@richard-imrie almost makes me wanna go ahead and buy a new one. ?ÿBut why bother? ?ÿWhen my 1998-Leica (dark Wild green) TCA-1100 is still going strong.
I have had my Zoom 90 lock on my reflective vest a few times when staking out.?ÿ
Maybe four years ago, I read an article about Leica robots, which appeared to say that the scope has camera in it which generates some form of "facial recognition" so that it can learn the shapes of prisms and search for and track them only. (I'm fairly sure I have not imaged this).
Here's what us British have got to say about it. And BTW, FWIW, it looks like the Android tablet that he demonstrates towards the end, is a Samsung Active Tab 3 8" that I promulgated in a recent other thread.
@larry-best Scary stuff!?ÿ How do you prevent it?
@frozennorth I turn my vest inside-out.
@brad-ott Interesting.?ÿ I've had that thought, but I often work on projects where that wouldn't fly.?ÿ Good feedback to have!?ÿ I'm very happy with the Trimble gear, but with the recent crop of Hexagon robots (Geomax/Carlson/Leica, etc.) was curious about how competitive they are.?ÿ This vest-tracking thing is a deal-killer to me, although based on what John Putnam said was more an issue with older models.?ÿ Seems like it could create the kind of problems that could only be solved with a jackhammer and back charges...
tracking vests, etc can happen with any robot, I would think. You can get an active prism, but ICK!
Seriously, Topcon and Trimble believe in them, but I hate them...very much hate them. We had a 10 year old Leica and a brand new Topcon a two years or so ago. I would pick the Leica every time. I despise active prisms.
@dmyhill What's the downside of active prisms??ÿ Weight, accuracy?
I read an article about Leica robots, which appeared to say that the scope has camera in it which generates some form of "facial recognition" so that it can learn the shapes of prisms and search for and track them only.
The way it was explained to me by a Leica dealer (Hans Haselbach, who was very well-versed in Leica technology), the prism patterns were hard-coded in the firmware rather than learned on the fly.
I've never run a Topcon but from what I have gathered from this Forum, is that in the case of Topcon active systems, it is speed and reliability.
With Trimble, I guess it is the underlying fact that, although the instrument compensates for it, it is not "aiming" at the center of the optical prism, it is only getting distance from the optical prism.
In both cases, active prisms require power at the pole, which can be an extra thing to go wrong.
With Trimble, I guess it is the underlying fact that, although the instrument compensates for it, it is not "aiming" at the center of the optical prism, it is only getting distance from the optical prism.
This is true for Leica/GeoMax as well, but instead of aiming at a diode it calculates an offset to the center of the image pattern.?ÿ I believe you can force it to center on the prism image, but as I recall that requires an extra command that has to be issued each time -- I don't think you can have it default to center on the image.?ÿ In any case, I've found the ATR to be plenty accurate for most everything I do.
Yes there is a white paper from Lecia on this. My understanding is essentially it gets close enough the uses the electronic smarts to get the accuracy required. It does this so the instrument is not making micro moments which saves wear and tear.
That may be what Lecia call ATR plus which the newer TS16's and better run. The standard ATR has been not y than adequate for me though.
@lukenz?ÿ
Automatic Target Recognition (ATR) has been on all of Leica's robotic instruments.?ÿ In the instruments running Captivate have smart target recognition capabilities (not sure of Leica's term) that filter out bad targets.?ÿ I think it even filters out know points in power search.?ÿ I don't have any Captivate instruments, just the data collector.?ÿ Go figure, they came out a couple of months after I bought an MS50.
I remember reading about this a few years ago also, but that's not what my Zoom 90 does. The target plate makes no difference. I never use a target with a pole, whether?ÿ with a round or omnidirectional prism. I believe it identifies the nodal point of the prism and rather than moving the scope to line up the crosshairs up it makes an adjustment to the angles from the distance from the nodal point to the crosshairs.?ÿ