Category Archives: GNSS/Location Tech
The Data of River Dynamics
Using GIS tools and readily accessible satellite data to study rapid change in rivers. Editor’s note: The dynamics of rivers can range from relatively stable to rapidly shifting, the latter especially in flood-prone regions exacerbated by a global increase in extreme weather events. The impacts are environmental, but also economic, social, and cadastral. Surveyors, for...
CORS Map
A First for Africa Geospatial professionals don’t need an introduction to CORS. For everyone else, it’s an acronym that stands for continuously operating reference systems: geodetic receivers that log GNSS observables continuously which, when transmitted to users with survey-grade receivers, help them achieve centimeter-accuracy measurements. CORS stations have a range of about 70 kilometers (~43...
Precisely Shot
Aerial imaging, GIS, and GNSS play a crucial role in the success of golf’s 2018 U.S. Open Championship. “Basically, we need to construct a small city—every year and in a different location,” said Timothy Lloyd, senior manager of U.S. Open operations at the United States Golf Association (USGA). Lloyd’s team is charged with planning and...
Surveying Scientists: The USGS Does It Right
As is often the case in our tightly networked profession, one thing leads to another. In early 2017 I was contacted by the US Geological Survey (USGS) hydrologist, Brenda Densmore, from the USGS Nebraska Water Science Center. Brenda had found me through the NGS State Geodetic Coordinator web page and reached out to me for...
Full Tilt
Beyond the electronic bubble: Integrating self-calibrating, magnetically immune tilt compensation in a high-precision GNSS rover. This is not just another rover with an electronic bubble and tilt compensation. This new technology represents a genuinely significant step in the evolution of GNSS rovers. We are presenting this look at—and inside—the Leica Geosystems’ GS18 T not as...
Getting out Is a Good Thing
Field Notes Although I have been active in the surveying profession in several ways over the years, including serving as the editor of Field Notes, I really haven’t ventured out much to seek face-to-face encounters in various venues and settings, but that recently changed a bit and has produced a new perspective for me. In...