American Surveyor Vol 8 No 2 Articles Posted

Editorial: The Things We Gather
You can tell a lot about people by the things they collect. Whatever the motivation, for most of us the process of collecting is a pleasurable pursuit. Many of our writers own fine collections--old surveying instruments, classic cars, antique clocks, coins, photographs and more. Personally, I've ....
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An Integrated Solution for Mining The Twangiza-Namoya gold belt in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is potentially one of the most exciting undeveloped gold deposits in the world today. Exploration and mining activities across what are today Banro's four ... Read the Article

What Separates the Rich from the Poor? "The rights of persons, and the rights of property, are the objects, for the protection of which Government was instituted." —James Madison. Of the 6 billion people on Earth, 2 billion try to survive on a few dollars a day. They don't businesses, or... Read the Article

Montana's GIS-Based Cadastre Layered with Riches As the fourth largest state in the United States, Montana is synonymous with frontier. Under the state's famous "big sky" are 145,552 square miles of sparsely populated open land, and-- ranked forty-fourth in total population and forty-eighth in ... Read the Article

Harnessing a GPS Network It's a powerful system, this SmartNet North America. Launched by Leica on March 1, 2010, SmartNet is a subscription-based service offering GNSS Network RTK corrections throughout North America. Geographically, SmartNet covers Ontario, Quebec ... Read the Article

Using Google Earth I'm sure many surveyors like myself have downloaded and played with Google Earth. I have virtual map pins stuck in places where I've lived and worked, and pins placed at Air Force bases where I was stationed in the United States, Europe and North Africa. There are pins in the ... Read the Article

Vantage Point: Life Behind Levees: an Overview and Update Throughout history, mankind's interaction with water has been a love/hate relationship. We have loved to be near water for drinking, bathing, fishing, watering crops, navigating our ships, and just plain aesthetics. On the other hand we have hated the unpredictability of water rising up out of .... Read the Article

Footsteps: Title Industry Changes Affect Surveying
Several changes have recently occurred in the land title industry. What caused these changes and what impact they have had on the boundary surveyor are the topics that this article will address. The land title industry is the group of companies that offer insurance to the purchaser of ...
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Volume 7, Number 7 Articles Posted

Make Me a Map of the Valley
Under clear skies and warmer than normal temperatures, nearly 100 people gathered for the 14th annual Surveyors Rendezvous. Guests were treated to an extraordinary three-night stay onboard the legendary Delta Queen steamboat. Designated as a National Historic Landmark with more than two million miles of maritime history beneath her bow, the Delta Queen is now one of Chattanooga's most ....Read the Article

Digitizing the Legacy "We are missing data on Washington's brow and cravat." "Even with the data from the scans on the talus slope?" "The angle is just too steep. We have to use the rig." "What about the scans from Lincoln, or the chins?" Two clicks brought up a different modelspace. "No,the angle was too oblique to catch the front of Washington." "We designed the rig to ....Read the Article

Machine Control: Lessons Learned I am continually asked about the opportunities for land surveyors in the machine control market and I have written a couple past articles about these opportunities. But I am more curious about what the next trend is for machine control. What else is over the horizon that we haven't seen yet? What can land surveyors do to help fill the void that machine control has left in our revenues? Being involved in ... Read the Article

Not What, but Where is Qibla? Back in the Spring of 2009, we received a routine request from one of our finer regular clients to perform a routine boundary and topographic survey. Sporting a brick rancher, the property backed up to an interstate highway, fronting on a somewhat secluded road but less than a mile from one of Tennessee's largest shopping malls. We completed the ...Read the Article

OPUS-DB and Uncertainty Testing The Conrad Blucher Institute for Surveying and Science at Texas A&M University--Corpus Christi conducted a research project with the National Park Service (NPS) and National Geodetic Survey (NGS) to determine the heights of five peaks in the Guadalupe Mountains. This mountain range is located in West Texas near its border with New Mexico ...Read the Article

