Stakeout points

[Bruce Dawson]

Hello everyone, brand new J-Field user here. I just received my Triumph-LS and am working through the setups and beginning to use the system. First impressions are that it is going to work very well for my needs. I do have a question on stakeout. I am used to creating a point for the actual staked monument. I see that an "actual location" value is saved with the design point. Is there a way to save that actual location as a new point number?

Thanks for any answers, I suspect I will have more questions to come.

Bruce Dawson

 

[Matt Johnson]

Hi Bruce, currently you have to go into the collect menu if you wish to store a staked point with a new point number. You can do this quickly by pressing the Collect hardware button twice. There has been some discussion and debate if we should allow a staked point to be stored with a different point number from the stake screen. Is this a feature you or others think would be good?

 

[Shawn Billings]

You may also store the point in stake out, and as you observed, the survey point is stored with the design point. At export you can direct J-Field to separate the design and survey points and add a value to the design point name or add append the design point name with a suffix for the exported survey point name. So design point 101 exports as well as a second point, the survey point, named 1101 (assuming you set the export to add 1000 to the design point).

 

[Bruce Dawson]

Thanks Shawn and Matt,

I did see the option to add values to the actual location point, which might be sufficient. What I want is to have a point in my final CAD drawing for both the calculated (design) and set (actual location). At times, in the field, I may want to use that set position. Perhaps I can't set a point somewhere else with GPS due to tree cover or multipath issues, so I have to use my total station. I could setup on one of those new set points, or backsight it. It may be splitting hairs, but I want to use the actual location, not the design location values.

I could set the point in stakeout, then collect it. Just seems redundant and now I will have 2 positions for the actual location (although, again, splitting hairs as I would hope they would be just a couple hundredths or something apart). So for me, I would prefer the option of saving the actual location in stakeout with a new surveyed number that I know right then is a number I can use.

Thanks!

Bruce

 

[John Thompson]

I'm with Bruce on this one.

I often stake a point multiple times. I usually have a control point, often near the base, that I check in to first thing in the morning, last thing before shutting down, and maybe before and after lunch, or when I happen to be close by. I like to save these check shots so I can document what went wrong and when. I have yet to find an easy way of doing this with J-Field. I can use Collect and give them names, but then I have to inverse to find out how far off I am. I currently use Stake to check the deltas first but don't accept, then use Collect to save the point.

I see some advantages to the way J-Field stores stake points with the same name, but maybe there could be the option to give a staked point another name.

On a related note, if I stake a point that I've already staked, does the LS guide me to the staked coordinates or the design coordinates? It would be nice to be able to specify either one.

 

[Matt Johnson]

On a related note, if I stake a point that I've already staked, does the LS guide me to the staked coordinates or the design coordinates? It would be nice to be able to specify either one.

It selects the design coordinates to be staked but I agree we should be prompted to select the design or survey coordinate. I will add it to the to do list.

 

[Mikhail Drakin]

If we implement choice of coordinates to guide to, even when it were set to "guide to survey coordinate", the result point (if Accept, not Save As were used) would replace already existing survey coordinate and save offsets from desing coordinate for cutsheet. Is this logic OK or something more complicated is necessary?

 

[Kelly Bellis]

In other data collection software I use, the user defines a global default behavior or otherwise will always be prompted before any coordinate (with the same name) is overwritten.

 

[Matt Johnson]

If we implement choice of coordinates to guide to, even when it were set to "guide to survey coordinate", the result point (if Accept, not Save As were used) would replace already existing survey coordinate and save offsets from desing coordinate for cutsheet. Is this logic OK or something more complicated is necessary?

I think this would be ok but it would be good to show a prompt as Kelly suggested if it is going to be overwritten.

 

[Shawn Billings]

Didn't we have it set where survey points could be staked but not stored? In other words you could navigate to the stake point but no option to accept the shot.

If you want to store a check shot of an already surveyed design point, why not just go to the collection screen and store the check shot there?

This seems too complicated to me, when there is already a work flow in place to accomplish this.

