Eric D. Colburn, PLS

Here’s a cool video of the Vienna City Hall (Rathaus) based on LIDAR data, Orthophoto, Terrestial images and Cadastral map. Nice music, too! Read the rest of this entry →

Professional Land Surveyor News

Professional Land Surveyor News-European Environment Agency and Esri Put Map Service in Cloud

August 17, 2010

Redlands, California—The European Environment Agency (EEA) and Esri have signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU). The agreement supports the design and development of ways to share and access essential geographic environmental data provided by the agency’s 38 European member countries.

EEA, which already uses Esri’s geographic information system (GIS) products, will now work closely with Esri to improve the agency’s cloud environment map services. European countries will share their environmental data more easily, while nations, agencies, scientists, and policy makers will be able to quickly access and consume the data for viewing and analysis.

“Our partnership with Esri provides us with innovative solutions to reach out to our key stakeholders and present them with timely and relevant information as they need it,” said Jacquie McGlade, EEA’s executive director. “The agency will now also be able to work directly with citizens in the coproduction of knowledge via open access to data, creation of personalized maps, and simple ways of sharing data among social networks. The two-way exchange of knowledge and expertise between Esri and the EEA underlines just how business and the public sector can work well together to build answers for tomorrow’s challenges.”

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Professional Land Surveyor News

Professional Land Surveyor News-Trimble and Critigen Extend Business Partner Agreement to Deliver Advanced Geospatial Solutions

SUNNYVALE, Calif., — Trimble (NASDAQ: TRMB) and Critigen announced an extension of the business partner agreement originally established in 2004 between Trimble’s Mapping & GIS Division and Critigen’s former parent, CH2M HILL. Critigen will serve as system integrator and provide data management and visual business intelligence solutions to support Trimble’s technology and products in the utilities, state and local government, and environmental management markets. Trimble and Critigen will work together by providing a broad range of product development, joint sales, data collection, data conversion, and implementation services. Read the rest of this entry →

Professional Land Surveyor News

Professional Land Surveyor News Trimble Unveils State-of-the-Art Mobile Spatial Imaging System

The Trimble MX8 System Combines Leading Imaging and Laser Scanning Capabilities in
an Integrated System for Mobile Mapping

SUNNYVALE, Calif., July 13, 2010 —Trimble (NASDAQ: TRMB) introduced today the Trimble® MX8 Mobile Spatial Imaging System, an advanced mobile data capture system that combines imaging and laser scanning capabilities to measure objects in 3D to produce 3D, 4D and 5D data sets for spatial imaging projects. The new Trimble MX8 Mobile Spatial Imaging System expands the scope of services that surveyors, engineers, mapping and geospatial professionals can offer to enhance their business. The system is ideal for as-built modeling, inventory, inspection, encroachment analysis, and asset management for roadways, bridges, railways, utilities, and other infrastructure.

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Professional Land Surveyor News

Professional Land Surveyor News Trimble Introduces New Desktop and GPS Handheld Solution for Utility and  Smart Grid Asset Maintenance and Inspection

SAN DIEGO, July 12, 2010 — Trimble (NASDAQ:TRMB) introduced today a new version of its Trimble® Field Inspector solution for utility infrastructure and smart grid asset maintenance and inspection. The solution is comprised of the Trimble Field Inspector software for handheld computers and Trimble Field Inspector Desktop software. Scalable and easy to deploy, the solution leverages Trimble Global Positioning System (GPS) and handheld computing technology to automate a wide variety of field applications for electric, gas, water, and wastewater utilities—from smart meter deployments to routine asset maintenance inspections.

The announcement was made today at the ESRI International User Conference.

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Professional Land Surveyor News

Ashtech® has introduced a new GNSS firmware upgrade for the entire ProFlex™ line of products, including the ProFlex 500, ProFlex 500 Marine, ProFlex 500 CORS, ProFlex Lite and ProFlex Lite Duo.

The new firmware features as standard:

Hot Stand-By RTK: Doubles the assurance that an RTK position is always available and robust.

Advanced Raw Data Quality: Multi-criterion internal observation masks optimize raw data depending on reception parameters and the dynamics of the receiver.

Ashtech Optimized Messaging (ATOM) format: Freedom from radio link throughput issues using the new compact and ultra compact scenario of ATOM format.

