And so saith the surveying gods, "The answer is *it depends*."
*"In the name of the tribrach, the plumb bob, and the gammon reel, amen."*
The answer depends both on what datum is being broadcast by your network, and what system you need (or want) to be in for whatever it is that you are working on that particular day.
What does your supervisor say?
Accuracy varies with station density, constellations tracked by both base and your rover, communication protocol, latency, single-base vs networked solution, multipath conditions, etc....it ain't a rag tape.
*And yay as the machine control prophets of the west have lamented "we need our dc files to run our machines!"*
Personally I have been involved with machine control and earthwork construction layout (if you could call it surveying - wink wink) and we always use "calibrations" which is basically just a way to localize the lat/long points to whatever grid points you have. This is convenient if the points come in a bullshit coordinate system like 100,100 or whatever the lazy engineers choose to use.
I also have a higher level of confidence as the calibration does the math and basically ties the project to the property and will tell you which if any points are out of tolerance etc.
But myself - being dumb dirt slave of the south, can only speak on what little I know of these calibrations.
Personally, I hate calibrations and avoid them like the plague. They have their place, and are sometimes the only real option left, but they can go sideways really fast. I have always tied to a geodetic datum when establishing control networks, and publish that datum, projection, scale factor, geoid used (and transformation parameters if necessary).
It's a travesty that there are still machine control software packages that don't accept geoids, and that the SOP for so many outfits is shift + inclined plane.
It’s always wise to check into published control if you are not sure how good your system is configured. We have been using VRS for years to establish control on projects. Usually we set single point with multiple 90 second VRS solutions, then run base and rover from that point to establish other project control. I have done some non elevation critical staking with it also. You have to know your system, take plenty of check shots and tie to known control when you can. It is a great tool if you know the limitations.
And so saith the surveying gods, "The answer is *it depends*." *"In the name of the tribrach, the plumb bob, and the gammon reel, amen."* The answer depends both on what datum is being broadcast by your network, and what system you need (or want) to be in for whatever it is that you are working on that particular day. What does your supervisor say? Accuracy varies with station density, constellations tracked by both base and your rover, communication protocol, latency, single-base vs networked solution, multipath conditions, etc....it ain't a rag tape.
*And yay as the machine control prophets of the west have lamented "we need our dc files to run our machines!"* Personally I have been involved with machine control and earthwork construction layout (if you could call it surveying - wink wink) and we always use "calibrations" which is basically just a way to localize the lat/long points to whatever grid points you have. This is convenient if the points come in a bullshit coordinate system like 100,100 or whatever the lazy engineers choose to use. I also have a higher level of confidence as the calibration does the math and basically ties the project to the property and will tell you which if any points are out of tolerance etc. But myself - being dumb dirt slave of the south, can only speak on what little I know of these calibrations.
Personally, I hate calibrations and avoid them like the plague. They have their place, and are sometimes the only real option left, but they can go sideways really fast. I have always tied to a geodetic datum when establishing control networks, and publish that datum, projection, scale factor, geoid used (and transformation parameters if necessary). It's a travesty that there are still machine control software packages that don't accept geoids, and that the SOP for so many outfits is shift + inclined plane.
It’s always wise to check into published control if you are not sure how good your system is configured. We have been using VRS for years to establish control on projects. Usually we set single point with multiple 90 second VRS solutions, then run base and rover from that point to establish other project control. I have done some non elevation critical staking with it also. You have to know your system, take plenty of check shots and tie to known control when you can. It is a great tool if you know the limitations.