Vantage Point: Safety or Fraud? About six years ago, as I chatted with a client as he drove us through northeastern Missouri to visit a work site, the inevitable questions of origins arose. Mine is a complicated tale of a family on the move from coast to coast, but his was simpler: "I'm from a small town in Pennsylvania I'm sure you've never heard of, Centralia." I turned toward him in sudden surprise and replied, "Oh, I know where that ....Read the Article

Feedback More on Apprenticeship. I have been following the discussions about this subject at various locations and in many forms for many years now. In Dave Gibson's article "Licensure by Apprenticeship: Effects on the Surveying Profession" [Vol 7, Issue 4], he makes some good points. However, what I find difficult to accept about most of the opinions I have heard is that the argument seems to be always ...Read the Comments

Surveyors Report: Making the Most of the Recession
The Barnett Shale, the second largest producing onshore domestic natural gas field in the US, stretches over North Texas. It is still actively being discovered. Young and Associates Surveying and Mapping, LLC was formed in 2007 as the Barnett Shale was booming for natural gas exploration. As land surveyors who specialize in this niche market, we were in an optimal position to step in and step up ...
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Vol.7 No.6 Article Posted

Editorial: Maps as a Metaphor
"I know this world is ruled by infinite intelligence. Everything that surrounds us--everything that exists--proves that there are infinite laws behind it. There can be no denying this fact. It is mathematical in its precision." There are many surveyors and mappers and members of the precision community who concur with these words of Thomas Edison. Economy, too, hangs on immutable laws. One of the ....Read the Article

Measuring a Caribbean Disaster On January 12, 2010, a magnitude 7.0 earthquake struck the city of Port-au-Prince, the capital and largest city of Haiti. Tens of thousands of buildings collapsed, and more than 200,000 people died in the disaster. Earthquakes are not unexpected in Haiti. The country sits astride several fault lines, among them the Enriquillo-Plantain Garden fault ....Read the Article

3D-Laser Scanning and Surveying Collide LandAir Surveying started business in 1988 performing site surveys and topographic surveys for contractors in Georgia and surrounding states with two survey crews and a total staff of less than 10. By 1998 the firm expanded to surveying cell tower sites for the telecommunications industry (more than 3,000 sites in four years) using ...Read the Article

Another Triumph! He's done it again. Javad Ashjaee has released an impressive state-of-the-art product that enables surveyors to expand their GNSS capabilities. On June 29, 2010 Javad unveiled the Triumph VS at the company's 40,000 square foot newly designed headquarters and JAVAD EMS boardmanufacturing facility in San Jose, California. Over the decades ...Read the Article

Product Review: Hemisphere GPS R220 One of the recent trends in precision GPS manufacturing is the enclosed, fully integrated receiver. This is no doubt in response to market demands by surveyors in the field for gear that offers more durability and less complexity in setting up and getting to work. This trend has certainly offered surveyors many benefits, however, it has also ushered in a few limitations. For instance, many of these ...Read the Article

Comprehensive Collection Recording the location, dimensions and physical attributes of every piece of equipment constituting rural utilities throughout the United States might seem like a tall order. But information tools used to build a GIS have advanced so much in recent years that the endeavor is not only possible, but plausible. Great Falls, Montana-based GeoNav Group International, Inc. recently acquired the technology to pull ....Read the Article

Feedback Doing a Proper Job: I have a better reason for the legal profession insisting on a metes and bounds descriptions for dependent resurveys than clerk mentality or ancient check lists. In his article "Rewriting Legal Descriptions" [Vol. 7, Num. 4], Gary Kent's example of "the most egregious example of description rewriting is the preparation of a metes and bound description for a property that is a lot in ...Read the Comments

Vantage Point: "Just" What?
Several months ago my husband and I were working on a rail to trail conversion in our neighborhood, digging out debris and planting trees. At one point I was separating the junk found in the digging process from the recyclable beer cans and glass bottles when someone walked up and started talking to me. With my head still down, in the midst of trying to subdue a long strand of barbed wire into a ...Read the Article

