Point of Beginning articles from November 2007

Point of Beginning archives from November 2007

Exposing the profession: it seems fitting that the editor of a surveying publication would travel to a place called Traverse City for her fall vacation.(editor's points)
November 1, 2007... My new family visited the self-proclaimed Cherry Capital of the World in late September, a Michigan city named after the Grand Traverse Bay of Lake Michigan on which it borders. While intriguing to some, the name of the city doesn't have much...

Technology benchmark: June 2007.(letters)(Letter to the editor)
November 1, 2007... In the past two issues of POB, I have read two letters on the topic of required licensure for the creation of 3D models that concerned me. Each of these individuals [who wrote the letters] say they know of few, if any, licensed surveyors or...

Technology benchmark: September 2007.(letters)(Letter to the editor)
November 1, 2007... I just read your article. Some of it I agree with and some I do not. I definitely feel we need to be paid more; however, I feel that states requiring a degree in order to be licensed is one major reason we are lacking in our ability to recruit...

University of Florida offers laser scanning education: the University of Florida (UF) in Gainesville is implementing laser scanning training into its geomatics program. in August, trimble dealer Southern Laser of Lutz, Fla., donated a trimble GS200 3D laser scanner to the program and delivered it to the university grounds.(newsline)
November 1, 2007... Joe Schneiderwind, survey sales manager for Southern Laser, was the impetus behind the donation. "I like to help surveying programs out around Florida," Schneiderwind says. "Traveling around the state, I was amazed to see that universities like...

Calendar of events.(Brief article)(Calendar)
November 1, 2007... Calendar of events NOVEMBER 1-3 ASCE 137th Annual Conference American Society of Civil Engineers Orlando, Fla. * 703/295-6154 http://content.asce.org/conferences/an07/Welcome.html 5-7 ...

A global scope: Leipzig hosts INTERGEO 2007.
November 1, 2007... INTERGEO 2007 was held in the East German city of Leipzig, approximately 120 miles south of Berlin. During the three-day event, the congress, the educational portion of the event where papers are presented (some in English), drew more than...

Small town scanning: Idaho firm proves that 3D laser scanning technology is not just for urbanites.(Company overview)
November 1, 2007... Located in the rural northern panhandle of Idaho, Sandpoint is a community of 7,000 people; cattle, horses, deer, moose and other critters outnumber the humans. The area's main road, I-95, is only two lanes and there are only six traffic...

A mountain of data ... advanced 3D scanning technology aids the refinement and progress of South Dakota's Crazy Horse project.
November 1, 2007... POB has covered the historical carving of Crazy Horse with articles in 1991 and 1996. Beginning in 1948 with a ceremonial first blast, the carving of Crazy Horse has benefited from advances in surveying techniques over the years. Last year,...

Partners in research: multiple agencies band together to complete a LiDAR survey of a Central Minnesota region.
November 1, 2007... Central Minnesota, acknowledged for its abundance of lakes, friendly small towns, wildlife conservation, and recreational activities surrounding its forests and lakes, includes several areas undergoing strong urban growth. The city of St....

Scanning the waters: how LiDAR is helping to survey the nation's shoreline.
November 1, 2007... Hydrographic surveying can be dangerous work. As surveying professionals chart near-shore features to help ensure the safety of vessels passing through our nation's waters, they often encounter weather changes, rough waves, visual hazards and...

Recreating Kalapana Gardens: how a Hawaiian survey team put a lava-covered subdivision back on the map.
November 1, 2007... Staring through the lens of my reflectorless total station, I focused in on my rodman who stood on black lava several hundred feet away. The black surface reflected the heat from the sun, making this task challenging. As far as I could see,...

Software solutions aid national security laboratory in maintaining its operations. For Sandia Corporation, operating and maintaining Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, N.M., is akin to running a small town.(technologyprofile)
November 1, 2007... Serving as one of the site office facilities for the U.S. Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration, Sandia Labs encompasses approximately 1,000 buildings and structures across 9,000 acres, maintains close to 350,000...

