Online Exclusive Articles
The following list is of articles you'll find here on our website and not in the print magazine. They're stories on cutting-edge technology and trends and opinions in the industry, as well as case studies of current projects and historical surveys.
Click below each story blurb to be directed to that full story in our archives, searchable and with images.
It Was Just a Site Survey…
by David N Marquardt
In 2007 a Canadian surveyor visited Haiti with Engineering Ministries International to survey for a new orphanage. Here's an excerpt from his story:
The author takes a break from surveying for a new orphanage.
Away from Port-au-Prince, Haiti is mountainous, but beautiful; the roads are narrow, steep, rough, congested, and it is an exercise in driving skill and patience to get anywhere. Throw in a typical torrential downpour, and there are many roads you pick your times to travel on; otherwise you may end up in a twisted heap of metal.
The site survey was completed in three mornings of work; the afternoon downpours were when we processed everything from laptops or took a shower in the tropical rainstorms. While finishing the computer work on the site survey, it was a pleasure to watch my engineer/architect teammates do their magic, creating preliminary designs for several buildings: the main orphanage building (baby and toddler sections with an ICU), nannies’ dorm, school, volunteers’ residence, director’s residence, maintenance and mechanical building, and last but not least a chapel. We also performed soil and ground water testing and created designs for water, storm, and septic.
Click here to read the full story.
Spreading the Word on the Evolution of Modern Mapping
by Karen Schuckman and Tom Keiter
Kass Green (ASPRS) explains how GIS technology is used to fight wildfires.
Penn State Public Broadcasting is developing the Geospatial Revolution Project—an integrated public media and outreach initiative—about the world of digital mapping and how it is changing the way we think, behave, and interact. The project goal is to increase public understanding of mapping sciences and geospatial technologies by drawing on the stories of the people who are implementing and being affected by these new tools.
The project will feature the web-based serial release of eight video episodes, each sevent to ten minutes long. Overarching themes and historical context woven throughout the episodes will tie them together. The project will also include an outreach initiative in collaboration with our educational partners, a culminating documentary, chaptered program DVD, and online outreach materials. Partners who will extend the outreach initiative include the Penn State College of Earth and Mineral Sciences, NASA, and the National Geographic Society.
Click here to read the full story.
Sonar Goes to the Next Level
 By Emmanuel Sgherri and Nick Goodwin
The future workloads of hydrographic departments and the survey industry are increasing exponentially with new missions and standards. Adding to the equation are mapping of exclusive economic zones and the continental shelf, maritime boundaries delimitation, habitat mapping, sub-sea surveillance, and detection of illegal loads on the seabed. The dominant question: how to manage this increased survey demand within existing budget constraints.
As children of the world now learn geography in a dynamic mode through a Google-type of visualization with direct access to the dataset, the ocean seabed will soon be visualized in the same way. Google Oceans is in its early days, but no doubt tomorrow millions of users, private and public, including scientists, professionals, environmentalists, fishermen, and students will visit the oceans from their laptops.
Click here to read the full story
TESS: Army Corps Website Protects Endangered Shore Species
by JoAnne Castagna, Ed.D.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) has joined in the mounting chorus of experts who report that the environment’s health is at risk. The agency, whose mission is to monitor and manage threatened and endangered wildlife, reports that bird populations are plummeting at an alarming rate, and the health of our feathered friends is “a critical indicator of the health of the environment on which we all depend.”
One way the FWS is keeping an eye on threatened and endangered birds is by partnering with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, New York District. They have collaborated to create a website that includes a geographic information system (GIS) that is serving as a user-friendly repository of information on threatened and endangered bird and plant species living along the New York and New Jersey coast. Scientists, decision-makers, and interested citizens can use this information to come up with joint solutions for protecting these species.
(Click here to read the full story.)
Bridge to Time Savings
by Don Talend
Innovative construction techniques and high-tech surveying equipment kept a project to build a bridge near Dallas, Texas on a fast track. Now complete, it drastically cuts driving time.
