Data Acquisition Tools

As a reasonably long time inRoads Survey user, are there any benefits to me looking into these tools? How do they fit into the greater scheme of things?

I have been very pleased with the flexibility that InRoads Survey offers and make heavy use of the custom codes for placing automated labels with 3D planimetrics. If the intent is to eventually phase out the survey products in favor of Data Acquisition Tools I can only hope that these capabilities are part of those tools.

  • CaddCop:

    It has been and continues to be our intent to evolve new tools (such as Data Acquisition) in such a way that YOU decide when and if they are viable alternatives for you and your organization.   Thus Data Acquisition is installed alongside InRoads Survey (GEOPAK and MX too).  Our job is to make them so compelling that you want to invest in them  If you don't  yet find the tools compelling then InRoads Survey is fully intact and fully suported.

    Some reasons you might want to investigate Data Acquisition at this time are:

    • Drag and Drop processing of survey data
    • Automatic computation of surface from the survey points and lines
    • Easier (in my opinion) creation of surfaces from LIDAR and DEM data.
    • Automatic updating of surfaces when survey data changes or added to
    • It is common to MX, InRoads and GEOPAK.  So if you have a mixed shop, these tools can provide a common toolset to standardize training and workflows. 

    Your XIN settings are supported including custom operations.

    Is it a complete replacement for InRoads Survey? Not in this release.  But it might be a viable replacement for some or all of your particular workflow.

    I did an eseminar on these tools a month or so ago and a recording of it should be available at bentley.com.   You can also contact me by way of email if you have questions or feedback.  Robert.Garrett@bentley.com

    Robert Garrett
    Senior Product Engineer
    Bentley Systems Inc.



  • Robert,

    I would be interested in viewing the E-seminar on data acquisition but I am having trouble locating it on the bentley.com site. Could you kindly be a bit more specific in identifing it?

    Regards

    Phil

  • www.bentley.com/.../InRoads

    It is probably accessible thru other routes such as the one Art pointed out, but this is where I got to it.  Don't let the "InRoads" category bother you.  The material is equally appropriate in MX, except you would use your PSS settings.

    Robert Garrett
    Senior Product Engineer
    Bentley Systems Inc.



  • Thanks Robert,

    The video was impressive. It looks like a recent surface merge I worked on could possibly have been done in a much shorter time.

    But it did raise a few questions:

    1. After you bring in a bunch of RAW files, can it save something like an FWD?
    2. Can you build a merged surface where some survey data trumps older survey data? In my recent assignment, I started with photogrammetry, and then a second, newer photogrammetry, followed by some RAW files from a number of different dates, some of which were updating areas from an earlier survey.
    3. Do you have to use triangle when merging surfaces? I find that if I am not building a proposed surface, but joining survey with photogrammetry, the exterior of the survey based upon triangles is too arbitrary limit to use as a merge clipping area. I used manually place fences with Delete Features and Copy Portion of Surface to punch out holes and then to bring in the newer data.
    4. What Actual InRoads products, when loaded make these tools available? Since its obvious we use InRoads Survey, are these tools available to someone running it?

    I may have others, but I will have to reflect on this some more and will use another post when I do.

    Thanks again.


    Charles (Chuck) Rheault
    CADD Manager

    MDOT State Highway Administration

    • MicroStation user since IGDS, InRoads user since TDP.
    • AutoCAD, Land Desktop and Civil 3D, off and on since 1996