The field engineer. In this column, I will discuss field engineering and the role of the field engineer on the construction site. It will be useful to you if you are interested in understanding the position of the field engineer or if you want to become a field engineer.(backtobasics)(Column)
November 1, 2007... Construction layout is performed by many people on the construction site, including land surveyors, party chiefs, civil engineers, construction superintendents, carpenters--and those identified as "field engineers." A number of construction...

Do you practice black box surveying?(professionaltopography)
November 1, 2007... Black box is a technical term for a device or system... viewed primarily in terms of its input and output characteristics. Almost anything might occasionally be referred to as a black box: a transistor, an algorithm, humans, the Internet. The...

The boundary surveyor as judge and jury. As we have discussed many times in the past, there is a line of thinking in the surveying community that the surveyor cannot play judge and jury over the location of a boundary line--that only the judge can determine what the boundary line is and where it is located.(traversingthelaw)
November 1, 2007... The problem with this line of thinking as once again demonstrated by our case-in-chief, Jackson v. Bownas, (1) is that the general public is under the impression (and rightly so) that the land surveyor establishes boundary lines and also...

Global climate change and the profession. Both scientists and politicians are debating whether "global warming" or "global climate change" actually exists. Stick with me and I will explain how this relates to the surveying and mapping profession.(capitolgains)
November 1, 2007... On one side of the debate, for example, is former Vice President Al Gore who has produced an Academy Award-winning film, "An Inconvenient Truth," which claims "we have just ten years to avert a major catastrophe that could send our entire...

Zoning in the United States, part 2.(onthelevel)
November 1, 2007... In my September column, we discussed some of the history of land use control through zoning in the United States, an issue of great importance to any surveyor involved in land planning and subdivision. We saw that zoning was found to be...

Professional Land Surveyors of Colorado (PLSC).(turningpoints)
November 1, 2007... Arthur W. Hipp, PLS, passed away on September 19 at age 81. Hipp, a Colorado land surveyor, was the executive director of the PROFESSIONAL LAND SURVEYORS OF COLORADO (PLSC) and editor-in-chief of its publication, "Side Shots." He also served as...

Hexagon AB, Nacka Strand, Sweden, and Novatel Inc.(turningpoints)
November 1, 2007... HEXAGON AB, Nacka Strand, Sweden, and NOVATEL INC., Calgary, Canada, entered into an agreement under which Hexagon agreed to acquire all outstanding shares of NovAtel. NovAtel has been a core supplier of high-precision GNSS technologies to...

Merrick & Company.(turningpoints)
November 1, 2007... MERRICK & COMPANY, Aurora, Colo., announced a business partnership with BLUE MARBLE GEOGRAPHICS, Gardiner, Maine. The new relationship exposes Blue Marble's product suite to the LiDAR industry.

The American Congress on Surveying and Mapping (ACSM).(turningpoints)
November 1, 2007... The AMERICAN CONGRESS ON SURVEYING AND MAPPING (ACSM), Gaithersburg, Md., appointed Tom Berkland, LS, PE, as chair of the ACSM Communications Committee. Berkland is principal engineer of the City of Sioux Falls Public Works/Engineering, and a...

Leica Geosystems Geospatial Imaging.(turningpoints)(Leica Geosystems to appoint Vincent Dessard )(Brief article)
November 1, 2007... LEICA GEOSYSTEMS GEOSPATIAL IMAGING, Norcross, Ga., appointed Vincent Dessard as vice president of business development. Dessard is the former CEO of the recently acquired IONIC SOFTWARE by Leica Geosystems. Dessard has more than 15 years of...

Bentley Systems Incorporated.(turningpoints)
November 1, 2007... BENTLEY SYSTEMS INCORPORATED, Exton, Pa., appointed Mike Sedgwick as vice president, Bentley Civil and Transportation Sales, Americas region. Sedgwick has more than 30 years of experience in engineering automation software sales. In his new...

