Just got back from the Paperless Cave Surveying Course held at the SWCC over the weekend. It was intensive and often frustrating but ultimately I, for one, learned a lot and I'm sure those who were savvier with all things tech, picked up even more. Many thanks to Andrew, Wookey, Duncan etc. for organising and presenting the weekend. You obviously put in a huge about of work and thank you for your patience! Thanks also to SWCC for hosting us and letting us take over large parts of your cottages on a busy weekend!

Huw Jones

I concur with Huge. It was a excellent introduction to paperless surveying. My head is still spinning, but it provided a good background and a solid basis for trying out the techniques. I hope to go and have a potter around a few caves in the next month or so to see how far I can get.  I suspect the mailing list my get a few questions...

Thanks to all who organised the course and the authors of some great software!

Cheers,
Dave

Thank you Andrew and Wookey. Thanks also to Duncan Simey for swopping surveying tips Saturday morning. We enjoyed the event and came back with more helpful techniques.

Goydenman said:

Thank you Andrew and Wookey. Thanks also to Duncan Simey for swopping surveying tips Saturday morning. We enjoyed the event and came back with more helpful techniques.

Click to expand...

LOL - I think we both learned a lot on Sat Morning!
Hugely impressed with the Jedi Pole calibration technique, it got about 3 times better calibration results than I've ever achieved using cave walls.

Whats the 'jedi pole' technique ? I have found a plastic builders square (as shown by someone else on the forum) to give me the best cal results as each angle and rotation is very well aligned and repeatable and you get a perfect spread of calibration data.

The Jedi stick is development that has taken hundereds of man hours to perfect - if you belive that you will belive anything. It is actualy a bit of old plastic conduit that I found in my truck on Saturday morning on our way to the cave.
The plastic is a step up from our usual calibration device which is a stick. Just secure it in the rocks with a good view of and not too close to suitable walls. Keep the laser axis on the top of the stick and then the laser dot on your small target and off you go. For the down measurment offset to the side of the stick and do your best to keep the Disto on the same axis for all 4 shots. follow calibration with a rotation test over a reasonable distance.
The above method may not be to everyones liking but it works for us giving acceptable or even very good results.
We have looked at other ways of doing the calibration using extra bits of kit but have found that the results are no better and it just something else to cart about. Don't over complicate things its actualy quite a simple process with a bit of practice. We calibrate every session no matter what and as long as you get it right first time and don't cock it up it takes 10mins tops, The best we got on Saturday morning was a delta of .17 and that was tested with a rotation test forward and back we got a averaged Azi variation of .2 of a degree. Lifes too short to want better than that.

OfdTestRotation1 

    1.0                  0.000    0.00    0.00       
    1.0        1.1      3.446  178.03    3.98  [1]   
    1.0        1.1      3.447  178.43    3.94  [1]   
    1.0        1.1      3.447  178.52    3.79  [1]
 
    1.1                  3.447  178.13    3.93  [1]
   
    1.1        1.2      3.450  358.21  -4.21  [1] 
    1.1        1.2      3.450  358.46  -4.16  [1]   
    1.1        1.2      3.449  358.33  -4.19  [1]

    1.2                  3.450  358.33  -4.19  [1]

   

So well explained Obi Wan