An Approach to Doing Your Traverse Drawings With MineSight ©2009 Dr. B. C. Paul Note- These slides include screen shots taken from MineSight® by Mintec and Excel® by Microsoft. The techniques shown involve features of both of these programs and what is considered to be common knowledge about the subject of surveying (by the author).

Finishing Your Survey Lab Ultimately you will be required to provide a drawing that shows –Your traverse around the engineering building –An outline of the footprint of the engineering building –Your GPS traverse around the engineering building –Your Brunton traverse around the engineering building –Your underground traverse underneath the engineering and other buildings –Your leveling and contour map at the side of the engineering building These slides show one way that you might go about preparing this final submittal of most of your surveying labs

My Game Plan I will have a directory for my project I will start MineSight and have it use that directory I will give dimensions for a big area around the Engineering Building (it needs to know what area the drawing will be in) I will create a separate geometry object for each of my surveys (this will let me turn things off and on at will so I can overlay things or see just one thing at a time) I will use an Excel spreadsheet to take my instrument readings and turn them into distances and azimuths –The spreadsheet works for grads, mills, DMS I will use the Point Editor and Pline functions in MineSight to draw lines of the right length and in the right direction.

My First Trick is to Start MineSight and Give it the Directory Where I Will Work

Start MineSight and Pick the Directory Where You Will Keep Your Work Left click browse to Bring up the browse Window In the window use Standard windows Exploring procedures And find your Directory When you have found It left click ok And left click ok

MineSight Needs Your Permission to Put Some Working Files in the Directory Left click yes

My Next Trick Will Be To Set Up a Nice Big Drawing Area Around the Engineering Building (After all – I can always zoom in closer if I need to)

MineSight Needs to Establish the Working Area for the Map You Will Draw

Picking a Guess That Gives Us A Large Working Area We are Working in State Plane Coordinates –Our starting point Easting is 2,570,639 If we allow about 1500 feet each way Min 2,569,000 Max 2,572,000 –Our starting point Northing is 381,288 Guess a min of 380,000 Max 383,000 –Our starting elevation is 448 and should not vary more than 100 feet – say Min 400 Max 500

Enter the Area Coordinates Left click the Radio button to Tell it we are Working in feet Left click Ok

Now I Will Do That Trick Where I Set Up a Geometry Object to Put My Survey Into

We Get Our Initial Screen The first thing I will do it to Create a Geometry Object to hold My instrument traverse I left click the Root directory I want my Object in.

I’ll Tell It to Set Up My Geometry Object Left click file To pull down The menu Move the curser Over new So it is Highlighted and A side menu Pops out Move the curser Over geometry Object and Left click. (ie file/new/ Geometry object)

Now I Will Name the Geometry Object Since I’m going To do my Instrument Traverse first I Will call this object “Instrument Traverse” (I knew You would be Stunned by my Creativity) Then I will left click On Ok.

I Will Ready My Object to Receive Information I left click on my Instrument Traverse object To highlight it Then I right click With my mouse And a menu pops Up I move my curser Over Edit (which Turns blue when I am pointing to it) I then left click.

Now We Will Use Point Editor and Polyline to Input Our Survey Data

Turn on the Point Editor Left click on Utilities to drop The menu Move the curser Down to Point editor so It lights up blue Left Click it. Note that our Instrument Traverse Box turned yellow and is ready for data

Now Activate Polyline Note that Point Editor is grayed out and does not know what to do Left click on Polyline to drop Down the menu Move the curser Over Create – A side pop out Appears Move the curser Over polyline so That it turns blue. Then left click.

