Distance Azimuth Survey

Introduction

This lab we collected azimuth.  Azimuth is the angle from your origin point.  This means that some of the points collected had very high azimuth and some had very low azimuth.  This measurement can go up to 360 degrees.  In figure one each of the three origin points have all of the azimuth lines coming from it.  The origin points are all located in the center of the point sets.  Data was collected for ten trees from each of the three origin points. 

Study Area

The area that was surveyed consisted of three different points along Putnam trail.  From these different points, 10 trees were surveyed.  These ten trees we looked at distance and azimuth from our starting point, type of tree, and also the DBH (Diameter at Breast Height).  The group I was with took our points at the same point we started at as a class.  This would be the middle set of points (Figure 1).  This area was located at the bottom of the UWEC stairs. 

.

Methods

The data that was collected for each point consisted of DBH, Azimuth, Distance from starting point, and tree type.  This data was measured using a compass tool and lasers.  The lasers measured the azimuth and the distance from where you are standing.  There is a small lens that must be looked through and the crosshairs needed to line up on the tree you wanted.  This laser would then tell how far this tree is from the origin point, while also collecting the azimuth information.  The compass that was used had a small lens to look through to calculate the azimuth.  The students then had to measure the distance to the tree they were trying to plot.  This unit was more up to the student to find a precise measurement.

The data that was collected included X,Y coordinates for the origin, DBH, azimuth, distance, and the tree type.  This data was collected to show what attributes went to which point.  This also makes it easier to tell which tree is being shot.  As the person was shooting the point collecting the azimuth and distance measurements, another student was collecting the DBH data.  This was collected using a tape measure that took the circumference measurement and transferred this into a Diameter value.

Azimuth is very important for sailors and ships.  They use this same kind of data, but they use it in the sky and calculate azimuth from certain stars.  Some say that azimuth is like a horizontal angle measured around a fixed origin point in a clockwise fashion.  The benefits of this method are that not many tools are required.  Although this is true there is technology that can calculate azimuth much more accurately.

In creating the map some issues were encountered.  Two of the origin points were not in the right location.  This was overcome by recalculating the X,Y coordinates to put the origin in the correct spot.  Some of the issues we faced in the field were visibility.  There were times a student wanted to collect data of a certain tree but could not due to the other trees in the way.  To calculate different data points, another origin point would have to be created.               

Figure 1:  Map shows the three locations where the ten points were collected.  This data was gathered along Putnam trail and near the bottom of the campus stairs.  The cars are in the new Davies Center parking lot, while the track is behind McPhee on upper campus

Results

The data that was collected was accurate, except for the X,Y coordinates.  This data had to be played around with to get the points where they needed to be.  The coordinates of these points are not extremely accurate, which then makes the map inaccurate.  The map shows the representative distances to the trees that were reviewed.  If the origin was moved, the distance to these trees is off.  All the data was collected, but in the future we will need to be more careful to have this data be more accurate. 

Conclusion

This tool could be extremely beneficial to someone often sailing the seas.  It is not as important to me.  This is a very interesting way to find data.  This shows a very precise location of where you got the data that was collected.  Depending on the angle, you can tell which direction the data came from.  This method is very interesting, but somewhat impractical to me.