May 2014 Archives

Business Angle: Where Have All the Mentors Gone?

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This entry is part 1 of 7 in the series May 2014

For the past two years, my travels have taken me to numerous places across the country to speak with great surveyors. I’m always listening to their complaints (many), opinions (also many), and positive comments (not as many) on our profession. From all those comments, I’m addressing here the apparent lack of mentors and training that […]

Education in Surveying: Improving the Geospatial Learning Experience: GeoLearn

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This entry is part 2 of 7 in the series May 2014

GeoLearn is an online education company founded in 2013 and designed to improve the learning experience for busy professionals and technicians in the geospatial professions.  Joe Paiva, PhD, PS, PE, a long-time geospatial industry educator, and Robert Morris are principals of this start-up educational company.  The company’s initial slate of  professional development courses, announced at launch […]

Feature: Preparing to Fly

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This entry is part 3 of 7 in the series May 2014

An industry insider provides an overview of the advantages of using UAS for surveying as well as common misconceptions, plus preparation steps for surveyors and firms.Unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) represent a culmination of advancements in miniaturization, electronics, optics, batteries, and data-processing techniques. After being widely used in military and security operations for the past 10 […]

Feature: UAS Applied

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This entry is part 4 of 7 in the series May 2014

Surveyors provide a topographical survey of a harbor in Ireland with a UAS, thus avoiding significant disruption (and risk) that would have been created by a conventional survey. Editor’s Note: Our October 2013 issue features a UAS evaluation by a surveying firm in Ireland; they conducted field tests using UAS photogrammetry and compared the results to traditional survey techniques. […]

Feature: UAS and the FAA

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This entry is part 5 of 7 in the series May 2014

What exactly is the current legal state of using UAS in the United States for surveyors versus hobbyists? What’s the big deal about the National Airspace System? What should surveyors do to prepare to use UAS? Few topics in the geospatial community are as fraught with misunderstanding and misinformation as the topic of unmanned aerial […]

Feature: National Surveyors Week 2014

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This entry is part 6 of 7 in the series May 2014

Collaboration among Pennsylvania surveyors exemplifies the spirit of the National Height Modernization campaign. The Pennsylvania Society of Land Surveyors (PSLS) recently launched a new initiative known as PSLS Reaching New Heights (PRNH). This initiative expands upon the National Geodetic Survey’s (NGS) GPS on Bench Marks Campaign (see sidebar at far right) and will be used […]