Surveying Principles & Applications

Rating:
Summary: Not for Beginners
Review: I have been a Civil engineering Instructor for the past five years and have used this text also. The text is quite handy for the intermediate to advanced level of Civil Engineeering students. This text should not be used for the beginner due to it's higher level of content. If this is to be used for the introductory level, the instructor should have a copy only and use it a guide. More students in the introductory phase wash out after reading a few chapters.

Rating:
Summary: Not for Beginners
Review: I have been a Civil engineering Instructor for the past five years and have used this text also. The text is quite handy for the intermediate to advanced level of Civil Engineeering students. This text should not be used for the beginner due to it's higher level of content. If this is to be used for the introductory level, the instructor should have a copy only and use it a guide. More students in the introductory phase wash out after reading a few chapters.

Rating:
Summary: Good reference
Review: I've been teaching from this book for five years, so I'm obviously prepared to endorse it. I have required it for both civil engineering technology and civil engineering science students, although it is most useful to the former.

Several competing texts in surveying are in their ninth (or greater) editions. Ordinarily in academia, this is a testament to the staying power of the author's work. The surveying profession, however, still relies upon texts that have long out-lived their original authors, who have since retired or passed away (e.g., Bouchard, Brinker, Brown).

In the area of boundary control and legal principles, the seminal ideas of Brown are still the standard. In measurement techniques, however, much has changed. Tape corrections, for the typical civil engineer, have been relegated to an obscure niche in surveying trivia. GPS and GIS should be separate and substantial chapters in a good general surveying reference. Current general tomes, however, are far from the cutting edge.

Kavanagh and Bird have provided in their fourth edition a description of GPS that amounts to 12 pages. GIS is afforded even less space. The text remains a good practical reference for civil engineers on traditional topics, without digressing into treatment of esoteric subjects, but as GPS continues to make inroads to the mainstream of measurement technique, and GIS becomes the standard by which surveying models will be constructed, the demand for a fifth edition that gives these topics expanded treatment will increase.