1st February 2011, 08:32 AM
(This post was last modified: 1st February 2011, 10:57 PM by Stephen Jack.)
kevin wooldridge Wrote:I wouldn't waste money on a programmable calculator just to use on archaeological sites as most total stations built in the past 10 years will do allof the calculation for you. Infact one of joys about modern archaeological surveying is the fact you can rely on the machine to do most of the work for you.....
...infact I see that one reputable dealer is offering a reconditioned Leica 1100 robotic total station for ?1500 at the moment. Someone with initiative could buy that up, teach theirself to use it in a couple of days with the self-help manuals and start offering their services to any number of archaeology contractors on a day rate....I think the machine would pay for itself in a couple of months plus you end up with a seriously good skill....
Is this an example of why archaeology standards are so bad, wing it with a superficial understanding of the subject. What you will not know is why your screwing up and you will, the surveys will not be reliable. If you think I'm wrong try setting out with this type of skill level, that will find you out in a few days. The last job I worked on in the UK was Rutland Water water treatment facility, a 90 million pound project. The main contractors individual, set out the control network, the buildings position was skewed, 1.5m out of position in the worst case. His mistake was to rely on temporary stations someone had previuosly place in a bank, short distances and crap angles. What he should have done was to use the more permanent base line control in the road.
If you have a half baked method your data for people coming along after you will be useless. If you are going to just do local control, that will be of little value to others, not worth putting into a GIS system, it will be meaningless.