Staking out Curves~ Anybody?
If I understand you correctly all you need is Stakeout > Arcs
choose your arc and then choose stake "to the arc".
allows you to stakeout random points in the same way as "to the line".
"center point of arc" method is also handy. I often use it to stake a pile position that is a DXF circle.
For engineering applications I don't often use COGO but I find the COGO and offset functions built into Access more than adequate. Boundary survey would be totally different I imagine. Don't really like Survey Pro as much for engineering applications so easy decision for me.
my bad
At what stage are you struggling with the DXF linework? There are a few tips I could give you. Do nearly all my setting-out this way.
My point is not that one is better than the other, they are just different and going from Survey Pro to Access is not going to be a walk in the park. It's going to require you re-think your approach.
There are things I would do in Access that I couldn't in Survey Pro. One that comes to mind is optical control networks. In Access you can shoot the same point from multiple setups without having to override them and within the program you can do a statistical analysis..Access will know it is the same point from multiple setups and give you residuals. You can't do this in Leica (or at least we couldn't when doing a recent traverse with the "measure rounds" routine) or Survey Pro. There are many other more advanced "Engineering Survey" routines in which Access has no rival.
I also found some issues which I didn't like in Access, for example I couldn't figure out how to double an angle to a critical point during a routine topo. In Survey controller there was a box you could check which would allow you to do this. This option disappeared in Access (or at least nobody could tell me how to do it, even though it's written in the manual). I was told that I needed to measure rounds. I thought it was silly that I would have to enter into the bureaucracy of measuring rounds just to double an angle to one point, something that can easily be accomplished in Survey Pro.
There are a few more pet peeves that I can't think about which come up from time to time and it's going to bite you when you need it the most and you're in the middle of nowhere.
if you are in measure topo use the shift arrow to choose "options"
ticking "Auto F1/F2" should get what you want. have to switch it off afterwards though.
there is the same option in resection and stake points as well.
I absolutely agree with you about the niggles that you end up doing workarounds and forgetting the annoying niggles.
One of mine is how when changing targets or going into station setup it always seems to default to settings I don't want.
eg in resection I am usually working from retro targets but it defaults to autolock and tracking, when I want autolock off and standard EDM measurement mode.
I don't like having to use the touchscreen to access the bottom 4 buttons. much better on the leica where the f keys access these functions. I know you can use keyboard shortcuts for these but not with one hand!
the top 4 buttons on the tsc3 are effectively wasted. the programmable user keys should be elsewhere and these 4 keys for the 4 "softkeys" at the bottom of the screen.
I also miss an easy "check backsight" function. When you have used a resection it ddoesn't use the correct angle for the backsight. It uses the theoretical azimuth instead of the adjusted azimuth used in the resction.
I do have a little document detailing these and I add other observations as they occur to me. I'll email it to Trimbel and I'm sure they'll have a good read and get back to me....NOT
Based on previous experience I may as well email Father Christmas, at least I'll get a reply..
Thank You Squowse,
You're the first one to answer that for me. I'm going to give it a shot.
Thank You for sharing
Cheers
Ralph
> If I gave 100 competent American Surveyors TDS, they be making it dance within a day.
My god, I forgot how much I loved doing that dance. In all fairness though, I am starting to dig TBC. That's where the magic happens now.
As Mr. Squowse says, you can always go to Options and check Auto F1/F2.
In Access when using a conventional instrument you can also make additional observations to any point at any time, in either face, simply by re-entering the point number. The program will tell you that the point already exists; just accept that, re-observe, and use the option Store Another to store it. If you want to average all of your observations in the field you can do so in COGO. However, when you average in the field, it creates a coordinate record that may be undesirable in TBC; sometimes I have to go in and remove those.
Another feature of the Average function in COGO is that you can make angles only observations to a remote point from multiple setups and average them to triangulate the position. This could come in real handy when needing to measure to something that the reflectorless won't reach. Trimble also addresses this with the photogrammetry capabilities in TBC (if you have a robot with Vision), but using Averaging you can do it with any instrument, or even manually with angles input from a T1 or T2. And if said remote object is at a great distance, this method would probably be more precise than the photogrammetry.
