Nate's wish 'n want list

Nate The Surveyor

Well-Known Member
This is just me getting started. I expect to occasionally populate this thread, with nifty notions, bad ideas, and good ideas.
Good things get started, when you write it out, and discuss it with others.

This is ALL related to STAKE TO LINE.
When using "Stake to Line", and you are in CAMERA mode, I'd like to be able to be 40' off line, and turn the LS Perpendicular to the line, and have the stake function use arrows, to SHOW the correct Angle, or Azimuth, for perpendicular. I work in RURAL Arkansas. LOTS of briars, and just general messes. While in this mode, push one button, and NOW you can use Plan B below.
This way, I can set the bipod up, and turn it to the correct angle, and then get chainsaw, and cut a hole in the brush, and stuff. Then, either hook the tape, or I place a 8" square plastic sheet on the rover, and shoot it with the LEICA DISTO. (This is shooting BACK at the rover rod, and LS, while working solo) This lets me either flag a straight line, or drive wood stakes. I usually have somebody else with me, and they hold the tape. Also, one of the WHITE buttons could show PERPENDICULAR AZIMUTH. We live and work in a rectangular survey system. Sometimes, I set my old unit, (TDS software) to "Stake a line" and I'm looking for certain numbers on the screen Station -1320' Go RIGHT 1320' This is handy to get me into the vicinity of corners, for searching. I was placing my hand in front of the camera, to give an adequate background, to read the actual azimuth, that is superimposed on the picture.

In STAKE POINT screen, there is an option, that gives you a BIG WHITE screen, with the azimuth and dist to the point being staked. This is also needed in OFFSET. It's hard to read the screen, when the Forrest is dark, and the direction and azimuth are displayed in faint red letters on top of the camera. So, here the White buttons would be handy. (It may be there already, but I have not yet found it)

(Here is Plan B) While I'm at it, another option that seems good, is to be able to be NON perpendicular, and it would figure the B/B int, and give a distance to the line, that is within 80° of Perpendicular.

So, it's a toggle button, for Perp, and NON perp offset.

These options would allow us to PICK a hole and distance in the really rough brush. I realize that the further from perpendicular you get, that the more error you introduce, due to the compass's lack of precision. Often though, if you are JUST FLAGGING a line, being off by 0.2' or 0.4' does not hurt things. It should also give a warning, that it is NON perpendicular offset, and that it is subject to magnetic interference.

I know it's early for me to get into the suggestions game, but I have been surveying since I was 7 yrs old. Every summer, I worked all of my youth. And, have been working full time since I was 15.
These are things I would use.

I have joined up with the Javad Team, and am bringing with me all my surveying background.
I am also learning alot.

The learning curve for the Javad LS has been abrupt. Mostly due to how I have always done things, is not necessarily how that everybody else does them.

Someday, I want to shake Mr Ashjaee's hand, and thank him for his contribution to land boundaries in this world. I am sure that he stays up at night dreaming up this stuff! I started out with 3 Locus units. Then, for a while used 6 Locus units. Then, the Legacy E units. Now the Triumph LS .

And, kudos to all the people that helped me get this new unit:

John Evers, Shawn Billings, Michael Gluting. And his polite Secretary, Mayette Sumajit. Also, my friend, and colleague, Steve Hankins, who also has a passion for surveying.

And, of course, this planet's owner: Thank you God, for a great profession, and folks to do it with.

Nate
 

Matt Johnson

Well-Known Member
5PLS
Nate, if we enable the CTT (Course to Tangent) and DTT (Distance to Tangent) user defined buttons to display the values to the point the arrowhead is pointing to would this meet your needs?

3-STAKE_20151110-00.08.20.png


If this is done you would be able to rotate the LS to the displayed azimuth in the CTT box which would be the azimuth perpendicular to the direction of the line.

Also note that the units for line with the arrow on the map need to be corrected to show the user's units rather than always displaying meters.
 

Matt Johnson

Well-Known Member
5PLS
One other idea I have that we could probably add is allowing the camera with a large cross hair to be displayed in the action screens when the "Photo Record" user button is pressed when a point is not being collected. This way we could rotate the LS to the displayed CTT and see the direct of the point:

3-STAKE_20151110-01.28.58.png


If this is done I would suggest changing the name of the button from "Photo Record" to "Camera". We might want to also change the background color of the CTT box to green when it matches the compass reading within a degree.
 

Shawn Billings

Shawn Billings
5PLS
I think those are excellent ideas. I think making use of the ctt and dtt white boxes would be the way to go. I would recommend that CTT would show the calculated perpendicular azimuth to the line, DTT would automatically be calculated for the current direction from the compass. The CTT turns green when pointed to perpendicular, within 1 degree. The left/right white box will continue to show the perpendicular distance to the line.
 

Mikhail Drakin

Developer
Added these improvements as formulated by Shawn to the list of todo tickets.
Camera with cross requires more thinking though, as it may increase crash rate because of additional mode switches (as we already have bottom camera, vial detector and at start/at stop photos in collect).
 

Matt Johnson

Well-Known Member
5PLS
Camera with cross requires more thinking though, as it may increase crash rate because of additional mode switches (as we already have bottom camera, vial detector and at start/at stop photos in collect).

I would think the bottom camera would need to be disabled when the camera with crosshairs is shown and when start is pressed the screen would switch to the graphs. At that point the camera button retains its current functionality of attaching photos to points until accept/reject is pressed.
 

