programmable gps unit
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um... cant really say. Its a competitive world in this business and to my knowledge nobody else is doing quite what we are about too.(why I don't know, it makes all to much sense to do it as soon as my boss pitched the idea to me and asked me to research the tech.) But it would give a competitive edge to us in our industry possibly. due to the nature of what we are surveying, we need that foot or so accuracy so as to revisit "exact" spots at will. at the same time, the powers that be(my boss and the owner) don't want to invest to deeply into it unproven(times is still tight) so I cant just go buy full construction/survey gear that would do it for me. need something in the middle.
Common sense is not a gift it's a curse. Those of us who have it have to deal with those that don't.... Be careful which toes you step on today, they might be connected to the foot that kicks your butt tomorrow. You can't scare me, I have children.
I have done lots of GPS work. Customers always want 1mm accuracy until you tell them the cost. After that normal GPS often suffices. Just to get submetre accuracy is already a DGPS issue. If you are just storing locations you could implement your solution using NMEA records (good articles on CP e.g Writing Your Own GPS Applications: Part I[^]). You can then hook up more or less accurate GPS units as required.
Peter Wasser Art is making something out of nothing and selling it. Frank Zappa
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I have done lots of GPS work. Customers always want 1mm accuracy until you tell them the cost. After that normal GPS often suffices. Just to get submetre accuracy is already a DGPS issue. If you are just storing locations you could implement your solution using NMEA records (good articles on CP e.g Writing Your Own GPS Applications: Part I[^]). You can then hook up more or less accurate GPS units as required.
Peter Wasser Art is making something out of nothing and selling it. Frank Zappa
yeah I worked construction for years building bridges, I know how much the truly down to the 10th of an inch units go for, luckily I don't need that much. I wish the smartphone would be good enough but these plots of land would mostly be out in the sure enough boonies. doubtful if any cell signals would exists. has to be sat. plus they have a tendency to be out around 30 ft and that just wont cut it. I will talk to my boss though, the 5 ft range you mention might be good enough if the person using it has some brains... And I will check the article. If I write the app I might include Google maps or something that they could pop the points onto a gmap once they are back at the office just for the visual for presentation. just the coords are the important part however.(to revisit locations) I do appreciate your advice and pointers.
Common sense is not a gift it's a curse. Those of us who have it have to deal with those that don't.... Be careful which toes you step on today, they might be connected to the foot that kicks your butt tomorrow. You can't scare me, I have children.
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yeah I worked construction for years building bridges, I know how much the truly down to the 10th of an inch units go for, luckily I don't need that much. I wish the smartphone would be good enough but these plots of land would mostly be out in the sure enough boonies. doubtful if any cell signals would exists. has to be sat. plus they have a tendency to be out around 30 ft and that just wont cut it. I will talk to my boss though, the 5 ft range you mention might be good enough if the person using it has some brains... And I will check the article. If I write the app I might include Google maps or something that they could pop the points onto a gmap once they are back at the office just for the visual for presentation. just the coords are the important part however.(to revisit locations) I do appreciate your advice and pointers.
Common sense is not a gift it's a curse. Those of us who have it have to deal with those that don't.... Be careful which toes you step on today, they might be connected to the foot that kicks your butt tomorrow. You can't scare me, I have children.
My BlackBerry Storm 2 has GPS like most smartphones, so you don't need a cell signal, and it is accurate to around 1 metre - I was in London yesterday navigating my way through the streets and when I was on a corner google maps showed me on a corner --> it was very accurate! So I imagine an Android device would be a good start - as you could even write the software yourself(there are gps tutorials out there)... My guess is that the terrain is going to have an effect as if you are in mountainous terrain this could affect even a gps signal - depending on how close to a face or ridge you are...
“That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.”
