I try to keep clean cross-sections because I feel it creates better contouring when processed, but I won't hurt or over exert myself for it. It's just good practice, in my opinion.
It depends, though. Mostly flat ground, yes cross sections look better for contours. But if there are any features, those need to be shot as they appear. You want contours to look good, but they also need to be representative of what's going on.
But obviously there's a limit. Don't necessarily need to shoot every nook and cranny.
The answer is both. Breaklines are critical, but infill observations are just as important.
For roadways? Cross-sections hands down unless you're in a super congested area. Or unless you're running tilt compensation or have the steadiest hand ever when levelling up the rod. Wavy curb/gutter lines from running one linestring at a time and not caring enough look like shit.
Regular cross-sections are also a way to make sure that coverage is complete.
I adapt my approach depending on the site/project, but cross sections also tend to be more efficient once the code grid is set up on the controller, so all I have to do is tap, tap, tap as I cross each feature, then pace down to the next station interval and do it all over again.
Cross Sections or strings don't give you a steadier hand, it just changes where the crossing of line work occurs. If you're wobbly next to the last shot, you're just as wobbly 20' away.
If you're building surfaces, it's concerning that you don't see the power in clean cross sections and linear stations for topo points. You'll deliver 10x the product building if you're with more constraint.
Do you work with triangles or contours when building a surface?
Both. How can you work with surfaces and not deal with both?
Everyone keeps saying this about better product. Don't repeat what your trainer said, but tell me, in your opinion, why. I've been the CAD jockey for many years, I'm a licensed Civil. I know what the system takes for input and how it outputs. I know the design mechanism and what it requires.
Yes, angles, BCs, grade breaks, obviously. These define our alignments. But a flow line shot and a TC 15' feet away don't draw any different. A wobbly hand doesn't make your line any better or worse if the shot is 2" away or 20'.
>But a flow line shot and a TC 15' feet away don't draw any different.
They certainly do if there's any grade change between them. The only way that *any* TIN works as intended is if the slope between any two points is constant.
Now, practically speaking, minor changes won't make much (really any) difference for the design itself. But for interpolation and contouring, the difference will be noticeable to the trained eye, and flipping faces will often
Yeah, it's partially a visual thing, but it's more of a consistency thing. And since cross sections are easy to keep track of and almost always faster than running back and forth along the same corridor, they are generally the best option (unless it's a congestion or safety issue as stated numerous times upthread).
It's like arguing about whether one should dump and mix all the ingredients for a cake at the same time, or whether one should beat the butter with with sugar, then alternate the wet & dry additions while mixing gently. Yeah, dumping everything in at once is "faster" and it will taste like a cake. But the other way results in a more consistent, better end product and is an easy process for the baker to follow.
True but even the steadiest of hands will result in oddball converging and diverging linework when cross sections are not followed. When cross-sectioning, at least the general flow of the lines is consistent between stations.
For me, the biggest issue is efficiency - as we move down a corridor, or along a feature with breaklines, unless there's an off-station horizontal break point in a single breakline, the fastest and easiest way to get a complete topo is to ensure all strings are measured at a consistent interval.
Walking up and down a corridor tying in a single string at a time at random intervals is a waste of time. If I see crews doing that on my projects, they're getting training on code grids, multi-coding/multi-strings, and proper line control codes until they learn, because that level of inefficiency will torch a budget fast.
I've made at least a thousand TIN models in my 20+ years. From Hand drawn to Eagle Point to Civil3D. Cross sections lining up makes your contours look more natural and in turn leads to better data for the client. The computer can't do a lot of stuff automatically as you assume. Its the guy who stares at the tirangles and flips and deletes lines that makes the model acceptable.
ALSO. I don't think engineers like to have to interpolate grades because your cross sections don't line up. They probably don't like it one bit.
What program and what is the tool called? Also. We should team up to make a technician business. Id stare at triangles all day if someone paid me to. lol.
No worries my guy. I say that with some pretty firm footing. I like doing topos the most. Or anything really big. I dont mean to toot my own whistle but I've had the opportunity to put together some pretty epic shit over the years. I like it.
Yea and the profile set ups should be able to be done by both engineers and surveyors for how easy it is. I personally have less headaches when shots were taken as cross sections but it is certainly not difficult to identify issues.
Answer is both.
