Considerations for Small Survey Business

the technical and mathematical ones that can be systematically solved. Many of the demands placed upon us, however, do not have a formula for the answer, as it is often based on experience. Time management, asset allocation, client and employee relationship, effective communication, interpersonal skills, etc. all have empirical elements that can only be gauged by trial-and-error. In this manner, there may be as many answers as there are surveyors. 

The following list of considerations is a conglomeration of proposals over the past decade that has helped improve the operation of small- to medium-sized survey divisions. I do not propose that these are immediately applicable to your situation because each situation is different, much like the people involved in the situation; however, I do hope this provides a reservoir of thought that can help spark debate or perhaps reconsiderations, which is a key part in improving survey operations and business as a whole. 

Allocate Resources 1:1

Consideration: designate one vehicle, one total station, and one set of GNSS tools to one field member—indefinitely

• Assign one field surveyor the responsibility of care for a specific vehicle.
• Assign a field surveyor one total station, collector, set of GNSS units, and level.
• Note that assignment does not mean “to have on-hand” but means that if needed, the crew member uses the one assigned to them. 

The benefits:

• Provides the greatest opportunity to become the most familiar with the given vehicle and equipment among everybody in the business.
• Allows the intimacy necessary to use the equipment to its fullest capabilities and efficiencies.
• Allows the field surveyor to properly prepare for and successfully accomplish each task in an efficient manner. 
• Allows the field surveyor to quickly identify any equipment or vehicle malfunction.
• Minimized differences in systematic errors found between different sets of equipment. 
• Heightened sense of personal responsibility (not to be underestimated).

By assigning a specific vehicle and set of equipment to one field member, it allows them to become the most familiar with that particular equipment. This is what allows the equipment to be used to its fullest capabilities and efficiencies and is what will allow the field member to accomplish his task correctly and in the shortest amount of time possible. It is this field surveyor who can best detect when the equipment needs calibrated or doesn’t function properly. 

Assigning a vehicle and set of equipment to a specific field member will also offer the opportunity necessary to develop a sense of personal responsibility short of actual ownership. As they spend time relying on, caring for, and accomplishing tasks with the same vehicle and equipment, they will develop a sense of responsibility that goes deeper than that of “just doing the job.” This is most evident in cases where the surveyors reference equipment in the possessive case and become more protective of their inventory.

Unassigned, constantly rotated sets of equipment cannot be accounted for as well as individually assigned equipment, which hardly provides the right environment that calls for an increased sense of responsibility. Like all other people, field surveyors are apt and ever eager to create consistency and form a reliable routine because more often than not, it’s the only thing that’ll be in order on a chaotic job site.

Equip Vehicles Individually

Consideration: each vehicle should have its own set of field equipment

Develop an inventory list of necessary surveying equipment and ensure that each vehicle is equipped with said list. 

This does not include high value assets i.e. total stations, scanners, GNSS units, etc. as discussed in the previous section.

The benefits:

• Mitigates, and can virtually eliminate, the need for coordinating equipment during the work day.
• Offers the highest amount of capability and interchangeability among crews. 
• Affords crews the time necessary to manage and organize the equipment, resulting in better care. 
• Allows the crew to develop a routine for inventory assessment.

This will virtually eliminate the need for communication dealing with coordinating equipment, allowing for smoother daily operations and less time and money spent on drive-time to exchange, drop-off, or pick-up the equipment. This can also allow for a near-perfect interchangeability among crews because all crews will have the necessary equipment already in their vehicles. Their response time to on-call demands will be much quicker because they will already have the necessary equipment.

Notes on Personal Equipment

Businesses should not rely on personal survey equipment (bring your own device, as it is becoming known), but allow it to be an option at the discretion of members within the business, such as the field coordinator or licensed surveyor. If the business wishes to perform its contractual duties in a correct and efficient manner, then it is in its best interest to burden the responsibilities inherent within the correct procedures to complete each task. This includes the business providing all equipment necessary to complete this duty. 

Personal equipment may be of great benefit by heightening the performance of the site surveyor; however, it may be just as detrimental and provide greater liability to the business, hence also the site surveyor, should the surveyor be in a position where they are forced to use personal equipment; or, should personal equipment be used that has not been approved by the designated member(s).

Standardize Terms

Consideration: develop a code list

Develop an official business code list. It should be formatted into pocket size pages. Print, laminate, and bind with spiraling as needed, then distribute.

