Category Archives: Surveying
BIM It Up and Fly Them In, Mactan-Cebu Airport!
Designed using building information modeling, Mactan-Cebu International Airport is a tribute not only to technology but also team collaboration and creativity. Featured image: Photomontage (by Marcel Lam) shows the BIM model combined with an actual photo of the Mactan-Cebu International Airport’s roof. Everything about the design of the newly built Terminal 2 at the Mactan-Cebu...
Android Field Software on a Nifty Tablet
A quick test drive of the new Access 2020 survey field software on a companion small tablet revealed some coolness. The advent of survey software for Android, long in the works, has brought welcome new options for mobile field platforms. Over the years I’ve used a lot of different field controllers, and more recently tried...
New Heights: Aerial Photography, Aerial Data
A Louisiana company upgrades its aerial photography camera hoping its business will soar Featured image: Looking up into the belly of a Cessna 206 airplane. The camera is looking down through the hole. Infrastructure like bridges (this one in Tampa, Florida), airports and oil and gas pipelines require regular aerial mapping for maintenance, installation and...
Life Lessons in Surveying
In my Field Notes installments the past few years, I have often written from personal experience, partly to share, but also to stimulate the thoughts and memories of our readers. This will be no different, except these are experiences that have extended to life, in general. Early in my career, well it was a summer...
Splitting the Difference at Willeo Road
How a surveyor’s due diligence is paying off for two counties in Georgia When the Survey Division of the Cobb County Department of Transportation in Marietta, Georgia, received a request to locate the exact county line between Cobb and Fulton counties, there was more at stake than just accurately identifying a boundary line. Government funding...
Teaching Roots and Research at the University of the Philippines
One of Southeast Asia’s oldest surveying schools is promoting the use of geospatial technologies and thriving in the digital age. When Louie Balicanta walks inside the high-ceilinged corridors of Malcolm Hall on his way to teach land surveying, he knows how much responsibility rests on his shoulders. Not only is he an assistant professor at...