My Game Plan My traverse started at a known point –I will enter that point I have an Excel tool that will let me get distance and direction from my field notes –I will use that to get the distance and direction of each line segment I will then enter the lines of my traverse by length and direction I will draw in my traverse around the engineering building. –I will be saving my side shots for later

I Enter My Known Starting Point Left click the check Offs for exact Coordinate entry Then type in the Coordinates of my Starting point. Then left click apply

The Point Appears

Next I Use that Excel Spreadsheet I Talked About I enter my starting Coordinates and Back-sight azimuth Then I enter my Vertical and horizontal Angles that I turned (note they could also Be measured in Grads or mills) I enter my height of Instrument and my Rod readings (note that They could also be EDM distances from A total station)

Out Comes the Answers Here is the Direction Of the line Here is the Horizontal Distance Here is the Dip of The line in %

Enter the Distance and Direction Left click to check Off that you will Be running polylines By distance and Direction Enter the direction (azimuth) Enter the horizontal Distance. Enter the Dip (note the program Default is to take Dip as a %) I’m going to get paranoid about this and left click to preview my result.

Ok – This Looks Believable Now left click Apply.

The Color Change Indicates We Have Now Created the First Length of Our Survey

A Note On Alternatives The program also computes the Coordinates of the foresight point. This could be used to enter each point of the traverse as a point using the Point editor and point create from the point menu. (There is often more than One way to draw something).

My Plan Going Forward I will keep entering my line directions and lengths and try to close the traverse. Remember I am holding out on doing my side shots and drawing in the engineering building just now.

I Now Consider What Happened When I Moved to My First Foresight I will copy my old Foresight Coordinates to my Current station I highlight the Foresight Coordinates and Click copy (remember in a Traverse I move my Instrument to the Foresight point and Then backsight my Old instrument Location)

Now I Will Paste Those Coordinates into my current instrument location I locate my Curser on the Current station Coordinate area (the input areas Are yellow on this Spreadsheet)

I’m Going to Do a Special Paste of the Exact Value Left click to Bring down the Edit menu Highlight and Left click Paste Special.

Identify that you want to paste exact values (By default Excel copies and pastes formulas and cell references) Left click the Values radio Button Left Click Ok

The Old Foresight Values Move to the Current Instrument Location

Now Copy the Direction for the Backsight Line Our original Foresight line in This case was 147 degrees. Of course when It is used as a Backsight the Azimuth is 180 Degrees different (you are looking The opposite way Down the line) The program also calculated the old Foresight azimuth as a backsight – Click on the value and copy it to the Backsight azimuth for the new station.

Using Copy and Paste Special Copy the Value for your new Backsight

We Now Enter Our Survey Notes for going foreward to the next station We put in the Horizontal and Vertical angles We turned from Our backsight to Our next foresight Point. We enter our Height of Instrument and Our rod readings

As Before Out Come our Direction, Line Length and Dip as a Percent. Dip is % Line Azimuth is Horizontal Distance is 200 feet

Enter the Data into MineSight’s Point Editor Azimuth Dip % Distance 200 Click Preview if you want to peek or Apply to write in the result

Another Segment Appears Hey now we Are on a roll – We can keep Doing this for A while.

I Proceed to Enter a Bunch of Survey Lines in Like Manner Eventually I Realize that I had Multiple survey Teams that went Around the Building in different Directions and Now I’m done with The first team.

I Right Click My Mouse to Indicate I Am Finished with the First Data Set Note that the Line turned red. Now left click On the save Icon (yes I know that Is one funky Save icon – get Over it)

Now I’m Ready to Start Entering the Second Survey Team Data Note that the Finished and Saved line Turned blue.

Click the Menus to Start Another Polyline for the Next Survey Team

Enter and Apply the Starting Coordinate Point You are now Ready to enter The rest of The traverse.

After I Enter My Second Team Data I Note a Problem (Hopefully this does not happen to you) It appears that My traverse Does not close Someone made A mistake, but Who? And Where?

Oh Heck – Now What? Someone will have to go back outside and redo part of their survey. How might we locate the problem –It turns out you also did your traverse with GPS –And as a Brunton Traverse –Maybe we can put those traverses in and see what is out of wack?