Advantages:

• A uniform language that is understood by all members of the business, minimizing discrepancies in data throughout the company. This allows any member to work on the same project and collect, interpret, process, and report data in a format understood by all of the members.
• A pocket sized, laminated code list allows members, field crews in particular, to carry it on them at all times for reference. A properly sized code list should also find room inside the cases protecting survey equipment i.e. total stations, levels, GNSS units.
• Allows new employees to adjust much more rapidly and commit fewer mistakes.
• Less company time and money spent training and communicating with employees.

Note that even a “code-less” code, or one without structure, will always need to be addressed and conveyed, especially to less experienced surveyors who may not know basic construction terminology to identify what they’re looking at. A code list will help to clarify this, avoiding descriptions that may be called into question in the future. However, some codes are mandatory, such as those used for gas line as-builts which require attribute data to be entered and stored. In this case, the coding must be very specific and properly documented, all of which can be addressed and described in the code list pamphlet.

Storm as-builts are another example where attribute data needs to be entered. Since not all codes on a collector prompt the user for attributes, the surveyor can reference the code list to see what attributes are needed.

Simply allowing all the field surveyors to write their own code will yield as many different codes as there are surveyors, not including the differences found across time from the same surveyor. 

Single Point of Contact

Consideration: establish a field coordinating position

A field coordinator is the face of the field members within the company’s walls, and is the voice of the company to the field members and client.

It is in the company’s best interest to have a positive interaction with its clients and field members outside its walls. To do so, it must be able to understand the needs of the client and field members, and clearly communicate these needs to the appropriate person, and ensure the field members and client can perform their job properly. This line of communication requires certain responsibilities. Assuming there is one point of contact for all field members, one field coordinator in other words, he would:

• Address issues and concerns among the field members, including their equipment, transportation, organization, and overall well-being and relay that to the appropriate person. 
• Address issues and concerns of the client and relay that to the appropriate person.
• Coordinate, schedule, and assign field members to the client’s tasks/project.
• Organize each day’s export files to be up-to-date for import the following day. Project data should be up-to-date to ensure all crews have access to all available data for a project. Up-to-date job files allow interchangeability of the crews for different jobs, such as filling in for an absent crew member. It also prevents future redundancy and confusion of stored point numbers and descriptions. 
• Create field packages. Field packages include the up-to-date files ready for import/upload, description of the daily tasks, a control sheet and other print-outs that shows only that which is necessary for accomplishing the daily task. If a proper folder is kept for a project, it can be handed to any crew, showing every task that has been done on that project. 
• When not in communication with the field crews or client, the field coordinator processes field data, assists in bidding of future projects, and assists in cut-sheets, deliverables, and any other task available.
• Make sure field supplies such as nails, flagging, and stakes are readily available for the field crews.
• If a field member should have direct contact with the client, then it is the field coordinator who gives the field member that responsibility.

Billing for Time

Consideration: clarify the use of drive-time and equipment care

The question of whether or not field surveyors should bill for drive-time and equipment care still persists throughout parts of the private industry.

It should be in the company’s best interest that drive-time and equipment are billed. The reason is that responsibility of the survey equipment and vehicle is still fully burdened during transport, until the time the equipment is properly stored.

Land surveying equipment is the center of business for modern land surveying. To accomplish a job successfully, the equipment must be handled in a manner that ensures it arrives and functions properly. This is why its treatment, maintenance, mode of transport, and manner of storage is of utmost importance. All of these are each field member’s responsibility only because it is a necessity for the job to be performed, both under the ethical duty of a professional and legally under contract. If this is true, then drive-time and equipment care cannot be considered separate from the “work,” for they are all one in the same. That is, the job does not end once the survey task itself is complete. It can only end for the day when the equipment is transported and stored properly. Again, if this is to be true, then it should be accounted for in bids and billed to the client, otherwise it is an exchange where the surveying party does not fully accept this responsibility and offers the service short of its best potential and accepts the increased liability.

Is Land Surveying Art or Craft?

Lately this question of “art or craft” has come to mind. One of my best friends has vast knowledge of the Italian sculptors and painters. His life-long profession has been the restoration and preservation of art objects, and I would think if there were guild craftsmen, he would be one.

In training of my survey apprentices, I encourage them to locate details at sites such as possible works of art, gravestones for pets, bird houses (if there are not too many) to name a few. In the course of surveying the properties of wealthy land owners, I will often find what I think the owners might believe is a piece of art. There will be topo shots labeled “ART” and the office staff know I want it shown some way on our plan. Using my cell phone, I snap pictures of these and sometimes will ask my friend “Is this art, or craft?” Then I wait for his reply. 

Today, I ran out to find more monuments to resolve a survey boundary. The accompanying photo is a limestone monument that was on the plan of survey.