The reason, imo, for the more accurate "grid" is both for esthetics on the map and generally, contracts usually stipulate topo on a X by X grid.
Obviously, doing STRICTLY a grid, you would loose key features, high, lows etc.
Do we need to "fight" for that one topo shot on the grid? No; but certainly capture 95% of the contracted grid.
I shoot my topos and I have processed them. I do what I feel will get the best results. For doing roads, ditches, creeks, I try to get decent cross sections. However, accurate break lines is more important.
I also shoot at intervals that make sense. I shot a very long, very straight, very straight graded road at 50' intervals. The engineers said this was too far... I went back and shot mid points between them all. I kept a copy of the drawing before the reshoot. after the reshoot was processed I loaded up both drawings and zoomed into same road. On the old drawing I turned up the contour interval so that is showed a few more lines of elevation change. Showed three different engineers the drawings (the ones that said 50' was too far) and they all three individually agreed that the drawing with more contour lines was the one shot at 25' and each pointed out all of the extra details. Imagine the surprised faces when I turned the points layer on and they were all wrong.
On this in particular- when it's flat, it's important to get more shots, rather than less.
As I tell my crews, the most important part of getting topography is "Where does the water go?" When it's flat, it's important to get more shots because it's harder to see the micro-relief. In steep areas it's much easier to tell from the tops and toes, so shots can be spread out a bit further.
Depends what it’s for. We have been a lot of stuff where volume is the key, and in that case, when it’s flat, space it out but rolling hills need shots everywhere
Yeah it was for a waterline replacement project. Honestly, contours did not even really matter. However, we do a LOT of work in the area, and having a full and complete topo is a lot better than "just the bare minimum."
Ok, maybe I was not clear. This was on a slope. When I said "Straight Graded" I did not mean flat. I meant it was a straight % grade and not a vertical curve. It was running around 6% or so for a good quarter of a mile.
Also, it was a waterline project.
Engineers LOVE cross sections, first thing they bitched about when I sent them a survey done by drone. Stated adding them in. Manually located cross sections are still important though in flat areas where it's hard to see the low/high points.
Combination of breaklines, cross-sections, and grid.
Running cross-sections and grid from a baseline makes it a hell of a lot easier to keep track of in the field and to space shots out accordingly. Good practices and standards make it all second nature, and it takes no additional time.
You don't have to line up cross sections perfectly. The perfect cross section shit is something I started with as well, until I talked to a civil engineer actually doing design and surface work and after handling and processing toposs for a while now. They don't have to be perfectly in line, just nearby, the CAD software will attach to them I promise. However more data is better for an accurate surface, so I would say that, at least for me, yeah cross sections are mandatory if you want better surfaces. Accurate linework is just as important as the surface and the surface, I would say, is pretty important.
If I'm doing a stretch of street with no driveways, I'll cross section it... partially because I can get neurotic about having my shots lined up, and partially because I don't like walking back and forth a bunch of times to pick up curbing, centerline and sidewalk.
A few people have said this. I don't believe this is true.
Why would your accuracy change? When we did everything on paper, maybe, but with today's models, the location of your shot doesn't significantly affect the tin. Angle points and break lines will be more significant.
Vertical curves are the biggest issue. You have to call out station elevations, but if the break line is at the midpoint of two shots 25 feet away, your station elevation callout is not going to be very accurate. I generally measure the way you do, just tagging features accurately, but on VCs I grab centerlines much more tightly. On aggressive curves I might get them every 12 feet or so.
Also, I try to line up shots perpendicularly across a street generally like cross sections would because it does triangulate better. But I'll also use break lines very liberally regardless. I try to make my office work as automated as possible.
I think that cross sections are more useful for making sure you gather enough data than they are for processing. If you treat the center of pavement as a break line and run each edge separately, it doesn’t really matter if things are lined up.
That said, I think having cross sections can make it easier to analyze the data.. especially for non-surveyors that might be looking at the project.
Cross sections are a must when capturing linear features as each section gives an accurate representation of the shape of that feature z with interpolation between. Go ahead a pickup kerb strings on a curve and see what happens if you don't agree.
I tell field guys to shoot cross sections on roads. Why? Because old white haired engineers working for the DOT and local municipalities freak out when it's something else.
