When the highway in front of the Havensight Cruise Ship Dock in St. Thomas was going to be rebuilt, there was a huge outcry over saving the row of huge mahogany trees. So when I got the job to map the road for EFLHD, I carefully located them as accurately as I could. I took at least 4 shots around each trunk. 3 Years later when I staked out the new road for construction, on 1 of the 4 design sheets the trees I had located were missing and the curbs went through the trees. The contractor redisigned the layout curves by eyeball to save most of the trees. It doesn't look too bad now.?ÿ The grades on that project were another story. Someone apparently got confused between grades in decimals and grades in %. So the centerline profile was designed at 0.004%. The superelevations created lakes. So the contractor once again redesined it by eyeball engineering.?ÿ
Wow!?ÿ I set down my phone and computer for a few days and Jumpin Jeebus if this topic isn't nearly viral within the confines of the RPLStoday realm.
DT
CT
DIA
HT
CANOPY
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If they wanted species, they had to collect it.?ÿ We charged them the same 2 man rate (135/hr at the time in 2014) and any additional drafting.?ÿ Planning, Urban Development and other departments can make up all the rule they want to, this industry just needs to stay on point and just roll with their requirements and charge the developers accordingly.?ÿ There are several interesting and a couple suspicious ways that it seems might generate some ill will.?ÿ Overall, if they want to include surveyors in their lawyers line of contention and liability, charge them for it, and prepare to always( as we should anyway) collect accurate and precise, legally defensible data that can't really be questioned unless by another surveyor.
Best you can do is count the number of trees to be located after identification by an arborist and price that. BTW 1.75" is not reasonable to locate any tree of value. Be glad you do not have to locate the canopy of those little trees. On a subdivision under two acres it is darn hard to preserve any amount of trees.
Paul in PA
As others have said, offset routine in Captivate.?ÿ Even quicker, shoot the distance on the side perpendicular to the center and then record the angle to the center.?ÿ I'm assuming that other instrument manufactures hold the distance while you change the angle.
My tree descriptions are deciduous or evergreen, other than for all the additional data that I bill like an attorney
oh, i agree.?ÿ i did one back in august that was located within a special scenic corridor area and the requirements were similar, but incredibly nebulous and time consuming.?ÿ basically it was 2" and up, but only in "clusters", which is defined as 3 or more 2-inch trees within a 10-foot radius, plus everything above 6", from a list of most of the usual protected trees around here (live oak, cedar elm, mountain laurel, texas madrone, pecan).?ÿ?ÿ
never mind that reducing the size requirement from 6" to 2" can result in a tree count orders of magnitude larger, but then try to define a "cluster"- like, for instance: if you have one 6" and two 3" trees within the radius, is it one tree or a cluster? what about five 2" trees within the radius and a sixth that's debatable based upon where you define the center of your cluster??ÿ these are actual scenarios that came up multiple times in the course of this job.?ÿ?ÿ
and yes- that makes it a prohibitively expensive requirement for most people and properties.?ÿ this one, though, was done in the interest of a fishing expedition to get feasibility for commercial development on a previously luxury residential lakefront acreage lot.?ÿ seven acre tree survey took a couple weeks and cost over 20k.?ÿ whatever they decide to do this fee probably equates to a month of property taxes on the place.
that may be true in your area, but certainly isn't here.?ÿ our list of trees required to be located and identified by size and type is fairly limited.?ÿ any decent party chief around here can rattle off the species of 95% of our trees at first glance.
Out here in the PNW, a 1 3/4" tree might be a 2 or 3" tree by the time I draft it.?ÿ 4-6" is standard fare for our work and we do it regardless of requirements.
I have learned to use the elevation gained at the shot with caution as the base of a large fir or cedar will be significantly higher than the surrounding ground. I use a folding rule to estimate diameter for most trees and rag tape the circumference on the larger ones.?ÿ My partner has a forestry/biology degree so he knows most types but there are some simply noted as confer or deciduous.
A neat feature of the data collector we use is that it can take a photo and tag it to the shot. On a couple of occasions, I have included the photo on the map. There is triple stumpage penalties here and evidence of what is there or gone can be used in court.?ÿ
?ÿThe contractor redisigned the layout curves by eyeball to save most of the trees. It doesn't look too bad now.?ÿ The grades on that project were another story. Someone apparently got confused between grades in decimals and grades in %. So the centerline profile was designed at 0.004%. The superelevations created lakes. So the contractor once again redesined it by eyeball engineering.?ÿ
Been down that road.?ÿ The civil plans were so lame the roadway would have birdbaths and drainage inlets were missing the low point by 100 feet, undersized, etc. Complaints to the civil engineer were stonewalled with "we designed that years ago and have no money to make revisions".?ÿ Not professional.?ÿ So in concert the contractor and I as the construction staker "fixed" problems as best we could, liability be damned.
After decades in roadway construction surveying I now have a critical eye when driving around town and can recognize poor designs with major drainage problems compared to German Autobahn perfection designs.?ÿ But that' just me, nobody cares, except when it rains.?ÿ
I think that you may have your software packages mixed up. TDS (now Spectra Precision) has no such function. What you are describing is in Trimble Access. Why its not in SP baffles me, because Trimble owns SP. I've submitted requests to SP to add it. Crickets.?ÿ ?ÿ
@norman-oklahoma Not mixed up, just out of date.?ÿ We all laughed when we saw the "shoot big tree" function in our brand-new TDS software in 1990 or so, but quickly came to appreciate its value.
And to further revise my earlier post, "shoot big tree" is a 2-step offset (distance at side, angle to center), while the horizontal distance offset I use with my robot is a single-step measurement, at least as far as the instrument is concerned.
I guess that it is me that is mixed up. The function I am thinking has you shooting distance to the face/middle of the tree (or pole, etc.) and then turning an angle to the edge. Works great for tying such things reflectorless.?ÿ?ÿ