OpenRoads Survey 2020, R1 – Survey Traverse Point Conflicts

It’s been a quite a while since I’ve done any survey work so this one is outside of my skillset and is something that I don’t understand how to address.

A project that I’m working on has multiple days of collection. The first day a traverse was run where the ends are tied into monumentation control. The initial traverse file stored the control on either side of the project that it was tied into, and the rest of the traverse coordinates between the ends were computed by the observational field data angles and distances. The traverse imported into OpenRoads Survey fine and looks good with all of the traverse points computed as coordinate values. During later days those traverse points were each occupied and topography collected from them. It seems that each day when the crew occupied a point on the traverse they also stored the coordinates of that point from somewhere (observable in the field file). But when I bring in one of those later field files, (that stored the occupied point that the instrument was set up on), that stored point for the location of the instrument doesn’t match the computed coordinates from the traverse post-processing calculations.

When I import one of these files with the stored occupied point, OpenRoads Survey prompts me with a ‘Duplicate Point Feature found’ dialog to either Overwrite, Skip, or Rename the duplicate point. When I go to the ‘Differences’ tab on that dialog to see both points, they are slightly different by anywhere from 0.05 and 0.03 or thereabouts.

I found a 7 year old post by Kevin McDonald that seemed to touch on this, but it doesn’t really answer my question.

https://communities.bentley.com/products/road___site_design/w/road_and_site_design__wiki/13437/importing-duplicate-point-names-into-survey

Otherwise I’ve been reading various documents, watching every video that I can find, and searching for days but can’t find anything that really explains what to do here.

This seems like a personal lack of understanding of survey collection but it makes me want to take the adjusted traverse coordinates and call them good, and strip out the stored occupied coordinates from the files with the daily topographic collection. But I don’t know if I should really do that, or if the OpenRoads Survey message to “Overwrite” is the thing to do.

I hope I explained this clearly. And unfortunately I cannot provide the files due to the sensitive nature of this project.

I appreciate any education that anyone can provide.

  • I suggest making the traverse points control points. This option is available with a right click on the first column of the Details dialog box. See below:

    Hold the Standard errors to 0.000 in all axis (NEZ). This will constrain the adjustment to the fixed values. 

    This a concise explanation of the workflow for survey adjustments. 

    I also create a Bentley survey (sqlite) format of the control coordinates and error estimates. This allows for a stable database containing the only control points. The sqlite file can be imported into any field book and used to process sub sets of data (topo etc).

    There are several ways to work through the survey process this is just one I use.

    Cliff

    Answer Verified By: Nezmar Dok 

  • Thank you, Cliff. I will try this.

    Teşekkür ederim, Nezmar Dok

  • Cliff, thank you. This worked really well. And as I was doing this I attempted to adjust the Survey Settings under Points to do this automatically, but I couldn't get it to work. I thought that if I added the specific object codes into the Control Point Features that it would automatically turn them into Control Points and save a step. But this setting appears to work in conjunction with the Import Coordinate Records above it somehow. I set that option to As Control by Field Code but it only transformed the Codes to Control IF they were coordinate values in the field file. If they were observational they were not assigned as Control. I was thinking that the two settings under Points acted independently, but I don't think they do. I guess I have to do more testing to find out what those settings actually mean because the Help file says nothing about them.

    Teşekkür ederim, Nezmar Dok

  • Some thoughts here:

    • I don't use the Import as Control by feature option. I have tested that workflow and not felt like it was working well for me. I don't like inserting any step that might confuse the control point values with something unadjusted or coded incorrectly.
    • I keep the initial control traverse observations in a separate field or sometimes a separate dgn. It's easy to contaminate or even delete control observations from a data set via screen graphics or selection sets via the survey details interface. 
    • Export the control traverse to a SQLite. The SQLite doesn't take the observations only positional information. 
    • Import the SQLite file into a field book before the observation data is brought over. If the traverse points were made control points before you exported the SQLite file they should be control when you bring them over.
    • Delete all SP records from the RW5 or RAW file before you import the raw data to a field book. You don't need them. If you really want to import the coordinate values with the raw data give the crew an upload they can use in the collector.
    • Once the raw measurement data is adjusted and meets your standards export a SQLite file of that topo data and import it to a topo dgn. I use a single field book to contain all of the topo points and chains.

    Again do what works for you. I'm just thinking out loud about how I do things.

    Cliff