It most cases the popup menu allows you to select any survey leg and jump to the corresponding 'data, 'map', 'outline' drawing or 'side view' drawing. However, when you select a splay shot (un-numbered station) in either of the drawing views, this feature is not available. If it were, it would be very useful when trying to decipher the drawings and data table when the disto operator has got ahead of the booker.
This is on my list. Be aware that you can do it the other way round: The currently selected shot is shown in a different color in the drawings. This allows to indentify individual splay shots.
I understand the plan for Therion in future is to use splay shots identified by '-' for passage wall definition and splay shots identified by '.' for internal cave feature definition. It would be nice if PocketTopo implemented something similar as well. It would be easier to make this distinction as the survey was progressing in the cave, rather than making the adjustments back in the office. In addition if the '.' shots were a different colour to the survey legs with '-' shots it would ease the sketching process (or maybe allow a toggle between showing '-' shots and '.' shots).
I will think about that.
Disto Distance
Our distoX occasionally gives one off spurious distance (and rarely compass) readings. On our most recent trip it went one step further - a ~15m survey leg gave '3 in a row' readings of 0.21m and some time later (after many readings that looked OK) on a similar ~15m survey leg it gave '8 in a row' 52.0m readings with the odd 48m and 82m reading thrown in for good measure. We chose another station and the anomaly disappeared. We are quite sure that for the majority of these bogus readings the laser was squarely on the target. This survey (but not these legs) included a 100m loop, which closed at 1.25%. This is among the worst we've had with the distoX, but it does not suggest any gross distance errors occurred within the loop.
did you mean that the distance shown on the disto display was wrong ? Unsure, I presume the displayed distance matched the distance transmitted. I was driving the pda - I'll check with the distoX operator, as we did have a brief conversation along those lines when it happened.
and that the distance transmitted to pockettopo was wrong as well ? Yes, definitely the wrong distance - was not a units issue, as the next readings were OK (and if I understand correctly 'units' has no effect on the data transmitted- between them the devices can translate I think).
If the displayed and transmitted distances are the same, it is surely a problem of the Disto itself, not of the extension.
does pockettopo save to file the raw data exchanged with the distox ?
No. They could be read from the DistoX memory (last 4096 measurements). However, they will be equal to the numbers transferred to PocketTopo. They are read from the same memory.
Some 100 distance readings later the lithium AAA batteries died. (The indicator suggested the batteries were full at the start, and the survey included probably 300 shots).
The indicator is not accurate because the lithium batteries have a higher nominal voltage and die very rapidly. However, the internal voltage generated by the Disto is stable and independent of the actual battery voltage.
Disto Display
A new distoX, recently acquired and upgraded by a colleague has developed some permanently 'lit' pixels (about 20 of them) in the middle of where the inclination is displayed - even when the device is powered off.
He is a 'distoX & paper' surveyor (and like me has aging eyes) so the difficulty in reading the display is particularly frustrating.
Is there a solution to this?
- New display from Leica?
- New circuit board from Leica?
This is most probably a defect of the display itself. There is a small chance to get a replacement display from Leica. However, they usually replace the whole device and, because they do not have any more A3 they offer a D3 instead.
The total station gives its readings in degrees:minutes:seconds, which is fine for therion, but not so good for PocketTopo (or it might be my ignorance.)
There is currently no way to enter data in dms. Of course it may be added... Regards Beat