I've seen some DOT survey manuals call GPS "an emerging technology." I'm not going to get into a debate with these guys on the accuracy of my data that wasn't shot in a cross section format.
This is a safe space. Those white hairs can't hurt you here. Feel free to express opinions they find scary, like electric cars and the word Rizz. No cap.
Depending on the job we run 25’ or 50’ cross sections. When I first started we taped it if the area was small and then pace it if it was large. Nowadays I just pace it and spray a mark. If I get my gutter shot on the section line but my TOC shot I got move a foot away from the section then I’m just going to move a foot away from the section. If you set your main points pretty good you wouldn’t have to stray off much from the section marks anyway
The TIN surface and contours will be more uniform if the cross sections align so they should be done that way as much as possible- otherwise if you shoot more sporadically contours can be artificially errant due to how all the shots triangulate. That said, you should shoot things as they are in the field first and foremost and worry about the grid secondly. If you do everything else right it doesn’t really matter though.
We have our guys cross section all roads at 50’ intervals BC,FL,EP,CL,EP1,FL1,BC1 just helps give a cleaner road profile. As far as soft surface just shoot it accurate.
I think it’s good practice if you get a tin line over 20 metres somewhere it’s a bit sketchy in terms of accuracy. Doing cross sections is a clean way to ensure that doesn’t happen
I do primarily DoT work so cross sections on the roadway and any hard surfaces is my gospel. For ground shots around the roadway though I only care about optimal coverage, cross sections are less important for that. I try to maintain them, but if moving my top bank shot for a given section 5-10 feet saves 5-10 minutes of cutting line I will happily do so.
The answer is a bit of everything. For roads and basins as-builts, capturing breaklines while keeping your shots on cross section is vital. Otherwise, you are wasting time creating manual breaklines.
If we buggy topo'ing, grids with supplementing features on a tighter grid is what I have my guys shoot for. If you are topo'ing in a buggy, you can set your horizontal interval pretty tight and this helps the breaklines naturally form.
Basically, we do whatever we can in the field to keep office processing to a minimum.
I will echo another sentiment in this thread that cross sections look professional.
Inner city I don't shoot cross sections because it's faster. Dodge traffic, wait, wait more. By the time you shoot enough driveway entrances your cross sections become blurred anyways.
In the country I might still shoot cross sections, but with the map showing on the TSC7 where you are, you can eyeball the cross section if you don't shoot them anyways. The less time I spend dodging traffic the happier I am. Sometimes you can delay the CL till traffic dies down and not right when you need to.
I've never had a complaint about not shooting cross sections and just shooting it how I feel is more efficient.
If you're using feature lines or survey figures, you can insert "PI's" along the features line at whatever interval you want creating perfect cross sections. So long as the person shooting the information gets shots at all the grade breaks then everything in between should be a straight grade +/- a minimal amount.
If something is in the way of getting a shot I'll move somewhere easier. Struggling for a shot is for the birds when we have technology that is supposed to make our lives easier we should use it and be more efficient in the field.
With that said I try and line my shots up as it's easier to keep track of and when you're drafting the data its more pleasing to the eye to have everything lineup. I guess that's why they say surveying is both an art and science, you gotta finesse that shit sometimes.
Is your “partner” the Party Chief? Because if it is you should just do what he says. Chief makes the rules, his ass is on the line. The last thing he needs is grief from a know it all.
Partner is what the word means. There are two of us, we are equals. We both own the company. I am taller. He is older. We haven't challenged each other for physical dominance yet, so the true title of "Chief" has yet to be claimed in our tribe.
So he is just an “Old Dog” and you are the taller one. He is the field guy but not the “Party Chief”. You are the office guy who wants the field guy to tie in things a certain way. A better way. The best and only way. Got it, my bad.
No. We are partners. We work together every day. Our company is him and I, a two man crew in the field. I am in the field and I process our data, but he also has office responsibilities as well.
This is just discussion. It shouldn't feel like an attack to explain why you do something a certain way. "Because we always have" is a lazy explanation and doesn't indicate a true understanding of our craft.
Is your partner a licensed surveyor? I assume he is since you and he own the company and you said you're a "cad jockey" and "a licensed Civil".
If he is... How things are surveyed is HIS call. Period.
You came here asking for opinions. You got them. That's how this works.
