Evolve or die

[Jims5543]

In the grand scheme of things, it is pretty impressive mathematicians calculated the center of the planet within 2-4 meters (6-12 feet) when you are dealing with a roughly 7,900 mile diameter planet. 

It actually seems silly to adjust the center. The problem is, I work in millimeters, adjusting our network 4-6 feet is HUGE to me.

What I am worried about it the NGS adjusting this, then we go back to an older job, say from 2020 in 2030 after the adjustment has been made, we will essentially have to resurvey it all over again, while the lot will be in the same place, the house on the lot, fences on the lot etc... The lot will still be in the same relationship to all the control points.

What I am worried is my GPS is going to tell me I am 4' in the wrong place in 2030 vs 2020.

With pilots, I do not think even 4 meters is going to ruin your day navigating.  Its all relative, the runway will still be in the same place, you probably will never notice this.

I will... That is what gives me stomach aches. How do you explain to a customer that their 10 year old survey has to be resurveyed in order to get it back on the correct coordinates.

I guess I could compare it to an old survey from before I was using GPS now brought up to date placing on GPS coordinates.   I don't really resurvey the entire property, I tag enough control points to rotate and align it with the GPS.

The only real problem I can think of is after this shift, all my old data will be useless unless we figure out a way to rotate and translate it onto the new coordinates.

Example, I have an old 2020 job I did on GPS and the crew needs to go back to stake a building on the lot, we just cannot go there and stake it on GPS, we need to go first and locate enough to move it onto the new datum, THEN we can calculate to stake the new building.   If we do not do that the building will be 4' in the wrong place.

That is what is making my head spin...

[cstudep]

Well look on the bright side, if I'm understanding it correctly, at least its a whole lot better than having to go back and tell people shits actually moved and now they dont own what they once were told they did.

You already have to deal with that enough I'm sure, imagine every property needing to be "adjusted". Oof.

[Jims5543]

I just realized something.  For the last 7 years I have been compiling a GPS databases in my office. I have entire communities all on GPS, for example this community that I started working in in 2019. Every street and house in there, I worked on.

It will most likely be built out by the time the shift happens.  Except, if I ever have to go there after 2030, I will have to shift my entire cad file to match the new data. Otherwise the entire subdivision is going to be 4' off.

The whole point of my changing to GPS was to make things more streamlined when you return to the same property in the future. All the data I have been compiling will be useless until I adjust it.  What a waste!!  All because technology revealed we discovered we miscalculated the earths center with modern technology.

At some point I am going to have to revisit all my projects and move them.  What I am hoping for is for some nerd to work out a conversion we can use without a field visit. Which might be dicey. Or maybe not.  When we swiched the vertical from 1929 to 1983, we had a website with the ellipsoid plotted, we could punch in our Lat/Long and it would feed us the conversion rate. i.e. in this area the conversion is 1.47 feet lower for 1983 vs. 1929.  60 miles south it is 1.43.

To be safe, I would have to run through this community tagging about a dozen control points at extreme opposite ends of the community to shift the cad file to be useful again.

This change is going to equal a lot of new work for us.  Which will get passed on to the consumer. What might have been a simple task on an individual property will be more complicated and may require an initial recon trip before we can actually perform the task needed.

Over regulation in the last 6 years has already increased our prices 50%.  This will probably increase our pricing another 30% to offset the addition time we will have to spend fixing everything.

[Jims5543]

If you told me 2 years ago I would be using AI in my office I would have laughed at you and said, for what?


In the last few months:

My sub contract drafter told me he uses AI to research properties he is drafting, we were working on a 5 acre vacant site, he punched the lot description in AI and asked for relative links to sites that might contain info to help him, he was able to gather a lot of very useful maps and data.

I started using it in that manner too, I was surprised how helpful it has been. Example a current project I am working on, 2 small 50'x140' parcels on the outskirts of a downtown area, I never thought to check with the Florida DOT, they had maps of the street I am working along with some very good data on them helping us find some valuable property corners we might have missed.

Then yesterday, I had a older lady in her 70's contact us to do a survey for her to permit a new fence, her survey was from 1990 and illegible.

That was a lie.

She was in a property line war with a builder that is building a house next door. She never told us that, if she had I would have passed on the job, in my experience, the builder is typically correct, my survey was going to give the same answer which put me at odds with my client as they did not want that answer. So I just do not take those on, there is no winning with them.

It turned out the surveyor for the builder is my friend who I helped start his own surveying company 20 years ago. He contacted me when he saw my crew had set rebars with my caps on them. Sent me a copy of his survey which agreed with my data. We were on the same page.

My field guy miscalculated a rear corner, we had to go back to reset it. It was set 7" wrong.  We issued the survey, against my better judgement, and all hell broke loose.

Client focused on the miscalculated corner as incompetence and accused me of shady business practices because I communicated with the builders surveyor. Good thing I didn't mention we were friends.

She wrote a very insulting email, which to be honest pissed me off. I had contemplated refunding her deposit the moment I realized she deceived us, I went against my gut and moved forward. I should have listed to my gut instinct.

I wrote a reply.. then fed her email and my reply into AI and let it advise me as to how to revise my email to diffuse the situation.  I was already issuing a full refund.

The AI version was much better than mine and it even broke down all the issue I was going to create further by using my version. LOL  AI took me from 4 paragraphs to 2 being short and sweet.

Now I wonder how long before we can punch field data in and have AI sort things out?  It is amazing how fast everything is changing these last few years.

[Jims5543]

A day in the life of a Land Surveyor. Too funny not to share.

We work for a large Paver Company that installs, pools, driveways & patios.

We have a driveway permit survey to perform. The Paver Company gives us the homeowners name and phone number so we can reach out the day prior and let them know a crew is coming as a courtesy.  We also make sure to get access if the community is gated.

We just called this number for the homeowner, a woman answer the phone, we explain we are coming out to perform a survey for a driveway replacement permit. The lady gets nasty with us, "Why are you calling me?!! This is my husbands deal not mine!! Call him!! We can hear him in the background. So instead of handing the phone off to him, she forces us to hang up with her and call him on his cel phone.

We call him and she is in the background barking orders and demanding answers from him. When are they coming? What time?

People are fucking insane.

[94touring]

Happily married sounds like lol