Lewisville Lake, a 23,280-acre lake just northwest of Dallas, Texas, is a favorite of area sailboaters and fishermen, but in recent years, it hasn’t done much for drivers. Two major north-south arterials that stretch north of Dallas, I-35E and the Dallas North Tollway, straddle the lake and, previously, no east-west connecting route existed between the two. Circumventing the lake to get from one arterial to the other took drivers half an hour or more.
(Click here to read the full story.)
The Whitewater Canals of Indiana and Ohio
by Gordon Mitchell
“Canal fever” had swept throughout much of the eastern United States by 1836.
- New York had completed the Erie Canal in 1825.
- Ohio had completed the Ohio and Erie Canal in 1833.
- Ohio was constructing the Miami and Erie Canal, to be completed in 1845.
- Indiana had begun constructing the Wabash and Erie Canal.
Many areas of these states that were bypassed by the major canals built their own smaller canals either to connect with the major canals or to connect with major rivers.
(Click here to read the full story.)
Data Integration for Coastal Surveying
Combining Laser Scanner and Bathymetric Sensor
Church of San Pietro during the ILRIS-3D survey
by Marco Bacciocchi, Paul Byham, and Dario Conforti
When surveying the coastline, the integration of bathymetric (below sea level) and laser scanning (above sea level) data causes problems due to the different imaging properties. However, by ensuring that the different data sets have been accurately georeferenced and oriented, a complete and accurate model of the terrain above and below sea level can be obtained. This technique was employed to survey the area of Portovenere in Italy, including the San Pietro church located on a steeply sloping rocky promontory, with positional accuracies in the order of 5cm.
(Click here to read the full story.)
Single-beam Echosounders
by Ronald Koomans, contributing editor, Hydro International
We hope this product survey helps you to choose the best system for your applications. The details listed here form only a concise overview of the instruments. A PDF of the full survey is available for download from our website. Also, you can compare your views on products through our website; and with a few clicks you can select some of the products in which you are interested and view their details side by side. In addition, you will find a box for your comments on a particular item of equipment underneath every product on our website, so you can inform each other about your experiences. After all, you're our expert!
Click here to download the eight-page product comparison.
Click here to view online the full survey and interactive comparison.
Getting to California
The Coast Survey and the Gold Rush
by Albert E. Theberge Jr, contributing editor, Hydro International
Portrait of James Lawson
During the California Gold Rush, many people from around the world left everything behind—including their jobs—to seek their fortune in California. A copy of one of the more interesting historical documents from this period resides in the NOAA Central Library. This document, The Autobiography of James Lawson, details the work of four young coastal surveyors who were sent to the western coast at the height of the gold frenzy.
Lawson, born in Philadelphia in 1829, was educated at the Philadelphia Central High School and became a clerk to Alexander Dallas Bache, the second superintendent of the U.S. Coastal Survey. Following the Mexican War and the acquisition of California, Bache sent survey crews to California in 1848 to commence the survey of the U.S. west coast. The
discovery of gold in California led to one of the great migrations of human history as fortune seekers, known as ‘49ers, from throughout the world rushed to California. This led to shortages of laborers, desertion of hundreds of ship crew in San Francisco Bay and desertion of many members of the survey crews with consequent lack of progress.
To correct this situation, Bache handpicked four young men “who had a record
to make.” The chief of this crew was George Davidson; the other three
members were Lawson, the topographer A.M. Harrison, and John Rockwell.
(Click here to download the full story.)
Air France Flight AF 447 
A Challenge for Search and Recovery Technology
by Andrew Gerrard, contributing editor, Hydro International
(This article was published before the search was called off.)
A group of Brazilian marines recover debris from the missing Air France jet in the
Atlantic Ocean on 8 June 2009 (Courtesy of EPA).
