Learning Center

The Survey screen

Every part of the Survey screen: the stats bar (Distance, Points, Start Elev, Current Elev, Drop, A→B Grade), the status pill, the map, the Ready to Survey guided overlay, the profile chart and the Survey sidebar buttons.

In the app Pick a workflow card › sidebar Survey

The Survey screen records the ground along your run. You drive the route with the blade up and the app logs a point every Recording Interval, drawing the track on the map and the ground profile underneath. It is the same screen in Ditching, Simple Grading, Tiling, Terracing and Excavation; only the design button in the sidebar changes name. How to run a survey from start to finish: Survey a route.

Before you start

  • A workflow card is picked on Home (Ditching, for example) and the tablet is connected to your kit, or to the simulator to practise.
  • Blade height is set (Set blade height). The app asks the first time if it isn't.
  • Reading this page takes about five minutes. It names every part of the screen; you don't need to memorise it.

Open the Survey screen

Choosing New Survey after you connect opens it. To come back to it later, tap Survey in the sidebar: the second big button down the right-hand edge, with a triangle icon. It is grey until a workflow card is picked.

Home with a workflow active; in the sidebar on the right, the second button, Survey, with a triangle icon, is black and ready to tap.
  1. Survey. Second button down the sidebar.

Before you record: Ready to Survey

When you start a New Survey, a white card called Ready to Survey sits in the middle of the map and checks that you're ready. The profile chart under the map is empty and says No survey points collected.

The Ready to Survey card: green ticks for Connected, GPS: RTK and RTK: Stable with a full bar at 100%, the line Drive to the start of your drain route, a big green START SURVEY button, and a Skip guided flow link under it. 1 2 3 4
  1. Readiness. Connection, fix, and how steady RTK has been.
  2. What to do now. Here: drive to the start of your drain route.
  3. START SURVEY. Starts recording.
  4. Skip guided flow. Hides the card; use the sidebar's Start instead.
  • Connected / Not connected.
  • GPS: RTK (or the fix you have). With RTK Filter on, anything but RTK keeps START SURVEY grey, and the card says why, for example Waiting for a GPS position fix. or that RTK Filter is on and your receiver reports DGPS.
  • RTK: Stable, Settling or Unstable, with a bar for how much of the last few seconds was RTK Fixed. Wait for Stable.
  • A prompt for the job: Drive to the start of your drain route (or Drive the channel bottom from inlet to outlet / Drive the berm top, parallel to the channel in Terracing).

The first time, with blade height not set, a Set Blade Height window opens over this screen, and an orange Blade Ht 0 — antenna level chip shows on the map until you set it. See Set blade height.

While recording

The screen has four parts: the white bar across the top (numbers and badges), the map, the profile chart along the bottom, and the sidebar of big buttons on the right. While a survey records, a red pill in the middle of the top bar says so, and orange dots trail behind your pink arrow on the map.

The Survey screen while recording: numbers across the top left, a red pill reading Recording Survey (43 pts) in the middle of the top bar, the GPS, BM, Wi-Fi and wrench badges on the right, an orange dotted track behind the pink arrow on the map, the ground profile along the bottom, and the sidebar with a red Stop, Drive selected, Pause, Slope-IQ, and Reset and Load greyed.
  1. Status pill. Red while recording, with the point count.
  2. You and your track. The pink arrow is you; each orange dot is a logged point.

The survey stats

The numbers at the left of the top bar, each with its name in small grey letters under it:

The survey numbers: 464.1 Distance (ft), 43 Points, 809.44 Start Elev (ft), 808.50 Current Elev (ft), 0.94 Drop (ft), and 0.20 A→B Grade (%) in a box.
Partway along a run: 464.1 ft surveyed, 43 points, 0.94 ft of drop, an average grade of 0.20 %.
  • Distance (ft): length surveyed so far.
  • Points: points logged.
  • Start Elev (ft): elevation of the first point.
  • Current Elev (ft): the elevation where you are now, in the same frame as the points you're logging.
  • Drop (ft): start elevation minus current elevation. Positive means you're downhill of the start.
  • A→B Grade (%): the average grade from the start to here.

Units follow the UNITS card in Settings. The badges on the right are explained in Stats bar and badges.

The status pill

  • Recording Survey (43 pts), red: logging points as you drive.
  • Survey PAUSED (45 pts), amber: Pause is on; nothing is logged and the skipped stretch will show dashed.
  • Shot Survey (61 pts): Shots mode; a point is logged only when you tap Log Point.
  • In Terracing it names the line you are surveying (channel or berm).
  • After you save or load a survey, the pill shows the survey's name, for example Survey 10-16 2358 (Ditching); the name also sits in a green box in the sidebar above the design button.

When paused, the pill turns amber and the sidebar's grey Pause becomes an orange Resume:

The Survey screen paused: an amber pill reading Survey PAUSED (45 pts) in the top bar, and in the sidebar an orange Resume button where Pause was.
  1. Survey PAUSED. Drive past the obstacle.
  2. Resume. Logging carries on; the gap is bridged with a dashed line.