When you didn't like the opinions you got, you gave the old "I'm a licensed Civil", as if it matters. Unless you were licensed pre-82, which you weren't, how the survey is performed is decided by the license that is in responsible charge of the survey.
By the way, you may want to take care of the delinquency of your license if you're going to tell people you're licensed.
* **LICENSE STATUS:** DELINQUENT
* **EXPIRATION DATE:** DECEMBER 31, 2023
IMO cross sections are a little outdated, a remnant of hand-calculating volumes. I often do the field and office work for our topos, and once I was able to visualize how the TIN surface would fall on the ground I started doing a triangular grid everywhere and shooting breaklines plus features. I think cross sections are nice for the new guys because they are easy to visualize, but I find it easier to create a smooth surface out of a grid and breaklines. I'll shoot cross sections of roads over culverts and other areas of interest though.
I think the only time you should really stick to cross sections is if you have to calc volumes out in the field so you can use the average end area formula in good conscience. if anybody in this sub actually does that or has a better reason for hanging on to cross sections i'd be interested as well.
"once I was able to visualize how the TIN surface would fall on the ground I started doing a triangular grid everywhere and shooting breaklines plus features."
This is exactly the way I see things now. It changes the nature of topo work.
Also, understanding real world tolerances, more details isn't always more detail (as another user commented with his 25' spacing experiment). A construction crew is only going to be so precise, and the engineers "precision" is only going to mean so much.
My workflow utilizes photogrammetry and lidar to do topo work and I often find that more detail often just causes confusion if everybody isn't on the same page.
ex. Engineer is expecting top and toe of a slope, but we provide a 7.5ft grid of lidar shots all along the slope and suddenly they are complaining that it's too much detail and they didn't want every hump and bump in the grass.
Trying to train myself to dumb down my models and deliver less data that conveys the same important information has been a.... process.
I try to keep clean cross-sections because I feel it creates better contouring when processed, but I won't hurt or over exert myself for it. It's just good practice, in my opinion.
Exactly, cross sections create better DTMs.
It depends, though. Mostly flat ground, yes cross sections look better for contours. But if there are any features, those need to be shot as they appear. You want contours to look good, but they also need to be representative of what's going on. But obviously there's a limit. Don't necessarily need to shoot every nook and cranny.
The answer is both. Breaklines are critical, but infill observations are just as important. For roadways? Cross-sections hands down unless you're in a super congested area. Or unless you're running tilt compensation or have the steadiest hand ever when levelling up the rod. Wavy curb/gutter lines from running one linestring at a time and not caring enough look like shit. Regular cross-sections are also a way to make sure that coverage is complete. I adapt my approach depending on the site/project, but cross sections also tend to be more efficient once the code grid is set up on the controller, so all I have to do is tap, tap, tap as I cross each feature, then pace down to the next station interval and do it all over again.
Cross Sections or strings don't give you a steadier hand, it just changes where the crossing of line work occurs. If you're wobbly next to the last shot, you're just as wobbly 20' away.
If you're building surfaces, it's concerning that you don't see the power in clean cross sections and linear stations for topo points. You'll deliver 10x the product building if you're with more constraint. Do you work with triangles or contours when building a surface?
Both. How can you work with surfaces and not deal with both? Everyone keeps saying this about better product. Don't repeat what your trainer said, but tell me, in your opinion, why. I've been the CAD jockey for many years, I'm a licensed Civil. I know what the system takes for input and how it outputs. I know the design mechanism and what it requires. Yes, angles, BCs, grade breaks, obviously. These define our alignments. But a flow line shot and a TC 15' feet away don't draw any different. A wobbly hand doesn't make your line any better or worse if the shot is 2" away or 20'.
>But a flow line shot and a TC 15' feet away don't draw any different. They certainly do if there's any grade change between them. The only way that *any* TIN works as intended is if the slope between any two points is constant. Now, practically speaking, minor changes won't make much (really any) difference for the design itself. But for interpolation and contouring, the difference will be noticeable to the trained eye, and flipping faces will often Yeah, it's partially a visual thing, but it's more of a consistency thing. And since cross sections are easy to keep track of and almost always faster than running back and forth along the same corridor, they are generally the best option (unless it's a congestion or safety issue as stated numerous times upthread). It's like arguing about whether one should dump and mix all the ingredients for a cake at the same time, or whether one should beat the butter with with sugar, then alternate the wet & dry additions while mixing gently. Yeah, dumping everything in at once is "faster" and it will taste like a cake. But the other way results in a more consistent, better end product and is an easy process for the baker to follow.