Air France flight 447, a scheduled passenger service from Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) to Paris (France), went missing on 1 June 2009 over the Atlantic Ocean with 228 people onboard. The aircraft took off from Galeão International Airport at 22:03 (UTC) on 31 May 2009 with an expected flight time of 11 hours. Contact was lost 4 hours into the flight. No distress calls were made. The recovery of aircraft parts and the ‘black-box’ recorders will be crucial to the investigation team – these tasks will challenge equipment, techniques and the ingenuity of the teams at sea.
(Click here to download the full story.)
Compare Your Picks from 37 Total Stations
Our sister publication GIM International has analyzed high-end total stations in a new way on their website. You can select up to 5 products to compare, and then add your comments beneath the detailed view of any product as well as read comments of other users.
They say, "Last year an overwhelming number of 42 instruments were listed in our Product Overview. This was my reason for announcing in my introduction to the 2008 Product Overview a reconsideration of the minimum specifications, with motorisation of instrument as new criterion.
Four manufacturers, Leica, Sokkia, Topcon and Trimble, were able to meet these ‘upgraded' specifications. These instruments are listed in the coming pages, and really represent the crème de la creme.
One remarkable instrument in this overview is Leica's brand-new TM/TS 30. Besides excellent performance in angle and distance measurements, the most interesting part lies under the hood. Motorisation of the instrument uses direct drives based on the ‘piezo' principle, which directly transforms electric power into mechanical movement..."
Read the full article and compare your picks, here!
How Google Gave Geography its Groove Back
Once upon a time, the study of the Earth’s surface, its features, inhabitants and phenomena was nothing more than a tiresome school subject for the average person on the street. Google has changed all that with its interactive map of the world. Stitched together from aerial and satellite footage, it has been downloaded more than 400 million times, with people and organizations putting it to all sorts of interesting uses, from spying on celebrities to locating the nearest hotel in a foreign city. We spoke to Ed Parsons, Google’s geospatial technologist, to find out more about what lies ahead for one of the world’s most-loved applications.
Ed Parsons, Google’s geospatial technologist
(Click here to read the full story.)
Fort Steuben
by Gordon Mitchell
After the American Revolution had ended in 1783, the newly formed United States needed money. At that time, the United States had little money but an abundance of land. To raise the needed money, the United States would sell much of her new land to new settlers. But before this new land could be settled, it had to be surveyed and platted.
The Seven Ranges
On May 20, 1785, the Continental Congress passed the Land Ordinance of 1785, which designated a new survey system. Under this new system, all land would be surveyed into six-mile square townships, and all townships would be arranged in north to south columns (ranges). Each township would be subdivided into 36 one-mile square (640 acre) lots or sections.
(Click here to read the full story.)
1832
Grate bars (once used to support massive sugar pots
in ovens that processed raw sugar cane) were used to
mark plantation boundaries—photo by Matthew Estopinal, PLS
by Stephen Estopinal, PE, PLS
Bayou Terre Aux Boeufs (Land of the Oxen) had served as the main transportation conduit for a series of sugar plantations in rural St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana during the 18th and 19th centuries. Most if not all of these plantations along the bayou were established and working long before the Revolutionary War. The United States’ government land surveys that followed after the Louisiana Purchase simply recovered and reported these established boundaries of the plantations and assigned section numbers to them. Of course, the land owners ignored the assigned section numbers and continued using the colonial land record system that identified the parcels by the plantation names.
In June of 1962, the St. Bernard Parish government decided to purchase a portion of Belview Plantation adjacent to Jamis Plantation for a sewage treatment facility. My father Eugene was contracted to survey and subdivide the site.
(Click here to read the full story.)
A Survey-accurate Cadastral Model Aids in Railway Infrastructure Development
 by Ian Harper and Karen Richardson
In Australia, the New South Wales (NSW) government owns and operates the electrified metropolitan railway network throughout Sydney and surrounding commuter areas. As the population of Sydney has grown outward into new areas of urban development, the government has recognized the need for major upgrading of parts of that system. To facilitate those upgrades, the NSW Transport Infrastructure Development Corporation (TIDC) was enacted to focus on the construction of major projects.
