TEXAS SOCIETY OF PROFESSIONAL SURVEYORS
OFFICAL REPORT FROMAT
DIVISION: Liaison Division #3 Division Officer
COMMITTEE: TxDOT Chairperson Reporting John F. Pierce
BOARD MEETING DATE: February 02, 2008
COMMITTEE ACTIVITY REPORT
Since our last report the Standing Committee on Surveying (SCOS) has held meetings on
November 15, 2007 at the Camp Hubbard campus. The following TxDOT representatives
were present:
John Wallis, Odessa District; Ivor Walker, Houston District; Jon Cox, Dallas District;
Mark Caldwell, Atlanta District; Randall Kercher, Corpus Christi District; Steve
Schmidt, ISD Division; Marcy Saenz, Design Division; Dean Wilkerson, ISD Division,
Jesse Cooper, Right-of-Way Division; Darryl Zercher, ISD Division; Judy Skeen
(Sponsor) ISD Division and myself.
Sub-committee Reports
1) Pre-certification (Jonathan Cox) – Requests are still being received for pre-
certification. Approximately 20% of the applications are not approved.
2) Survey Manual (John Wallis / Dean Wilkerson) – SCOS comments on the
manual changes have been provided to Steve Schmidt and the
recommended changes have been incorporated. The manual will go to
OGC / AUD for review and comment by November 21, 2007. Once the
appropriate reviews have been completed, ISD will submit manual changes
to GSD (target date: January 5, 2008 for a February 2008 publication date).
Dean Wilkerson will develop a manual update notice to be sent out once the
Survey Manual changes have been published.
The ‘Point - Denial of Access’ marker has been approved by the ROW
Division. Steve Schmidt will draft an email for John Wallis to send out to the
District Survey Coordinators to make them aware of the approved survey
monument types.
The photogrammetry circle targets are still being tested; therefore, these will
not be included in the current revision of the survey manual.
3) Survey Contract Templates (Ivor Walker) – The draft ‘Attachment C –
Services to be Provided by the Surveyor’ document has been completed
and was presented to SCOS. SCOS will review and send comments to Ivor
Walker by December 14, 2007. The revised document, incorporating SCOS
comments, will be presented to Camille Thomason for DES review (target
date: January 2008). Following DES review and approval, the document
will be forwarded to the District Survey Coordinators for review and
comment. Final review and approval will be addressed during the
Surveyors’ Conference in March 2008.
4) Survey Software Solutions (Darryl Zercher) – The project is underway.
Based on the POB survey / ranking of surveying software products, project
team members ranked the products based on product functionality in an
effort to create a list of three software packages to evaluate further. Due to
heavy work loads, one member of the project team was not able to
complete the evaluation. Based on the rankings given, products from the
following vendors will be reviewed during the evaluation phase: Bentley,
CEDRA Corporation, and Eagle Point. The Project Board approved the
team to proceed with the evaluation of GEOPAK Survey and the Eagle
Point software product. Darryl Zercher will provide additional information on
the CEDRA Corporation products, Avcad and Avcogo, to allow the board to
make an informed decision on which of these products should be evaluated.
If the decision is made to not proceed with the evaluation of the CEDRA
product line, Traverse PC software may also be considered for evaluation.
The detailed criteria list for product evaluation was discussed. The following
items were added to the existing list to be used in the evaluation;
differential leveling, spiral curves, proportioned distances, best fit line,
horizontal curves (compute curves with two or three elements and fitting a
curve to two tangents), horizontal curves (reverse, compound, and
concentric), vertical curves, point creation by intersection, assign attribute of
zone or group to points, chains, etc., plotting, cross sections, categories of
break lines for contour line creation, volume computations, import / export of
Trimble DC file, automated annotation of parcels, and export of legal
descriptions based upon parcels.
5) ROW Mapping Electronic Standards (Jesse Cooper) – Dan Erwin is working
on the draft of the ROW Mapping Electronic Standards. At this point there
is no anticipated completion date.
Dan Erwin has also been tasked with providing guidance to districts in the
collection of HBA sign data for surveying and GIS mapping. ISD will post
mapping standards guidelines for GPS data collection on the ISD intranet
site.
6) ISD Engineering and Survey System Activities (Dean Wilkerson) – ISD is
continuing to work with CST, DES, WAC and TYL to determine TxDOT
requirements for incorporating 3D machine control into design / construction
processes.
ISD ESS has recently received help screens and guidance on entering
Lat/Long data into DCIS. ESS will develop a ‘how to’ document to provide
information on Lat/Long data entry to district advanced planning engineers,
survey coordinators, and GIS coordinators.
Old Business
1) 2008 TxDOT Survey Conference
Potential topics were discussed and SCOS assignments (for securing
speakers) were made.
The vendor website (to reserve booth space) will be up and available
in the next two weeks. Email notifications will be sent out to previous
participants.
2) 2008 District Survey Coordinator Workshop
ROW Utility / Electronic Mapping Standards (Jesse Cooper)
ROW map scanning / FileNet EDMS (Jesse Cooper / Darryl Zercher)
Update on WORMS (Dean Wilkerson)
Survey Software Status Report (Darryl Zercher)
New survey monument types (Steve Schmidt)
Circle targets for Photogrammetry (Jonathan Martin)
Multi-district aerial flights (Mark Eder)
Survey Contract Template for Attachment C (Ivor Walker)
Surveyor Safety on the Roadway – documented guidelines / traffic
control plans (Jesse Cooper / Ivor Walker)
Coordination between schematic development and ROW mapping
(Marcy Saenz)
New Business
1) HBA Permit Survey Requirement (Jesse Cooper) – A majority of the HBA
activities will require GIS-level mapping surveys and will not require an
RPLS. The need for professional surveying services to support this effort
will be limited to permits involving litigation. Additional direction on HBA
permit survey requirements will be forthcoming from the ROW Division in
December and January.
2) Survey Crew Safety Handbook – The Survey Crew Safety handbook (1976
?) is obsolete. References to this handbook are being removed from survey
contract language. SCOS is considering the idea of incorporating updated
survey safety references into the Survey Manual. References to survey
safety in the TxDOT Occupational Manual will also be updated.
3) Next Meeting: January 16, 2008 (8:00 am start time)
Respectfully submitted
John F. Pierce, TSPS liaison to TxDOT SCOS