Eric D. Colburn, PLS

Eagle Point Surveyors' Companion For Civil 3D Overview Professional Land Surveyor Video

Here’s a quick video overview of the features, functions, and command set for Eagle Point Surveyors’ Companion For Civil 3D.

At this point I don’t know too much about Eagle Point Surveyors’ Companion For Civil 3D, so this video is sort of an unpacking and peek into this software package.

Already, I’ve quickly used the List Points and Unused Points reports, which are very handy. This, and everything else I’ve seen, makes me very excited to put Eagle Point Surveyors’ Companion For Civil 3D into action.

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Survey Database Point Groups-AutoCAD Civil 3D 2011 Professional Land Surveyor Video

In this installment of my Professional Land Surveyor Video series, AutoCAD Civil 3D 2011 for Land Surveyors: Survey Database Point Groups, I will show you how to:

1. Create Survey Database Point Groups.
2. Select Survey Database Points to populate your Survey Database Point Groups.
3. Use Survey Database Point Groups to filter points you insert into and remove from your AutoCAD Civil 3D drawings.

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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-Hemisphere GPS Announces New Earthworks(R) Dealers

Yesterday, in Scottsdale, AZ,  Hemisphere GPS (TSX: HEM) announced the addition of three new Earthworks dealers to the company’s distribution network. These three channel partners cover the territory including mid-Atlantic and Western States and represent the Hemisphere GPS Earthworks product portfolio, including the X200 excavator machine guidance system.

John Bohlke, General Manager of Earthworks at Hemisphere GPS said:

“We are excited to partner with these successful and very capable dealers and look forward to expanding our business,” and “The new dealers will provide added value to our customers through the installation, support, service and sale of our Earthworks products.”

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AutoCAD Civil 3D With Two Drawings Open

In today’s AutoCAD Civil 3D Surveying Quick Tips and Tricks I will show you Using Layer Source From Other DWGs When Creating Styles. This technique helps you speed up the creation of AutoCAD Civil 3D Styles by using already created layers from your other AutoCAD Civil 3D drawings and templates.

The Problem:

You are creating new styles in an AutoCAD Civil 3D drawing or template and in doing so you want to speed up the process of assigning Layers to the new point style; let’s say for display, for example. If the layer is not already in your AutoCAD Civil 3D drawing or template you have to create that layer (and its settings), which is either cumbersome through the Style Editor, or you need to exit the Style Editor to do it using the Layer Manager.

Either way, it requires a certain amount of manual input and risks inconsistencies between drawings and templates.

Two things we’re trying to accomplish are:

1. Work faster by select an existing Layer from another AutoCAD Civil 3D drawing or template to use in creating Styles.
2. Maintain Layer consistency.

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PROFESSIONAL LAND SURVEYOR SURVEY

In this week’s Professional Land Surveyor Survey, I’m asking  you:

How Important Is Technology For Running Your Business?

Yesterday, I wrote about 5 Winning Strategies To Running A Professional Land Surveying Business where I, in a nutshell, outlined five more or less old-fashioned common sense strategies behind running and operating a professional land surveying business.

Which got me to thinking:

I started to think about how important technology is to me, and to you, to the success of your land surveying business.

What do you think?

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PROFESSIONAL LAND SURVEYOR SURVEY

In this week’s Professional Land Surveyor Survey, I’m asking for your assessment of:

Business Conditions Survey for August 2010?

Are you seeing any improvements in the business climate, no change at a all, or is the business climate worsening.

I’ll be posting an update to this Business Conditions Survey monthly, and hopefully we’ll see continual improvements in the future.

It would be very helpful, too, if after you take the survey you also leave a comment explaining your answer and tell us the general location of where you are, which could give us some insights into where things are looking up, or not.

What do you think?

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Professional Land Surveyor Forum Update – Land Surveying Problems

Recently, I added a new discussion board on the Free Professional Land Surveyor Forum called Land Surveying Problems.

From time to time I’ll be posting land surveying problems that I think are interesting, and hopefully, challenging. Feel free to post your challenging land surveying problems, too.

These might be problems you would typically find in a land surveying text book, problems you might find on a professional land surveying exam, or real-life problems you’ve seen in your professional land surveying practice.

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PROFESSIONAL LAND SURVEYOR SURVEY

In this week’s Professional Land Surveyor Survey, I’m asking the question:

Does AutoCAD Civil 3D Require Too Much Setup?

I’ve been working on updating my existing AutoCAD Civil 3D templates and creating a few new ones, which got me to thinking about whether or not setting up AutoCAD Civil 3D for land surveying requires just too much setup.

Then, I was talking with a few other AutoCAD Civil 3D users about this topic that happened to be working on their templates and they had definitive answers to this question, to say the least.

Maybe this is just coming from the land surveying perspective, although much of AutoCAD Civil 3D functionality requires the setup of numerous settings, it just seems to me that the surveying side of the software and technology requires more. Maybe even too much!

What do you think?

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Professional Land Surveyor News

Professional Land Surveyor News Adapx GIS Data Collection for GeoPDF, ESRI MapIt, & Mobile Devices

Adapx Introduces New Capturx GIS Data Collection Solutions for GeoPDF, ESRI MapIt, and Mobile Devices at ESRI User Conference

Handwritten data on paper maps and forms instantly scanned and sent to ArcGIS, GeoPDF files, and ESRI MapIt-enabled SharePoint lists using digital pens, Bluetooth and mobile devices

Seattle, 12 July 2010. Adapx, the company that is changing the way mobile teams collect data and collaborate, today announced new Capturx GIS solutions enabling field teams to instantly send georeferenced data collected on paper forms and maps into ArcGIS, GeoPDF files, and ESRI MapIt-enabled SharePoint lists using digital pens, Bluetooth, and mobile devices. The new solutions, along with Capturx for ArcGIS and Capturx Multimodal for ArcGIS, will be featured in the Defense and Intelligence Showcase at the ESRI 2010 User Conference in San Diego on 12-15 July.

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