If you’ve invested in machine control technology, congratulations on embracing a more efficient and productive way to get to grade! However, your purchase is only the first step in the process of reaping the benefits – to really take it to the next level you need to ensure that you fully understand it, and for that you would be well advised to put yourself and your team through a machine control course to learn the ins and outs of your new system. Machine control courses such as those run by the Campus team at Aptella, give you a thorough background knowledge of what machine control technology is, how it works, the various components used on the machine and the
Coastwide Civil is the primary contractor on a complex harbour excavation project at Shellharbour, on the NSW south coast. The new boat harbour forms part of the Shell Cove development project and, upon completion, will include 300 wet berths and a platform for associated harbour-side development and facilities on the 20-hectare site. Scott Rogers is Head Surveyor and a Director of the company, which specialises in marine and civil contracting and is based in Albion Park, south of Wollongong, New South Wales. Scotts’ survey team recently made its first venture into aerial mapping with an Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) and is experiencing significant time savings and improved project documentation as a result. The company also uses Tokara Link telematics to remotely manage
Adam McCaull, Survey Manager with Le Mottee Group in Raymond Terrace, north of Newcastle is one of two winners of Aptella’ Topcon Hybrid competition. The other winner was Queensland surveyor Matt Watterson, of Max Watterson and Associates. Le Mottee Group, which carries out all types of survey, planning and engineering work across the Hunter and Mid North Coast regions, recently purchased a Topcon Hybrid package for its survey team. This package incorporates a Topcon DS-200 robotic total station, a Topcon HiPer SR GNSS receiver, a Panasonic FZ-M1 7-inch tablet data collector, a one-year AllDayRTK CORS network subscription and MAGNET Field software. “This is the first piece of Topcon equipment we’ve purchased, and we’ve been very pleased with it
Topcon Positioning Group announces the release of the newest edition to the GLS line of laser scanners — the GLS-2000. Featuring an expanded field of view, the GLS-2000 is designed to pair with ScanMaster v3.0 software for quickly capturing and processing 3D point cloud data. “The GLS-2000 is the fastest and most versatile scanning system in its class,” said Charles Rihner, vice president for the Topcon GeoPositioning Solutions Group. “With a scan range of more than 350 meters, the GLS-2000 is capable of accurately capturing long-distance measurements in applications where access is limited due to safety or logistics concerns.” Heath Low, Scanning Systems Product Manager for Topcon’s Australian distributors, Aptella, said that the GLS-2000 is a true survey-grade
We explore the current situation with grader machine control in Australia, the different options available and why there is still so much to be gained from the technology. In Australia, the uptake of machine control for graders is high compared with other markets around the world, with between 15-20% of all machines fitted with some form of the technology. However, when compared with the 95% of new machines that now come fitted with basic machine control from the factory, there is still an enormous number of graders that are operating in this country without any form of machine control. The fact that almost all new graders are fitted with machine control tells us that the benefits of the
At this year’s Topcon Xperience, an annual event that brings together Topcon’s resellers from North America, South America and Australasia, Aptella was awarded Top 10 Dealer for Construction and Top 3 Dealer for Emerging Business, which includes products such as the IP-S2 mobile mapping system and Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS). The event takes place in October/November each year in the US and is run as both an information exchange across Topcon’s distribution network as well as a thank you to Topcon’s dealers for their contribution and input during the year. Hosted at the Sawgrass Marriott resort in Ponta Vedra Beach, Florida, the region is famous for hosting the PGA event known as The Player’s Championship (TPC). A little known
Topcon Positioning Group has released a new software add-on that enables seamless workflow between Autodesk AutoCAD Civil 3D engineering software and Topcon software solutions including MAGNET. Topcon eXchange is a software add-on designed to save time and eliminate re-work by converting AutoCAD Civil 3D design data into files compatible with Topcon 3D construction solutions as well as MAGNET Office, Field and Exchange platforms. The Topcon eXchange add-on is designed to provide a workflow for office staff to export original 3D design data for use in field applications including survey and earthworks. “Topcon eXchange enables civil engineers and CAD experts to send their Autodesk designs direct to the survey team for use in setout and machine control applications, with
Brian Rogers is a Senior Surveyor with RPS Group, based on the Gold Coast, Queensland. He recently made the transition to Civilcad MAGNET Office from an old version of Civilcad, and found that with a little training from Aptella he was up to speed in no time. “I’d used Civilcad from its very early days, back when I was working in local government,” Brian explained. In 2002, Brian’s team moved many of its projects to Carlson software, as at the time it worked better with AutoCAD. “We never upgraded our Civilcad licences past version 5,” he said. “We still have a number of projects that are running on version 5.” It was only when taking on a project
