Topic: topo requirements

[FengK]

We've been receiving some (very) undesirable topo drawings (wrong/unclear layer names, points/contours at zero elevations, etc..) and spending a lot of effort to make them usable. I'm wondering if any of you have some written requirements for topo drawings that can be shared so I can revise and include them in our future jobs.

Thanks!

[Bob Garner]

Very good point! 

We just received some topos on which the "surveyor" included some top of building shots with the terrain shots so the contours were crazy.

Last resort, you can report or threaten to report "work not conforming to an acceptable standard of care" to the State Licensing Board.

Bob Garner

[mjfarrell]

Last resort, you can report or threaten to report "work not conforming to an acceptable standard of care" to the State Licensing Board.

Bob Garner

This is the same advice I gave these folks just a little while back, however they thought that might present some bad feelings with the local 'surveyors'.  However having seen the quality of the work in question I for one would not hesitate to inform them that was going to be my next action should the product they delivered NOT meet professional standards of practice.


That being said, you must write a scope of work that includes the standards to which they need to perform your work.  Then when they do not you have a contractual ability to not pay them for delivery of anything that does not meet the scope of work.
If you want the Palm trees to be on a layer called Palm trees with a color of green tell them so in the scope of work.
If you want a ROUND manhole symbol tell them.
When they then violate the scope of work, you simply do not pay them for same, and the contract documents are on your side.

However the instant you accept said poor quality work from them without notice, you have just amended the contract through your acceptance of said works.

If they can not perform to these standards I stand ready to train them to meet your standards.

[mjfarrell]

My guess is your local jurisdiction has a similar document to this one: http://www.ilga.gov/commission/jcar/admincode/068/068012700000560R.html which is a good place to start from for your scope of work. And then you add in the specific CADD standards of practice you desire. 

Excerpts from the document in no particular order of importance:



P)         If topographic information is to be delivered via electronic media, a suitable format shall be agreed upon.  In every case, the surveyor shall also provide a signed and sealed hard copy drawing or representation of the survey.  This drawing shall be the official survey and shall be deemed to be correct and superior to the electronic data.


C)        All field data, including electronic field notes, shall be retained in a legible and orderly fashion that will be understandable to other surveyors.


         It shall be the responsibility of each professional land surveyor to monitor his/her work and that of those working under his/her supervision, so that the methods used to perform the survey and produce the plat and/or report will be of such quality that the accuracy, precision and positional tolerance of the final product delivered to his/her client will equal or exceed that which would be provided by another competent surveyor under similar circumstances.

[Dinosaur]

Very good point! 

We just received some topos on which the "surveyor" included some top of building shots with the terrain shots so the contours were crazy.

Last resort, you can report or threaten to report "work not conforming to an acceptable standard of care" to the State Licensing Board.

Bob Garner

You should see what shots at the bottom of the sag in overhead electrical lines with the measured distance up to the wire included and the only notation being "electrical crossing" does to a beautiful topo survey.  "OOOO! Look at all the pointy berms beside the road Martha,  Suppose those are Indian burial mounds?"

[sinc]

Too bad you aren't near Colorado Springs.  I know a good Surveying firm there.   

[Dinosaur]

That was our LS that did that too . . . but it made for an interesting morning meeting the next day.  I am still looking at at least 18 more months most likely forgetting most of what I knew about Civil 3D and missing completely all of the new stuff before any relocating goes on.  The Springs would be a lock for destination if my wife knew it was a possibility, but I am still wanting to keep the Austin, TX area in contention.

[mjfarrell]

Too bad you aren't near Colorado Springs.  I know a good Surveying firm there.   

Interestingly enough, so do I.   

[FengK]

Please see attached. Work in progress. Comments appreciated.

[New Shooz]

At the last place I worked at, we included some remarks regarding what the topo should contain; did we really wish to see all vegetation, did we want kerb, road, back of footpath/sidewalk levels, underside of roofs, height of overhead lines, etc. etc.
You may wish to include a 'tick the box' section detailing exactly what you wish to be surveyed.
This could then be changed per survey, depending on the nature and circumstances.

Also, do you wish the 'points' to have attributed data (i.e. be a block) or is it acceptable for it to be a point ?
Same question could be asked about survey stations, manhole covers, etc.
The decision may be based on what for and how you will use the data.

[mjfarrell]

I think you might need to amend the deliverable to include ASCII as an acceptable format in addition to DWG, or C3D.

In the form of points, and FBK files to define and describe breaklines (or linework); in such case they would want to use a description key, and figure preference as provided by COMP, or that they would provide same for your use.

[MP]

Interestingly enough, so do I.

I don't get it, what are the rolling eyes supposed to tell us?

[FengK]

You may wish to include a 'tick the box' section detailing exactly what you wish to be surveyed.
This could then be changed per survey, depending on the nature and circumstances.

Very good suggestion. Thank you!

[FengK]

I think you might need to amend the deliverable to include ASCII as an acceptable format in addition to DWG, or C3D.

Do you mean ascii file only and no dwg?

[sinc]

Also, do you wish the 'points' to have attributed data (i.e. be a block) or is it acceptable for it to be a point ?
Same question could be asked about survey stations, manhole covers, etc.
The decision may be based on what for and how you will use the data.

That has never come up, but if it did, we would not view that as a valid request.  The primary problem is that we do not have an option in C3D to create "attributed blocks" from points, so it would be very painful.  If the person requesting our survey was using some other software that creates points as attributed blocks, we could give them something like a CSV dump of the points, and let them create the attributed blocks in their software.  But trying to turn C3D points into attributed blocks on our end would not be an option.

We frequently send a CSV dump of the points to clients, though (this would be a nice additional option in eTransmit, along with "include LandXML dump" option).  When sending drawings to people using "other software" (pretty much everyone, since I can only think of one other firm in the area that is currently using C3D) we often have to export C3D drawings to plain Autocad format, exploding all the C3D objects into Autocad primitives.  This pretty much destroys the C3D points, turning them into nothing but a pretty picture.  Because of this, we also do a tweak to our points before exporting them, changing all label styles to one that includes Pt Num, Elev, and Desc (which is not the way we typically display every point).  This means that when we export our DWG, all the points are still in the drawing as text that can be read.  So the Engineer can still see all the points we shot, along with the Desc and Elev, it's just that the points have been exploded into lines of plain text by the Export to Autocad.  But this is typically sufficient.

If the Engineer should need actual, live points for some reason, then we also send a CSV dump of the points, and let the Engineer load the CSV file in the "other software".  But typically, the Engineer doesn't really need our points.  Usually, we only need to send the Surface we create (sent in LandXML format, or as TIN lines in a drawing, depending on the "other software"), along with the DWG of our survey.