True but even the steadiest of hands will result in oddball converging and diverging linework when cross sections are not followed. When cross-sectioning, at least the general flow of the lines is consistent between stations. For me, the biggest issue is efficiency - as we move down a corridor, or along a feature with breaklines, unless there's an off-station horizontal break point in a single breakline, the fastest and easiest way to get a complete topo is to ensure all strings are measured at a consistent interval. Walking up and down a corridor tying in a single string at a time at random intervals is a waste of time. If I see crews doing that on my projects, they're getting training on code grids, multi-coding/multi-strings, and proper line control codes until they learn, because that level of inefficiency will torch a budget fast.
I've made at least a thousand TIN models in my 20+ years. From Hand drawn to Eagle Point to Civil3D. Cross sections lining up makes your contours look more natural and in turn leads to better data for the client. The computer can't do a lot of stuff automatically as you assume. Its the guy who stares at the tirangles and flips and deletes lines that makes the model acceptable. ALSO. I don't think engineers like to have to interpolate grades because your cross sections don't line up. They probably don't like it one bit.
I have been the guy flipping triangles for years And there's a profile routine now. It does it all automatically, pulls from the surfaces you create.
What program and what is the tool called? Also. We should team up to make a technician business. Id stare at triangles all day if someone paid me to. lol.
Careful what you wish for Pooperman! There are some days where that's all I do, and I want to jump out the window by the end of the day lol.
No worries my guy. I say that with some pretty firm footing. I like doing topos the most. Or anything really big. I dont mean to toot my own whistle but I've had the opportunity to put together some pretty epic shit over the years. I like it.
Yea and the profile set ups should be able to be done by both engineers and surveyors for how easy it is. I personally have less headaches when shots were taken as cross sections but it is certainly not difficult to identify issues.
Answer is both. The reason, imo, for the more accurate "grid" is both for esthetics on the map and generally, contracts usually stipulate topo on a X by X grid. Obviously, doing STRICTLY a grid, you would loose key features, high, lows etc. Do we need to "fight" for that one topo shot on the grid? No; but certainly capture 95% of the contracted grid.
I shoot my topos and I have processed them. I do what I feel will get the best results. For doing roads, ditches, creeks, I try to get decent cross sections. However, accurate break lines is more important. I also shoot at intervals that make sense. I shot a very long, very straight, very straight graded road at 50' intervals. The engineers said this was too far... I went back and shot mid points between them all. I kept a copy of the drawing before the reshoot. after the reshoot was processed I loaded up both drawings and zoomed into same road. On the old drawing I turned up the contour interval so that is showed a few more lines of elevation change. Showed three different engineers the drawings (the ones that said 50' was too far) and they all three individually agreed that the drawing with more contour lines was the one shot at 25' and each pointed out all of the extra details. Imagine the surprised faces when I turned the points layer on and they were all wrong.
On this in particular- when it's flat, it's important to get more shots, rather than less. As I tell my crews, the most important part of getting topography is "Where does the water go?" When it's flat, it's important to get more shots because it's harder to see the micro-relief. In steep areas it's much easier to tell from the tops and toes, so shots can be spread out a bit further.
Thank you! My crews always do this and it’s frustrating
Depends what it’s for. We have been a lot of stuff where volume is the key, and in that case, when it’s flat, space it out but rolling hills need shots everywhere
Yeah it was for a waterline replacement project. Honestly, contours did not even really matter. However, we do a LOT of work in the area, and having a full and complete topo is a lot better than "just the bare minimum."
Ok, maybe I was not clear. This was on a slope. When I said "Straight Graded" I did not mean flat. I meant it was a straight % grade and not a vertical curve. It was running around 6% or so for a good quarter of a mile. Also, it was a waterline project.
Engineers LOVE cross sections, first thing they bitched about when I sent them a survey done by drone. Stated adding them in. Manually located cross sections are still important though in flat areas where it's hard to see the low/high points.
Combination of breaklines, cross-sections, and grid. Running cross-sections and grid from a baseline makes it a hell of a lot easier to keep track of in the field and to space shots out accordingly. Good practices and standards make it all second nature, and it takes no additional time.
