Shapefile
Survey data inaccessibilities
Yesterday I got *slightly* annoyed. I went out to set out a site on Monday and due to the GPS not having great reception I unpacked our shiny (not new) Leica TCR705 Total Station. All went well, but when it came to downloading I got quite upset about the fact that this piece of equipment can by default only be downloaded using a programme called LisCad - the most user-unfriendly software in the world. I struggled for quite some time - as one does and finally managed to get my data out of the machine - thanks to my helpful colleagues who are a bit more familiar with it!
Issues are the following: The data from the machine is converted into a textfile, which is LisCad-specific and has to be exported into AutoCAD format to make it workable. Problem number two is that the points which are exported have none of the data attached to them which were previously attached to them during survey - HOW ANNOYING!
Then I downloaded the GPS (Leica 1200 system) data from the same day. All data from our Leica 1200's is downloaded using Leica GeoOffice (LGO). This software is a lot more userfriendly and convenient and actually exports points with data attached and produces data output in various working formats. It still creates the link between the instrument and the computer.
Furthermore it is complicated and inconvenient to transfer between software and instruments, e.g. the TCR705's line data cannot be imported into LGO which makes it all very instrument-specific and frustrating.
To be fair - Leica supplies us with all the software and the most up-to date stuff comes with each machine and one always receives new updates as well. Support is also granted. As one would expect when investing into very expensive equipment.
Then I started to think - what would happen if one had a piece of survey equipment and not the compatible software? or a computer which is too old? Or an operating system which is not compatible with the Leica software (or whatever make, I am not being negatively focussed on Leica)? Or no survey software at all? Or the software dies and support is presently unavailable?
What I am trying to say is the following:
a) I am not happy with the monopoly the survey equipment companies take over the software and downloading procedures.
b) The fact that raw data, in a universally accessible format, is very difficult to extract from the machines is a great nuisance.
This is all due to the fact that Leica and the likes have a monopoly over the data their machines produce.
I am aware of the fact that the data can be extracted without the use of prescribed survey-software, but this is currently quite complicated and under development.
Any suggestions for avoiding the use LGO and it's likes are very welcome!
Posted at 04:58PM Jun 25, 2008 by Anna Hodgkinson in Geomancy | Comments[12]
Posted by Joseph on June 25, 2008 at 05:16 PM GMT+00:00 #
Awesome! :)
Posted by Joseph on June 25, 2008 at 05:23 PM GMT+00:00 #
With software development there might be something months/years in the future which can cope with all of our current machines and maybe some others and do all that we want them to do and also the bits that we rarely do but suddenly may need to do. Something further developed along the lines of the Framework programme but which works with our codelists and allows the survey data to be edited if things need correcting.
There is a caveat...or two.
Newer machines/other models/older models will prove to be a problem. For some reason most machines like to talk to the computer in their own way. Half of the problem is actually getting a new/unfamiliar machine to talk to a computer. The next problem is getting it into the software.
Opening raw data and trying to create spreadsheets and shapefiles from it is a little easier (once you've got the machine to talk to the computer/recognise the data format!). But it is a very time-consuming process...hours rather than minutes to create your survey in CAD/GIS. And without the survey programme you won't be able to correct for any errors except for geo-rectification and crude GIS correction of heights and such.
Posted by Mark Littlewood on June 25, 2008 at 05:37 PM GMT+00:00 #
Big monolithic applications that try to do everything are bad. They seem to be popular within Archaeology, however, as you get to wrangle an enormous TST/GPS/CAD/survey/email/lolcatz application that makes you look busy; no need to be good at archaeology if you're the only person that can work some ridiculous application.
We should be aiming for small, light-weight and easy applications that allow you to do archaeology rather than test the user's grasp of poor interface design. We want little applications that can be piped together:
download data > store in database > export to whatever
or
download data > process for paired GPS > store in database > export to whatever
When you break it down like this, there is no need to worry about if your new Total Station will export data in the same format as your last one; you simply write a new filter for Total Open Station. This is easy to do.
If you need to change something in the workflow, you can; we're not dealing with a single and enormous impenetrable application.
Back to Total Stations, and Total Open Station; they keep all their data inside themselves in an ascii text format. As you've stated in your blog post, the ridiculous nature of the problem you've demonstrated exists only because manufacturers want to maintain a profitable monopoly on survey equipment and data. Pretty simple, but culturally super-important, data at that!
Posted by Joseph on June 25, 2008 at 08:16 PM GMT+00:00 #
Have I read the above correctly? Once an ascii data has been extracted we would still need a survey processing package to do all that we wanted so that we don't waste hours editing, correcting and pasting our survey back together with lines, areas, points, codes and attribute data yada, yada.
If so this would obviously need to be heavily tested against some of our more troublesome/challenging projects to prove that it could do what we wanted. Liscad and LGO do this at the moment.
Also there's still my favourite headache of how to get the machine to talk to the computer in the first place. Seriously...sometimes even with a CF/PCMIA card your job may just appear as a number (a job in the GEODB sub folder of a Leica GPS 530. Fortunately LGO can translate so that you know what you are looking at).
And when you can't do that it gets even trickier. Even if you have something like Leica Survey Office (for those occasions when Windows Explorer refuses to recognise the TST plugged in on the other end of the download cable...hello TCA1105) your TST may still not want to talk to the computer.
Apparently this is all due to communication formats and the like which you're supposed to set up on the TST.
For example a 700 OA Codelist will not download properly through Liscad from a TCA1105 as we haven't set up a properly formatted OA codelist for a TCA1105.
One day I may try this. But even reading the machine's instruction booklets this isn't straight forward. And there are also quite a lot of options to toggle through on a TST as to how you want to set up the configuration; for recording, displaying, communicating and downloading.
With all these options it could take days to try all of them to get it to work if you didn't have an idea what it should be set up like.
With the TCA1105 I did. Unfortunately I still needed to talk to Leica as it is missing some communications format which we haven't set up on the machine. This is probably due to the fact that it was set up to use the Wessex downloading programme at Heathrow.
But the above should show the minefield of just getting a TST set up and talking in the first place.
Posted by Mark Littlewood on June 26, 2008 at 09:54 AM GMT+00:00 #
2: I think the second part of you comment echoes the sentiment of the original blog post; downloading data with these applications is not fun.
Posted by joseph on June 27, 2008 at 01:08 PM GMT+00:00 #
Posted by Mark Littlewood on July 04, 2008 at 07:52 AM GMT+00:00 #
This is exactly the case, yes. All the communication settings should be defined inside the equipment, however; it should just be a case of digging them out and entering them into your software. This would only need to be done the once. In a worst case scenario you could simply try all the available setting until you got one that worked - this wouldn't take too long at all.
And a baud rate is the number of signals sent a second between the equipment and the computer.
Posted by Joseph on July 08, 2008 at 01:52 PM GMT+00:00 #
Posted by Mark Littlewood on July 17, 2008 at 08:06 AM GMT+00:00 #
at the data just like that because someone's encrypted the whole lot and
only those programs that come with the survey equipment can crack it.
The time you're talking about, Mark should not really happen at all. It
should just work.
Posted by Anna on July 18, 2008 at 06:28 PM GMT+00:00 #
Once that's done and raw data is over on computer and opened up then I can mess about with it fine. Obviously putting it all back together to create the survey drawing then takes hours but at least if it's on the computer and backed up I've got something to rebuild.19
Posted by Mark Littlewood on July 22, 2008 at 08:21 AM GMT+00:00 #
Posted by Anne Kilgour on July 30, 2008 at 12:35 PM GMT+00:00 #