One such project involved the upgrade of 10 kilometers of an existing single line that serviced a historical rural area identified as a major growth center for Sydney’s future. To commence the planning and design stage, the project managers needed a survey-accurate cadastral model of the route, and for political reasons with a minimum of survey fieldwork.
(Click here to read the full story.)
Book Review: The Oregon Trail, by Francis Parkman
by Wilhelm A. Schmidt, PLS
This book, I am told, used to be on high school reading lists. (If you have read it, raise your hand.) I came across it only recently in a used book stall at a local farmer’s market. It caught my eye because I had just read Chaining Oregon, set during the years immediately following the influx of settlers into the Oregon territory over this trail.
The book is not about surveying. Nor is the book, strictly speaking, about the Oregon Trail. When it was first published in 1849, its title was The California and Oregon Trail. But it covers the way west only on this side of the Rocky Mountains, about a third of its length, and then only because it provided a convenient route to the author’s intended destination, the home ground of the Ogillallah (Sioux) Indians at the foot of the mountains.
(Click here to read the full story.)
Creative New Use for Total Station
In building the World Market Center in Las Vegas, a contractor found that using a total station proved far superior to older methods for a challenging measuring job.
 By Larry Trojak
Once primarily a mainstay of surveyors, the total station has broadened its appeal, finding ready acceptance by other disciplines including concrete contractors, steel erecting firms, and glaziers. Providing far greater accuracy in setting control points than traditional instrumentation, total stations have become a mainstay on many jobsites around the world. This holds particularly true in on-standard construction situations, and Las Vegas-based glazier Embassy Glass drew upon its benefits as it undertook one of its most challenging wall system installations ever. The firm says its total station brought previously unseen levels of efficiency and accuracy and streamlined what seemed a near-impossible process.
(Click here to read the full story.)
Vizcaya Documentary Gets Help from Surveying and Engineering Firm
by Gene LaNier
An entrance to Vizcaya Villa
When a public broadcasting station’s senior producer began research for a documentary about an 83-year-old Italian-style villa in Miami, Florida, most people would never have thought she would check with the surveying and engineering company that did all the surveying and engineering for the project. That’s almost a hundred years ago. However, that’s exactly what senior producer Linda Corley of PBS Channel 2 did.
Surprisingly, she found the company is still in business and is today the oldest company headquartered in the city of Miami, 111 years to be exact. Here is a short version of the story that airs in south Florida in late May and nationally in the fall.
(Click here to read the full story.)
William J. Stengel: Surveyor
Bill surveyed in a snake- and alligator-infested swamp
near Cape Canaveral, Florida in 1958 to 1959.
by Earl Henderson
When the project engineer approached the concrete crew and asked who wanted to help with setting grade stakes on the drainage project, Bill Stengel saw him coming and made sure to raise his hand quicker than anyone else. He knew that just about anything would be better than what he was doing: pouring and finishing concrete.
At each stage of the staking operation the engineer would describe what was happening, why it was being done, and how it referenced the pipe laying. And at each of those same stages Bill would simply reply, “That makes sense,” which impressed the engineer enough to suggest to Bill that he consider pursuing a career as a surveyor or engineer.
(Click here to read the full story.)
Survey Firms Need to Have Contracts
The Ins and Outs of Using Them
By Justin Klein and Mark Amirault
Think back to when you decided to start your own firm; no doubt it was
a time full of excitement and anxiety. You posed countless questions as
you developed a business plan. Questions like: Where will my work come
from? When will I need to hire additional employees? How much money
should I invest in equipment? For many surveyors, one question looms
that they might not have asked then and are still not sure how to
answer today: Should I use a written contract?
(Click here to read the full story.)
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