New feature: Shift

[Shawn Billings]

I'll start by saying simply that shift is a lot of fun and very utilitarian. Shift calculates the translation from the current rover position to a known coordinate. For instance, you set up the base using an autonomous position, you then recover a point with known coordinates and you want your survey to relate to this point. Shift allows you to collect a shot on this point then apply the translation to every point within the base session. This means that all points (within the base session) that are observed before shift and all points collected (within the base session) after the shift are translated by the observed difference the known coordinate of a monument and the surveyed rover coordinate of a monument.

In the Collect Action screen press the black button "Point". Select Shift. Select or enter the coordinates of the known point. Press OK. Notice that "Point" now says "Shift". Center the LS on the monument with known coordinates. Press "Start", once the point is collected and accepted, the user is shown the translation amount. Select OK. Press "Shift" and select "Apply Shift". Then switch back to point collection (or line, curve, traj depending on your survey). The bottom of the action screen will now show "SHIFT DETAILS" at the bottom of the screen. This indicates that a shift is in effect so that you won't be inadvertently applying a shift when you did not intend it. It also allows you to see what the shift is.

Shift uses the same "Shift" space in the database that DPOS uses and has all of the same benefits. For instance, shift applies only to a base session, so you can have multiple shifts in a single project (one for each base session - think about each day returning to a job and setting the base in a convenient place then shifting each day's base position to a monument shot with the rover). Shift can be undone and redone. If you have a monument that is only approximate (a leaning post, a damaged monument, etc.) you can shift to it to get your coordinates close, then recover a better monument and shift to the better monument. The new shift applies to the entire base session, so all points collected (including the rough point you shifted originally) will be shifted by the new translation. SWEET! Finally, Shift can be superseded later by DPOS as DPOS will simply Shift the base session from to the post processed coordinates of the base station.

Shift is like localization, but is fast. It only uses ONE point, so it is wise to at least check in to another point. It is, to my knowledge, limited to translating for known coordinate systems and is probably not suited for translating between State Plane and 5000,5000, for example. Perhaps someone from the development team can address this.

 

[Adam]

Handy dandy

 

[Nate The Surveyor]

Wow. Whow! So many things. I like it I like it. I do.
Nate

 

[Joe Paulin]

Shawn, sounds like this would be great to use with your base mounted to the vehicle, like some are doing, right? Put a conventional control point in the ground, leave the base on the vehicle and use shift with the ground control point? I like this much better than driving away with your control point every night. I will have to check this out.

 

[Nate The Surveyor]

I can see this as a long work flow improver.
N

 

[David M. Simolo]

I tried to do a "Shift" today. I feel like I managed to pull it off successfully as I staked the point afterward and effectively had zero as opposed to the initial 7' autonomous solution delta. However, when I tried to get back into collect mode, I could not do it--it kept wanting to keep me in shift mode. Not sure if it's newbie operator error or some kind of glitch. Is there some kind of non-intuitive path I overlooked? I kept backing out of the Collect screen and coming back but the black square near the upper right corner always said "Shift" instead of "Point" and the "Shift Details" window was always near the bottom of the screen. Every time I presses "start" it would go to the Shift routine screen.

 

[Shawn Billings]

In the upper right of the screen (below Start) you still see the word "Shift", you need to press that and switch back to point. Then you're good to go.

So here's the process:
Select Shift and recall the point you are about to shoot
Shoot the point
Click "Apply Shift"
Toggle from Shift to Point and begin work.

Note that you can perform a shift at any time during the base session and the apply shift will retroactively shift everything (not just from shift going forward). This is handy because you may not be able to do the shift first thing. Also, you can shift on a rough point (say a fence corner with low order coordinates) and then use that to find a more precise point and shift on that. The last shift is the one that is applied. Previous shifts are overwritten.

 

[David M. Simolo]

Thanks Shawn. I felt like I tried that a few times without success but I may have gotten the sequence wrong somehow.

Is this "shift' feature only available while that base-rover session is active?

 

[Shawn Billings]

Is this "shift' feature only available while that base-rover session is active?

Yes, because it must be done with a shot (recall known point and shoot it).

But, you can back door it and shift the base if you know the offset from your rover point to the known point, apply the offset to the base coordinate (autonomous) and use the BASE blue button on the base rover statistics screen. This is the screen you get in the points menu, when you highlight a point and press the blue field with point details on the right. You should be taken to the base rover statistics screen which has the blue Base button in the upper left. If you change these coordinates it will translate all of the points that were collected from this base position.

Not quite as elegant, but it works well and does the same thing (only manually).

 

[David M. Simolo]

Gotcha. Thanks again Shawn.

 

[Shawn Billings]

As I think about it, there is another way too. Localization. Put the survey point on the right, the target point on the left, then make the association, by pressingmanual and horizontal and vertical. Select Save, and select adjust base position. It will accomplish the task after the fact.

This is changing for the better in the new release. New release will create a shift in localization that will apply to collect. Just like shift does now. This way you can use more than one point to determine optimum shift, instead of one point. It will be useful after the fact, as it is now, and apply to later shots if you are still in the field collecting.