Talk:Surveying

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Maximum Area of Plane Surveying is 100 square miles (260 square km) (not 260 km radius)

I corrected an error on the page which said

" Generally the survey works below 260 kilometers radius are treated as plane and beyond that is treated as geodetic."

This should read "260 square kilometers", as it is derived from the rule of thumb of using geodetic for areas above 100 square miles, as can be verified for multiple sources, example, example,example. However, this was reverted by Jc3s5h who commented "Vermont is covered by a single state plane coordinate zone; the radius of a circle enclosing the zone would be about 120 km. No doubt larger zones exist.". But that's irrelevant to the actual point of when geodetic surveying is generally used, as geodetic computations can be done using SPCS. Hence I'm reverting to my version Oberono (talk) 22:17, 27 July 2016 (UTC)

Sources differ. For example, Wolf & Brinker ("Elementary Surveying" 8th ed. New York: HarperCollins 1989, p. 446) write, of state plane coordinate zones, "If the width of zones is held to a maximum of 158 mi, and if two-thirds of this zone width is between the secant lines, distortions (differences in line lengths on the two surfaces) are kept to 1 part in 10,000 or less. The NGS intended this accuracy in its development of the state plane coordinate system.

"For small states such as Connecticut and Delaware, one state plane coordinate zone is sufficient to cover the entire state. Larger states require several zones to encompass them."

If you want to go with the more conservative figure, fine, but please cite your sources in the article. Citations on the talk page don't count.Jc3s5h (talk) 12:30, 28 July 2016 (UTC)

I presumed the 260 figure was in the cite given, just miscopied as km radius rather than km squared. However it does not show up in the web accessible portions of the book. I'll add another cite. Oberono (talk) 15:24, 28 July 2016 (UTC)

This is a dubious assertion. The software that reduces traverses to coordinates corrects every shot for curvature and refraction. Curvature is about one foot per mile and this will cause a closure error (particularly vertical) on a very short traverse. Senor Cuete (talk) 21:15, 6 November 2017 (UTC)

Accidently deleted picture of cadastral surveys in national parks.

Please add. Allenazali (talk) 06:02, 16 September 2017 (UTC)

Accidently deleted picture of cadastral surveys in national parks.

Please add. Allenazali (talk) 06:02, 16 September 2017 (UTC)

Noteworthy Surveyors

After his presidency, Theodore Roosevelt participated in cartographic surveys of rivers in the Amazon basin, so his exclusion from the Rushmore surveyors may not be warranted. There is something that concerns me more though. With the exception of Percy Harrison Fawcett, all of those named in the list are people who distinguished themselves primarily in some other field. They are noteworthy people who were also surveyors at one time. Would it not be more appropriate to omit these and instead acknowledge people for their achievements in surveying? I can think of a few, but not enough for a comprehensive list. --Geometricks (talk) 10:01, 6 December 2017 (UTC)

Topographers and Surveyors

Category:Topographers was separate from Category:Surveyors; I've made the former a member of the latter. Do we want to merge them? According to Google Ngram, topographer is much less common that surveyor. [1] fgnievinski (talk) 21:08, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

Page Lacking Information About Early Methods of Learning Surveying

I came to this surveying page looking for, underneath the history of surveying, some information about the skills that were necessary to become a surveyor in around the years 1666 to 1680. For example, how did one learn to be a surveyor? Did one go to school to become a surveyor? Or was it learned through an apprenticeship? Or both? And what texts were available for teaching surveying? One cannot learn this from the current page. Or, at least, nothing jumped out at me.

One of my ancestors was a surveyor in Massachusetts in 1680, but probably brought these skills with him from England when he emigrated to America ca. 1664-5 (he may also have gone to Leyden, the Netherlands, and emigrated to America from there). He was one of the earliest proprietors of Bristol, but it was a small community, and it's doubtful that he was an apprentice at that stage of his life. It seems that he was wealthy when he arrived in America, as he immediately bought land. I have read both that surveying required some knowledge of trigonometry or at least advanced mathematics AND also that the only schools where surveying was formally taught in that time period were the University of Oxford in England and the University of Leyden in the Netherlands. Was it likely that he attended a school to learn this skill? He died a very wealthy man, judging from his estate inventory at the turn of the 17th to 18th centuries.

It was said that George Washington learned the art of surveying through an apprenticeship, but this was much later. Washington wasn't even born until 1732, so would have turned 21 in 1753. My ancestor, on the other hand, was born ca. 1638, probably near London or Oxford (exact location unknown).

Thank you if someone can improve on the page to help answer some of these questions. Mrs rockefeller (talk) 00:06, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

Hello Mrs Rockefeller!

I suggest you try and find the book Measuring America by Andro Linklater. The early part of it covers the time period you are concerned with and should at least give you some background information. This is the closest book to the subject that I know of.

AFAIK, there were two main types of education at this point: Gentlemen who were expected to have a hand in the management of large British estates learned as part of their mathematics education, and there were also those who were taught some rudimentary techniques and sent into the field to carry out a task, such as those who carried out the field work for the Down Survey of Ireland of 1655.

As for the wiki pages, well, I'd love to add some information if I get the time, so expect it any time in the next decade :/ As you no doubt noticed, this article is already bordering on the overly long side, but hopefully one day History_of_surveying_in_the_United_States could include some more info on the subject, and probably will eventually be merged with Surveying_in_North_America to give a more complete view.

Hope this helps answer your questions!

TBP25 (talk) 03:21, 30 August 2022 (UTC)

Plumbing

The word “plumb” only appears once in this article. I’m not a surveyor, but I know using a plumb rule/plumb bob rule is an important part of the work. It could be linked to the plumb bob/plumb rule page as well. VAGRANTPLATYPUS (talk) 20:59, 12 March 2023 (UTC)

Why things fall on the ground data

Data 119.157.84.72 (talk) 07:37, 14 May 2023 (UTC)

Physic

why thing fall on the ground Data 119.157.84.72 (talk) 07:41, 14 May 2023 (UTC)

Additional citations needed

This page is on an extremely important topic, yet it is very thin on citations. The lead paragraph doesn't even have one source for any of its claims, and citations are sparse in the document. To avoid claims of this being unsourced or original research, this page needs many more citations. GeogSage ^{(⚔Chat?⚔)} 18:26, 4 June 2023 (UTC)