Ending the Era of the U.S. Survey Foot
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Re: Ending the Era of the U.S. Survey Foot
#2If anyone else is curious - the "US Survey Foot" was 609nm larger than the US International Foot. Or, 0.0002% Larger.
Re: Ending the Era of the U.S. Survey Foot
#3Mildly surprising that we are not just using meters at this point.
Re: Ending the Era of the U.S. Survey Foot
#4As an example of a problem that can occur: Client wants to survey the elevations of a parcel of land for building a house. The surveyor goes out and collects data with gps survey equipment, which produces a .csv file of northing,easting,and elevation values relative to some National Geodetic Survey benchmark. The engineer imports this .csv into his cad software, produces a grading plan .csv file. The earthmoving contractor imports the grading plan into his software and grades the site.
Client gets house built, moves in and discovers that the front yard turns into a swamp after every rain.
Somewhere in the chain of importing and exporting .csv files, software A was using survey feet and software B was using international feet.
This can also cause problems like structures built in the wrong spot, fences built on neighbors land, etc.
Re: Ending the Era of the U.S. Survey Foot
#5If anyone else is curious - the "US Survey Foot" was 609nm larger than the US International Foot. Or, 0.0002% Larger.
It would take 41,708 feet for the error to add up to one inch.
Re: Ending the Era of the U.S. Survey Foot
#6Mildly surprising that we are not just using meters at this point.
think renaming a software library is hard? try changing units of measure!!!!!
Re: Ending the Era of the U.S. Survey Foot
#7As an example of a problem that can occur: Client wants to survey the elevations of a parcel of land for building a house. The surveyor goes out and collects data with gps survey equipment, which produces a .csv file of northing,easting,and elevation values relative to some National Geodetic Survey benchmark. The engineer imports this .csv into his cad software, produces a grading plan .csv file. The earthmoving cont…
The difference is .0002%. your examples would barely add up to an inch over a mile.
Re: Ending the Era of the U.S. Survey Foot
#8Mildly surprising that we are not just using meters at this point.
The situation is far more bizarre than "use" or "not use." As I understand it, America uses something along the lines of "converted metric units" - i.e. the entire imperial system is defined according to metric/SI. Some subset of public records have been, supposedly, converted to metric. If you have a recent car, it should have km/h alongside mph (in a smaller font, or as a different digital readout). You'll find metric all over the place if you keep an eye out for it.
Re: Ending the Era of the U.S. Survey Foot
#9Mildly surprising that we are not just using meters at this point.
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Re: Ending the Era of the U.S. Survey Foot
#10As an example of a problem that can occur: Client wants to survey the elevations of a parcel of land for building a house. The surveyor goes out and collects data with gps survey equipment, which produces a .csv file of northing,easting,and elevation values relative to some National Geodetic Survey benchmark. The engineer imports this .csv into his cad software, produces a grading plan .csv file. The earthmoving cont…
The difference is .0002%. your examples would barely add up to an inch over a mile.
Sometimes the benchmark for northing/easting/elev is many miles away from the actual site. This is especially true with gps surveys.
It only takes a few inches to wind up with a substantial drainage problem.