― Christopher Hitchens
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ok I'm looking for a tool/s do do basically the following. user can walk out into timber land, stop at point A, get the gps coords and either store them on the gps unit OR have the gps unit plugged into a tablet with database and simple(ish) application to talk to said gps unit(yes I could do the software if necessary). This would be repeated a few hundred times over the tract of land(altitude NOT required, only gps coords) Then later on user would come back and be able to go to the same saved set of coords one by one. This gps needs to be more accurate than a smartphone can give(within a foot or two minimum), and plus cannot be guaranteed to have cell towers so needs to be gps satellite. So a GOOD gps unit, or a pretty good gps unit that can be hooked to tablet and programmed against. Any suggestions or links? I know its not normal programmer territory probably but hey, you never know what people have come across. Yes I have googled but thought I would see what some of the few hundred regulars here might have for ideas.
Common sense is not a gift it's a curse. Those of us who have it have to deal with those that don't.... Be careful which toes you step on today, they might be connected to the foot that kicks your butt tomorrow. You can't scare me, I have children.
My Nokia N810 (Internet Tablet) has an application called Maemo Mapper that allows storage of "Points of Interest" [^]
Steve _________________ I C(++) therefore I am
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ok I'm looking for a tool/s do do basically the following. user can walk out into timber land, stop at point A, get the gps coords and either store them on the gps unit OR have the gps unit plugged into a tablet with database and simple(ish) application to talk to said gps unit(yes I could do the software if necessary). This would be repeated a few hundred times over the tract of land(altitude NOT required, only gps coords) Then later on user would come back and be able to go to the same saved set of coords one by one. This gps needs to be more accurate than a smartphone can give(within a foot or two minimum), and plus cannot be guaranteed to have cell towers so needs to be gps satellite. So a GOOD gps unit, or a pretty good gps unit that can be hooked to tablet and programmed against. Any suggestions or links? I know its not normal programmer territory probably but hey, you never know what people have come across. Yes I have googled but thought I would see what some of the few hundred regulars here might have for ideas.
Common sense is not a gift it's a curse. Those of us who have it have to deal with those that don't.... Be careful which toes you step on today, they might be connected to the foot that kicks your butt tomorrow. You can't scare me, I have children.
If GPS is accurate to 5 feet or so, why not use a cheap device and have the user carry a mallet and a bunch of painted wooden stakes with him. On the first reading, hammer a stake into the ground and take a reading from that point. In future, use the GPS coordinates to locate the stake and then use the stake as the point of origin?? Or is that too low-tech?! :-D
Sarchasm : The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it.
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My BlackBerry Storm 2 has GPS like most smartphones, so you don't need a cell signal, and it is accurate to around 1 metre - I was in London yesterday navigating my way through the streets and when I was on a corner google maps showed me on a corner --> it was very accurate! So I imagine an Android device would be a good start - as you could even write the software yourself(there are gps tutorials out there)... My guess is that the terrain is going to have an effect as if you are in mountainous terrain this could affect even a gps signal - depending on how close to a face or ridge you are...
“That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.”
― Christopher Hitchens
terrain is a major concern as most of the tracts of land would be out in the boonies. That's why I'm discounting the cell phones as an option. Going to need something more reliable for a gps signal.
Common sense is not a gift it's a curse. Those of us who have it have to deal with those that don't.... Be careful which toes you step on today, they might be connected to the foot that kicks your butt tomorrow. You can't scare me, I have children.
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If GPS is accurate to 5 feet or so, why not use a cheap device and have the user carry a mallet and a bunch of painted wooden stakes with him. On the first reading, hammer a stake into the ground and take a reading from that point. In future, use the GPS coordinates to locate the stake and then use the stake as the point of origin?? Or is that too low-tech?! :-D
Sarchasm : The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it.
that is what they are trying to avoid actually. They don't want any visible signs of us being there until we win the bid for the tract. then they will come back in and stake/ paint everything out. That's why I want something I can hook to a tablet and a custom little database app to store each tract for future use. And each tract can easily be hundreds of acres, a simple starting point is not near enough, they need to track specific points all over that tract of land. possibly hundreds or thousands of points depending on a few factors such as size of the tract and a few other things. The problem with the cheap device as per my research last night, is that they may not have the 5 feet of accuracy in wooded tracts out in the boonies(probably wouldn't even). need something with a little more oomph. Gotta talk to my boss today and see just how much accuracy they really want so that I can build the proposal off of equipment that can handle that level of detail.
