All posts by Gavin Schrock

xyHt: What Does It Mean?
Why did we pick an obscure geodetic expression as the name of our magazine? It’s not all that obscure—it represents a foundational element requisite to nearly all human endeavor. It touches your life explicitly and in the abstract. All of the ways that humans have measured and gauged their world, each of the conventions they...

Transformation and Change: Interview with Trimble CEO and President Steve Berglund
Once upon a time there was this company that made GPS boxes, and then … Yes, there have been changes at Trimble. The changes could be expressed in terms of the size of the company, market performance, types of products, and expanding markets; these are visible to core end-user constituencies such as surveying. There has...
GNSS Next: Dream Time: Chip-scale Atomic Clocks
“We all have our time machines. Some take us back, they’re called memories. Some take us forward, they’re called dreams.” —Jeremy Irons Global Navigation Satellites may revolve around the world, but the world of Global Positioning Satellites revolves around atomic clocks, and each satellite typically carries multiple atomic clocks. These are very sophisticated (and very...
Educational Partnerships
Two unique surveying programs develop partnerships with professional associations and industry, for the benefit of all. “We need to prepare students for their future, not our past.” —Ian Jukes, educator and futurist PSM has had the pleasure of profiling many fine surveying programs and schools over the years. Every time we explore an aspect of...

Creating the Futuristic Worlds of 3D
We interviewed Autodesk’s technology futurist Jordan Brandt, appropriately, in the Autodesk Gallery at their One Market offices in San Francisco. The Gallery, open to the public and the venue for monthly techie events, is a showcase for eye-popping examples of the types of innovation Autodesk’s customers have been producing for more than three decades. It...

ROPOS: ROV Cool
I recently accompanied a film crew working on a documentary on maritime technologies to the NOAA facility in Newport, Oregon to catch a glimpse of what is widely celebrated as the “coolest ROV in the world.” The Remotely Operated Platform for Ocean Sciences (ROPOS) is the flagship research ROV of the Canadian Scientific Submersible Facility...