How to survey 101

Ed W

Member
Darkplaces,

Don't get put off by people making this out to be more complicated than it needs to be.  It is very easy to get overly anal about surveying, the techniques you use must be balanced against what you wish to achieve with the survey and the time you have available to carry it out (rarely important in the UK but vital on expeditions where time inthe field is limited and some sort of survey is better than none).  You don't even have to correct for magnetic/grid north if you don't want to, simply draw the survey to magnetic north and state that you have done this and the date that the readings were taken.  This will then allow someone in later years to make the correction themselves if they want/need to.

If all you want to do is to be able to illustrate a new section of passage, then your silva compass and no clino in this case will be fine.  Once drawn up, whether using a computer or hand drawn, it will allow people to see what is there.  In this case it will not matter too much if the whole thing is swivelled by a degree or two.  This should even be OK over multiple trips as long as the same instruments are used, and the same person takes the readings.  However it is worth stating what techniques and equipment was used so that future users of the survey know its limitations (this should be done for any survey).

However, if you wish to use the survey for anything more ambitious, such as seeing if what you have found may link to something else for instance, then you really do need to start employing techniques such as compass callibration and just as importantly know where the entrances are in relation to each other. However this takes extra time and effort.  Equally the point about adding extra information is quite correct.  However if you listen to everyone's idea of what is vital information to take you will spend forever looking for it and writing it down.  My suggestion is to note what you think is relevant, as you gain more experience you will note more.

In short go for it.  Do your surveying how you want to do it (taking as much advice as you want), but someone willalways complain about what you haven't done!  However, surveying is a much misunderstood activity.  The perception of boring/cold trips is totally wrong.  There are few ways of fully understanding or appreciating a cave/mine than by surveying it and the satisfaction of producing the final map is fantastic.  You will learn far more by actually going out and trying things out and making mistakes than by absorbing any amount of reflected wisdom (as useful as that may be).

As to the computer versus hand drafting?  I use a computer programme (already mentioned on here so I will not repeat) to generate centreline information, and then hand draft, scan and add text.  I know Ouan's work very well (I helped him with some of it) and he uses a fully computer generated method.  In Ouan's case the program allows him to add passage detail, and then distirt it with changes to the centreline detail as he is working in long complex systems in asia where trips are made over many years.  Oviously if you used my method to do this you would have to redraw the detail after every trip.  However most of my work is in short isolated caves, so it is rare that we have to do any redrafting.  I would also challenge anyone to suggest that Ouan's presentation is inferior in any way to that produced by hand drafting.
 
D

darkplaces

Guest
axbridgecaver said:
c**tplaces said:
cap 'n chris said:
Cave surveying is great fun and really exciting; drawing the final survey is even more exciting and enjoyable.  (y)
If I wasn't busy surveying something I could busy myself with pulling gates off something.  :tease:

Darn Mr Axbridge Wednesday is the very night I was gona ask, it may all be over by the week after. Mind you the location is as always with the c**tplaces lot a bit 'iffy'  ::) Its only trespass, what fresh looking hole officer  :-[


That's always the way - why don't you get your friends together and we can survey a bit of Swan - just as a taster . I could bring my laptop to the pub after and also generate a computer survey!!!! A hand plot takes slightly longer.
Yes Plese, what about evening of 10th April start around 19:30hrs at Swan?
 
D

Dave H

Guest
If you can't get your club mates to train you, then you could try the BCRA Case Surveying Group who 'regularly' run training events. I know that a number of people don't like CSG as it can be seen as the 'Wookie and Ollie show', with their Survex program used to train their friends ready for their club expeditions, but if you go along to a field trip you will find that many of the quieter members have their own views and experiences which they will very happily share with you. Personally, I quite like Survex (but then I am an assembler programmer at heart!  :LOL: )

It sounds as though you have experimented and identified a number of the issues that must be considered when surveying and drawing it up afterwards. The next logical step would therefore be to ask for help (which you have done via this thread) and improve your standard by surveying with an experienced team.

Remember that you don't have to produce a master-piece; so long as you state what level of accuracy was used in the collection and drawing up (use the BCRA scheme - there is even a level for 'guessed the dimensions later'!).
I surveyed the caves of Gozo with boot-lengths and a locally sourced measured stick for distances (a cane!), a cheap Silva compass for angles and a simple squared notepad and pencil. Surveys were drawn to scale in the notebook as I went along. I scanned the notebook pages later into a PC to tidy them up and they are available http://www.cavesurveys.com (Look for Gozo on the map of Malta, Europe - For excellent quality surveys, look for the Shepton Mallet surveys in Thialand  :bow: )

I think that the important thing is that there is a survey that people can view. I personally believe that a publically available grade 1A survey is better than an unpublished (or uncatalogued) 5B survey! (That's why I set up Cavesurveys.com to provide a listing type service, although it's not proved very popular with contributers :cry: )
 
W

Walrus

Guest
I was wondering about what I should be done with a survey once its completed.  :confused:

Is there a central repository for surveys? Should they be sent/published somewhere?

