On Point: The Cansel Blog

Planview Utility Services Ltd., with offices in Markham, Ottawa, and London, Ontario, provides engineering services, GIS and mapping services, subsurface utility engineering and asset management services to some of the largest utilities and municipalities in Ontario, including several of the ISPs participating in the AHSIP.

Using a Trimble MX50 mobile mapping system, Planview USL has collected more than 18,000 kilometers of comprehensive point clouds and imagery to build a land base used to design the fiber network for underserved rural communities. The success of the project relies on careful pre planning to identify potential infrastructure gaps (such as inadequate telephone poles and underground conduits) and difficult terrain, and schedule work within the time constraints of a short construction season.

I had a conversation with a customer earlier this week around the topic of file types and more specifically, legacy file formats.

The de facto native file format in the engineering design industry is HPGL/2, and the standard for platform-independent raster file interchange is most commonly PDF and less commonly TIFF. PDF is the only file format that is constantly in development and supported both backwards and forwards by Adobe.

When we speak of standards through the lens of file formats, "standards" mean generally accepted and best industry practices using tools that are current and supported.

via Trimble Geospatial

An innovative project success story from Trimble Authorized Distributor UPG that involves the world-first conversion of a disused gold mine into a pumped storage hydroelectric power generation facility in Australia.

Hewlett Packard recently refreshed its DesignJet lineup of printers, and with that, introduced the all new XT950 as the next generation of the beloved T830 MFP.

You might be thinking to yourself "What could possibly be different?" or, "Oh, it's probably just a different colour or something", but you’d be far from the truth.

DesignJet XT950 is a complete rethink on the concept of an entry-level MFP device. Let's look at some of the differences in more detail.

via Trimble Geospatial

Likely the first thing you think about when you hear the storied names of Colonial Country Club, Oakmont Country Club, Muirfield Village Golf Club and Bel-Air Country Club is perfectly manicured fairways, challenging rough and smooth greens—not irrigation systems. But, of course, effective watering practices are a key to making these golf courses look so spectacular.

For Michigan-based Michael Kuhn and Associates, Inc., golf course irrigation is a life’s work. Led by founder Michael Kuhn, this industry leading firm’s expertise in agronomy, engineering and technology is changing the way irrigation systems are designed, managed and updated.

Today, we're going to talk about the crossover tool that turns our analog documents into digital ones that we can then store in the cloud, email or re‐work for new purposes. We're going to look at wide format scanners and what you really need to know about them before deciding what kind to buy. Now, I'm not going to steer you into any particular brand or model because, frankly, we carry them all here at Cansel, but I do want to educate you on HOW to choose a technology.

Wide format scanners are divided into two major technologies: CIS which stands for Contact Image Sensor, and CCD which stands for Charged Coupled Device.

The choice between a CIS scanning technology and a CCD technology is largely based on the type of documents that you, the client, wish to scan.

via Trimble Geospatial

Deformation monitoring, the task of measuring an object's movement over time, plays a crucial role in assisting the construction process and understanding a structural asset's health. Owners, operators, and contractors rely on automated monitoring systems to measure and report on the movement of these objects to ensure public safety, protect the asset, and make informed decisions. Survey providers can easily take existing survey principles and equipment and apply them on an automated monitoring project. Total stations provide accurate, repeatable measurements to understand this key movement and accompany software platforms visualize and report the data in meaningful ways.

This article explains the differences between automated and semi-automated (or manual) monitoring, where and when an automated system is beneficial, and the steps to turn an existing robotic total station into an automated monitoring system using Trimble 4D Control (T4D).

No, we won’t be exploring the poetry of Elizabeth Barret Browning in this issue, but I did exercise a bit of artistic license when titling this piece.

Back in June, I wrote an article on the arguably dry topic of "drivers". Bear with me and I promise I won't put you to sleep again, folks. I may actually give you some insight into using your wide format printer in a way that may free up engineering and architectural design talent to do their thing, as opposed to attending to the mundane task of printing.

In most cases, there are three ways to print to a wide format printer. The most common way is with the printer driver, but this can be a technical task more suited to technical people because of all the myriad settings that can be chosen from.

Recognize this scenario?

"Daaaaaaaaaad, Mooooooooooom, I have a project due tomorrow and the printer is acting funnyyyyyyyy!"

And so down the hall we trudge with our head held down, knowing ahead of time what the problem is. As suspected, it's the cursed MAGENTA cartridge that is dry once again, necessitating an unplanned trip to Staples for a new one. You get home, pull out the old one to replace it, and then,  if we're truly environmental thugs, the old empty one most probably gets tossed in the garbage. But the more likely scenario is that we drop it into the blue box for recycling and go about feeling good about our environmental stewardship.

Right? Wrong again!

As I sat down to write this article, I came to the embarrassing epiphany that I’ve been working in the wide format industry for over 30 years. THAT’S A LONG TIME!!!

I’ve worked through the heyday of diazo reproduction and witnessed its decline and demise with the introduction of the first plain paper copiers which were analog at the time.  Then along came digital printing and plotting and things snowballed to where we are today.

But through it all, even back in the days of diazo contact printing, there was always the whisper and warning of the paperless office that threatened to eliminate in one fell swoop the need for printing. But remember, that was 30 years ago!