Many professional surveyors acquire equipment through affordable financing. H&S and Leica’s finance partner, Great America, suggests the following financing benefits:

• We understand the value land surveyors provide, and the surveying equipment required
• Financing preserves cash flow
• Does NOT require personal deposits
• Faster credit processing and approval than traditional bank loans
• Up to $75,000 can usually be financed without business or personal financial statements.

Leica Viva TS15 Robotic and Imaging Total Station – consider financing!

With Leica Viva TS15 the addition of advanced imaging functionality and the Leica SmartWorx Viva easy to-use onboard software makes the fastest total station even faster! Leica Viva TS15 adds an advanced image sensor to their proven total station sensors. With unique capture-sketch-link functionality, total station images can be captured and enhanced with sketching, and the images can be linked to any point of interest. With tap-turn-measure any remote point can be measured from the controller, without returning to the total station. Every vision on every scale becomes reality with ease.

View the Leica TS15 Total Station brochure

Contact H&S Survey and Laser about financing a Leica Viva TS15 Total Station.
(702)777-2030 or cadams@hssurvey.com

Click here for complete system financing rates

Act now and save up to 20%* when you move to the latest Autodesk software or purpose-built Autodesk Design and Creation Suites before July 13, 2012.
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The mapping and positioning industries are in the midst of significant change. New partnerships and players are emerging. Technology is racing forward. New opportunities are appearing. Business models are adapting to provide exciting, new solutions. How are you preparing yourself?

At the center of these changes is the “Hexagon 2012” international conference including its GEOSYSTEMS @ HEXAGON 2012 track – the must-attend conference for Leica Geosystems customers and other progressive mapping and positioning professionals.

This conference offers unmatched scope and value to attendees. You’ll learn from fellow users and experts about an unprecedented breadth of new technologies and solutions all under one roof …gain insight into the latest trends that will greatly impact the way you do business …and network like there’s no tomorrow.

Here’s how you can benefit from attending:

• Discover the very latest Leica Geosystems products & solutions – see how your peers and clients are taking advantage of them

• Validate and improve your field & office workflows and learn about compelling, new deliverables

• Learn firsthand about technology, product, and market trends that will give you a competitive edge

• Network with potential partners, product developers, and Leica Geosystems and Z/I experts to increase your opportunities

• Participate in workshops, normally limited to product training courses, to save you time and money

• Learn the latest business and marketing approaches of today’s progressive professionals

Preliminary Agenda – GEOSYSTEMS @ HEXAGON Track

More than 70 presentations, over a dozen training classes and special networking opportunities with track attendees, as well as other conference attendees. Sub-tracks will include:

• High-Definition Surveying (HDS), 3D Laser Scanning
• Geospatial Solutions
• Trends in Mapping & Positioning for Government and Industry

Questions? Call H&S Survey and Laser at (702)777-2030. To learn more, please visit www.hexagonconference.com.

By: Gary Anderton, H&S Survey Services Manager

In ancient Egypt – so I’ve been told – after flood-waters would recede, Egyptian surveyors would with relative accuracy resection the Nile delta implementing plumb-bobs and premeasured sections of rope. That was over 3,000 years ago. During the classical period roughly 2,000 years ago, Greek and Roman artisans designed the more complex Dioptra, Groma and Chorobates to aide in locating, turning corners and site-leveling, respectively. These were perhaps the first instruments emblematic to intricate land measurement. Lately, in 1720, a telescope was added to the surveyor’s compass. And in the 1970s the entire gig started going electric with the advent and wide-spread distribution of E.D.Ms. Ultra-modern breakthroughs, consequently, have propelled surveying apparatus more in the last three decades than the previous three hundred! Many modern surveys are done on the fly, the greatest hindrance being the time to drive a piece of wood or set a monument. But, in the maddening dash to beat others to the latest punch in industrial technology, are we scurrying at risk of running off the horizon?

Manufacturers must be walking a thinning wire. Due to the enormous capabilities built into modern instruments, the requirement for instrument personnel is shrinking, dramatically.  In my time, I have witnessed the near extinction of the survey crew; hardly a rod-man exists anymore. Just the other day I asked a friend of mine, a structural steel surveyor, if he maintains any type of a crew. “Naw,” He replied, “I usually grab one of the laborers to hold the prism when I’m not shooting in reflector-less mode.” He travels throughout the western US aligning steel and you can be certain he accomplishes today what would have required five crews, thirty or more years ago. This represents a labor reduction of at least ninety percent (even more if draftsmen are considered), a number I doubt many a retired surveyor would refute. Neither, I’m afraid to say, would equipment manufacturers.

