Surveying & Geomatics

What you'll learn

• Describe the kinds of surveys and the roles of surveyors and engineers, convert between meters and both definitions of the foot, and apply good field practice from control to as-built.
• Distinguish blunders, systematic and random errors, compute means, standard deviations and weighted means, propagate errors, and explain how redundancy and adjustment work.
• Apply standardization, temperature, tension, sag and slope corrections to taped distances, explain EDM principles and specifications, and reduce total station slope distances to horizontal.
• Run and book differential leveling by the height of instrument method, check and adjust level loops against allowable misclosures, and test a level with the two-peg test.
• Survey profiles and cross-sections, compute grades, cuts and fills, and calculate earthwork volumes by average end areas, the prismoidal formula and the grid method.
• Measure horizontal angles with a total station on both faces, convert between azimuths and bearings, and propagate azimuths along a traverse.
• Compute and check closed traverses, determine angular and linear misclosures and relative precision, and adjust coordinates by the compass rule.
• Solve forward, inverse, intersection and offset problems in coordinate geometry and compute areas by coordinates.
• Explain geoid, ellipsoid and orthometric heights, NAD83(2011), NAVD 88 and the modernized NSRS, State Plane and UTM projections, and convert between ground and grid distances.
• Explain GNSS observables, error sources and dilution of precision, compare static, RTK, network RTK and PPP methods, and apply field practices that make GNSS results reliable.
• Describe GIS data and metadata, plan a drone photogrammetry flight from the ground sample distance, explain lidar products, and assess model accuracy with independent checkpoints.
• Set out buildings, pipes, grade and slope stakes from control, and compute and stake horizontal circular curves and parabolic vertical curves.