DIY Leveling Survey
27 Nov 2020As a kid I would watch surveyors at their tripods as they carefully calibrated their instruments. Today I learned more about their instruments so I could get make a topographical map of my front yard in Sketchup.
Surveys
Used for measuring distances. I want to measure the topography of my yard, so I can manage the slope , the sidewalk, and dirt.
Leveling Survey
Gives us the relative topography of small-scale projects (note that these are estimates; not precision measurements)
Sight-levels; aka hand-levels
A hand level (also called a sight level or hand sight level) is a tool used for ‘rough leveling’
# Theodolite A theodolite, (pronounced “thee-ah-dough-light”) measures the “pitch” (tilt) and “yaw” (pan); more info at Wikipedia
Modern-day “total-stations”