Yesterday we used our Sokkia SET 530R3 total station to map nearly 2500 feet of a dirt road with a change in elevation of nearly 75 feet. That's an average grade of 3% - pretty good. This required one traverse. I've decided I'd rather map a mile of interstate than 1/2 mile of dirt road: no stripes, hard to discern road edge, just a transition into a ditch on both sides. It could have been dustier though. The weather around here has been reminding me of the 4 years I spent in Seattle. Back to the dirt road: There's about 15 elevations that could be mapped across the road for any given cross section: tree/grass edge, outter top edge of ditch, outside bottom of ditch, inside bottom of ditch, inner top edge of ditch, road edge, wheel trough, and center line gets you half way. If you do that every 100 feet for 2500 feet, that's 375 points not counting accident viscinity evidence like debris, tire marks, gouges, etc. And then the school buses started going by......Gary Johnson
