Blog
Guest Essay: Build the Future
In seeking views on the future of surveying, who better to ask than those who will shape that future? Here is a response from Eva-Maria Unger, the current secretary of the FIG Young Surveyors Network. Eva-Maria is 26 years old and from Vienna, Austria. She graduated with a master’s degree in 2011 in surveying and...
Legal UAS
Until the final FAA rules are in place for UAS incorporation in national airspace, the Section 333 exemption petition process is the only way to legally fly UAS for commercial applications in the United States. In late 2014, Government Accounting Office (GAO) stated, “The consensus of opinion is the integration of unmanned systems will likely...
The Note
From this crest of the Grand River Basin, near Byers Canyon, Colorado, the survey crew of Igor Kidinsky, aka Eager (The Kid), and Glenny Dale, aka Glutton (The Old Man), can view the same grandeur as the first survey crew who stood here 130 years ago, imagine the same thoughts, and make the same notes:...
NAVCEN
Take a tour of the real-time resource for civilian GPS. “Semper Paratus” (“Always Ready”) —United States Coast Guard Motto If you use GPS for surveying, you might have heard of NAVCEN. If not, then I highly recommend getting to know this valuable resource. As a land surveyor, you are accustomed to having a fair amount of...
Big Data, Public Data
Above: A lidar-derived elevation raster DSM (of Dinkytown, MN) draped by an aerial photo. Free Aerial Lidar, Renewable Energy, an Infectious Mentality At the intersection of renewable energy, big data analysis, geospatial technology, and public data availability stands the Minnesota Solar Suitability Analysis project. Primarily manned by students in the University of Minnesota Master’s of Geographic...
Surveying
Above: This bridge in Baltimore took 1 hour and 45 minutes to scan: 550 feet of roadway or 1.5 acres, including all the beams for the underside of the bridge for clearance and engineering design. Reality Capture, Targetless Registration, the End of Dedicated Field Crews As I stood in a courtyard of the Walter Reed National...
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