Correct me if I'm wrong (it wouldn't be the first time), but when performing a resection isn't there a Backsight check box for each control point observed? I always thought that if you only checked one of them then it held that azimuth fixed and would use it for the Check BS function in Measure Topo.
It's interesting that you guys point this out so matter of factly, when I first encountered this problem I went on Linkedin Trimble Survey Team Group where all the power users (including Trimble Staff) hang out and nobody could answer this correctly. I may have heard this answer before and misapplied it. I'll have to wait to get the collector in front of me in the field again and try it out.
I used to think that the backsight check box was for whether you wanted it to be part of the solution for orientation.
Actually if you untick it the point is not used for the resection at all but is stored for use as foresight. (which is not as useless as it sounds, for example might save you walking back to record it as a foresight after the resection).
More than a bit confusing though.
Wow - just a bit confusing :-/
I guess if you want to hold to one of the resection points as your back azimuth the solution would be to go to Measure Topo > Check > Check BS, take the shot, and use Store & Reorient.
Learn something every day...
Ditto
The defaults are a tad bit annoying. Every time I create a new job I need to go through and change all of the units from meters to feet. Is there any way to change these defaults through the use of a template or reset them as my default?
Another minor little irritant is the little box in settings I need to hunt down and check every time I want to work in bearings rather than azimuths when computing something. I rarely work in azimuths, or meters. Be nice to check this to 'default'.
Did have some success in doubling angles using the 'measure' 'rounds' function, although I gather that there a few twists to this.
Very helpful stuff. Thanks
Still a great deal to learn about this program but I do enjoy figuring things out.
Right well I didn't know about the "store and re-orient" we are all learning!
That would certainly work for me, I just want consistency and know my orientation hasn't drifted. My previous instruments would only use one point as the backsight (in a resection) so I am used to that.
I got caught out when using "check BS" and realised it wasn't drift it was just a small discrepancy with the resection orientation.
Yes you can definitely change that.
Exit out of "general survey" and go Settings > templates
There are lots of pages of settings for units.
We always get caught out by it being set to Northing, Easting out of the box instead of Easting, Northing that we all use in UK.
You can also choose "last used job" as your template when creating a new job.
Now I am not exactly sure what you mean by azimuth and bearing. I have seen it mentioned before but was a bit embarrassed to ask! I don't know if it's just the notation or the difference between horizontal angle and true bearing or what?!
We all use bearing where zero is north, 90 east etc;
Do you mean the North 45 degrees South type of thing. If so then that would be quadrant bearings I think, also under units.
Just making sure you are aware as well that there are often multiple pages of options and you can find "hidden" gems by clicking through the pages.
I am watching this thread keenly , I am sure I will learn a few new tips.
Ralph,
Is the measure topo the equivalent of sideshot in SP?
Per the above, you can edit the default template under Settings > Templates so that all your units, bearings, etc. stay where you want them.
Next time you create a job change Template from Default to Last Used Job; that will cause all of your settings to be retained from one job to the next.
Squowse many surveyors in the US prefer to work with quadrant bearings in the field rather than azimuths - the Quadrant Bearings check box in Units causes all directions to be displayed as such.
Yes but no... measure topo is for measurement of side shots but you have the option to select any one of a variety of measurement methods and offsets, as well as auto F1/F2 per the above. One of the reasons I like Access is that ALL measurement methods are at the same screen - no need to bounce between menus to shoot an offset.
Another thing a lot of people don't realize in Access is that when you are at the Station Setup screen you can go to Options and you have the option to make Access behave the way SP does when you measure a Traverse Point - it will move ahead the occupied point ID and even carry forward the heights if you select that. See below:
Yes this is a nice option.
If I remember rightly it only works if you shoot your foresight just before "end survey" though.
Would be nice to be able to mark a foresight for the next setuo.
If you're doing a lot of layout, you'll want the roads package, which for some reason they put in the Trimble Access menu instead of the General Survey menu. If you're working with alignments, this is where you'll want to do it.
One thing I've used a lot for layout is Key in point. You have the option of changing the coordinate values from grid to station/offset. You can then tell it what alignment you want to reference, then either create a point at a station and offset or examine where an existing point is in terms of station/offset. This is often a quicker and easier route than computing points.