 

[Mikhail Drakin]

I told Javad about this topic, he suggested that we discuss it tomorrow at the meeting.
Shawn, we can navigate without accepting, but I think Matt and Kelly are talking about navigating AND accepting, while the accepting either overwrites existing survey coordinate or creates a new surveyed point.

 

[Mikhail Drakin]

Also, it still bothers me that when we implement "Save as" - we come to a design point which has intrinsic connection to one surveyed point (coordinates saved inside the same point), and no intrinsic connection to several other surveyed points (saved separately via "Save As"). I'll bet we'll have requests about having connection between all surveyed points and original design point, and I currenly have no idea how to solve it neatly. Of course we can ignore these future problems for now, but I'd like to keep them in mind.

 

[Matt Johnson]

If you want to store a check shot of an already surveyed design point, why not just go to the collection screen and store the check shot there?

The problem with this is that you don't see the offset between the existing surveyed design point and the new surveyed point. We do have the new PDelta white box option that could be used to show it now however.

 

[Shawn Billings]

I can see that. I generally use inverse for that.

I would use stake to find the point (if it's been a while since I staked it and it's hidden). Use a short observation of a few seconds in stake to make sure there are no large errors. Then collect the point for a full observation in collect. I then inverse the new collection to the original stake point.

 

[Matt Johnson]

Also, it still bothers me that when we implement "Save as" - we come to a design point which has intrinsic connection to one surveyed point (coordinates saved inside the same point), and no intrinsic connection to several other surveyed points (saved separately via "Save As"). I'll bet we'll have requests about having connection between all surveyed points and original design point, and I currenly have no idea how to solve it neatly. Of course we can ignore these future problems for now, but I'd like to keep them in mind.

I don't see that a connection to the original design point is necessary when using Save As. One thing you could do is have the default point description for Save As points include the original point name. Maybe use the format of "Staked Point: N PointN_ExistingDescription".

 

[Kelly Bellis]

Would fixing the length of characters in this point naming discussion help? For example, If I'm told I've got 256 characters and I choose to use them all, then I'd face the consequence of StakedPoint_N_PointN_ExistingDescription_SavedAs_StakedPoint_Nb_PointN_ExistingDescription

The realities of reading such a mess, not to mention the problems that are introduced from truncation of such strings, makes field length something to think about.

 

[John Thompson]

I can see that. I generally use inverse for that.

I would use stake to find the point (if it's been a while since I staked it and it's hidden). Use a short observation of a few seconds in stake to make sure there are no large errors. Then collect the point for a full observation in collect. I then inverse the new collection to the original stake point.

Can you do this with less than 20 clicks?

 

[John Thompson]

Also, it still bothers me that when we implement "Save as" - we come to a design point which has intrinsic connection to one surveyed point (coordinates saved inside the same point), and no intrinsic connection to several other surveyed points (saved separately via "Save As"). I'll bet we'll have requests about having connection between all surveyed points and original design point, and I currenly have no idea how to solve it neatly. Of course we can ignore these future problems for now, but I'd like to keep them in mind.

I don't pretend to understand what all is going on inside the software, so ignore this if it doesn't make sense. Rather than having the design point link to all the surveyed points which were staked from it, why not have the staked points all link to the design point (or surveyed point) that was being staked?

 

[Matt Johnson]

I don't pretend to understand what all is going on inside the software, so ignore this if it doesn't make sense. Rather than having the design point link to all the surveyed points which were staked from it, why not have the staked points all link to the design point (or surveyed point) that was being staked?

Each point record in the database has fields for design and survey coordinates so that is why only one set of survey coordinates can be linked with design coordinates.

 

[Shawn Billings]

Can you do this with less than 20 clicks?
Good question. I don't know, I never counted. As I read your post above regarding the check point near the base (which is a FANTASTIC idea), one other possibility exists.

Rather than using stakeout at all, I would probably recommend zooming to 1:1 on the collect screen and make sure that the current position (green circle) is in the area of your check point. Turn "altitude" on in the View (in Collect Prepare). If everything looks about right graphically, collect the point. When you accept the point, it will appear in the map along with the remaining points and the elevation will also be apparent. If necessary zoom in to see all points and elevations in a cluster.