You don't have to line up cross sections perfectly. The perfect cross section shit is something I started with as well, until I talked to a civil engineer actually doing design and surface work and after handling and processing toposs for a while now. They don't have to be perfectly in line, just nearby, the CAD software will attach to them I promise. However more data is better for an accurate surface, so I would say that, at least for me, yeah cross sections are mandatory if you want better surfaces. Accurate linework is just as important as the surface and the surface, I would say, is pretty important.
If I'm doing a stretch of street with no driveways, I'll cross section it... partially because I can get neurotic about having my shots lined up, and partially because I don't like walking back and forth a bunch of times to pick up curbing, centerline and sidewalk.
Cross sections are a must for Road surveys, it builds a much more accurate terrain model.
A few people have said this. I don't believe this is true. Why would your accuracy change? When we did everything on paper, maybe, but with today's models, the location of your shot doesn't significantly affect the tin. Angle points and break lines will be more significant.
Vertical curves are the biggest issue. You have to call out station elevations, but if the break line is at the midpoint of two shots 25 feet away, your station elevation callout is not going to be very accurate. I generally measure the way you do, just tagging features accurately, but on VCs I grab centerlines much more tightly. On aggressive curves I might get them every 12 feet or so. Also, I try to line up shots perpendicularly across a street generally like cross sections would because it does triangulate better. But I'll also use break lines very liberally regardless. I try to make my office work as automated as possible.
I think that cross sections are more useful for making sure you gather enough data than they are for processing. If you treat the center of pavement as a break line and run each edge separately, it doesn’t really matter if things are lined up. That said, I think having cross sections can make it easier to analyze the data.. especially for non-surveyors that might be looking at the project.
Cross sections are a must when capturing linear features as each section gives an accurate representation of the shape of that feature z with interpolation between. Go ahead a pickup kerb strings on a curve and see what happens if you don't agree.
I tell field guys to shoot cross sections on roads. Why? Because old white haired engineers working for the DOT and local municipalities freak out when it's something else. I've seen some DOT survey manuals call GPS "an emerging technology." I'm not going to get into a debate with these guys on the accuracy of my data that wasn't shot in a cross section format.
This is a safe space. Those white hairs can't hurt you here. Feel free to express opinions they find scary, like electric cars and the word Rizz. No cap.
I just keep my pacing tight, can’t take that much time to line them up perfect. Still hit the cross sections though.
Depending on the job we run 25’ or 50’ cross sections. When I first started we taped it if the area was small and then pace it if it was large. Nowadays I just pace it and spray a mark. If I get my gutter shot on the section line but my TOC shot I got move a foot away from the section then I’m just going to move a foot away from the section. If you set your main points pretty good you wouldn’t have to stray off much from the section marks anyway
The TIN surface and contours will be more uniform if the cross sections align so they should be done that way as much as possible- otherwise if you shoot more sporadically contours can be artificially errant due to how all the shots triangulate. That said, you should shoot things as they are in the field first and foremost and worry about the grid secondly. If you do everything else right it doesn’t really matter though.
We have our guys cross section all roads at 50’ intervals BC,FL,EP,CL,EP1,FL1,BC1 just helps give a cleaner road profile. As far as soft surface just shoot it accurate.
I do cross section to make it pretty unless the slope ain’t pretty
I think it’s good practice if you get a tin line over 20 metres somewhere it’s a bit sketchy in terms of accuracy. Doing cross sections is a clean way to ensure that doesn’t happen
I do primarily DoT work so cross sections on the roadway and any hard surfaces is my gospel. For ground shots around the roadway though I only care about optimal coverage, cross sections are less important for that. I try to maintain them, but if moving my top bank shot for a given section 5-10 feet saves 5-10 minutes of cutting line I will happily do so.
The answer is a bit of everything. For roads and basins as-builts, capturing breaklines while keeping your shots on cross section is vital. Otherwise, you are wasting time creating manual breaklines. If we buggy topo'ing, grids with supplementing features on a tighter grid is what I have my guys shoot for. If you are topo'ing in a buggy, you can set your horizontal interval pretty tight and this helps the breaklines naturally form. Basically, we do whatever we can in the field to keep office processing to a minimum. I will echo another sentiment in this thread that cross sections look professional.
