Yes, our team is ready to plumb the depths as well as the tops with our newly acquired Wild Heerbrugg ZNL Optical Plummet. It has just arrived in the country and we are very excited to have this precise instrument in house. The ZNL allows us to plumb in both the nadir (down) and zenith (up) directions to an accuracy of 1:30000!! This is a world class instrument and is the standard for high rise buildings and mines throughout the world. It is used to survey high rise buildings, shafts, towers, gantries, light poles, top down construction, basements, deformation monitoring etc.
If you need to ensure verticality give our team a call.
Congratulations to Stephen Smith of S3 Architects for his recent win in the Starter Home Design Competition run by the Department of Building and Housing. It is great to see real examples of architects applying there design flair and adding value to projects at the affordable end of the market.
The new Auckland Council GIS system has arrived!! Whilst officially being launched on the 28th of this month we have been had a sneak preview and it looks fantastic. Based on the Alggi GIS this new system is smooth, quick and very cool with the ability to fade layers, jump to street view, save and load settings and heaps of other stuff. The contours and aerial ortho-photography is also from the Alggi GIS (Lidar derived) and is a great resource.
Public drainage is not up yet however we understand that it will be added in the next few days.
This is a wonderful resource, perfect for planning etc however like all GIS information use it with caution it is definitely not reliable enough for design purposes.
As well as mulling over the spelling of Whanganui the Surveyor General has been busy re-writing the Rules of Cadastral Surveying. In May 2010 these were issued. In order to comply with these rules we are required to produce a certified Cadastral Survey Dataset (CSD) for every pegging survey. This ensures that the pegs are not subject to challenge and that they are legal pegs.
Surveyors that do not lodge CSD information after placing pegs are committing a serious breach of the Surveyors Generals Rules and may be guilty of professional misconduct.
Our clients are supplied with a certified CSD upon completion of every pegging survey.
During excavations phone calls that include the words ‘cracks in the neighbours building’ can send a shiver up your spine (and your insurance companies). Proving liability either way can be expensive and time consuming. A growing part of our work is precise deformation monitoring, which is the measurement of any movement in a structure.
We use our Leica DNA03 digital level with invar staff that is capable of accuracies of 0.3mm per km! This type of accuracy is critical when looking for small movements. It is also critical to begin monitoring before construction or excavation and to have a methodology that will stand up to the rigours of construction (and courts).
Call our team before ‘that’ phone call to discuss your requirements.
If you have a GPS on your boat, car, phone, or amongst your tramping gear you will probably have wondered how accurate it really is. Your standard GPS is good for around +/-50m (no matter what the salesperson told you) it will often perform better than this (say +/-10m to +/-20m) but will tend to wander off during the day. The other aspect is the accuracy of the maps used and it is common that errors of 200m or more are found in GPS maps, this is a particular problem with nautical charts (never navigate using just GPS).
Our survey grade systems are good for around +/-20mm so around 250 times more accurate than domestic systems, however they are around 400 times more expensive!!
If you have a GPS on your boat, car, phone, or amongst your tramping gear you will probably have wondered how accurate it really is. Your standard GPS is good for around +/-50m (no matter what the salesperson told you) it will often perform better than this (say +/-10m to +/-20m) but will tend to wander off during the day. The other aspect is the accuracy of the maps used and it is common that errors of 200m or more are found in GPS maps, this is a particular problem with nautical charts (never navigate using just GPS).
Our survey grade systems are good for around +/-20mm so around 250 times more accurate than domestic systems, however they are around 400 times more expensive!!
If you have a GPS on your boat, car, phone, or amongst your tramping gear you will probably have wondered how accurate it really is. Your standard GPS is good for around +/-50m (no matter what the salesperson told you) it will often perform better than this (say +/-10m to +/-20m) but will tend to wander off during the day. The other aspect is the accuracy of the maps used and it is common that errors of 200m or more are found in GPS maps, this is a particular problem with nautical charts (never navigate using just GPS).
Our survey grade systems are good for around +/-20mm so around 250 times more accurate than domestic systems, however they are around 400 times more expensive!!
With horizontal shifts of up to 4m and vertical displacement of up to 1.5m the Christchurch Quake has certainly had the city (literally) on the move. One of our team, Brian Curtis, was in the area last week and took the dramatic photo above showing a 3m displacement! In this case the road boundary that was once straight will now have a dog-leg in it, the legal boundary will move with the ground movement. Our cadastral system is, thankfully, not a coordinate based cadastre and as with all surveys we look for evidence on the ground meaning old pegs, fences and survey marks near the site.
As the rebuild starts to kick in our team is gearing up to support engineers on the ground with the provision of high precision survey information.
If you need accurate survey information in Christchurch contact our team.
Pile setout on an on call basis keeps our teams busy.
Our surveyors are working with Fulton Hogan to ensure the piles for this multi level building are placed in the correct position. Keeping the rig working hard is top priority for our team and being on call ensures no down time due to lack of survey marks!
With many years experience in both private practise and Local Authority surveying to call on, Mike has an ability to see a unique path through the red tape to the outcome required.
Mike was born and bred in Tokoroa; a proud kiwi from Chinese gold mining stock. Mike loves to spend time with family and has two young kids that keep him busy. In any spare time he gets he heads south for a spot of pig hunting in the forests around Tokoroa.
Mike specialises in subdivisions and is currently enjoying a real strengthening in this sector.
Never heard of GNSS, well you will need to get used to this new acronym as it is the new name for GPS. The American GPS is a part of the GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System), the Russians have a system called Glonass. The Europeans are developing Galileo and the Japanese, Chinese and Indians are all developing GNSS.
Our Leica Viva system will be compatible with all of these systems meaning more accuracy and more productivity. So our ‘GPS’ surveys are now actually ‘GNSS’, utilising GPS and Glonass systems in a combined GNSS.
