With respect to measurements, whether by GPS or total station, surveyors are ultimately interested in only two things: the coordinates of measured features and the accuracy of those coordinates. For the office, Leica Geo Office (LGO) is used to perform a variety of tasks such as post processing, adjusting, editing, viewing, printing, exporting, transforming and COGO, just to name a few. Within the RX1250 is the SmartWorx software which operates both the total station and GPS. The System 1200 is an arrangement of three hardware components: the TPS 1200+ (Total station Positioning System), the RX1250 (data collector and controller), and the ATX1230 SmartAntenna (GPS RTK rover) which are all held together, powered and tethered by various accessories. But that is exactly what Leica Geosystems has done in creating the System 1200. Placing robotics and GPS together in a single integrated package seems rather daunting, both for the manufacturer willing to attempt it and the user willing to buy it.

None of these solo-enabling technologies are effective in all situations. Merging multiple devices into one begins to border on the miraculous when it is just you toting gear to a job, through brush and over rough terrain, a half mile from the survey chariot. These same surveyors constantly lament the bulk of gear that is now being carried by only one or two people. This has been made possible largely because of advances in reflectorless and robotic total stations and real time kinematic GPS instruments.

These developments are particularly noteworthy to the contemporary practicing surveyor.įrom conversations I’ve had with surveyors around the country, there seems to be a steady migration toward solo or near solo operations. Jet-powered riding lawn mowers notwithstanding, many of the new technological developments going on around us are built on nothing more than intelligently merging two or more useful devices into one. It was only a matter of time until someone put those two together.'

Tim 'The Tool Man' Taylor once said, 'You’ve got a jet engine and you’ve got a riding lawn mower. A 895Kb PDF of this article as it appeared in the magazine complete with images is available by clicking HERE

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