Carlson Software Inc.(turningpoints)
November 1, 2007... CARLSON SOFTWARE INC. promoted Carrie Jones to director of the Data Collection Division. Jones, a 10-year employee at Carlson, specializes in C/C++ object-oriented programming and Microsoft Windows CE development, and manages and directs the...

RBF Consulting.(turningpoints)
November 1, 2007... Daniel Walsh, RCE, PLS, joined RBF CONSULTING, Camarillo, Calif., as a project manager and associate. Walsh has more than 15 years of experience in both engineering and land surveying, with expertise ranging from traditional land surveys to GPS...

BHC Rhodes.(turningpoints)
November 1, 2007... BHC RHODES, Overland Park, Kan., expanded its headquarters and celebrated 15 years of business. The expansion adds surveying services to its existing engineering services.

R.A. Smith & Associates Inc.(turningpoints)(National Survey and Engineering Brookfield to appoint Andy Hunter, Drew Miazga, Ricky Smith)(Brief article)
November 1, 2007... NATIONAL SURVEY & ENGINEERING, a division of R.A. SMITH & ASSOCIATES INC., Brookfield, Wis., announced several promotions and the attainment of professional certifications. Andy Hunter, RLS, survey division, was promoted from survey field...

The American Society for Photogrammetry & Remote Sensing (ASPRS).(turningpoints)
November 1, 2007... The AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR PHOTOGRAMMETRY & REMOTE SENSING (ASPRS), Bethesda, Md., awarded the first two provisional certifications for Mapping Scientist-GIS/LIS to Kibri Everett and Peter Muriuki. The Provisional Certification Program is open to...

The Volusia County Chapter of the Florida Surveying and Mapping Society (FSMS).(turningpoints)
November 1, 2007... The VOLUSIA COUNTY CHAPTER OF THE FLORIDA SURVEYING AND MAPPING SOCIETY (FSMS), DeLand, Fla., named Joseph Bishop, PLS, a DRMP survey field manager, as vice president. Bishop has been with DRMP for 19 years. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Victor O. Schinnerer & Company Inc.(turningpoints)
November 1, 2007... VICTOR O. SCHINNERER & COMPANY INC., Chevy Chase, Md., announced that Amy Ledoux joined CNA's Global Specialty Lines Claim organization, Chicago, as senior litigation counsel. In her new role, Ledoux supports claims staff in the analysis,...

The Calusa Chapter of the Florida Engineering Society (FES).(turningpoints)
November 1, 2007... The CALUSA CHAPTER OF THE FLORIDA ENGINEERING SOCIETY (FES), Naples, Fla., selected WILSONMILLER Project Designer Rebecca R. King, EI, as its Young Engineer of the Year. King works on WilsonMiller's Development Design team, where she...

One new Total Station, a bundle of new surveying opportunities.(productofthemonth)(Brief article)
November 1, 2007... The new Trimble [R] S8 Total Station is Trimble's most advanced total station to date. Designed to deliver unsurpassed performance in both surveying and specialized engineering applications, the Trimble S8 offers 1" angular accuracy and EDM...

As seen at the 2007 INTERGEO conference and trade fair: Spectra Precision.(new&notable)(Conference news)
November 1, 2007... SPECTRA PRECISION introduced the FOCUS 4 and FOCUS 5 Mechanical Total Stations, the EPOCH 25 Static only L1/L2 GPS system and the EPOCH 25 RTK L1/L2 GPS system. The FOCUS 4 is a 7" mechanical total station with an easy-to-use interface. The...

As seen at the 2007 INTERGEO conference and trade fair: Applanix.(new&notable)(Conference news)
November 1, 2007... APPLANIX introduced POSPac Air 5.0 software. POSPac Air 5.0 uses a combination of GNSS network and inertial postprocessing methods that work together to eliminate or reduce restrictions associated with high-accuracy GNSS positioning in an...

