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How Using Tablets For Construction Vastly Streamlines the Process

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professional land surveyorsIn today’s business environment, many different industries are starting to see the advantages of keeping employees connected to their work and each other with mobile devices. This is especially true in surveying. Allowing field crews to access documents and information from mobile devices allows them to be just as productive on site as they would be at an office. This means that projects can progress more quickly, without the need for long delays caused by employees being offline or needing to travel back and forth between a job site and an office.

Traditional surveying handhelds do not offer the variety of applications that are needed in modern surveying. Professional land surveyors, especially those working on oil and gas projects, have a lot more data to collect and process while on site. They also need to be able to review this information, answer emails, and perform any number of other tasks on the fly, which is something that is simply not possible with traditional handhelds.

Fortunately, there is a solution: professional land surveyors can utilize “rugged tablets” for construction, which are designed specifically for use in high-intensity industry settings like an oil and gas job site. These tablets, like the Trimble Yuma 2, are built from the ground up to be tough, effective, and easy to use while on a job site.

These tablets are designed with the importance of accurate GPS data squarely in mind. For example, the Trimble Yuma 2 offers 1-2 meter real time Enhanced GPS positional accuracy, allowing users to get extremely detailed and accurate positions while on the job site.

The GPS abilities of these tablets are also very convenient and easy to use, as they are built right into the tablet itself. Users don’t need to attach an external antenna in order to get an accurate reading; they have everything they need to do that right in their hands. However, these tablets often provide the flexibility to add an external GPS antenna when needed to achieve maximum accuracy.

Greater Strength and Durability

While consumer tablets have made a lot of advancements over the years, the fact remains that these tablets are simply not designed with durability or ruggedness in mind. As far as the tablet manufacturers are concerned, the most stress that will ever be placed on one of these tablets is being dropped from a few feet.

On the other hand, tablets used on oil and gas sites constantly have to deal with dust, water, extreme temperatures, high altitudes, vibrations and shock. A consumer tablet can’t deal with these factors, even if you do slap a hard protective case on them. Surveyors need tablets for construction that are durable by design, and that’s exactly that a rugged tablet is.

A Touchscreen That’s Easy To Use and Read

Most consumer tablets are designed to be used indoors, under optimal conditions. Try using one on a job site, and you’ll have to deal with a glare off the screen that makes it hard to read.

Rugged tablets like the Trimble Yuma 2 offer a screen with an outdoor readable display, as well as the flexibility to control the touch screen using fingers, a stylus, or capacitive gloves. This means that surveyors on oil and gas job sites will always be able to read and control the screens on their tablets, no matter what the conditions.

To learn more about how Landpoint uses tablets for construction and how these devices can help bring unique benefits to your project, download our oil and gas brochure.

Image Source : NEC Corporation of America

How Tablets Are Used For Field Work on Surveying Projects

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Land SurveyLand surveying teams are benefiting from sophisticated tablet technology that combines collection, real-time data access, and a plethora of other utilities in a mobile environment. Surveyors are able to interact with their data to obtain realistic, multidimensional knowledge of the survey area. Essentially, tablet technology has revolutionized how field surveyors operate, allowing them to work smarter and faster.

Here is a look at how surveyors are using tablets for field work boosts project efficiency.

Real-Time Communication

Land survey teams can coordinate efforts from disparate locations with ease as they utilize 2D and 3D views that inform their work in real-time. Data can be shared in real-time and quantitative data, including analytics, can also be accessed. Field agents can synchronize data with data technicians and surveyors in the office to get real-time support, minimizing the need for field crews to revisit the site

Mobile Workforce Management Tools

These tools enhance productivity in the field with applications that help withteam and asset management, mobile workforce routing and field service scheduling. Surveyors can review the progress of other teams, send out messages, and answer emails from individuals back at the office.

Calculation Tools

Mobile devices offer a variety of handy tools, such as calculation and productivity apps, which helps to increase onsite efficiency. Essentially, many of the tasks that would have to wait until the surveyor got back to the office (or at least back to an internet connected computer) can now be performed with a tablet in the field, greatly cutting down turnaround times on projects.

Augmented Reality

Augmented Reality (AR) is a potentially dynamic view of real-world information enhanced by computer resident data that includes sound, graphics, GPS data and video. This technology is becoming more widely used by surveyors since it allows them to get a clearer view of a project and make better recommendations.

In AR, targets become registration points that orient the tablet to the identical point where construction is occurring. As targets are scanned, the original design of the construction is displayed. This view updates as location changes.

Visualization is an extremely important part of augmented reality. In a proposed site development, ease of access for large installations can be determined and reviewed in 3D to foresee how any phase of project construction can be best accomplished with optimal access and best fit. Trial and error belongs to the model world when problems can be solved virtually. Tablets show exactly what a project will look like at any stage of development, provided the data is available.

Building Information Modeling (BIM) is a target resource utilizing AR. It provides improved visualization and information retrieval, as well as the ability to coordinate project documentation. The ability to embed and link vendor specific data, location details, and quantities required for estimation and tendering is invaluable to project efficiency.

Tablets and 3D Laser Scanners

When paired with other surveying technology, tablets can dramatically increase a surveyor’s productivity and further improve turnaround time. One good example of this is when tablets are paired with 3D laser scanners.

With 3D laser scanning, points are scanned at 2mm intervalsby the scanner’s high resolution digital image and are then colored according to the photo. Scan stations are set up in multiple areas for comprehensive data collection. When GPS is associated with data scanned, it can be tied to a local coordinate system. With the latest laser scanning techniques, it becomes possible to convert three-dimensional surfaces into highly accurate mathematical models, which can be viewed on the tablet device. This means that a surveyor can utilize 3D scans, upload the information to the project management site and then review that data on the tablet.

Overall, when tablets are used for field work, project managers can enjoy better data collection, decision making, problem solving, and accuracy. To learn more about how the latest land surveying technologies can benefit your business, please contact us.

Image Source : Martin Voltri