tie in all the monuments we find and give them reference to all other surveys in our area for anyone to use anytime? Coordinate them. Reference them. Show them. Make your record of them available to everyone else.
The days are gone when government agencies have budget to:
1. Set Monuments
2. Reference Monuments
3. Remonument Positions
4. Restore Monuments
5. Survey Existing Monuments
6. Resolve Control inaccuracies
7. And so on....
Maybe it is time for surveyors to look at what needs to be done and take on that task ourselves! It is just part of what we do. I could vote for that.
Luke
because surveyors are terrified of state plane coordinates. scared to publish them, scared to use them, scared to trust them.
i ran across a site a couple of months ago where we did an asbuilt for a pond on top of an old cad file in SPC. when we tied in the old drawing was off +/- 5'. we ran our numbers and submitted them to the engineer with a note that the old survey was off by 5'. i got an irate call from the old surveyor wondering why we called him out. i explained the discrepancy and told him it looked like his coordinates were off because they were on international feet instead of us survey feet. the conversion was almost exactly 5' in our area. when i ask how they had derived their coordinates (international or us survey feet) the other end of the line got very quiet. "I'm not sure" came the response.
"I'm not sure" will burn your ass.
> The days are gone when government agencies have budget to:
> 1. Set Monuments
> 2. Reference Monuments
> 3. Remonument Positions
> 4. Restore Monuments
> 5. Survey Existing Monuments
> 6. Resolve Control inaccuracies
> 7. And so on....
The days are gone when they have the need to, as well.
It's a lot more efficient to place monuments in six circular orbital planes 10,900 nautical miles above the earth.
Work up a budget, put out an RFP and see how many replies you get.......;-)
I understand not wanting to go out of your way to tie in such monuments if they are not important to your work at hand, but think that it's good practice to tie them in as you come across them and include them on your map whether they have a direct bearing on your work or not, or make a separate Corner Record and file it.
Most can't afford to do a significant amount of work to tie htese monuments down, but if it's just a marginal extra bit of effort, it's worth it to preserve a record of the monuments.
We have a similar system, but you can't add to it....yet.
I use it all the time: I download as many points as I can; figure out which ones are related to the survey I'm doing; do my best to calculate coordinates for the corners of my survey, load them up in my controller and head out the door.
They don't always fit, but it gives me a good search position, then I just let my survey knowledge take over;-)
There is a WSS-ACSM meeting this Thursday and we will be discussing the set up you are talking about, Jim, I'll keep you posted.
Douglas Casement, PLS
> because surveyors are terrified of state plane coordinates. scared to publish them, scared to use them, scared to trust them.
Many surveyors should be terrified! Because they just have no clue.
OK, I am just venting and ranting here a bit...
During my last 10 years of gainful stateside employment (pre 2008) I ran across the work of many otherwise highly skilled Licensed/Registered Land Surveyors that never learned the basics of Geodetic Calculations.
California created a clear and concise code addressing how SPC work is to be done:
http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/displaycode?section=prc&group=08001-09000&file=8801-8819
Unfortunately many of my fellows learned some sort of software that gave solutions that kinda work. But the mixing of datums and epochs were not understood.
It ain't rocket science! Heck, even I can figure it out!
Expensive software does not replace understanding. The calcs can be done with paper and pencil.
please excuse my rant.
Most surveys I do are on SPC and I show the coordinates of the POB on the drawing.
Dreamers always want someone else to do their work for them, then get paid for supposedly doing it. If you think some people cheat on their product now, just let them be able to pretend they actually found all the things they show on their plat.
"Expensive software does not replace understanding."
Man that is GREAT!!!!
And speaks VOLUMES about the underlying problem. Folks spend mega-bucks on software, and ASSUME that the sofware is doing ALL OF THE THINKING for them, when in reality, it can only do the heavy lifting (calculations) that are properly posed and UNDERSTOOD by the fool in front of the keyboard.
GIGO
Loyal
> tie in all the monuments we find and give them reference to all other surveys in our area for anyone to use anytime? Coordinate them. Reference them. Show them. Make your record of them available to everyone else.
>
> The days are gone when government agencies have budget to:
> 1. Set Monuments
> 2. Reference Monuments
> 3. Remonument Positions
> 4. Restore Monuments
> 5. Survey Existing Monuments
> 6. Resolve Control inaccuracies
> 7. And so on....
>
> Maybe it is time for surveyors to look at what needs to be done and take on that task ourselves! It is just part of what we do. I could vote for that.
>
> Luke
Luke,
Good points
It sounds like a legitimate argument could be made for new legislation.
Government agencies do not and will not have funds available for such undertakings. The private sector will need to fill the gap.
The problem is, the public is not going to hire surveyors to do such a thing. Unless there is a mandate to set monuments, reference monuments, restore monuments, survey existing monuments and resolve control inaccuracies.
Yes Mr. Cow, new technology can always be used for evil purposes, but we can't let that stop progress.
Good will always overcome evil, always has, always will.
This is the link to the meeting
Please let me know, if there are any specific questions you would like answered and I'll see what I can do.
Radar