Civil Survey Solutions

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The development of GPS surveying and the move to larger and larger engineering projects with computer design has led to a need for Surveyors to be completely competant in grid and coordinate transformations and for Engineers to understand the need to resolve the associated issues.

When the size of the project is large enough for the earth's geoid to affect linear gridded coordinates all sorts of project complications can arise for setout and quantity measurement.

For those interested in this subject a discussion between a Surveyor and a Civil designer on relevant developments in the USA will be of interest.

The discussion can be accessed at:

http://discussion.autodesk.com/forums/thread.jspa?threadID=774381&tstart=0

or with a Newsreader through the Autodesk Civil 3D discussion group under the heading "Grid VS.Ground" posted by jgemperline 

For jobs which will take more than 1 day, it may be useful to increment each days string numbers to keep them unique. Start with 100 for day 1, then 120 for day 2, etc. For example, an edge of bitumen (EB3) would become EB103 if picked up on day 1, and EB123  if coded on day 2. This allows the field crews to start each day from string number 1, which means they do not have to remember the codes for numerous days.

The procedure we always follow is as follows:

• Start a new drawing for the days work to be reduced.

• Import the points with a point number increment to keep the point numbers unique but still correlated to the field point numbers.
• Select the Increment String Numbers from the Stringer Menu. Enter the amount to add to the string numbers and then select the points to process. The default is to change all of the points in the current drawing.
• Now string the points together and edit the string codes where necessary.

If a string is to be a continuation of the previous days work, then we use the Replace Code function of stringer. For example, if the EB3 needed to be continued on day 2, then EB123 would be renumbered to EB103. The just use Join by Code and the old string EB103 will be erased.

Some changes were made in the Stringer 2010.01 build to allow for the inclusion of point attribute data from Total Stations to be included as points are imported into Civil 3D.  A ramification of this is that when you use Stringer Connect to transfer your points into Civil3D, you need to use Zoom Extents command to find where our data has gone and then the Point Groups will automatically update and the surface will be created. What we need to do now is to Apply The Description Key Set to the All Points Point Group to make all the points read the DKS and show the correct point styles and layers associated with the DKS. 

When Surveyors go out in the field and do their surveys they all use codes that are used by that firm which are then added into the Description Key Set (DKS) as part of the template that they use. We need to be able to verify that we have used the same codes in both the field and the office.

Using this Stringer command will check whats in the drawing correlates with the DKS and will tell us if the surveyor has used codes not in the DKS and that he will need toadd them to either/both the DKS and the stringer setttings (CSV file) and re-run the command again. If you find that this doesnt show you anything after using this command it means that you have not used any codes that arent in the DKS.

Civil3d has some fantastic tools to layout your parcels which you get a preview of before accepting how the lots actually look. You can lay parcels out automatically or manually one by one with the ability to be able to change the area size as you go.
CADApps Australia as developed a labelling form which will give the draftsperson the ability to label line segments based on the length of the line and add the correct label style to that line. In addition to that it will also put points on each lot corner which can the be exported out for field setout capabilities. 

In Stringer 2010.01 you can now include field attributes onto your points after importing into Civil 3D.  A ramification of this inclusion is the requirement to reapply the description key set to the points after import to.

After using Stringer Connect and transferring your points into Civil 3D, you will need to:

Use this command to delete line segments between 2 point (lowest Number first) as it will automatically replace the second point chosen with the next available string number. Using this as the delete command will make sure that all edits made will stay when you select Join All Codes at anytime during the editing process.

When using the re-ordering functions in Stringer, it now keeps track of its original point numbers which you can find in the properties display at the bottom. It will also tell you what file it has been reduced from in the same area

The new Version of Stringer has the ribbon created which you can now see all commands needed for this program. I have tried to put icons and text on the functions I thought were most important. 

With that I have also added the layers tab as well so you don't have to go back and forth to see what layers things are on when you select them on the screen.