Does the creator(s) of the survey effectively become its copyright owner?

If I wanted to publish it for anyone to see (by whatever means) and a survey already existed how would my 'new' survey impact the existing one (and its creator), assuming they were of similar standards/grades?
 

graham

New member
Walrus said:
I was wondering about what should be done with a survey once its completed.  :confused:
Whatever you choose, it is your property - unless, of course it was a piece of work carried out under contract to someone else.

Walrus said:
Is there a central repository for surveys? Should they be sent/published somewhere?
There is no "official" central repository, though a number of groups/individuals have tried to set such a thing up. Please publish it somewhere and please deposit the raw data somewhere where it can be preserved.

Walrus said:
Does the creator(s) of the survey effectively become its copyright owner?
Yes.

Walrus said:
If I wanted to publish it for anyone to see (by whatever means) and a survey already existed how would my 'new' survey impact the existing one (and its creator), assuming they were of similar standards/grades?
Provided that you didn't nick/borrow anyone else's data for the production of your new survey it will have no impact on the existence or otherwise of anyone else's work.
 
c**tplaces said:
axbridgecaver said:
c**tplaces said:
cap 'n chris said:
Cave surveying is great fun and really exciting; drawing the final survey is even more exciting and enjoyable.  (y)
If I wasn't busy surveying something I could busy myself with pulling gates off something.  :tease:

Darn Mr Axbridge Wednesday is the very night I was gona ask, it may all be over by the week after. Mind you the location is as always with the c**tplaces lot a bit 'iffy'  ::) Its only trespass, what fresh looking hole officer  :-[

I'll be there with compass, clinometer and tape in hand.
That's always the way - why don't you get your friends together and we can survey a bit of Swan - just as a taster . I could bring my laptop to the pub after and also generate a computer survey!!!! A hand plot takes slightly longer.
Yes Plese, what about evening of 10th April start around 19:30hrs at Swan?
 
Les W said:
Robert Scott said:
menacer said:
Les W said:
You not going this Easter then Menacer  :halo:
You Git you already know the answer to that one...
:mad: :mad:
I suppose she couldn’t she stand the suspense of listening to somebody who didn’t know whether they “loiked cooorffee” in a cake although they did think that they “loiked chaaarclate” in a cake.
:coffee: ;)
What?

I'm sorry, I don't understand this.  :confused:
Dear C
The next time that you're in God's Own, ask one of the Basque Lancastrians about this.
 

footleg

New member
I've been using the cave survey drawing program Tunnel with some success to redraw some large cave systems from the Matienzo survey archive. See http://www.freesteel.co.uk/wiki/index.php/Tunnel for details of this program.

Tunnel uses the data output from Survex to allow you to draw your survey detail around, and will distort the sketches in the future if the survey centreline is updated or distorted by new loop closures.

What has been invaluable is that we can now easily add new discoveries to the existing survey and keep it up to date. As with many resurvey projects, we found quite a bit of new cave in the process of exploring the known cave to check detail of areas which were confusing in the original data I got from the archives.

You can see the finished survey (so far  ;) ) in the Matienzo section of this Cave surveys of the world on Google Maps site http://seagrass.goatchurch.org.uk/~mjg/cgi-bin/map.py (Be warned this site has problems on Internet Explorer at present. Best use Firefox or something non-Microsoft).
 

menacer

Active member
Hey footie, great to see the riano survey drawn up. Hear you had quite a find this easter and its still going.. :bow:
How far are you from Torno now??

I love the entising "continues" and "P5m undesended" at the end of Footprint passage......im not sure that "energetic between the legs" really sums up the pleasantries of that bit of passage....but then again "you'd have to be bonkers to want to go up there again!!"  wouldnt encourage some poor unsuspecting caver in the future to go up there and check those bits out... ;)

C







 

footleg

New member
Yes we found some significant large rift passage at a higher level than the stuff we found last December, but so far it hasn't gone any closer to Torno than the lower part we found last year. Still work to do in there, but the trip had become a bit arduous to say the least. Squeezes, flat out bedding crawls with viscous liquid mud and a razor sharp rift climb took their toll on us and our gear. I had to buy a new oversuit while out there. :-[

On the survey side, I think it is important to leave all those enticing leads marked on the survey, as that was the sort of thing which got me interested in poking my nose in there in the first place. Maybe someone will look at it in a few years time and be mad enough to go and push it some more. Might even be me once memory has faded a bit.  :)
 
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