This stone is a beauty and sticks up out of the ground about 6 inches. Notice the hole in the stone and the lines radiating off the center of that hole. In my opinion, the drill hole was made using a star drill. How many apprentices today have ever held a star drill? It was once a standard item in most survey trucks. This hole was deep and must have taken time. While my wife thinks of this as craftsmanship, I find this to be “art.” The surveyor who set this was practicing the art of land surveying. The surveyor who made this drill hole and set this monument was the real deal. 

With the current run to technology, much of the “Art of Land Surveying” is disappearing. Fifteen years back, there were people still hand-drafting plans. I always enjoyed seeing a beautiful plan and took a few minutes to appreciate the care and precision that went into the drafting. 

I recall being at a surveyor’s office with my boss. He looked at a mylar sheet and softly said, “I wonder who drafted this plan, it’s really well done.” Then he asked around their office and found out it was one of the owners, a man who knew how to keep a pencil sharp. He was using those old ‘lead holders’ and the sharpener you stick the pencil into and rotate it to get that needle point for fine lines. 

The lead holders were replaced by Pentel pencils which could hold 0.03, 0.05, 0.07, etc. lead and colored lead and keep a uniform line weight (width). The 0.03 lead was incredibly thin and broke often. 

Back then, there were draftsmen who were artists on survey drawings … and then there were craftsmen. You could see the difference. 

While in the office of the general manager of the company, I had the pleasure of a hands-on lesson in the art of drafting. He was picking out the fonts and Leroy guides for me to lay out the title sheet for a set of perhaps a twenty-sheet plan set. He explained that it was the most important sheet of the set because it is what the client and municipality would see first. If it looked impressive then it would follow the rest of the work was impressive. I felt the truth in what he expressed.

This approach to plans has been continued into my computer drawings. If mine is a detailed plan of survey, then it inspires confidence in the viewer. When I go the extra tenth of a mile, it might seem like twenty. 

We all want to create nice plans, but every beginner needs the help of an experienced person to teach them the art and the craft of their profession. When older professionals can instill this in trainees, it continues the excellence. 

Driving Quality

When the vice president of one of the very large Philadelphia engineering firms worked as a young engineer in Virginia, the office staff complained about the picky and demanding drafting manager. In one instance, the hand scribbling to indicate concrete did not have enough scribbles and dots. They were ordered back to the drawing board to fix that plan. Angry young engineers drew in very tiny curse words among the dots and squiggles and laughed to themselves. The next day they all received a lecture about quality drafting. This engineer, 20 years after that event, smiled broadly as he told me the story. Those various types of hand shadings were soon to be replaced by “craft” with sheets of ‘sticky paper’ with preprinted hatching. The fine Leroy lettering was replaced by Kroy lettering machines, and silt fence lines by thin rolls of preprinted “line types.” Any competent computer draftsperson knows about line types and a computer and plotter make them all exactly the same. This also applies to the hatching and shading. 

I don’t think that current plans are nearly as attractive as the older plats. The newer plans seem to look more like craft. Craft does not mean they are full of errors or mistakes, but they rarely look to me like art.

Back to the Drawing Board

Do I want to go back to the drawing board? Heck no! But, there are ways we can distinguish our work and show the art of land surveying by the information shown on our drawings. For example, the plan I had which showed the stone in the photo never told us where on the line the stone existed. Graphically, it was not the right-of-way line. I explained to my draftsperson who was trying to make use of the stone, concrete monument, and pipes she found, that it was poor work to show the stone but no tie distance and that perhaps the surveyor wanted to keep that information secret. I want other surveyors to know and understand how I came to boundary conclusions. In teaching the apprentice, I explained how and why I always hope to show the relationship of stones found to the right-of-way line and then end of the line when the stone is on the sideline. 

Another way I have seen this is when there is an old plan and it shows “PIN SET ON LINE” with no distance to the ends of the line. Perhaps they thought it would bring in more work since pins get covered up and must be found and thus there is a charge for surveying services. A work-around I teach people is to scale the distance to the pin and stake out to it in hopes it was drafted correctly. I want surveyors who follow my work to find my pins, which will point to the monuments I used to make my decisions, in hopes that arguments rarely happen about who is right and who is wrong. To do that, I have to leave trail markers using sub-distances on my plans. 

We have all come across surveyors who produce comics rather than art, and the nature of bad work is it’s neither art nor craft. I’ve known party chiefs who would sit in their truck and sketch the topo from the driver’s seat. They had a good eye for perspective and making the picture look good and understanding of the shape of contour lines, but this was false work and though it saved money, it was wrong. 

