Category Archives: Surveying
Managing Tropical Storm Risk in Florida
Low-lying Gulf Coast communities along the Anclote River in Pasco County, Florida, have a long history of summer flooding. In 2012, after Tropical Storm Debby brought more than 12 inches of rain in a 24-hour period to the Tampa Bay area, the residents of the Thousand Oaks subdivision in the Trinity community experienced widespread, long-lasting...
Safe ‘n Sound: Distancing in Construction
IoT technology is helping workers maintain social distancing on the job site during the pandemic and making contact tracing easier. And it all starts with a beep. Months into the pandemic, construction workers in the U.S. already know the drill by heart: don a hard hat, wear a mask, wash your hands and keep distancing from...
Running Interference
Is Ligado Networks’ proposed terrestrial nationwide network a threat to GPS or a boon to 5G? The Global Positioning System has always faced challenges inherent in its design (weak signal, orbital and clock errors, receiver noise, dilution of precision), as well as from natural phenomena (ionospheric and tropospheric delays, solar flares), local topography and the built environment...
Landslide Bill Clears Congress; Labor Rescinds AAM 212
The passage of the National Landslide Preparedness Act by the U.S. Senate last week drew enthusiastic support from the National Society of Professional Surveyors (NSPS). The landslide bill passed by unanimous consent following earlier approval by the House of Representatives and clears the bill for signature into law by President Trump. Also last week the...
30 Years In: Female PLS Still Gets Questioned
When I started surveying, during college breaks in western New York, I was fortunate enough to work for a company owned by a woman. The party chief I worked for was a woman. As I moved up and became a chief myself, I was able to work with several other women as my rodperson. Women in the...
The Early Days of 3D Scanning: Part 7
1998: The Public Unveiling of 3D Scanning In my prior “insider” articles for this series (monthly, starting with the June 2020 issue), I described how in 1996 I became aware of 3D laser scanning while the technology was in development. In March 1998, I left a senior product marketing position with Trimble to join the...