How would you topo a 100 acre parcel that was, say a perfect rectangle with 1000 feet of road frontage and only moderately vegetated (in other words there are many openings but still yet quite a bit of vegetation, not an open pasture). The client has requested a 50 foot grid. The site has a few small hills and valleys, in other words the terrain is not flat at all. I guess my question is, would you set up a baseline with points on the right-of-way at 50 foot intervals and chop 90 degree topo lines every 50 feet or would you set random traverse points throughout the site in the openings and just locate the tops and bottoms of the hills and valleys and prorate points on a 50 foot grid between the highs and lows. I guess I am describing 2 different methods. The first is the trditional grid line method and the second is a method for locating the grade breaks within a certain area or patch of the site from many different traverse points set throughout the site until the entire site was covered. Either way the high and low points would have to be located. I was just curious as to how different companys might prefer different methods. I suppose that most everyone would utilize the traditional grid line method but was just wondering if anyone might prefer another method of scattering points throughout the site and covering small areas from each point until the entire site was covered. I did not know if there was a term or word for the second method. I suppose, ideally it would be great to make one setup and collect enough data to cover the entire site but due to vegetation and terrain this is rarely possible in my part of the world. I suppose a visit to the site might be necesary to make this decision but let's say this wasn't possible and there was not a budget or price issue just a time restraint. I wish tere was a spellcheck button to push. Which method would you use and is there a term for each method or even another way to get the required results?

Just Curiuos,

Mark