Considering Inputing the GPS Next Our GPS units can easily be off 10 feet so they will only be good for big mistakes –(but in this example we have a big one) GPS units give latitude and Longitude –We have to use a program to convert to State Plane We will take our GPS points –Convert them to State Plane –And then enter them as points into MineSight

How Will I Run My MineSight Work? I will create a new separate geometry object for my GPS points –I will put it in edit mode I will activate the point editor –(since it lets me put things in at exact coordinates) I will pick point create from the menu I will proceed to create a series of GPS points in my drawing.

What Is My First Move? I Will Convert My Latitudes and Longitudes to State Plane Coordinates To Do This I will use a program that transforms coordinate systems –Franson CoordTrans

Activate Franson Coord Trans

The Intro Screen Comes Up The program works By putting Coordinates in One system on One side Saying what you Want the Coordinates to be In on the other side And then left clicking An arrow (the calculations Can be involved But the software Does the work).

Lets Consider What We Have We have a whole bunch Of latitudes and longitudes In degrees minutes and Seconds. W We thus left click the radio Button to indicate we have Latitudes and longitudes We also click the radio button To indicate we are in Degrees Minutes and Seconds (DMS)

Next We Consider the “Datum” Real points on the earths surface are located in all sorts of ups and downs For map purposes we project those points onto a smooth surface –State plane coordinates are projected onto a flat plane buried in the earth –GPS Coordinates are projected onto the surface of an ellipsoid The default ellipsoid for most GPS units is an ellipsoid that trys to fit the whole world –It is called WSG84 (the 84 part means it was standardized in 1984)

Left Click on the Little Dot Box to see a list of options for the Datum

On the left Side of the Screen We Pick What We Were Trying to Fit Most hand Held GPS Units try to Fit the whole Earth since They are Sold world Wide and Could be Opened up Anywhere We left click On earth (actually it Was already The default)

Then We Look Down the Right Side for a Datum We Like that was made to fit the earth It turns out that WSG84 is one of The options so We highlight and Left click it (actually this too Was the default) Then we left click Ok.

Next We Consider Whether Our Latitudes and Longitudes are North, East or What? We probably Waste little time Figuring we were In the Northern Hemisphere So we pick North as the type Of latitude we Have.

Longitude is Measured East and West of the Greenwich Meridian The Greenwich Meridian runs Through England And we in North America Are definitely West of that So we pick west For our Longitude.

Now Lets Work the Right Side and Figure Out What We Want for Output Since we want State Plane Coordinates we know we Want things in Eastings And Northings. We better pick what we want Our units in because I have A feeling that meters is not “our cup of tea” Left click the arrow to pull Down the choice menu.

Yipes! Which Foot? The foot is a very old Measure and slightly Different definitions Developed in different Countries. The USGS did all new State Plane coordinate Systems in meters but There are different Definitions of how to Convert meters to feet. In 1927 all conversions were done with U.S. survey feet. In 1983 some people used The international foot and some the U.S. foot. The Illinois Department of Transport. Stayed with the U.S. survey foot. Therefore we will pick the U.S. foot.

We Also Need to Select Our Grid We kind of hope We can all Agree we were In Illinois. Left click on Illinois.

Now We Have to Pick Our Grid (The right side box) Illinois is Divided into Two Transverse Mercator Projection zones (the long Skinning things That run north South) Carbondale Is in the West Zone

So Pick Already! The State Plane Coordinates Were redone in 1983 to fit the North American Datum ellipsoid We will therefore Pick NAD83 and The Illinois West Zone.

I Put in a Set of Latitudes and Longitudes Then I left click the Arrow to convert it Over to Illinois State Plane Coordinates

Out Comes the State Plane Now I could chug through all of my coordinates this way – in fact we will pretend I did and move on to what I will do with this information when I get to MineSight.

