Best-Fit Computing - COLUMBUS Network Adjustment Software



Quick Tips for Using COLUMBUS

State Plane Coords

Calculating State Plane coordinates following a 2D/3D Geodetic adjustment

For the quickest way to calculate State Plane coordinates following a 2D/3D geodetic adjustment, do the following:

  1. Load your network into COLUMBUS.

  2. Set up your State Plane Zone, if not already done (from the Options menu, select Projection Zones | State Plane Zones).

  3. Perform your network adjustment (see the Quick Tip topic, Network adjustment in six steps).

  4. From the Results menu, select the Adjusted Network View. This will set the context for using the current adjusted geodetic coordinates.

  5. From the Tools menu, select Transformation | State Plane <--> Geo.

  6. Click the Compute button and select the stations you wish to transform by clicking on the station name(s).

  7. To keep the newly computed coordinates into memory (so they can be saved to a COLUMBUS input file, exported or used in another area of COLUMBUS), click the Keep button.

Hint: Before exiting COLUMBUS, save the station data to a COLUMBUS data file for future use.

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Calculating State Plane coordinates from Geodetic coordinates and Geodetic coordinates from State Plane coordinates

To calculate State Plane coordinates from/to geodetic coordinates, do the following:

  1. Run COLUMBUS.

  2. From the File menu, select New.

  3. From the Options menu, select Datums and select the datum to be active.

  4. From the Options menu, select Projection Zones | State Plane Zones.

  5. Select your State Plane Zone or create a custom zone.

  6. Click OK.

  7. From the Data menu, select Stations.
    • For Geodetic to State Plane:
      1. Select the Geodetic grid and enter the geodetic coordinates for each station.
      2. Click Keep and Exit.
      3. From the View menu, select either 2D Geodetic or 3D Geodetic.

    • For State Plane to Geodetic:
      1. Select the State Plane grid and enter the State Plane coordinates for each station.
      2. Click Keep and Exit.
      3. From the View menu, select 2D or 3D State Plane.

  8. From the Tools menu, select Transformation | State Plane <--> Geo.

  9. Click the Compute button and select the stations you wish to transform by clicking on the station name(s).

  10. To keep the newly computed coordinates into memory (so they can be saved to a COLUMBUS input file, exported or used in another area of COLUMBUS), click the Keep button.
Hint: Before exiting COLUMBUS, save the station data to a COLUMBUS data file for future use.

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Creating a custom Projection Zone in COLUMBUS

COLUMBUS supports State Plane zones for the entire United States. You simply need to select the zone required from a pulldown list in the Projection Zones | State Plane Zones dialog.

COLUMBUS also supports any of the four Projection types used throughout the world (Lambert Single Parallel, Lambert Double Parallel, Transverse Mercator and Azimuth Equidistant). To set up a user-defined projection zone for one of these projection types, do the following:

  1. Run COLUMBUS.

  2. From the File menu, select New.

  3. From the Options menu, select Projection Zones | State Plane Zones.

  4. Select one of the first four zones displayed in the list.

  5. Click OK. A new dialog box will appear in which you must enter the parameters for the projection type selected.

    • Latitudes should always be positive in the northern hemisphere.
    • Longitudes are positive in the eastern hemisphere.

    Click on the Help button for more information.

  6. Click OK.

The customized zone is now configured and active.






Network Adjustment and Coordinate Transformation
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