Guided recording

If you started with START SURVEY, a small dark bar at the bottom of the map shows the point count and a STOP button, and the sidebar has Pause but no Stop. While recording, Reset and Load are greyed.

  1. Tap STOP at the end of the run

    The white STOP in the dark bar at the bottom middle of the map.

    A dark bar at the bottom of the map: a green dot, 16 pts, and a STOP button. 1
    1. STOP. Ends the survey.
  2. Check the name and tap Save

    A window called Save Survey? shows the points, distance and grade, and a Survey Name you can change (tap the box to type). Tap the green Save, or Discard to throw the survey away. In the guided flow, saving a Ditching survey goes straight into the Slope-IQ™ design steps.

    The Save Survey? window: Points 82, Dist 2559 ft, Grade 0.141%, a Survey Name box reading South 40 main ditch, and the buttons Discard and Save. 1 2
    1. Survey Name. Tap to change it.
    2. Save.

A survey with fewer than 2 points is dropped without a Save window.

The map

  • Pink arrow: you, pointing the way you are heading.
  • Orange dots and line: logged points. Big orange dots joined by a dashed line are shots.
  • Thin green line: your GPS track, everywhere you've driven this session. On its own (no orange dots) it shows where you were paused or not recording.
  • Cyan flags: saved benchmarks.
  • Dark square buttons at the bottom right of the map: LiDAR height check, layers, orientation, follow GPS. See Map controls.
  • Zoom: pinch two fingers apart or together on the map (how to pinch).
The Survey screen; at the bottom right of the map, a column of four dark square buttons: a height arrow, layers, orientation and follow GPS.
  1. Map buttons. Height check, layers, north-up / track-up, follow GPS.

The profile chart

A side view of the ground along the run, START on the left, END on the right, elevation up the side and distance along the bottom. It fills in as you drive and stays when you load a saved survey. To make it taller, put your finger on the short grey bar on its top edge and drag up.

  • Solid green line: surveyed ground.
  • Dashed stretch: a gap you paused over, or between shots; the app fills it with a straight line.
  • No survey points collected: nothing recorded yet.
Part of the profile chart after a pause, between 400 and 700 ft: the solid green ground line, a straight dashed stretch where the survey was paused, then the solid line again; a short dark grab bar on the top edge. 1 2
  1. Dashed stretch. Where the survey was paused.
  2. Grab bar. Drag it up to make the chart taller.
Reading the profile chart The profile chart along the bottom of the Survey and Grade screens is a side view of the run, START on the left, END on the right, elevation up the left side and distance from START along the bottom. 1: the green line is the surveyed ground. 2: the dark orange line is the design. 3: the hatched tan band between them is cut still to do. 4: the bold dashed orange line is this pass's target with Auto-Nudge, labelled PASS 1. 5: on the stretch already graded the green line drops to the surface you cut and the original ground stays as a faint grey line. 6: blue shading is fill, where the ground is below the design. 7: the dashed vertical line and black triangle mark your position and blade. 8: START and END are the two ends of the survey. Reading the profile chart START END 804.8 806.1 807.4 808.7 810.0 PASS 1 0 500 1.0k 1.5k 2.0k 2.5k ft 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
The profile chart is a side view of the run. On the Survey screen it shows only the ground (1) and START and END (8); on the Grade screen it adds the rest, as drawn here partway through pass 1.
  1. Surveyed ground. The route as you drove it (green).
  2. Design. The target grade (dark orange).
  3. Cut. The hatched band: what's still to cut down to the design.
  4. PASS 1. This pass's target with Auto-Nudge, in bold dashes; later passes show as faint dashes. A nudge draws a dashed line labelled PASS.
  5. Worked surface. Where you've graded, the green line drops to the surface you cut. The original ground stays as a faint grey line.
  6. Fill. Blue: the ground is below the design.
  7. You. The dashed line and the black triangle: your position and your blade.
  8. START and END. The two ends of the survey. Distance along the bottom counts from START.
  • IQ Survey / Field Survey: map with the profile chart, or a full-height map without it.
  • Start / Stop: begin and end recording (when the guided card isn't up). Stop opens Save Survey?.
  • Drive / Shots: log by distance, or one point per tap.
  • Pause / Resume (Drive): skip an obstacle without ending the survey.
  • Log Point and Grade Check (Shots): take a shot; read the grade between two shots.
  • Slope-IQ (Tile Design in Tiling, Grade Design in Simple Grading): design from the survey.
  • Reset: clears survey, design, grading progress and coverage (Reset All?) and returns to Home with the workflow still active; saved files stay.
  • Load: saved surveys and designs.

Every button in detail, with pictures: Sidebars: the Survey screen.

In Shots mode the sidebar swaps Pause for an orange Log Point and a Grade Check button:

The Survey screen in Shots mode: the pill reads Shot Survey (61 pts); in the sidebar Shots is selected, with an orange Log Point button and a Grade Check button under it.
  1. Shots (selected), Log Point and Grade Check. Point 63 logged confirms a shot; Grade Check reads the grade between two shots.

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