SIMPLY TRYING TO NEVER BE 15-20 yrs behind again. That is why I bought what I did. (ask me, and I'll tell you)
IF Sokkia, or ANY other company came out with a better system, (worked real well in harsh environments, gave me solid answers everywhere, in less than a minute, I'd buy it) If some goofy guy in his garage then came out with something that did it in 30 seconds time, and gave me solid answers to 0.01' guaranteed, I'd buy his system, even if it was only 100 dollars. The price, and quality are not really related.
So, I honestly say, be progressive. Be educatable. Ride hard. buy what is the best. Ride this change.
This forum is the "Watering hole" for Land Surveyors. WE ARE ALL being shaken, stirred, and shook up. Don't get mad at others, who try to move foreward. Even if you don't agree.
Fundamentally, Kent Mc. wants to hold on to 0.01', and I appreciate that.
I am willing to sacrifice up to 0.10' to get things done alot faster. And, when need calls, that number is 0.05'. Or less. I know how to get that from my gear.
But, time marches on. I want to Thank Wendell and Angel for this forum. It's awesome. He has been a great moderator. Thank you Wendell, and Angel.
Share what you like, around the water hole. Be mature. Don't get your feeling hurt. Don't try to hurt others. Enjoy the Ride.
You do it to. Thanks everybody for all you do.
Surveying will never be the same...tomorrow, as it was yesterday.Grace and Peace. And, a generous shake of salt.
Gotta go...
Nate
In our new world of surveying 0.02'>0.10'
your new tool:
Better get one, supplies are limited
A tenth is huge, maybe not in the open rural land, where they understand, that the fence is going to have be on someones side of the property. However in a City block or even a high dollar neighborhood a tenth is important. Where it makes a really big difference is when you are taking about mineral rights. One tenth along a one mile boundary could be millions of dollars to the mineral right owner.
Also a tenth does make a difference if someones house is built above or below FEMA elevations, which make a big difference in insurance rates. I also tell a building when I set a benchmark for them, you need to be at 11 feet but 11.1 feet would be better.
I agree the way we survey in 20 years will be different than the way it was surveyed 20 years ago.
Scott Ellis.
A tenth is a tenth. The land surveyor is the CONJUNCTION of technology, Deeds, Education, Methods, and Tools.
Our ethics are a ruling factor, in the way it all comes together.
For most surveys around here, a tenth is not worth 100.00. For alot of my work, I can reduce the tenth to 0.05' by multiple observations. Some places are not suitable for this. I know.
In New York, and Dallas, and LA CA, maybe we better break out the regularly indexed total station, and robot, and Least Squares.
Be a GOOD conjunction.
Pass the salt, would ya?
Nate
Slop is slop no matter how you justify it and where you are.
I think the posts about attaining professional accurate measurements is very important.
If not the surveyor than who?
One of the things i did first pick up after coming here was that I had worked in rural Texas for so long lately I hadn't given much thought to what surveying in a big city where land sold by the square foot would entail these days. I see parcels of land that were measured to a whole Vara (33 1/3 inches) by a chaining crew in 1870, and still sold today by the description of "a section being 1900 Varas square" as compared to the land in, say Austin, where the measurement being accurate to 0.01' DOES make a difference. Our tools have gotten better, our methods to compute have gotten faster, our abilities to research have expanded. But we can't be letting the fact that we don't have to work as hard as an 1870's crew mean we don't do the best work we can.
Slop is a relative term. It has a context. Without context, then the term has no meaning.
There are Jobs where 0.05' is horrible. And, there are jobs, where 0.10' is not necessary. Wisdom is knowing the difference.
Life is like that.
N
No matter how many satellites are up there, in an urban canyon environment, you only have those along the orientation of open streets and North does not work with any available GNSS in the USA.
Paul in PA
I have spent my career trying to stay in the sweet spot of tech. If you live on the bleeding edge you will eventually bleed. Bad. If you trail behind you will wither as you fail to compete. That isn't Surveying, it's business.
I contend that Land Surveying changes at am almost imperceptible pace, driven primarily by case law and policy. It is only the tools we can apply that are the arms race.
Knowing how close is close enough and when to step into new technology have always been important questions. The only thing that's changed is the frequency we have to visit the questions..
Paul in PA, post: 384890, member: 236 wrote: No matter how many satellites are up there, in an urban canyon environment, you only have those along the orientation of open streets and North does not work with any available GNSS in the USA.
Paul in PA
Urban canyons, and caves, and the lower end of filled lakes, will always need additional equipment!
Carlsbad Caverns is another place where RTK won't go. Not even Javad! 🙂
All dad's are running 15+ years behind. Mine just started using a data collector because I put my foot down and had enough with him writing down wrong numbers on his papers or someone mis entering numbers in the computer.
Agree Nate. I basically got into surveying (from CE) because of technology. Ironically at that time I spoke with a surveying professor at the local University and asked him when he thought we'd be surveying with drones. He said never, too much error in the lenses. I thought he was joking. Fast-forward a couple years and drones and GPS are my main tools on nearly every job.
The earth is not flat. There have and always will be errors because of this. Errors of a 0.10' are significant but given it's an absolute coordinate (in 4 dimensions) I believe is the future. Most cities and towns in my area are already on their own GIS database. I do believe we'll soon be expressing coordinates on our plans.
Don't forget that the Australia's LocataTech has already created and implemented a terrestrial network of transmitters capable of greater accuracy than GPS. Affluent cities will have something similar to Locata Tech and it will provide superior accuracy to GPS indoors and out.