The American Surveyor Vol 7 No 3 Articles Posted

Editorial: SPAR 2010
Under the banner of Innovate, Connect & Learn, the seventh annual SPAR laser scanning conference was held in Houston in February. In comparison to attendance in 2009, which had decreased slightly from the previous year to 630, attendance this year roared back to nearly 800. Of these ....Read the Article

SMART Surveying Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit (SMART) is an overwhelmingly popular rail initiative in Northern California. Measure Q had an amazing 70% support of the two county (Sonoma-Marin) SMART District. One reason for voter enthusiasm is that SMART promises to be relatively ....Read the Article

Ashtech Comes Full Circle: An interview with François Erceau They're back! While the name Ashtech may sound new to younger folks in the precise community, its corporate predecessors, Ashtech, Thales and Magellan have ... Read the Article

Whose Footsteps Are They? The Journey to the Center Quarter Corner The center quarter corners of the Public Land Survey System are the topic of many heated discussions between surveyors. Some say the center quarter can exist only at the intersection of ...Read the Article

The Birthplace of VRS Today, Real-Time Kinematic (RTK) networks are becoming commonplace. There is at least a small RTK network (or multiple RTK networks) in every state of the U.S., some with full statewide coverage. Internationally, many countries boast nationwide networks. All have been developed within a whirlwind decade since the introduction of the ....Read the Article

Infected with Surveying: A ProFile of Dick Elgin Dick Elgin comes by his surveying "roots" honestly. Raised in his late parents' "Mom and Pop" surveying business, as with so many of us, surveying got into his blood early in life and has yet to leave. This rare combination of surveying practitioner, researcher, educator, author and ....Read the Article

Vantage Point: Ripple Effects Above and Below The most popular saying around one office I worked in was, "You can have anything you want, but you have to pay the price." Both clients and employees heard it frequently. But it applies to life on a broader scale as well, affecting many aspects of the world we live in. One of ...Read the Comments

Network News
Earl Dudley, Inc. saw the benefits of a reference station network early on. Now, nearly a decade after their first station, they are seeing a lot of new converts to the technology. Equipment suppliers in a broad range of fields can often go years without a change in their product offering. Not ...Read the Article

December articles posted

Editorial: Tumultuous Times
If you've reached the end of 2008 feeling just a bit worn out, you're not alone. From the adrenaline highs of Michael Phelps winning eight gold medals in the Beijing Olympics to the depressing lows of an economy in crisis, and from the euphoria surrounding Obama's November election to the sobering realities of the ....Read the Article

Point to Point: The Digital Surveys Archive A show of hands now: How many of you produced a hand-drawn plat or map within the last month? Within the last year? Undoubtedly there are surveyors still drawing by hand, but their numbers get smaller and smaller as the years pass. For the rest of us, the digital age means not only that computations and ....Read the Article

A New Star Over Milan Innovation and precise surveying bring complex architecture to life. They are meant to impress. Designed by cutting-edge architects, today's office buildings, commercial complexes and public buildings are taking on new and exciting forms. With glittering facades and ...Read the Article

A Visit to MicroSurvey In my forty-some years in the survey industry I've crossed paths with lots of interesting people, each with a story to tell. The roads that led many to successful careers were a `straight shot' for some, with a specific goal in mind and clear-cut steps to get there. But for many others the stories include tales of ...Read the Article

The WowFactor: Topcon ImageMaster Surveyors traditionally have welcomed emerging technology when it offers an improvement in the accuracy and integrity of measurement and mapping. One of the most revolutionary tools of late for the surveyor has been the emergence of Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS). The term encompasses ....Read the Article

ProFile: Sam Diaz - Chief Surveyor of Bechtel Corporation One of eight brothers and sisters, 54-year-old Sam Diaz grew accustomed to changing locations and making cross-country moves early in life. Today, having changed world time-zones as easily as some people change radio stations, we are pleased to have this veteran surveyor and world traveler share ....Read the Article

Scanning In The Streets Anyone who's visited Fenway Park to see the Boston Red Sox knows that current principal owner John Henry is among the world's best in sports event marketing. The Red Sox Nation experience spans generations and economic strata and reaches from eastern Maine to ...Read the Article

