Land Surveyor Blogs

One of the typical survey method for determining station's points and survey details has been the traverse method. There have been considerable discussions on the way to "adjust" angles and distances and lot of rules of thumb while rigorous Least Squares Adjustment softwares are available anywhere.

I would say "too much" talks and controversial exchanges for a method that is simply not appropriated anymore considering modern instruments. Long traverses (geodetic) have been anyway replaced by using GNSS since a while. So we are talking about short traverses that must be deployed in urbanized areas and anywhere we cannot simply use GNSS ... 

The directions/angles resection has been replaced by "Free Station" method taking advantage we are measuring distance so easily today.

So it's time to left the "good old" traverse method and consider a new approach that will be more flexible, faster and more accurate not only to deploy on the field but also delivering results on the fly.

Since 1987, we worked on that (we even put a patent on that new approach around 2006) and I am very much interested to know your opinion about that ! 

1) From your professional point of vue and experience, what would be the key points a new method to survey (to replace the traverse way) should own ? 

2) Are you looking for new fresh approach on your daily works that would help you to speed up or you are very much satisfied with the existing tools (that are now on-board Total Stations) ?

3) Don't you think surveyors should take over such development instead of leaving it to producers ?

4) Are you surveying in 2D, 1D or 3D ? 

5) How user friendly should be the processing software for a new method replacing the traverse one ?

Many thanks for your time and your feedback ...