Category Archives: Surveying
Brave New Coordinates: What NSRS Modernization Means for Survey and GIS Practice
NAD 83, NAVD 88 and “SPCS ’83” are finally giving way to a modern, GNSS- and gravity-based National Spatial Reference System. The technical pieces are arriving now. For surveyors and GIS professionals, the hard work will be managing the transition while keeping projects on track. For more than a decade, NOAA’s National Geodetic Survey (NGS)...
Topcon Expands Capture Reality Portfolio with Introduction of New Handheld Scanning System
Topcon Positioning Systems has introduced the CR-S1, a handheld scanning system that combines LiDAR, panoramic cameras, visual SLAM cameras, and a GNSS antenna in a single device. The CR-S1 utilizes Topcon’s Collage mass-data software ecosystem central to a connected workflow. The CR-S1 expands the company’s Capture Reality portfolio as a higher‑performance option alongside the CR‑S2....
Topcon 2.0 in Practice
How Connected Workflows Are Redefining Geospatial and Construction Execution Over the past decade, geomatics has shifted from a discipline defined primarily by measurement accuracy to one increasingly shaped by workflow execution. Sensors are more capable, data volumes larger, and project timelines tighter, while survey, GIS, and construction activities now routinely overlap. In this environment, the...
Building the Next Generation of Geomatics Professionals
How Fresno State, Trimble, and CSDS Are Closing the Workforce and Technology Gap On January 22–23, 2026, Fresno State hosted the 65th Annual Geomatics Engineering Conference at the Lynda and Stewart Resnick Student Union, bringing together students, educators, surveyors, engineers, and technology providers for two days of technical sessions, vendor exhibits, and professional networking. The conference, which has been...
Technology That Tracks
A singular railway system provides a linear path from construction to maintenance on the Tren Maya. Mexico’s Tren Maya (Maya Train) has been lauded as “the most important public work in the world” by former president Andrés Manuel López Obrador. Designed to boost economic and social development in the country’s southeast––a decades-long underdeveloped region––the 1,500-kilometer...
Measuring Change at Scale: FARO’s Mass-Data Vision for Digital Reality
At INTERGEO 2025 in Frankfurt, FARO®, a business of AMETEK®, Inc. wasn’t just celebrating a milestone, it was making a case for how 20 years of terrestrial laser scanning experience feeds directly into the next wave of GIS: mass data, AI-ready point clouds and digital twins that help societies manage infrastructure at scale. “All of...