Surv-Fi, Part 3: Defending The Future There had been so much interest in the case, that the venue had been changed to a hearing room at the state capitol. The notices and press releases included an invitation for attendees who wished to arrive early and use their own instruments to observe three test marks set up in ...Read the Article

Product Review: The Topcon IS Imaging Station The Topcon IS (Imaging Station) is the latest offering from Topcon Positioning Systems' optical equipment lineup. It is built on the 900 series robotic chassis, however its expanded capabilities go well beyond a typical servo-driven total station. True to Topcon's philosophy of reaching the masses, they have managed to ...Read the Article

Vantage Point: Fiddling with Floods
My brother and I recently spent several days in New Orleans working with Habitat for Humanity on new, elevated homes in the Upper 9th Ward. On our way to the job site each day, we passed businesses and houses that, three years and a month after Katrina's tumultuous visit, look like ...Read the Article

October articles posted

Editorial: Setting Our Sights
Years of planning and construction went into Beijing's iconic bird's nest stadium that is now synonymous with 2008 games. With Vancouver slated to host the Winter Games in 2010, surveyors have been hard at work helping to ready the infrastructure. Diversifying: For those of you looking for ....Read the Article

Point to Point: Boundaries by Acquiescence We retracement surveyors, for the most part, labor within a stable and consistent part of the law. By this, I mean that from place to place, and over time, there is little variation in the doctrines defining correct practice. Monuments, everywhere, trump courses and distances, in the event of ....Read the Article

WowFactor: The Trimble VX Spatial Station It's not unusual to find a digital camera as standard equipment for a survey crew. Providing photos of monuments, project sites and other evidence is a routine part of the surveyor's work. Now­instead of a flat drawing and some simple snapshots­imagine giving your client a 3D walkthrough tour of ... Read the Article

Vancouver Trains For Olympic Games More than one million athletes, judges, volunteers and visitors are expected to converge on Vancouver, Canada, and surrounding areas during the 2010 Olympics. Yet many of these visitors won't realize the Olympic-sized engineering and ...Read the Article

Tips & Tricks: Getting More from Your Handheld GPS Unit Are you getting all that you can from your handheld unit? Are you able to directly observe State Plane coordinates with your handheld? Although inexpensive units may not have a selection for the State Plane coordinate grid that you use in your state, if your State Plane Coordinate Zone uses the ....Read the Article

Survey Reports: Preparing a Survey Report—Part 5 This is the fifth and last article in a series of articles suggesting formats and contents of a survey report. Previous articles dealt with opinions on the location of corners and boundaries [Feb. 2008]; encroachments, gaps and overlaps [Mar. 2008]; limitations of the surveying services [June 2008]; and....Read the Article

RTN­101: Monitoring with RTN (Part 15) Monitoring is essentially tracking movement over time and is often part of a surveyor's regular line of business. Such tasks are known by many names: subsidence monitoring, deflection monitoring, deformation monitoring, structural integrity monitoring, compliance monitoring, and ...Read the Article

Product Review: Spectra Precision FOCUS 10 The Spectra Precision's FOCUS 10 brings back a lot of memories from an instrument I reviewed several years ago. Without a doubt, the FOCUS 10 has benefited from the former, but is updated and less expensive even in terms of 2002 dollars. And that's a good thing, since ...Read the Article

ProFile: Marshall Robinson We allow little time in our day-to-day schedules to get to know people much beyond their shells. It was therefore a pleasant change of pace when I received a phone call awhile back from Marshall Robinson, who was calling to order a map from our website ...Read the Article

Vantage Point: Tough Times The construction slowdown has hit different parts of the country with varying ferocity. The latest jolt to "life as we know it" is a uniform blow to businesses of all sorts, and has the potential to change the financial plans of a number of surveying firms. Within a week, three U.S. motor vehicle ...Read the Article

Surveyors Report: Mimi the Elephant
Years ago I worked for a medium-sized private engineering firm in Denver. We negotiated a continuing services contract with the City and County of Denver for surveying services, and my crew was elected to conduct this work. The City was understaffed by one crew for ...Read the Article