<p dir="ltr">I was just going to let this go, but since people I've never met and who weren't there seem to have developed opinions about what I do or don't understand:</p>
<p dir="ltr">First, I never worked with Steve--on that point he is mistaken. I never met him until years after I had done my stint as a guide for the GIS crew, so whoever he remembers "running off exploring" wasn't me or the other guide from 1998. We stayed close to the crew as a matter of safety.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Whatever procedures were developed in later years, the crew I worked with was brand new at the time, and had little-to-no direction from management on which features were significant enough to map, how close was "close enough," or how to deal with anything large, unapproachable, or densely clustered--which ended up being a good chunk of what we were sent to inventory.</p>
<p dir="ltr">Certainly no process remotely approaching the sophistication of what Steve discussed was in play. There was no effort to correct for how close we could stand to a given feature.</p>
<p dir="ltr">This was, all-around, a case of rookie staff having to make calls in the field as best they could.</p>
<p dir="ltr">On top of that, the equipment was finnicky, and at times it took upwards of 15 minutes to get signals from enough satellites to map a single point. Those were early days for non-military GPS.</p>
<p dir="ltr">I don't mean to detract from the careful work, sweat, and tears that went into the project over the succeeding decade-plus, or from the overall quality of the final product--and I apologize to Steve and the rest of the GIS Lab staff if I offended them with my hyperbole.</p>
<p dir="ltr">But I do stand by my assertion that lingering data from 1998 (if any was allowed to stand) could explain some bad coordinates in the mix, and, for reasons I don't feel like getting into on a public forum, I also stand by my right to be snarky about it.</p>
<p dir="ltr">David Schwarz<br>
</p>
<div class="gmail_quote">On Nov 12, 2013 7:45 PM, "Steven Krause" <<a href="mailto:S_Krause@mchsi.com">S_Krause@mchsi.com</a>> wrote:<br type="attribution"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000">
<div>Never give up data. <br>
<br>
Rounding simply increases your error. That lat/long position may
only have an accuracy of 5m, but if you discard another 200mm of
precision, you've degraded your measurement permenantly.<br>
<br>
Add in coordinate system conversions, which usually degrade the
number a bit more.....<br>
<br>
Steve Miller's post is a good technical description of what was
done and explains how you triangulate in on a feature you can't
touch. It's a moderately common practice even with high precision
RTK equipment. <br>
<br>
As an aside: Lack of understanding of another profession is never
a good excuse to snark.<br>
<br>
Steve Krause<br>
<br>
<br>
On 11/11/2013 2:17 PM, <a href="mailto:TSBryan@aol.com" target="_blank">TSBryan@aol.com</a> wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite">
<font color="#000000" face="Arial">
<div>I seem to recall that Mike Keller accompanied the SCA
people during some of the mapping program. If so, maybe he can
elucidate us as to just how and why certain survey positions
were chosen. (Example 1: Were the coordinates always taken at
[say] the southernmost extreme of a feature? Example 2: Were
the coordinates always determined at some specified distance
away from the edge of a feature? etc.]</div>
<div> </div>
<div>All this kind of stuff in mind, where is the justification
for coordinates cited to 7 (seven ! ) decimal points? Strikes
me as vast overkill. At Yellowstone's latitude (and with this,
I'll stick to latitude because it's a bit easier), one degree
of latitude is equivalent to just about 69.055 miles. That is
364,610 feet. Multiply that by 0.0000001 gives 0.0364 feet,
and that means these coordinates are supposedly accurate to
within a touch more than 0.43 inch. Really?</div>
<div> </div>
<div>Scott Bryan</div>
<div> </div>
<div>
<div>In a message dated 11/11/2013 10:30:07 A.M. US Mountain
Standard Tim, <a href="mailto:david.schwarz@alumni.duke.edu" target="_blank">david.schwarz@alumni.duke.edu</a> writes:</div>
<blockquote style="PADDING-LEFT:5px;MARGIN-LEFT:5px;BORDER-LEFT:blue 2px solid"><font style="BACKGROUND-COLOR:transparent" color="#000000" face="Arial">As a
result, many of the coordinates that year were only taken
within roughly the same long-distance dialing area as the
feature being mapped. Obviously, it doesn't matter how
accurately the equipment pinpoints your location if you're
not particularly close to what you're trying to map.</font></blockquote>
</div>
</font>
<br>
<fieldset></fieldset>
<br>
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</blockquote>
<br>
<br>
<pre cols="72">--
Steven Krause
Chillicothe, IL
</pre>
</div>
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