Lets Create A New Geometry Object for My GPS Points Creating the New geometry object Naming the new Geometry Object Making it the current Edit Object

Start Up the Point Editor and Give the Command to Create Points Starting the point editorTo give the create points command Left click points to bring down the menu Move the mouse over create and Left click

Enter the Coordinates of the First Point I Got Out of Coordinate Transform Left click on The check off Boxes to Indicate Absolute Coordinates Type in the Coordinates Left Click Apply

A Nice Red X Appears at the Point (I will now proceed to do the same with all the rest of my GPS points)

Right Click the Mouse When I Am Done (Right clicking the mouse is a common way to end a command) Note that there Is now no “current Operation” in The current Operation box Note that point Editor is now Inactive Left click on the Flunky Save Icon to save The work.

Detour Time – Trying to See Things on a Black Background is Hard Left click the Viewer Properties icon (looks like a List with a blue Bar across the Top)

Up Comes the Viewer Properties Window Make Sure the View Options Tab Is active (if it is not Left click it) We see the Background color And a little paint Pad by it Left click on the Paint pad to bring Up a color choice.

Color Pick Time I can left click to Pick a specific Color I can left click to Pick a color from A spectrum I can left click and Drag to raise or Lower the darkness Of the color When I’m happy I Left click Ok

Yippy – A New Background Color! Ok – I confess – I Picked gray and Didn’t like it so I Went back in and Repicked. Now I am done I Can just left click On the little red X at the edge of A window to close It (be careful – a lot Of windows have Red X’s and you Will close what you Click)

OK Now – Where Were We. We were entering Our GPS points to See if any of our Survey points we Clearly out of Place. I see a candidate Which location is The point really Could Bozo the Clown at this Station have turned A wrong angle

Lets Add Our Brunton Traverse to See We will go ahead and add a geometry Object for our Brunton traverse And put it in edit mode

How Hard Can This Be Our Brunton Traverse is a Series of lines with Lengths and Directions and we Already know how To enter that Ya ya – start the Point editor. Give The create polyline Command, Type the starting Point into the Editor, click apply And then give Distances and Directions.

Enter the Lines and Right Click When You Are Done Right click a second Time if needed to Close the command.

A Few Observations T The Brunton Traverse did Not close Completely (probably not A surprise Considering you Measured Distance by Pacing and tried To read a hand Held compass) It looks pretty Conclusive that we know which survey station had a bust I don’t think so

What Next Somebody is going to be getting their little sit down cheeks out there and resurvey a few things. –Not a whole lot of use thinking about putting in side shots until they points they were shot from are good.

Time for Another Detour Three Traverses All showing up In light blue That’s hard to tell Things apart.

Lets Change a Color Highlight a Geometry Object you Wish to change The color of (move the Curser over it And left click) Then right click To pop up a Menu. Move The curser over Properties And left click it.

Pick the General Tab in the Object Properties Window Left click on the Global Color Pallet.

We See Our Color Window Again and Can Pick a Color for the Object

There Now That’s Better Ok – I confess – I Also messed With the point Symbols for my GPS survey Point using the Points tab on the Properties window

My Next Plan Lets assume we have cleaned up that survey bust We will next put in our side shots –I will use a feature called point snap to lock in on the survey stations without having to re-enter coordinates –Then I will use the point editor to put in the side shots by distance and direction. Once I have my side shots in I will run plines snapping to the ends of the side shots. –These Plines (polylines) will represent the footprint of the Engineering Building.

Go to the Snap Menu Left click snap For the drop Down menu. Move the curser Over point snap And left click it

Things to Notice – Plans to Do Note the second Window up here Indicates I am in Point snap mode. My plan will next Be to close the GPS survey and Brunton survey so The I will only have Intersection points On my instrument Survey plines to Snap to. (Left click what I am Closing. Then right Click to bring up the menu – move the curser over close and left click).

