COGO Functions

Hello,

Are there any surveyors out there still interested in developing COGO functions for LibreCAD? I'm proficient at C programming, and I know some C++ and Java. I'm a field surveyor, and I work for a small land surveying company in Orlando, FL.

Regards,

Mark

I think Joe is from FL as well:

forum.librecad.org/The-Beginnings-of-Land-Survey-Functionality-within-LibreCAD-td5707884.html#a5708503

MNH wrote

Hello,

Are there any surveyors out there still interested in developing COGO functions for LibreCAD? I'm proficient at C programming, and I know some C++ and Java. I'm a field surveyor, and I work for a small land surveying company in Orlando, FL.

Regards,

Mark

Thanks for the reply! I tried to contact Joe using contact information from one of his posts, but couldn't. I'm brand new to LibreCAD and this forum. My primary concern right now is using LibreCAD to help me keep track of the points I locate in topographic surveys. The survey I'm doing right now is in an area with very thick vegetation and some large dirt piles. There's also a small stream running through it. I need to be able to download a CSV file from my data collector into LibreCAD. It would also be helpful to create grid lines at a specific interval to guide me through the survey. Right now I'm working on a fifty foot grid.

Joe has setup his project at:

projectphoenixofflorida.com

If you would like to do a little c++ coding. Something like the asciifile plugin( plugins/asciifile/ , within LibreCAD source folder) could be used to load CSV files to LibreCAD.

ASCII file plugin

MNH wrote

Thanks for the reply! I tried to contact Joe using contact information from one of his posts, but couldn't. I'm brand new to LibreCAD and this forum. My primary concern right now is using LibreCAD to help me keep track of the points I locate in topographic surveys. The survey I'm doing right now is in an area with very thick vegetation and some large dirt piles. There's also a small stream running through it. I need to be able to download a CSV file from my data collector into LibreCAD. It would also be helpful to create grid lines at a specific interval to guide me through the survey. Right now I'm working on a fifty foot grid.

Hi Mark,

I'm Greg and I'd be pretty well interested in giving it a shot.

I am also currently working as a field surveyor in New Zealand on a large highway project: http://www.nzta.govt.nz/projects/mackays-to-peka-peka/

It's fun because we are using a lot of machine control, setting out bridges and roadway, and doing a heck of a lot of topo as well. While we utilize a lot of software packages to handle all the data generated I've always been intersted in getting into the programming side of things.

I've taken a course in C++ and have taught myself little pieces here and there over about a year and a half. Tried a few other languages as well but really am just interested in programming, mathematics, and survey in general.

Anyhow, I'll try and get in touch as suggested on the forum here, but it's Christmas and I've only just come across LibreCAD last night.

Looking forward to perhaps get a chance to speak with you and even better still help write some bits of code.

-Greg

Hi Greg,

Since many people already found the relevance of land survey to LibreCAD, I think it's desirable to add support from the LibreCAD side.

It should be evaluated whether we can pull in some existing libraries to start.

For myself, I'm totally ignorant on land survey, but I can help with implementation, or simply a help hand for you to start.

Regards,

dxli

GregM wrote

Hi Mark,

I'm Greg and I'd be pretty well interested in giving it a shot.

I am also currently working as a field surveyor in New Zealand on a large highway project: http://www.nzta.govt.nz/projects/mackays-to-peka-peka/

It's fun because we are using a lot of machine control, setting out bridges and roadway, and doing a heck of a lot of topo as well. While we utilize a lot of software packages to handle all the data generated I've always been intersted in getting into the programming side of things.

I've taken a course in C++ and have taught myself little pieces here and there over about a year and a half. Tried a few other languages as well but really am just interested in programming, mathematics, and survey in general.

Anyhow, I'll try and get in touch as suggested on the forum here, but it's Christmas and I've only just come across LibreCAD last night.

Looking forward to perhaps get a chance to speak with you and even better still help write some bits of code.

-Greg

dxli,

Thanks for the offer of assistance. It looks like just scanning the older threads on a keyword search for "survey" that there has been a little interest in the idea here already. That's a good thing.

I've only done a short bit of casting around for what Joseph_OC has already accomplished and it seems that he might have got a bit done in the way of set up with some sites, github and opengis website. But that there might not be much code to go on yet.

I think the right track might be to #1 download LibreCAD and have a look at the functionality that it already has, and then perhaps as you suggested, do a wider search to see what existing libraries for survey functions might already be out there. (Though I have researched this shortly in the past a more in depth search might be useful.)

So, I'll go away and do these two things and come back with what I learn.

_Greg

Hello Greg,

Okay, let's get together on this! I will be very busy for the rest of the year, so maybe in January we can begin.

Regards,

Mark

So far not much luck with finding survey specific libraries that are open source.

There is a guy doing a c library of cogo functions that can be purchased for around $25USD, and then built upon and distributed royalty free. But that just seems a bit of a waste and perhaps murkey waters for an open source distro.

A more promising, but perhaps bit too advanced for the current objectives, open source library exists for doing surface and TIN computations. This one is called GTS Library.

Perhaps a useful thing to do for the meantime might be to identify some key features that would be ideal to implement first? Some sort of requirements type draft up to give a little guidance in the sort of endpoint of a survey package.

This is Joe OConnor of Project Phoenix of Florida that is again in the process of trying to put a team together for COGO Survey Functions in LibreCAD.

My current contact info.

joseph.ocfl@gmail.com

or

joseph@projectphoenixlabs.com

please contact me regarding this topic.  

561-502-3514

Hi,

I will help in the process.

Cheers,

dxli

joseph wrote

This is Joe OConnor of Project Phoenix of Florida that is again in the process of trying to put a team together for COGO Survey Functions in LibreCAD.

My current contact info.

joseph.ocfl@gmail.com

or

joseph@projectphoenixlabs.com

please contact me regarding this topic.  

561-502-3514

Dear Dr. Li;

I am very enthusiastic about this effort.  I am going to contact a Professor of Civil Engineering at Perdue University about helping out with our efforts.  In particular, I had contacted him back when and he sounded very enthusiastic about such a project.  I will start attempting to contact him on Monday.  His name is Steven Johnson at steven@purdue.edu.

Thinks are starting out very good.  I will be in touch.

Best Wishes,

Joe O'Connor

Yep.

I'm still on board with this as well. Had a short stint fiddling around with implementing some cad features in C# for the last month or so and came to the conclusion my Linear Algebra skills needed some brush up before tackling 3d geometry. But I'm keen to go on this in any capacity that might be helpful.

-Greg

hi Greg,

I work on math/geometry a lot for LibreCAD. I think I should be able to help on this part.

Regards,

dxli

I feel we are ready to enter the Planning Stages.  I received questions form Sum Lin, the co-auther of "The COGO Book", along with Professor Charles Miller from MIT and Founder of CLM/Systems, Inc., who was the developer of CEAL Cogo in the early days of main frames.

I received the following comment/qustions from Sum:

"Sounds interesting.  I am happy to help. What is the purpose of the open source COGO project?  To  create a library of COGO functions?  For what audience?"

Regarding a planning stage: I uploaded the following pdf file:

tru-strategic-planning-best-practice2.pdf

Where do we go from here?

I am one for reading and I read this planning document and extracted the uploaded page.  

I hoping we can comment upon the bullet points, as I will in subseqent posts.  

Joe