There are still people who use fences with road centerlines to set up the boundary of a topographic survey plan and just don’t care about doing things right. In this area of the country, our building setback lines are often based on the street right of way and the property lines. Architects need to know precisely the relationship of the features to the setback lines and that cannot be assured by fences, rock rows, telephone poles, or simply splitting the road width. 

There are times when a client thinks they know better and want to tell me to not tie the topo into the boundary, they don’t care about it. One way or another, I will try to use the same care when surveying even if the client won’t let me charge enough. It’s my pride in my work that drives me to prepare a good product as I suppose it’s the same with other surveyors. We each must decide if we want to compete with low bidders who create a poor product or keep our own personal standards of what should be on a survey plan. Our employees will be watching us and follow our lead. 

When an apprentice and I go over the plans found in the process of researching jobs, I like to make mention of the surveyor or engineer whose name is on the plat and remind them first to go to the title block and see who is responsible for the survey. From there you know the quality of the work. When I see nice work on the plans of others, I like to let my people know so they understand why I think it’s art. 

I know people who invest in art because of its value, and because, well, its art and they love to look at it. My personal investment in the art of land surveying has been paying off for some time now. I see it in the apprentices I teach and their work. I find it on my old plans and the records I’ve kept. It has also saved me money by avoiding possible mistakes while making neighboring surveys easier. 

The experience and wisdom licensed land surveyors possess, along with engineers and skilled party chiefs cannot be taught in school. There would be too much territory to cover. For that reason, even the brightest student in a four-year surveying degree program cannot take the test in Pennsylvania until they have five years of practical experience. If young apprentices are in surveying for the long haul, the things we teach them today and the art and craft we pass along will pay dividends for generations to come.

The history of ArcGIS

The history of ArcGIS

Esri, Environmental Systems Research Institute, knew there was a starving market for location-based systems also known geographic information systems (GIS). In 1990s, Esri started working on a product that later became one of the best enterprise solutions for GIS implementations on Windows systems. In 1999, ArcGIS was released. Since then, ArcGIS hasbecome the most used commercial GIS solution. ArcGIS was then renamed ArcGIS for Desktop, and the ArcGIS name was used as a product line instead to carry lots of products under it.

When the Web started to become ubiquitous in early 2000s, Esri adopted the Web by rolling in ArcGIS for Server and gradually ArcGIS functionalities as web services so that it could be supported on multiple platforms including mobile phones.

A decade later when the cloud solutions began to surface, Esri released its Software as a Service (SaaS) solution ArcGIS Online. Designed to simplify the user experience, ArcGIS Online hides all the ArcGIS "contraptions" and technologies to relieve the user from maintaining the hardware and software, leaving the user to do what they do best, mapping. Having everything in the cloud allows users to focus on their work instead of worrying about configurations, spinning up servers and databases, and running optimization checks.

Note

SaaS, a cloud-based software distribution model where all infrastructure, hardware, management software, and applications are hosted in the cloud. Users consume the applications as services without the need to have high-end terminal machines.

Today, Esri is pushing to enhance and enrich the user experience and support multiple platforms by using the ArcGIS Online technology.

In this book, we target one of the core products of the ArcGIS family—ArcGIS for Desktop. By using real-life examples, we will demonstrate the power and flexibility of this 16+ year-old product ArcGIS for Desktop. We are going to use the various tools at our disposable to show how we can extend the functionality of ArcGIS for Desktop.

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FUSING IN CAD CAPABILITIES INTO GIS. BY HONEST S. O. U.

FUSING IN CAD CAPABILITIES INTO GIS.       BY HONEST S. O. U.              

ArcGIS as a GIS software lacks some cartographic capabilities for drafting of work. We are often left with converting/ exporting our GIS work into a CAD environment and after some modifications in CAD environment, the work is exported back to ArcGIS environment. GIS lacks some conventional cartographic signs and symbols and does not allow free sketching of such signs/ symbols, a times we make do with Adobe Illustrator and other softwares to aid us.        The question therefore is,  how can we fuse in CAD capabilities into GIS environment?  I found out a simple method of doing this. You can convert your shape file to CAD file. Without closing the ArcGIs, open the CAD file and do the necessary modifications on the CAD  work. Use layer plotting for all text files, signs and symbols so that they can come out as layers in ArcGIS. After all the modifications both the layout and adjustments in the digitized features (Point, Line and Polygon) .Save your CAD work and open your ArcGIS file which u minimized and you will find all the modifications on your ArcGIS.                      Cheers.