As seen at the 2007 INTERGEO conference and trade fair: Carlson Software.(new&notable)(Conference news)
November 1, 2007... CARLSON SOFTWARE introduced the CarlsonMINI, a compact field computer. Measuring less than 4.5 by 7 inches, the CarlsonMINI runs on Windows Mobile 5 and comes with Carlson SurvCE 2.0. It is MIL-STD-810F-rated for water, humidity, sand and dust,...

As seen at the 2007 INTERGEO conference and trade fair: Tiltan Systems Engineering Ltd.(new&notable)(Conference news)
November 1, 2007... TILTAN SYSTEMS ENGINEERING LTD. released the TLiD solution. TLiD delivers fast, accurate data processing of LiDAR point clouds, generating geographic information layers and providing highly optimized 3D models for real-time applications. The...

As seen at the 2007 INTERGEO conference and trade fair: Altus Positioning Systems.(new&notable)(Conference news)
November 1, 2007... ALTUS POSITIONING SYSTEMS released the APS-3 GNSS Surveying receiver. Based around Septentrio's AsteRx2 RTK board, the APS-3 offers both GPS and GLONASS RTK in a highly flexible format. The APS-3 comes standard with a GSM modem and a choice of...

As seen at the 2007 INTERGEO conference and trade fair: Magellan.(new&notable)(Conference news)
November 1, 2007... MAGELLAN introduced the MobileMapper CX, a handheld GPS receiver for GIS users. The submeter receiver comes standard with Magellan's Mobile Mapping application software and includes a phone-like keypad for convenient data entry. Key GIS data...

As seen at the 2007 INTERGEO conference and trade fair: Navcom Technology Inc.(new&notable)(Conference news)
November 1, 2007... NAVCOM TECHNOLOGY INC. released the LAND-PAK All-in-One RTK Land Survey Solution. LAND-PAK delivers precise results by combining NavCom's dual-frequency receiver with radio modems, a rugged data collector and processing software. The rover and...

As seen at the 2007 INTERGEO conference and trade fair: Navcom.(new&notable)(Conference news)
November 1, 2007... Also, NAVCOM released SF-2110M and SF-2110R modular L1 StarFire GPS receivers. Using StarFire, a global satellite-based augmentation system for use with single and dual GPS frequency receivers, NavCom's SF-2110M and SF-2110R receivers provide...

As seen at the 2007 INTERGEO conference and trade fair: Topcon Positioning Systems.(new&notable)(Conference news)
November 1, 2007... TOPCON POSITIONING SYSTEMS released TopPAD 7.0.1. This new Mobile GIS field software program allows users to take GIS layers into the field for verification and update. When installed on Topcon's handheld GMS-2 or a Topcon field controller,...

As seen at the 2007 INTERGEO conference and trade fair: Leica Geosystems.(new&notable)(Conference news)
November 1, 2007... LEICA GEOSYSTEMS introduced the Leica MobileMatriX Version 2.1, a multi-sensor GIS solution for capturing highly accurate GIS data directly in the field. The new Leica MobileMatriX has the ability to log GNSS raw data and supports post...

As seen at the 2007 INTERGEO conference and trade fair: Optech Inc.(new&notable)(Conference news)
November 1, 2007... OPTECH INC. launched the LYNX Mobile Mapper. The LYNX Mobile Mapper includes iFLEX, a new LiDAR sensor head, to collect survey-grade LiDAR data at more than 100,000 measurements per second with a 360[degrees] FOV, while maintaining a Class 1...

As seen at the 2007 INTERGEO conference and trade fair: Optech.(new&notable)(Conference news)
November 1, 2007... Also, OPTECH announced a new Profile Scanning feature with the ILRIS-[3.sub.6]D scanner. The new Profile Scanning feature is designed to significantly reduce ILRIS-[3.sub.6]D scanning and post-processing time by eliminating the need for...