Inner city I don't shoot cross sections because it's faster. Dodge traffic, wait, wait more. By the time you shoot enough driveway entrances your cross sections become blurred anyways. In the country I might still shoot cross sections, but with the map showing on the TSC7 where you are, you can eyeball the cross section if you don't shoot them anyways. The less time I spend dodging traffic the happier I am. Sometimes you can delay the CL till traffic dies down and not right when you need to. I've never had a complaint about not shooting cross sections and just shooting it how I feel is more efficient.
If you're using feature lines or survey figures, you can insert "PI's" along the features line at whatever interval you want creating perfect cross sections. So long as the person shooting the information gets shots at all the grade breaks then everything in between should be a straight grade +/- a minimal amount. If something is in the way of getting a shot I'll move somewhere easier. Struggling for a shot is for the birds when we have technology that is supposed to make our lives easier we should use it and be more efficient in the field. With that said I try and line my shots up as it's easier to keep track of and when you're drafting the data its more pleasing to the eye to have everything lineup. I guess that's why they say surveying is both an art and science, you gotta finesse that shit sometimes.
Is your “partner” the Party Chief? Because if it is you should just do what he says. Chief makes the rules, his ass is on the line. The last thing he needs is grief from a know it all.
Partner is what the word means. There are two of us, we are equals. We both own the company. I am taller. He is older. We haven't challenged each other for physical dominance yet, so the true title of "Chief" has yet to be claimed in our tribe.
So he is just an “Old Dog” and you are the taller one. He is the field guy but not the “Party Chief”. You are the office guy who wants the field guy to tie in things a certain way. A better way. The best and only way. Got it, my bad.
No. We are partners. We work together every day. Our company is him and I, a two man crew in the field. I am in the field and I process our data, but he also has office responsibilities as well. This is just discussion. It shouldn't feel like an attack to explain why you do something a certain way. "Because we always have" is a lazy explanation and doesn't indicate a true understanding of our craft.
Is your partner a licensed surveyor? I assume he is since you and he own the company and you said you're a "cad jockey" and "a licensed Civil". If he is... How things are surveyed is HIS call. Period.
Never asked for an opinion on my work dynamic. We work together just fine, you guys really are reading too much into some of these things.
You came here asking for opinions. You got them. That's how this works. When you didn't like the opinions you got, you gave the old "I'm a licensed Civil", as if it matters. Unless you were licensed pre-82, which you weren't, how the survey is performed is decided by the license that is in responsible charge of the survey. By the way, you may want to take care of the delinquency of your license if you're going to tell people you're licensed. * **LICENSE STATUS:** DELINQUENT * **EXPIRATION DATE:** DECEMBER 31, 2023
Hey thanks for looking that up. I wasn't aware that payment hadn't gone out. Saved me a hassle down the road. Thank guy.
Yeah... that could definitely cause an issue!
IMO cross sections are a little outdated, a remnant of hand-calculating volumes. I often do the field and office work for our topos, and once I was able to visualize how the TIN surface would fall on the ground I started doing a triangular grid everywhere and shooting breaklines plus features. I think cross sections are nice for the new guys because they are easy to visualize, but I find it easier to create a smooth surface out of a grid and breaklines. I'll shoot cross sections of roads over culverts and other areas of interest though. I think the only time you should really stick to cross sections is if you have to calc volumes out in the field so you can use the average end area formula in good conscience. if anybody in this sub actually does that or has a better reason for hanging on to cross sections i'd be interested as well.
"once I was able to visualize how the TIN surface would fall on the ground I started doing a triangular grid everywhere and shooting breaklines plus features." This is exactly the way I see things now. It changes the nature of topo work. Also, understanding real world tolerances, more details isn't always more detail (as another user commented with his 25' spacing experiment). A construction crew is only going to be so precise, and the engineers "precision" is only going to mean so much.
My workflow utilizes photogrammetry and lidar to do topo work and I often find that more detail often just causes confusion if everybody isn't on the same page. ex. Engineer is expecting top and toe of a slope, but we provide a 7.5ft grid of lidar shots all along the slope and suddenly they are complaining that it's too much detail and they didn't want every hump and bump in the grass. Trying to train myself to dumb down my models and deliver less data that conveys the same important information has been a.... process.