STEPS FOR CONVERTING YOUR ArcGIS SHAPE FILE TO CAD.                                    1.Goto ArcToolbox.                     
2.Select Conversion Tools.                                     3.Select to CAD. Select ,Export to CAD.           Under Input Features, (select the shape files you want to convert). Under Output Type( select the DWG- the AutoCAD version u want to save it),  Under output file(Select the folder you want to save it).                                           4. Select Ok and wait for the files to convert/export to CAD. When its successful, it pops out successful message on the ArcGIS environment

*Step-by-step work through on earth volume computation using sufer*

*Step-by-step work through on earth volume computation using sufer*
The procedure assumes you already have sufer installed on your PC
👉Launch the sufer application by double clicking its icon on your desktop
👉On the program main menu, click Grid
👉Click data... in the drop down sub-menu
👉Navigate and locate the raw file containing your x,y,z data defining the surface in question
👉Click Open
An interface showing some sample of your data is displayed on the screen
👉Ensure that the appropriate field delimeter is selected and click OK
👉On the Grid Data interface that comes up next, select the appropriate field (i.e column) for each of your x, y, z data as contained in the previous interface
👉Select any desired griding method on the space provided for such on the Grid Data interface. The common and default method is kriging
*Note* : the result you obtain depends pretty much on the grid method you select as each of the methods uses different models in predicting the Grid elevation of the unobserved points
👉Click OK
The griding is then carried out by the application and the report displayed on the screen that can be saved to a file
*Note:* These procedures applies for each of the surfaces in the case of two surfaces volume computation. For a single surface, you just do that once for the available surface file

Next is to compute volume using the grid file created
👉On the program main Menu, click Grid
👉Click Volume in the drop down menu
👉Browse and locate the grid file created
👉Click to open the file
👉The Grid Volume interface pops up where you are expected to define your surfaces
👉The upper surface is natural ground surface (Topo-surface) for which a grid file has been created
👉The Lower surface is the grade or design surface
👉 For each of the surfaces, you can either chose to load a grid file or use a constant value
👉For a single surface volume with only the natural ground grid surface elevations, click and upload the grid file for the upper surface and define a constant, z value for the lower surface   (graded surface)
👉 Leave the Z- factor as 1
👉Click OK
The cut and fill volumes are displayed with the associated areas obtained

*Note*: the results earth volumes may vary from one application to another even with the same data depending on the method for computing areas and of course the griding method

15 things guys want but wont ask for

Relationships

15 things guys want but wont ask for

by Azeemen





Written by Azeemen

1. Ask him how his day went. It means a lot to him if you ask him if there is something bothering him.

2. Give him reassurance that he is the only one for you. He knows that he is not the best guy out there. He also thinks that he is replaceable.

3. Support him in all his endeavors. Cheer him up when he is down!

4. Do not choke him in the neck. Let him breath. Let him do the things that he loves to do.

5. Do not question his intentions. He chose you for a reason.

6. Trust him.

7. Cook food for him.

8. He likes it when you are being clingy to him.

9. Give tight hugs and warm kisses.

10. He likes funny conversations and deep ones.

11. Brag him to your family members and friends.

12. Respect his decision and choices.

13. Talk things in private. Do not bad mouth him most especially if his friends are around.

14. When you tell him to keep going and that he is on the right track.

15. When you stick to him no matter how the journey gets tougher

GOOGLE EARTH LIMITATIONS

GOOGLE EARTH LIMITATIONS.                       Google earth images does not come in high resolution although some technique can be employed to increase the resolution of the images. Such techniques includes and not limited to breaking the area of study into a well planed overlaying strip layers. This helps you download images with a small area that will be of a bit high resolution and this requires that for that given study you may have up to 30 image layers. Remember google earth images lacks spatial reference and this means that there is need to Georeference all these 30 image layers and thereafter you do image mosaic to merge all the 30 overlapping image layers. This is cumbersome to say the least and also introduces alot of errors. What are then the sources of errors here? Before downloading such images from google earth, you have control points you want to use for georeferencing (can be monument or landmarks you know their coordinates or you can choose those points on google earth and extract their coordinates) .These points while georeferencing, you may not be able to get the exact point having that coordinate in the images and this shift have introduced an error, imagine where such accumulates over those 30 image layers and see the error you have just in your georeferencing. This results to tilt in the image after georeferencing. When digitizing also, there may be some shadows on the structures as a result of low resolution data, and you may trace the shadow thinking it's the structure outline. This also a source of error. These and many more are the limitations of google earth images but fear not as am about to introduce you to amazing that can offer you much more and eliminates such limitations as observe in google earth imagery.