by Eric Colburn
PROFESSIONAL LAND SURVEYOR SURVEY-Do You Use GIS?
11:17 am in Business, GIS, Land Surveying, Surveying Software, Surveys by Eric Colburn
PROFESSIONAL LAND SURVEYOR SURVEY
In this week’s PROFESSIONAL LAND SURVEYOR SURVEY I’m asking if you use GIS (Geographic Information Systems). As you will see, I not only am asking if you use GIS, but also, if not, then are you interested in learning about GIS. Yes, I am trying to lead into a conversation here.
This is a dicey question, because GIS has slipped into our everyday lives, whether it’s in our personal or professional lives. Google Earth, Bing, MapQuest, you name it -GIS is here to stay and it can be about the data, or the software.
I’m sure that at the very least you’ve used some ortho photo’s in creating a drawing or two. However, I see where the merging of the GIS world and the Professional Land Surveyor’s world is coming together. And, this is good.
So vote on the survey.
Loading ...Professional Land Surveyor GIS Resources:
- GIS.com
- GIS defined by Wikipedia
- USGS GIS Poster
- GISLounge
- GeoFooding
- GISPathway
- MAPPS
- Geoscience Information Society
Please let me know if you have a favorite GIS resource and I’ll add it to this list.
I feel that a form of GIS, I call it SAGES is the way for surveyors to go. With Google Earth tools and such, one does not have to have one of those expensive GIS software packages. Like most Surveyors, I do not make enough money to afford the cost of GIS software. The challenge is to get Google Earth to communicate with surveyors to make map corrections and shift their photos so that they have a higher degree of precision. Most of the aerial photo overlays in the Tulsa area are 50 to 100 feet off and could be greatly improved using WGS84 datum for real points intersections of visible objects that can be set to high precision by surveyors using the CORS system to convert their static gps data to the NAD83 NGS NAVD88 and WGS84 corresponding coordinates (lat/lon included). That is what I do now for aerial photo jobs is find an intersection or corner of a sidewalk or driveway that is distinctive enough to log and use to give them high precision for their processing without the need for targets especially in towns where their is a lot to pick from. Sometimes targets are necessary out in the boonies but I do not get many surveys for aerial photography topos there.