With the Confusion Clear I Will Next Create a Geometry Object for My Side Shots

Use My Traverse Calculator to Figure the Distance And Direction of My Side Shot Put in the Coordinates of Your instrument Station and the Azimuth of the Backsight line. Then put in your Angle right, Horizontal angle Instrument height And rod readings. (or EDM distance)

Get Ready to Enter the Side Shot Activate the Point Editor (I’m going to use The ability to Specify a distance And direction to Enter my side Shot)

Tell the Program to Create A Polyline (The Side Shot Line)

Click on the Instrument Location (The snap feature locks the point to the intersection of the lines) The coordinates Of the point go Into the Point Editor

We Will Preview the Side Shot Left click the Boxes to Indicate line Entry by distance And direction Enter the Azimuth, Distance and Dip (which you Have from the Excel Spreadsheet) Left click Preview to Check it out.

Right Click to Indicate Completion of the First Side Shot I left clicked apply Once I liked the Preview and the Line turned orange When I right clicked The mouse to Indicate I had Completed the Pline the line turned Red. Note that the Operation box still Says create Pline so I can Create another Pline without giving The pline command

Proceed to Enter All the Side Shot Lines Now I am done With the pline Command I will Click right an Extra time to Finish not just The pline but the Entire pline Command.

I Will Now Left Click the X to Close the Point Editor Window

I’ll Click the Funky Save Window to Save My Work

I’ll Get Ready to Put in the Engineering Building I have changed The color of my Side shot lines I have created A new geometry Object for the Engineering Building and I Put that object in Edit mode.

This Time I Will Create A Pline to Trace the Engineering Building Foot Print (Note I am not using the point editor this time) I’m still in snap Mode so I will Snap to the ends Of my side shot Lines.

Eacks – I Hope Your Engineering Building Has Better Shape than Mine I’ll right click once To complete my Pline Then I’ll right click Again to end the Pline command Then I will click The funky save Icon to save my Work.

What is Left to Do I need to create a geometry object for my tunnel survey center line I need to use my point editor and pline commands to put in the center lines of the tunnel I need to enter offset measurements to each side of the instrument station –I measured the distance from the station to the wall –I can enter these like side shots I can then create a geometry object for my tunnel and trace out the tunnel snapping to the ends of the offset lines – this will trace out the tunnels just like I did with the Engineering Building Since you already have the skills I’ll leave you on your own to enter this.

That Leaves Us One More Thing We need to put in those survey points we did with the levels and triangulation and then use those points to create topography.

How Will We Do This I can enter my base lines for the old school and new school instruments using the point editor and pline commands I can run angled lines from the base lines to show the intersection point –See the slide show on doing triangulation with MineSight (Lab #1) I can the enter points at intersection points. I can then use the adjust elevation command to put the points at the right elevation I can then use the triangulate command to create the topography

Looking at Having My Points Entered I have an open Edit object for Elevation points My points were Likely entered at The intersection Of survey lines Coming off a base Line just like in Lab #1 My problem is That snapping to A line intersection May not put the Point at the right Elevation.

To Start Fixing My Point Elevations I have saved my work (which is why the points Turned blue) I now prepare to select The point I will adjust For elevation I left click the select Tab to drop the menu I highlight and left click Make New Selection.

Now I left Click The Point I Will Work With Note the point has Turned orange The message Window below Reminds me to Right click my Mouse when I Have completed My selection (Since I am only Going to work with One point at a time That would be now)

Now I Activate the Point Editor The point editor Allows me to Enter exact Coordinates. (Since I want to Put the point at A precise elevation This is exactly What I want).

Now I Give the Command to Adjust the Elevation of the Point I left click the Point tab to drop Down the menu Then I highlight And left click Adjust elevation.

I’m Snigglegoostered! – The Point Editor Did Not Activate – Now What At time like this It is a good idea To look at the Message Window to see What MineSight Is fussing about In this case I read That it wants me To reselect the Point – ok I’ll left Click it again But someone Better explain why I have to do it.

