STAR*NET for Land Surveyors - Step by Step Guide with Hot Tips

We surveyors can be an odd bunch. We don't wince at

spending $40,000 for a one-second robotic total station, $60,000 for a set of the newest generation RTK receivers, or $120,000 on a 3D scanner.

After all, we want to provide the best accuracy possible to our clients.

But when it comes to spending a few grand on software that will allow you to get the most out of your $200,000 investment, now those purse strings tighten?

Maybe it's the idea of spending on something less tangible or the straw that broke the camel's back.

But if I was starting up a survey company on a shoestring budget,

I can guarantee the last thing I would cut

from that budget is the software I rely on to adjust my survey data in such a way that I know I'm getting the most accurate results possible

given the data I have in obtaining a level of confidence in my data not possible with less rigorous adjustment methods.

I'm talking about least squares adjustment software and what company is generally accepted as the king of the hill when it comes to least squares adjustment?

That would be Microsurveys Starnet. Now I already have several videos on Starnet explaining why I

recommend using it, some of the unique features it has, and how you can use it to combine different measurement types.

But today we're going to go through exactly

how to perform an adjustment in the software step

by step so that even if you've never used it

before, by the end of today's video you should not only be able to successfully adjust your survey data but hopefully have a better

understanding of what's going on during the adjustment process.

Besides just a typical project walkthrough,

I'm also going to highlight some tips and tricks along the way that have picked up over the years and some new ones that were given to me from some of the experts over at Starnet.

If you're currently exporting points out of your data

collector as is with no post-processing or even relying on simplistic adjustment methods such as the compass rule adjustment,

Do yourself a favor and stick around for this video.

In today's video, we are going to run through some data I collected a couple of weeks back.

In the field, I set up my total station

on an assumed coordinate and orientation and

ran a relatively short traverse of about 1600 feet or 500 meters around a few buildings at a public park down here in Wintergarden, Florida.

I returned the next afternoon to take some RTK

measurements using Florida's public GNSS reference station network, the FPRN, run a level loop and make some additional total station ties to tighten up the traverse.

This site will actually be used in an upcoming video where I'll be setting up a friendly traversing competition between any local survey crews that wish to participate.

participate. So if you're local to Central Florida and

would like to get together and hopefully teach me some of your techniques that you've learned over the years, have a friendly competition and chat about surveying, send me a message on LinkedIn.

There are a lot of nuances to how one

can traverse and by directly comparing a

variety of methods, equipment choices, and techniques on the same site under the same conditions, maybe some conclusions will start to make themselves apparent

and we can all learn a little and benefit from it. Enough talk, let's jump into Starnet and process some data.

We'll start off by opening Starnet and creating a new project.

A default DAT file is created automatically every time you make a new project.

A DAT file is basically just a text file that Starnet can read, often containing input data for your survey network.

They can be toggled on and off in the file tree on the left side of the screen. When toggled off, they will be excluded from the adjustment.

They can also be moved up and down using these arrow keys, and by doing this, you can change the order in which the data is processed.

This default DAT file currently has no effect on the network adjustment because the text contained within it is currently turned off, so to say.

Not through checking or unchecking that dat file in the files

tree, but these comment symbols or hashtags are essentially telling Starnet to treat the line they preface as a comment and not actual input data.

The shortcut to add or remove the comment symbol is

shift 3, which can be applied one at a time, or you can highlight multiple lines of text and use the shift 3 to comment them all out at once.