Category Archives: Surveying
UAS: It’s Unstoppable and Headed Your Way
From time to time I like to stop and think about the mission of Pangaea and explain that mission to you. My task is exposing you to new, emerging geospatial technologies. But why bother? Here’s a little analogy I thought of to help explain why keeping abreast of new geospatial tech is critical. Imagine emerging...
Crown Stone Dedication – 250th Anniversary of the Mason and Dixon Line Survey
The Mason and Dixon Line Preservation Partnership (MDLPP) will unveil a CrownStone set on the border of Maryland and Pennsylvania by Charles Mason and JeremiahDixon, 250 years ago. The Crown Stone was lost and had not been seen for over 110years. A replica Crown Stone, showing how the original stone looked when it was set,...
What Is a Professional Land Surveyor?
As I was recently completing the comprehensive NSPS questionnaire developed as a follow-up to the Forum on the Future of Surveying (see Multiple Choices by Gavin Schrock, PLS), I found myself contemplating the many descriptions of land surveyors included along the way. After completing the questionnaire and providing some personal feedback, I couldn’t help but...
Closer Than It Looks
Above: High-definition mapping sensors (lidar, digital, and oblique imagery, here mounted on a helicopter during collection of an autonomous vehicle mapping project) provide an accurate, cost-effective approach to limit the interference and potential delays related to collecting extensive control on a right of way. A hybrid of geospatial technologies could help autonomous vehicle mapping drive...
A Correctly Weighted Least Squares Adjustment, Part 3
Estimating Standard Errors in Angular Observations In the previous articles (January and February 2016) I discuss the unreliability of standard deviations when they are computed from a small sample of observations, as well as how to estimate errors in centering an instrument over a well-defined point and how to estimate the standard error for electronically...
Multiple Choices
Forum on the Future of Surveying enters its initial feedback phase. This new column provides monthly coverage of the Forum on the Future of Surveying (FFOS)—a national initiative with representatives from 15 key surveying-related associations—to examine paths forward for the profession. See the first installment in our March issue. Now the initial report of the...