We embrace technology: it renders efficiency which (ostensibly) enables free time, it amuses, it can condense the world and prolong life. Yet it can also be a slippery slope where a slight waver may accelerate into uncontrollable disaster, or an innocent bit of rolling ice snowball into a threatening leviathan. Consequently, we’re learning to tread cautiously …and by ‘tread’ I mean, allocate resources …and by ‘resources’ I mean, money. The modern consumer is understandably frightened his next purchase will be superseded in short order by something with more luster, less cost. While nervously fidgeting over the prospect of being left behind in this frenetic race to upgrade and conform to current standards. Standards which at times can appear amorphous and daunting.

The situation is thus: Due to shrinkage in the survey profession, manufacturers are desperate to find new markets – be they construction, design, incident investigation/reconstruction, or whatever – to buy their total stations, GPSs, and tertiary accessories. The major selling point has become economy of use; it has to be and here is why: The market is flooded with total stations. From the late 1980s, digital total stations have been the staple of the surveying industry. Most of them, though currently retired or exiled – I assume, remain serviceable. And coupled to the electronic math of a powerful data collector, older total stations are fast and accurate even by today’s standards. So how does the industry go about selling brand-new equipment when the survey-world is overflowing with used? The free market has long realized that labor is its greatest expenditure. In order to gain leverage over competitors, the seller’s mantra has long been, “This [insert] will act to maximize your profits!” The surest way, then, to maximize profit is to minimize labor. So they lopped off the rod-man. God bless the free market.

Just as the EDM harnesses the light-wave to eliminate the chain-man, experts have learned to utilize radio waves, atomic clocks and satellites to triangulate ground points: Sayonara rod man! And to prevent his ever looking back, the laser and the servo motor have been employed too. Many gunners – perhaps most – are now working solo using robotic total stations or GPS (GNSS). And with digital cameras boarding the platform, perhaps the remaining gunners should also be very afraid. But (sorry about that) this is only raw conjecture.

However, this article is not meant to disparage but to encourage the land-surveying professional. Now is a wonderful era for involvement and offers an opportune situation for advantage. Not only are we seeing advancements inconceivable a mere half a generation ago, but also enjoying the greatest “bang for buck” period in survey instrument history.

Of nature, cut-throat competitors are formidable. But to underscore the present situation manufacturers are now in competition with their own brands, as the current construction downturn has users ridding themselves of surplus equipment; much of it within a generation or two of the latest gadgetry. A sampling of E-bay and other online auction sites can attest to this.  Add the fact of China’s hungry entrance into the manufacturing mix and one realizes profit margins must be slashed to maintain any sense of volume sales. A then and now comparison of total station prices can help illustrate this auspicious predicament. In 1978, Hewlett Packard was receiving $30,000 per unit for their HP3820A, the first instrument actually labeled “Total Station.” I’m no economist but I would assume that that would equate to around 120-G today. And sources tell me, even at that price, HP could not keep up with orders for that early LED behemoth; likely, because it eliminated the need for a chain-man and radically reduced the time required doing complex calculations. Gee whiz, $120,000 spent in today’s market would allow you to eliminate four rod-men (or in salesman’s terms: quadruple your efficiency by allowing you to ‘reassign’ your personnel), totally banish complex calculations …and damn near eliminate the need to leave the shelter of the truck! And, log it all on a photo. Incidentally, even as you read this, some Leica robots in Northern Nevada are being employed to track and measure mining operations, day and night, without a gunner present. Hail, the future.

Instrument manufacturers are desperate for an edge. Today’s total stations offer options of built-in cameras; satellite antenna mounts; Bluetooth, radio and modem links; USB ports; scanning capabilities et al, and lately designed with future expansion and conformability in mind. What’s left to be improved? Certainly I’m at a loss to say. Other than firmware enhancements, I aver that we are finally realizing the finished product of what Hewlett Packard engineers started in the 1970s. And as for GNSS? How do you enhance an antenna beyond creating a new acronym? Welcome to the horizon. Researchers must now look in other directions to find their edge.

If they have tapped the total station advancement-well dry, I believe manufacturers will shift more weight into scanning and modeling; as micro-processors become better situated to handle the immense memory requisites for scanning. But a scanner is limited as a measuring tool. So this market shift will not sound the death-knell for the total station. Total stations and GNSS will remain workhorses for decades to come, and this is where the consumer cashes-in. We’re facing a perfect storm, of sorts. We stand at the acme of technology in a depressed market. In other words, today’s measuring hardware will be industry standard for decades to come, but never again offered at the distressed prices we’re now experiencing. From this point onward, “next generation” will not be able to offer incentive enough to necessitate deep clearance pricing of existing units. That is, if a mere color-scheme change along with firmware updates can indeed be given “new generation” status. Lay aside apprehension: firmware can be upgraded post facto.

And this introduces another significant topic: Software/firmware; discussion for a whole new article, later. The point now is to investigate the latest technology and to see how it can apply to your business. The occasion couldn’t be more opportune. Your next total-station/GNSS purchase may well be your last, and I mean that in the best possible way. Though apparatus and procedure become passé, precision will never be outmoded and this proud profession will continue to prosper! Peace, out.

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