Open Source Survey & GIS Manual

This document was produced at Oxford Archaeology North after development of new on-site survey and GIS methodologies applicable to any archaeological project.

It is meant to supply an easy-to-understand but comprehensive guide to survey and open source GIS, from setting up survey equipment to downloading and processing survey data. The manual is intended for speeding-up, or annihilating the training procedure and providing a guide to survey to field staff in case no professional surveyor is on site. An inexperienced member of field staff should, by following this manual step-by-step, be able to set up a Total Station or a GPS, conduct survey and download and process the survey data, given a certain amount of time.

Procedures are explained in detail with screenshots and photographs where appropriate and guides to troubleshooting and examples for data maintenance are provided. The manual is written in such manner that it can easily be adjusted for individual sites' survey requirements. Chapters can be extracted easily and supplied individually.

Versions exist for use on site with a robotic Leica TCR1205 Total Station together with a remote control unit as well as without remote control, and survey with a Leica GX1230 (backpack) GPS and a Leica RX1250XC GPS.

The First Edition of this manual, published in December 2009 is based on the use of the first gvSIG OA Digital Edition (http://oadigital.net/software/gvsigoade).

The Second Edition, published in March 2010 has been adapted to the use of gvSIG OADE 2010 (http://oadigital.net/software/gvsigoade/gvsigoade2010beta), based on gvSIG 1.9 (recommended).

The author of these manuals would be grateful for further feedback on its usability, contents and layout. She is employed by OA North as a Supervisor in Geomatics and contactable via email: anna [dot] hodgkinson [at] thehumanjourney [dot] net