The Global Positioning System is finding its way into the surveying and mapping field at an incredible rate. Be prepared with GPS for Land Surveyors, a book written by a land surveyor, for land surveyors. Useful for any surveyor interested in GPS, and for engineers and others who want to enhance their knowledge of GPS technology. From fundamental theory to practical application and advanced technologies, the book covers GPS without being saddled with pages of complicated maths, yet it is not over simplified. This user-friendly manual gives you all the tools needed to understand and use GPS in everyday practice. In a concise format, this book teaches the basics of GPS technology, common hardware, surveying methods, survey design, planning and observation, and new chapters have been added on RTK and DGPS. To help the reader fully apply the practical advice in the book, each chapter has helpful review questions and answers. This feature will be particularly useful for seminar teachers, academic instructors and students.
Jan Van Sickle has more than forty-five years of experience in GIS, GPS, surveying, mapping and imagery. He began working with GPS in the early 1980s when he supervised control work using the Macrometer, the first commercial GPS receiver. He created and led the GIS department at Qwest Communications for the company's 25,000-mile worldwide fiber optic network. He also led the team that built the GIS for natural gas gathering in the Barnett Shale. He has led nationwide seminars based on his three books, GPS for Land Surveyors, Basic GIS Coordinates and Surveying Solved Problems. The latter book was serialized in the magazine POB. His latest book will be Geomatic Engineering for McGraw Hill. He led the team that collected, processed and reported control positions for more than 120 cities around the world for the ortho-rectification of satellite imagery now utilized in a global web utility. He managed the creation of the worldwide T&E sites for a major earth observation satellite which are used for frequent accuracy assessments. He created an imagery-based system of deriving road centerlines that meet the stringent Advanced Driver Assistance specifications and developed a method of forest inventory to help quantify that depleted resource in Armenia. He assisted the supervision of the first GPS survey of the Grand Canyon for the photogrammetric evaluation of sandbar erosion along the Colorado. He has done 3D mapping with terrestrial photogrammetry and LiDAR as well as Building Information Modeling. He was involved in the creation of a BIM of very prominent buildings in Washington DC. He was a member of the team of authors for the recently created Geospatial Technology Competency Model for the Department of Labor. He has recently conducted two days of training at the NAVCEN in Alexandria for the USCG. He has recently provided technical assistance in the reconstruction of the geodetic network of Nigeria. He has been a featured speaker at many conferences including MAPPS, GITA, the Institute of Navigation (ION) Annual Meeting and the ESRI UC where he delivered the keynote of the Imagery and Remote Sensing section. He is a Senior Lecturer at Penn State University. He was formerly on the board of RM-ASPRS and was the vice-chairman of GIS in the Rockies. Jan earned his Ph.D. in GIS engineering from the University of Colorado. He has been a licensed professional Land Surveyor for thirty-one years and is currently licensed in Colorado, California, Oregon, Texas and North Dakota
