Category Archives: Surveying

Surveying: It’s a Wonder

Sponsored by NCEES Get your end-of-year credits. Click here to learn more. Surveying is a fascinating and wonderful profession–just think about the great things that we have the opportunity to accomplish from day-to-day. We may create a new tract of land through subdivision which allows a young person to have a new home on their...

UAS and ALTA Surveys

Part 3 Precision, accuracy, and completeness are the end goals of UAS post processing, but how you get there to meet ALTA standards requires extra care. In Parts One and Two of this article in the September and October 2022 issues of xyHt we looked at the time/cost/precision proposition of using UAS for elements of...

New Digital World Needs Data

Next-generation surveyors require specialized education and training to fill the role of geospatial data specialists. Many emerging geospatial applications, such as digital twins, 3D modeling, monitoring, virtual reality, and autonomous vehicles, are based on big digital datasets. Building a 3D digital world starts with accurate data that ties to a point on the ground, so...

Sky High

UAVs deliver practical and highly technical mobile mapping Collecting imagery with uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs) is ideal for a variety of applications including topographic mapping, forestry ground and canopy measurements, powerline corridor mapping, Digital Terrain Model (DTM) generation, high-resolution digital imagery, and orthophoto production, along with support for a variety of other mapping needs.  Historically,...

Farming From Space

Airbus and Sentinel Fertigation use satellite imagery to improve sustainable crop production With help from Airbus’ detailed high-resolution 30cm satellite imagery provided by Pléiades Neo, a Midwest crop management software platform is offering a streamlined process for farmers fertilizing crops via irrigation (known as fertigation). Using multispectral imagery of field conditions, Lincoln, Nebraska-based Sentinel Fertigation...

Celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the Brooks Act

By John Palatiello On this day, October 27, in 1972, President Nixon signed into law legislation providing for qualifications based selection (QBS) of architecture, engineering, (A&E) and related services, including surveying and mapping.  It was 50 years ago today the Brooks Act became law. At the time of its enactment, the Brooks Act was a...