As seen at the 2007 INTERGEO conference and trade fair: Optech.(new&notable)(Conference news)
November 1, 2007... OPTECH also incorporated underlying digital elevation models (DEM) to its ALTM-NAV integrated mission planning, navigation and operations software. With this upgrade, ALTM-NAV users can plan airborne missions more effectively using ancillary...

As seen at the 2007 INTERGEO conference and trade fair: Seco Manufacturing Company Inc.(new&notable)(Conference news)
November 1, 2007... SECO MANUFACTURING COMPANY INC. introduced new portable sliding mini prism and pole kits. The kits consist of a unique sliding mini prism with a target design that can eliminate pointing errors associated with zerooffset prism configurations....

As seen at the 2007 INTERGEO conference and trade fair: Seco.(new&notable)(Conference news)
November 1, 2007... Also, SECO introduced a new portable carbon fiber GPS/GIS Pole. The Satellite Stick XL for GPS/GIS fieldwork is a largediameter (25 mm) sectional pole. Six sections are quickly screwed together to form a rigid 2 m pole and are held together by...

As seen at the 2007 INTERGEO conference and trade fair: Juniper Systems Inc.(new&notable)(Conference news)
November 1, 2007... JUNIPER SYSTEMS INC. enhanced its Archer Field PC. The Archer is now configurable in 16 different languages and features up to 512 MB of internal data storage. It runs on Microsoft Windows Mobile version 5.0 and is powered by the Intel XScale...

As seen at the 2007 INTERGEO conference and trade fair: Carlson Software Inc.(new&notable)(Conference news)
November 1, 2007... CARLSON SOFTWARE INC. released Carlson Survey Desktop (CSD) 4.0, updated to support Autodesk Land Desktop 2008 and to utilize Carlson Survey 2008. CSD 4.0 runs inside LDT 2008 and LDT 2007, and is fully integrated with the LDT project...

As seen at the 2007 INTERGEO conference and trade fair: Carlson Software.(new&notable)(Conference news)
November 1, 2007... Also, CARLSON SOFTWARE released Carlson Survey 2008 Standalone. The new software features drivers to connect to essentially every manufacturer's proprietary hardware and software; versatile raw data editing and processing; traverse adjustment;...

As seen at the 2007 INTERGEO conference and trade fair: Maptech.(new&notable)(Conference news)
November 1, 2007... MAPTECH released Maptech Terrain Navigator Pro 8.0. TNP 8.0 adds 1-meter color aerial photos from the National Agriculture Imagery Program (NAIP) 2003-2007 data. TNP also includes USGS topographic maps at 1:24,000 and 1:100,000 map scales. With...

As seen at the 2007 INTERGEO conference and trade fair: A-Prime Software.(new&notable)(Conference news)
November 1, 2007... A-PRIME SOFTWARE launched CrossView Earth Surfaces, a new wizard-based platform for ESRI's ArcGIS users. CrossView Earth Surfaces allows GIS professionals to gain broader access to geo-spatial terrains and subsurfaces. By integrating rich...

As seen at the 2007 INTERGEO conference and trade fair: Whitestar Corporation.(new&notable)(Conference news)
November 1, 2007... WHITESTAR CORPORATION introduced SpotOn, a Web-delivered service enabling users to convert a well's public land survey legal description into a precise geographic coordinate. To obtain an accurate well location, users enter the well's "footage...

Surveying solutions.(funandgames)(Reprint)
November 1, 2007... Each month we present a surveying problem from the second edition of 1001 Solved Surveying Fundamentals Problems by Jan Van Sickle, PLS. As in the following example, the answer will appear below the problem, in a shaded box. We hope you enjoy...

The curta calculator.(Remember When)
November 1, 2007... "I 'ground' many a pound with one of those little suckers as a party chief." - Loyal Olson, PLS "We used to run grades with a Curta. Set the beginning station, grade rate +/- and beginning elevation in, then crank the station in and...