Tuesday, September 9, 2008

September articles posted

Editorial: Surveyors Get the Point
For me, the 6th annual ESRI Surveying and Engineering Summit represented a sea-change. While earli
er meetings I attended were designed to attract surveyors into the world of GIS, the trend has taken hold and surveyors everywhere are busy incorporating GIS into their work flows. I like the way ....Read the Article
Point to Point: Can Retracements Be Confidential?
Do your clients have a right to expect that the survey you conduct for them will be confidential? Let's assume for a moment that mandatory survey recording laws did not exist (and indeed, they do not exist in most areas) and that no other obligation to divulge the results of the ....Read the Article
WowFactor: TPC Desktop 2008 Global Background Clearing
TPC Desktop 2008 is all about making it easier to work with your survey data and drawings. It's about doing less work and getting more done. Their new Global Background Clearing is a good example. We put a lot of information on drawings. Take a typical ALTA or site survey-- they can ... Read the Article
Wildfire Maps Keep Agency Missions Blazing Forward
Blazing out of control wildfires have been sweeping across northern California this summer just as they did last fall in the southern region of the state and many times previously, leaving in their path death and destruction. These fires are ...Read the Article
Applanix: Solutions for Mobile Mapping and Positioning
It's a given that Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) don't work everywhere, for example if the signals are sufficiently blocked by such things as tree canopy, or urban canyons. Because of the need to locate things everywhere, a great deal of ....Read the Article
RTN-101: Mapping (Part 14)
Much of what surveyors do is essentially mapping, and much of mapping is/could/ would/should be characterized as surveying. But what certainly raises the blood pressure of many surveyors is when one puts the two terms in the same sentence, as I have just done. The debate over....Read the Article
The Marriage of GIS and Land Surveying (No Shotgun Needed)
Too often the GIS professional and the surveyor are at odds; a hoity-toity GIS guy looks askance at a muddy-booted surveyor who wants to pin him down on accuracy and ...Read the Article
Software Review: I-Site Studio 3.0 and 4400 Laser Scanner
It seems that every surveying magazine now overflows with stunning 3D images of everything from people, to cars, to historic landmarks, to infrastructure. Point clouds of intricate structures and shapes naturally captivate the geometrically adept mind. But what about the ...Read the Article
Product Review: SECO Poles and Prisms
Tired of prism pole slippage and non-adjustable prism pole bubble levels? Tired of tilting prism target assemblies that slip as you are walking back to the instrument or having to lift the prism pole out of the bipod ring, or not being able to adjust the "spring" out of ...Read the Article
Vantage Point: If Not Now, When?
June was a difficult month. A friend less than a year older than I am quickly succumbed to a resurgence of breast cancer. A colleague three years younger suddenly died of complications related to diabetes, although he had looked fine just a few months ago when I last saw him. Such events make ...Read the Article
Surveying `Da Situation: The Last Straw
It is bad enough that we've already had to endure months of election campaign rhetoric, but I read an article awhile back that was the last straw. I happened to be scanning the newspaper when I came across a piece reporting that the rock star Bruce Springsteen had ...Read the Article