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 →

Here’s a neat video I came across showing Microsoft Street Slide browsing of street-level imagery.

The Microsoft Research YouTube Channel has this to say about this video:

“Street Slide is a novel browsing interface for street-level imagery that combines the best aspects of the immersive nature of “bubbles” with the overview provided by multiperspective strip panoramas, figures to attract significant interest, in large part because of the ingenious way in which Microsoft Researchers tackle problems with current street-side imagery on the web.”

After the Jump, Watch the Video and Read the rest of this entry →

In this installment of my Professional Land Surveyor Video series, AutoCAD Civil 3D 2011 for Land Surveyors: Create a Surface From a Point Group, I will show you how to:

1. Create a Point Group specifically for project surface points.
2. Create a Surface.
3. Use the Point Group to define the Surface.

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Here is a nice video showing how to perform a survey resection in Carlson SurvCE. This video, prepared by Carlson Desktop Solutions, walks you through the process of performing a survey resection and the options available to you. What’s nice about doing a survey resection using Carlson SurvCE software is that you can use multiple points to enhance your precision and accuracy of the resected point.

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PROFESSIONAL LAND SURVEYOR SURVEY

In this week’s PROFESSIONAL LAND SURVEYOR SURVEY I’m asking the question:

What is Your Favorite Social Networking Site?

In the last two or more years I’ve seen more and more professional land surveyors, engineers, AutoCAD users, and designers using social networking sites like Facebook, Land Surveyors United, Linkedin, MySpace, Twitter, and Tumblr. These are just a few of the more popular social networking sites on the interwebs nowadays. While I don’t know which ones will still be around in another year or two, which is equal to eons in “Internet-Years”, but I do know this:

Social networking is here to stay, so join the revolution or get left behind!

If you or your professional land surveying business haven’t implemented social media and social networking to boost your marketing, brand, and branding efforts, then I suggest you start to do so immediately. If you haven’t already done so, then you’re missing out on an opportunity to improve your business, brand, “awareness”, and build relationships with your customers (existing and new). After you take this week’s Professional Land Surveying Survey about your favorite social networking sites, you’ll find a list I’ve created with my links on these social networks so that we can connect. Contact me if you are new to social networking and are interested in working with me to use social media marketing in your business.

Take This Week’s Professional Land Surveyor Survey! Read the rest of this entry →

Professional Land Surveyor News

Professional Land Surveyor News-PPI Adds New Topcon Precision Mobile 3D Mapping and Survey System.

Here’s some recent news about one company, the PPI Group, that is using cutting edge surveying and mapping solutions for infrastructure and mapping projects. To do this they are using Topcon’s vehicle-mounted, mobile 3D precision mobile mapping and survey system, the Topcon IP-S2.

Since 1927, the PPI Group has served the Architecture, Engineering, Construction and GIS industries of the Pacific Northwest. They offer complete field to finish solutions, technology leadership to solve business challenges, and more than 80 years of hands-on experience. The PPI Group is one of the largest survey and construction supply companies on the West Coast and an authorized dealer of Topcon equipment and Autodesk software solutions.

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Over the weekend I listened to a few podcast; some funny, some news oriented and a few with business and marketing topics. Marketing is often misunderstood, or overlooked altogether, by many professional land surveyors, engineers and designers. So, when I find something to help you understand a subject, like marketing in this case, I’ll share that with you to help you improve your land surveying business.

In one podcast I listened to, the host interviewed Sally Hogshead, who is a speaker, author and brand innovation consultant. She has also been profiled by The New York Times, NBC, CBS and MSNBC. It was interesting and informative listening to her being interviewed in this podcast about her latest book entitled, Fascinate: Your 7 Triggers to Persuasion and Captivation(eCampus affiliate link). I obviously have not had a chance to get her book and read it yet, but I sure look forward to doing so.

From what she said, and in looking at her website, this book discusses why certain people are captivating, why we lean towards certain brands, and not others, and how to convince people to change their behaviors.

Quoting from her website:

“Fascination is the most powerful way to influence decision-making. It’s more persuasive than marketing, advertising, or any other form of communication. And it all starts with seven universal triggers of fascination: power, lust, mystique, alarm, prestige, vice, and trust.”

This new way of thinking about our hardwired human behaviors and applying our understanding of this phenomenon to branding and marketing, seems to make a lot of sense and is something you could use to better understand your (you and your company) marketing strategy.

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Professional Land Surveyor News

Retired British Quantity Surveyor and Wife Say Pirates Set ‘Deadline’ for Execution.

British couple kidnapped by pirates while sailing off the east coast of Africa fear that they could be killed within days, the Times of London reported.

A retired quantity surveyor Paul Chandler and his wife Rachel Chandler sailing from Seychelles to Tanzania in their yacht, Lynn Rival, disappeared on October 23, 2009.

Kidnapped by pirates, both were beaten and separated. The couple has been allowed to talk over the phone with each other, but hasn’t been allowed to do so in over 12 days.

Paul chandler, interview by ITV News broadcast Thursday night is quoted as saying that he was “just existing in hope”, and also went on to say, “I’m afraid that they will just kill us and abandon us in the desert here”.

It is reported that the pirates are moving the couple around Somalia and are demanding a £1.9 million ransom, a more than £2million reduction from earlier this month. The London Times reports, “There were unconfirmed reports before Christmas that the couple were on the verge of being freed for a $100,000 (£61,500) ransom, when the government blocked the deal”. The pirates have set a deadline of three or four days and have threatened to kill the couple if their demands are not met.

In the following video, Rachel Chandler tells of the couple’s ordeal and explains that the pirates do not understand that the British couple does not have the financial resources to pay this ransom.

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Professional Land Surveyor Sources

• Fox News
• Times of London
• Mirror
• YouTube -ITN News