One left click on My Point and My Point Editor Activates

Now For That Explanation We could go through and do three menu functions (pick, point editor, adjust elevation) for every point. –That could get old for 40 points MineSight lets us point a bunch of points at once and then adjust only a select subset –One way I could use this would be to pick all the points when I am selecting –Then when it asks me to repick I could select only those points that will be adjusted to 469 feet. –This seeming curious and annoying double pick stuff is actually a way to save us keystrokes.

Enter My Elevation Adjustment I left click the Elevation box Under the Absolute heading Then I type in the Elevation in the Z box. Then I left click Apply. (Just a note – when I am adjusting Elevation only Elevations are Honored from the Point editor – I Can’t change X)

I Right Click to End the Function

Lets Try That Multipoint Selection Trick Since all my Elevation points Are in a unique Geometry object I’m going to Select them all From the data Manager. Left click to Highlight my Geometry object Right click to pop Up a menu Highlight select Left click on all elements on the side menu.

Lets Issue That Adjust Elevation Command

Left Click the Point To Do Next Note the size of the X changes slightly

Check Off And Enter the Elevation for the Point – Then left click apply

Now Without Further Ado left click the next point

Yada Yada – Enter the New Elevation and Click Apply

When I’m Done – Right Click to Exit the Function

After Closing Out the Point Editor I’m Ready for the Next Step – Do Contours

We Will Cook Up A New Geometry Object for Our Contours

We Will Select All Our Elevation Points to Work With

Then We Will Triangulate A Surface Using Our Elevation Points Left click the Surface tab to Drop a menu Highlight Triangulate surface On the pop out Menu left click On With Selection

For This Function MineSight Lets Us Confirm Where We Want to Send Things Of course none of Us would ever Loose track of our Open edit object And save things to The wrong object (That’s just for other People who’s Intelligence is less Than ours) We’ll click ok to Send this work to Our open edit Object – in this case Surface

Our Triangulated Mesh Appears

From A Side View We Can See Our Mesh Surface is 3D

Lets Play With Our Surface Properties

Lets Tell it to Show Us Faces Instead of a Wire Frame Mesh On the object Properties Window Under the general Tab Left click the Faces only Radio button.

Now We Can See Our Elevation Change a Little Better Of course its Still flat.

Now We Actually Need Contour Lines to Finish This Lets make Contours my Open edit Object.

Start Up the Contour Tool Left click the Surface tab to Drop down a menu Highlight and left Click contour tool

Set Some Contour Limits Left click the General tab if It is not already Selected. Left click the radio Button to contour Surface elevation Set the elevation Range and Increment for Your contours.

Identify the Surface to Contour Left click the Blue worm to Indicate you Will pick the Surface to Contour from The screen. Left click on the Surface Note it’s name Appears and a Pretty yellow Box surrounds The object.

Left Click Preview to Get A Look at Things Actually these Two big Depressions in The surface Make me think That genius Missed his Elevation Adjustments on A few points This would give Me a chance To cancel and Go back and Adjust the point Elevations.

Oh Yes- After a Little Clean Up the Contours Look Much Better in Preview

After Clicking Apply and Turning Off Our Surface Object We See Our Contours

Lets Do A Little Fine Adjusting With Object Properties on the Contours

First I Think I Will Change the Color to Green

Now Lets Get Some Labels on Those Lines Left click the line Labels tab.

Indicate What We Want for a Label Left click on the Check box to Indicate we Will include Something. Left click on The dash to See a menu Of label Choices.

Choose What Your Label Will Be Based On I will left click On Z value So the contours Will be labeled With their Elevation.

I Can Now See It is Ready to Label the Elevation Of course I Still can’t see Anything.

Now Click On the Label Tab The default Label height Is 1 (in this Case 1 foot) No wonder I can’t see Anything I’m going to Left click in The height box And type in 50 And then left Click Ok.

Me Thinks My Enthusiasm for Size Got the Best of Me

Lets Try a Letter Height of 10

Oh Isn’t That Just Ducky!

Of Course You’d Be Disappointed If You Did Not Get to Do This Ok- Go Do Your Final Written Assignment (Class is over when you turn it in)