Common sense is not a gift it's a curse. Those of us who have it have to deal with those that don't.... Be careful which toes you step on today, they might be connected to the foot that kicks your butt tomorrow. You can't scare me, I have children.
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that is what they are trying to avoid actually. They don't want any visible signs of us being there until we win the bid for the tract. then they will come back in and stake/ paint everything out. That's why I want something I can hook to a tablet and a custom little database app to store each tract for future use. And each tract can easily be hundreds of acres, a simple starting point is not near enough, they need to track specific points all over that tract of land. possibly hundreds or thousands of points depending on a few factors such as size of the tract and a few other things. The problem with the cheap device as per my research last night, is that they may not have the 5 feet of accuracy in wooded tracts out in the boonies(probably wouldn't even). need something with a little more oomph. Gotta talk to my boss today and see just how much accuracy they really want so that I can build the proposal off of equipment that can handle that level of detail.
Common sense is not a gift it's a curse. Those of us who have it have to deal with those that don't.... Be careful which toes you step on today, they might be connected to the foot that kicks your butt tomorrow. You can't scare me, I have children.
gavindon wrote:
they may not have the 5 feet of accuracy in wooded tracts
I'm not particularly au fait with the technical details of GPS but does coverage really vary over the surface of the earth? Since it's always using the signal from multiple satellites, shouldn't coverage be pretty much uniform? :confused:
Sarchasm : The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it.
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gavindon wrote:
they may not have the 5 feet of accuracy in wooded tracts
I'm not particularly au fait with the technical details of GPS but does coverage really vary over the surface of the earth? Since it's always using the signal from multiple satellites, shouldn't coverage be pretty much uniform? :confused:
Sarchasm : The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it.
the level of accuracy depends on the type of gps. in outlying wooded type areas, a cheaper gps will not be as accurate no(due to interference etc..). To be more accurate in that type of place, you have to have a different type of gps signal than is used by cell phones/cheap units. Until last night I thought as you did but after some research I discovered differently. learned a lot about how gps works last night in fact.
Common sense is not a gift it's a curse. Those of us who have it have to deal with those that don't.... Be careful which toes you step on today, they might be connected to the foot that kicks your butt tomorrow. You can't scare me, I have children.
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the level of accuracy depends on the type of gps. in outlying wooded type areas, a cheaper gps will not be as accurate no(due to interference etc..). To be more accurate in that type of place, you have to have a different type of gps signal than is used by cell phones/cheap units. Until last night I thought as you did but after some research I discovered differently. learned a lot about how gps works last night in fact.
Common sense is not a gift it's a curse. Those of us who have it have to deal with those that don't.... Be careful which toes you step on today, they might be connected to the foot that kicks your butt tomorrow. You can't scare me, I have children.
I didn't even know there were different types of gps!! :doh:
Sarchasm : The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it.
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I didn't even know there were different types of gps!! :doh:
Sarchasm : The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it.
me either until yesterday.
Common sense is not a gift it's a curse. Those of us who have it have to deal with those that don't.... Be careful which toes you step on today, they might be connected to the foot that kicks your butt tomorrow. You can't scare me, I have children.
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me either until yesterday.
Common sense is not a gift it's a curse. Those of us who have it have to deal with those that don't.... Be careful which toes you step on today, they might be connected to the foot that kicks your butt tomorrow. You can't scare me, I have children.
I have been playing with gps and my android phone. (created app that would allow you to save coord and it displayed a compass style arrow to point you to it.) In my testing I was able to achive accuracy of about 1 meter.(outside, away from buildings) In order to obtain that accuaccy it was painfully slow(often 15-20 mins to get a reading that good). I have since abondonded the app as it was way to slow to be useful to my target user base but depending on your real need, it may work for you. (Oh, it also eats the battery very quickly.) Just my 2 cents.