1. April 17, 2014
SUR8400
Dr. Federico Fernandez
Group 3: Peter Borbely, Kai Yu Chen, Ali Molani, Kyle Dumouchel, Sethuran
Yogedran
Civil Surveying Final Project

2. Purpose:
The purposeof this assignment is to use total station (Sokkia SET530R) as well as
the data collector (Topconusing a Carlson Survey program) to survey an area with
two known benchmarks (given Northing, Easting and elevation) to find elevations,
Northing and Easting in compliance with MTM (Methods Time Measurement)
Coordinates system for certain features in the surveying area.
Update:
To determine whether the original benchmarks elevation discrepancy was human
error or if the drawing was off and to see if any elevation from the drawing was
actually correct.
Materials:
 Total Station
 Leveling Stand (Tripod)
 Reflective Prism
 Compass
 Pencil
 Field Notes
 TopconData Collector
Procedure:
1. Examine the area the survey will take place in and find all set up points.
2. Set up the tripod over a control point and then attach the total station and
level according to proper procedure.
3. Attach Data Collector to the total station set up.
4. Enter start data into the data collector and shoota control north. This is to
be done using a local coordinate system and setting the control point with
northing -1000.000, easting -1000.000, and elevation -100.000m

3. 5. From there various points were surveyed using the controlpoint with all
data being relative to the control point.
6. Record data for each point shot measurements in field notes as well as data
collector.
7. From there the data from the data collector was exported to a computer in a
text format and brought into AutoCAD Civil 3d to render a drawing of the
surveyed area.
8. All points were aligned in AutoCAD to the known MTM coordinates from
the two benchmarks that were surveyed and all data was converted to MTM
coordinated and elevations were adjusted with the two benchmarks MTM
coordinates.
9. Another setup was made after the initial survey. The tripod and total station
was setup according to proper procedure.
10. The total station was setup so that three benchmarks were in the vision of
the total station.
11.The three benchmarks were shotwith the total station to find relative
elevation.
Observations:
See Appendices for all recorded information and diagrams.
1 2 3 4 5 6
Benchmark Measured (m) Drawing (m)
Measured
Difference
(m)
Drawing
Difference
(m)
Variance
(Col 5-4)
(m)
bm3 99.638 87.195
bm3- bm2 bm3- bm2
0.041 0.072 0.031
bm2 99.597 87.123
bm3-bm1 bm3-bm1
0.101 .202 0.101
bm1 99.537 86.993
bm2-bm1 bm2-bm1
0.060 0.130 0.070
A drawing of this was not necessary bm1 and bm2 were shot and bm3 was shot to
see what was off from the drawing. It was also not included in the AutoCAD
drawing.

4. Sources ofError:
There are little sources oferror when doing these types of tasks. Consistency in the
use of the equipment allows for good results. This is hard to achieve when different
people are holding the rod and reading the total station and could accountfor some
error. Also slight movements to the prism or it not being level while being used
could throw off the instrument measurements. A lot of the error in this comes
down to human error and lack of consistency.
Also working around a lot of people could have made mistakes easier to make.
There may have been issues with the calibration with the total station that may
have contributed to the error. Many other factors such as vibrations and movement
of the instrument or point on the sidewalk due to many human errors contribute to
the lack of consistency.
Being outside at this time of year while the temperature is 0°C and there is wind
could be a source of error, the total station was adjusted to correct for temperature.
At this temperature and time of year there is snow and ice and some of the points
shot could have been skewed elevations due to snow or even frost heave. Also the
benchmarks in the sidewalks could have changed elevation due to vehicles
constantly driving by and possible making the under-structure settle.
Conclusions:
At the end of the project a drawing was created and all data was converted from
local coordinates to MTM standard from the known benchmark locations. Also all
elevations were adjusted from a single benchmark (labeled bm2 in drawings), it
was set 87.123m. After this was done bm1 had a known elevation of 86.993m but
the adjusted elevation was 87.056m. This shows that the elevation was off by
6.3cm. This means that something could have been off and further investigation
must be done to determine whether human error was involved in this or if some
other sourceof error that is beyond human controlis at play.
Upon further investigation it was found that bm1 and bm2 still had a relatively
close difference in elevation that was 6.0 cm and only off by 3mm from the first

5. observation. It would be safe to assume that the drawing was donea few years ago
and that these elevations could have changed due to many different reasons stated
in sources of error. The new benchmark (bm3) shot did not help find an actual
elevation that could be used. So that being said the elevations in the AutoCAD
drawing are not actual elevations.
NOTE:The field notes are not included in this report they were submitted with the
original report.