Mikhail Drakin

Developer
I mean, this feature will further increase number of camera mode switches, which currently would lead to known problems. I would postpone collect viewfinder with crosshairs implementation a bit till we deal with camera issues.
 

Matt Johnson

Well-Known Member
5PLS
I mean, this feature will further increase number of camera mode switches, which currently would lead to known problems. I would postpone collect viewfinder with crosshairs implementation a bit till we deal with camera issues.

Ok I agree that this could be postponed until then.
 

Nate The Surveyor

Well-Known Member
I often USE stake to line for RECON. I am reminded of the old Weyco designation, "N 60, W 40" On tree cards. This means that the corner is the N-C1/16. Or, North Center sixteenth. This means that we go North 60 chains, (3960 feet) and West 40 chains (2640 feet) So, After I tie into any 2 corners, I begin using stake to line, to generally maintain a grid, for searching. As I find corners, I update my system. This is why I mentioned the FULLY WHITE screen. I'd like the white screen to give me Stake line between 2 pts, (showing the brg and dst of this line) then, the Station and offset, and the AZIMUTH and BEARING to get to the perpendicular point, of where I am. Such as GO RIGHT 2640' and South 3960'. I also use this in subdivisions, to recon.

Another thing, that would FACILITATE communication between SURVEYORS, and PROGRAMMERS, would to be to NUMBER the screens. How many screens are there in Jfield? I don't know. BUT if there was a little number in the corner of the screen, we could say what we mean faster, and you'd understand what we mean faster. By REFERRING to the screen number. Maybe could have a LETTER and NUMBER designation.

Communication is the life blood of relationships.

Thanks!
Nate
 
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Matt Johnson

Well-Known Member
5PLS
Nate are you referring to the "Simple Action" screen:

SIMPLE-ACTION_20151111-17.21.10.png


All the screens have names that can be seen in the filenames when screenshots are captured.

The simplest way to download screenshots is through RAMS. A public server is available for customers at http://javadgnss.net/rams/ :

upload_2015-11-11_17-26-50.png


Enter "rams.javad.com:8800" for the server connection and press the plus button to add it.

To connect your LS through J-Field from the Home screen choose Support>Remote Assistance

Enter the server above. Pressing the DN/IP button in the keyboard will toggle between IP and domain name entry. You will need the domain name entry option. Setup a password and click Connect:

SETUP-REMOTE-ASSISTANCE_20151111-17.31.52.png


If you have not previously entered your name in the operator field you will be prompted for it. After you are connected your receivers should show up in the list of Receivers and you can click on it to connect.
 

Nate The Surveyor

Well-Known Member
O! O! O! I just had another idea! (happens alot to me, but no place to put it!, thanks for this forum)

Lets make this software SING!

For the 4 user assigned buttons. U1 U2 U3 U4

Press them once, and they do the normal thing.

Press them Twice, in quick succession, and NOW it can do something else!

The double click is something we are already trained to do.....

This would allow a beaucoup of fast items. Double their usefulness.

(One Press) Stuff I'd want, would be to be able to do a quick inverse, Inverse should also display the POINT DESCRIPTIONS. ( ie, Fd 1" Pipe..)

(Quick double press) Inverse to line. (quick double press) It gives you Station, offset, and the Brg, and Azimuth and distance of the BASE line. Give it the third point, and it gives you station, offset, Brg to line@Perpendicular, and Azimuth to line, @ Perpendicular, AND you can input a STATION for the starting point, (it defaults to 0+00) but this would allow you to quickly and easily understand the relationships of points on jobs... (yay, I like that one!)

ALSO, when you do the above (inverse to line), there are 3 fields that populate as you do it. The POINT DESCRIPTION (at least the first 20 or so characters) are displayed.

To modify what it does, with quick double press, you double press it, and hold it for 2 seconds, and that pops up the options.....

Wonderful idea!! So I think.... You know, I think I could keep a programmer busy!

N
 

Matt Johnson

Well-Known Member
5PLS
Press them Twice, in quick succession, and NOW it can do something else!

Nate, I think this might be possible with a long press of the user defined buttons rather than a double click. I'm not sure if long clicks of the user buttons can be detected yet so it might take a an OS update.

We also have "To Line 1" in the CoGo Offsets functions which is similar to what you describe. We should be able to add the displays for the distance and bearing between P1 and P2.
 

Nate The Surveyor

Well-Known Member
Yes, Matt, I did realize that... Steves unit has one set for inverse. Inverse really should display point descriptions.... think of trying to do it while pouring down sweat, mosquitos are biting, and the bull frogs in the swamp are providing a baritone note... and you just wanted to see what the distance was between SW and NW corners of this (swat) 39 acre piece of swa... (swat) ...swamp land is, and you have to go looking at points, then individual points, then finally go an inverse them. (swat) and they are the wrong (swat) point. If you could just inverse from memory, and it shows up that you have the CL shot, not the 2" Pipe, and it shows up in inverse.
Super long press would be ok too. I don't really care. Just to be able to LOOK at point descriptions real fast, in list form would be very good.
Then, I can begin field evaluation, especially to see if I need to modify or expand the search area. This saves a return trip.
N
 

Nate The Surveyor

Well-Known Member
Hey, Shawn, I can see overworking the programmers for the next 2 yrs. Then, I can see doing it some more! It'd be nice to reduce surveying to ONE CLICK, and a million dollars land in you pocket, but, alas, there are details! :) He he (make little joke, can you see?)
 
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