RTC Bridge for ProFlex 500 only: Extends the number of users working in a given area by allowing one of them to forward its corrections, received through GPRS, to others through a radio link, thus saving money on mobile communication fees.

Legacy DBEN Base format support for ProFlex Lite only: Transit smoothly from legacy Ashtech sensors generation to the newest generation.

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AutoCAD Civil 3D Surveying Quick Tips and Tricks: How To Setup and Use Surface Styles To Edit Surfaces Efficiently

In today’s AutoCAD Civil 3D Surveying Quick Tips and Tricks I will show you How To Setup and Use Surface Styles To Edit Surfaces Efficiently. This technique increases your CAD drafting and AutoCAD Civil 3D Surface creation and editing productivity by employing proper template setup and reducing switching between Toolspace Tabs and drilling down through what can be a rabbit-hole of options and settings AutoCAD Civil 3D uses to do the voodoo that it do.

This really leads to an important note: The overall techniques and processes that I’m showing you here are specific to setting up Surface Styles in your AutoCAD Civil 3D Templates so that you can Edit Surfaces Efficiently, but if you concentrate on the bigger picture, that of setting up your AutoCAD Civil 3D Templates with preset Styles to increase your productivity, then this is really what this post (and more to come) is all about. In fact, using the techniques that I describe below is really just one small part of a mindset and process which will allow you to take many small efficiencies and accumulate them into big increases in productivity, efficiency, and profit.

Two things we’re trying to accomplish are:

1. Have a preset Surface Style setup for editing AutoCAD Civil 3D Surfaces in your Template Drawing so that you only have to do this step once, saving you time from this point out.
2. Speed up the AutoCAD Civil 3D Surface editing process, reducing the need to switch back and forth between Prospector Tabs, find an appropriate Surface Style, and then drill down to switch on the Surface Style Components you’d use for surface edits, like Points, Triangles, and Border, for instance.

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Twitter #FollowFriday Professional Land Surveyor Recommendations

Here is this week’s Twitter #FollowFriday Professional Land Surveyor Recommendations:

@iPinda – Edwards Twitter bio says “CAD specialist, AutoCAD trainer and Civil 3D addict” and if you visit his Civil 3D Peanuts blog, you’ll discover that he’s also a part-time freelance AutoCAD trainer and full time CAD application administrator for an international AEC company. You can also learn nice tips and tricks like Importing AutoCAD Objects as Surface data points.

@cad_notes- Edwin is from Indonesia, is an AutoCAD and Revit user, and writes the popular CAD tutorials and best practices blog CAD NOTES. Definitely read yesterday’s post on How to: Draw an Arc with a Specific Arc Length?

@wkfd – WKFD is the Twitter account for the Kung Fu Drafter blog. They are drafters and geeks trying to share information with people with similar interests. I highly recommend visiting The Kung Fu Drafter blog, as it is a fun site and full of information too! This week I enjoyed reading Review: Kung Fu Drafter Reviews AutoCAD Freestyle … blog post.

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Professional Land Surveyor News

Professional Land Surveyor News: Topcon DL-500 Digital Level Series With First ‘Wave-and-Read’ Technology

Topcon Positioning Systems (TPS) announced this week that they’ve released their new DL-500 digital levels series, which uses digital ‘Wave-and-Read’ Technology for the very first time. Of course we’ve had optical ‘Wave-and-Read’ technology for eons – it’s called an instrument person looking through the level while reading the rod and having the rod person “rock” the rod slowly towards and then away from the instrument to obtain the lowest, and accurate, reading. Much along these same time-honored lines, where the rod reading becomes the minimum value when vertically, the DL-500 tracks the waved rod and automatically reads the least value.

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Professional Land Surveyor News

National web mapping for the higher and further education sector

Inspiring learning – Cadcorp software enables greater sharing of map data to UK education sector

Digital mapping and geographic information systems (GIS) software developer Cadcorp and the EDINA National Data Centre have announced that the latest version of the EDINA Digimap service has gone live.

Launched in 2000, the EDINA Digimap service specialises in the delivery of a number of geographical data resources over the internet to over 150 academic institutions.  National digital map data ranging from Ordnance Survey® (OS) products to geology, marine and historical maps can be accessed by staff and students free at point of use. Based on Cadcorp’s web mapping software GeognoSIS, the service also utilises a number of licences of Map Modeller, Cadcorp’s high-end desktop GIS system.

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