I had this same problem with TGO too.
We don't do nice neat and tidy Office Building ALTAs where you start on a GPS control point, backsight another GPS control point and traverse around a little with plenty of GPS sprinkled in. A fire station topo and boundary would look like that but not a big Forest boundary survey.
What we do is a lot of Forest traversing with weird looking networks. We get GPS baselines in where we can or close it conventionally, whatever it takes. Say I start on a road (not a GPS control point) and traverse a third of a mile easterly. Then I go back and traverse a third of a mile westerly from the starting point. Then I do various other traverses in there and tie things together as I can with GPS baselines.
I can get it to plot everything by giving it an "enabled-as check only" coordinate on the road and a grid azimuth on the first backsight but it's not happy, it has big coordinate differences at the GPS points which has to do with the rotation at the last GPS control point a lot of turns ago. I try to adjust and after 100 iterations it can't converge.
Star*Net can handle this no problem, give it a free coordinate on the first setup on the road and a free azimuth (from my pocket compass-it's a degree off) and Star*Net can put it together. In fact, you can feed garbage into Star*Net and it will give an answer, a terrible answer but it'll do it. The only time it fails is if I don't give it provisionals where it needs them or I forget to change the SSs to Ms on the traverse observations. It gives you something to look for. But this survey is fine, it's just a problem of computing it correctly. I gave TGO the final coordinate and backsight azimuth from Star*Net but it still just can't do it correctly.
Maybe I'm not feeding in the provisionals correctly, not sure.
I'm not sure I follow you but I was told that if Trimble can't give you a correct answer it won't give you any answer. Perhaps you have a bust somewhere. Of course without an answer from your software you would have no idea where to look for it.
Are you using multiple point numbers for the same point in TBC?
I have seen that and calculated positions in the data file mess up processing in TBC.
Use CAD to rotate your gun data and get a rough spc. Then key those in for your starting points and set them as mapping quality. Then delete the assumed values. Should help.
Yes they are the same number for one point.
Dave: I often work the way you do, jumping around. That is why I do not use TBC for adjustments, it often can't figure things out even though it is all connected together. I use Geolab, similar to Star*Net it can almost always get a solution. In the rare case where it can't, I just give it an approximate coordinate for the station it blew up on (it tells me which station it was) and it will then work through it. I have always been able to get it to give me a solution. Can't say the same for TBC or TGO.
I have been able to use an iterative approach to get this to work. Kind of flies in the face a simultaneous least squares adjustment, but...
Process and adjust your GPS work
Save project
Export your processed and adjusted GPS points
Start new TBC project, import your GPS points as control quality
Import your traverse work
Adjust
^^^ This is what I do. I start a new TBC project for each new traverse loop. Its a pain in the ass, but it works.
I found this out by accident with TGO, when working on a control network 10 years ago. Mr. Hamilton actually help me with the project.
yes, same here!!
TGO used to say "elevation instability."
I guess I'll keep using StarNet for my weird snaky shaped surveys.
TBC has really nice data editing capability, like changing prisms and heights for several shots at once but I don't know of a way to get the data out of TBC and into a DAT file. What I do is make an RW5 on the Controller then I have an RW5 to DAT converter.
I load all of my obs into an access database, then I can edit things like station name, HI, HT, prism offsets, etc. Works great. But, it took me a long time to develop all of that.
I gave up trying to talk to Trimble support long ago but it sure would be nice if they monitored this board and took note of what the users were saying and developed their software accordingly. At least we have each other?. My 2 cents! Jp
If you download your *.job file with Data Transfer you automatically get an *.dc file if the same work. This is where I always did my data checks for rod heights etc. The DC file is very easy to edit.
Maybe you knew about that, but I thought I would share anyhow.