TOTALOPENSTATION(1)

👑 TOTALOPENSTATION 👑

okay so bestie, welcome to totalopenstation — aka Total Open Station 0.3.0 💖 this is the manual, and it's a long one, so grab a snack 🍓

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🌈 FOR USERS

✨ Requirements

TotalOpenStation is written in the Python language. So yeah, you're gonna need a working install of the current version of a Python of your choice. 🐍

Across these pages we're referring to the standard Python distribution.

And obviously we're not out here reinventing the wheel 🙈 so we picked some Python libraries for specific tasks:

• the pySerial library
• the Python Tkinter GUI library, which comes with the standard Python setup

pySerial is needed for downloading data from the serial port (even through a serial-USB adapter).

Tkinter is, at this moment, the thing responsible for the Graphical User Interface. That might change in future releases of Total Open Station. 👀

🐍 Getting Python

If you're on GNU/Linux or a recent Mac OSX, Python should already be installed on your system, so you literally just need to grab the libraries mentioned above.

On Windows, you can get an installer from the main Python website, in the download section.

📦 Getting libraries

Generally speaking, refer to the pySerial website.

🐧 GNU/Linux

Use your package manager (apt-get, yum) and look for a package named python-serial or pyserial and install it. To test whether the installation went fine, open a terminal, start the python interpreter with python and at the prompt type import serial then return. It should say nothing, like this:

>>> import serial

If it complains, something went wrong:

>>> import serial
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
ImportError: No module named serial

and you need to check with your distribution package manager and bug reporting system.

🍎 Mac OSX

The simplest way is probably to install setuptools and use:

easy_install -U pyserial

🪟 Microsoft Windows

The pySerial website has executable installers for various versions of this operating system. As pySerial's documentation says, you will need also the pywin32 library by Mark Hammond.

💅 Installing

There are a few different ways to install Total Open Station, depending on your operating system. If you are on GNU/Linux or Mac OSX, you should already have Python installed on your system. Instructions for Microsoft Windows are below.

🎀 Using pip

Until your operating system's packaging tools (e.g. apt or yum) allow you to install Total Open Station along with other programs, the recommended way to install is using pip, like:

pip install totalopenstation

This will install all the other required Python packages as well. pip is complementary with virtualenv, and it is encouraged that you use virtualenv to isolate your installation:

pip -E tops install totalopenstation

where -E tops creates a virtual environment named tops and installs totalopenstation into it.

Read more about pip at http://pip.openplans.org/ and http://guide.python-distribute.org/pip.html .

🛠️ Manual install with setup.py

If you manually download the source distribution file from PyPI or from the mercurial repository, first make sure you have installed all the required packages. Then, just cd into the uncompressed directory and:

python setup.py install

Again, it's strongly recommended to avoid a system-wide install. Use virtualenv. 🫶

🪟 Windows

There is a binary installer available at PyPI. This requires you to install a Python distribution (latest available is 2.7.1 ‒ do not install Python 3 as we don't support it yet), and the pyserial and setuptools modules.

⚠️ literally do not install Python 3, bestie, we don't support it yet. periodt.

🔍 Getting sample data

Even when your device is not listed among the supported ones, Total Open Station can still be useful, particularly for:

1. finding the right serial connection parameters from an unknown device. You can play with the 8 options and see the results in a text area. Once the downloaded results look good, you can be almost sure that you have used the right parameters, and we can add the tested model parameters to the program database;
2. retrieving sample data from unknown models and submit them to allow support of those models in future releases of the program.

To do this, you can just use the main Total Open Station executable.

WARNING: Remember: Total Open Station is no wizard 🧙‍♀️ and you have to tune the serial port options using your prior knowledge of your total station (e.g. read the manual that came with it, look at other programs' options). No cap.

📖 Glossary

• input format — An input format is the way data downloaded from the total station are encoded. This might include a default order for X, Y and Z coordinates, particular ways of prefixing each point with some distinctive text string and other features. Each input format is unique, and it requires a dedicated module. Input formats are not readable by common CAD or GIS software packages, and it is TOPS's work to export them. These formats have a standard name, either given by the manufacturer or by the TOPS development team.
• model — When we refer to a model we mean all total stations that have the same brand name and manufacturer (e.g. all those labeled “Trimble Geodimeter 600”).
• output format — A format readable by GIS, CAD or any sort of common software, like CSV or DXF.
• serial-USB adapter — While most total stations have a serial interface (port and cable), modern PCs and laptops tend to have just USB ports. In such cases, it is possible to use a serial-USB adapter cable, that enables you to connect the total station to one of your USB ports. Depending on your platform, the device might be identified as /dev/ttyUSB0 or COM5.

👑 Users of Total Open Station

So far, Total Open Station has been successfully used by:

• Università di Siena, Dipartimento di Archeologia e Storia delle Arti, for the excavations at Gortyna and Vignale
• Oxford Archaeology, for fieldwork, using the OpenMoko mobile platform
• Arke_Geomática has blogged about TOPS
• Arc-Team: we have added support for the Trimble “area” format after Arc-Team sent us some sample data
• Università di Padova

If you're in the number of happy users, let us know. 🥰

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🦋 FOR DEVELOPERS

🧚 Models

General concepts

General concepts here about models and abstract classes.

leica_tcr_1205 -- Leica TCR 1205

Description

This is a quite recent total station. Data were provided by Joseph Reeves of Oxford Archaeology.

Connection

• Baudrate — higher than 19200
• Bytesize — 8
• /1/no

Data format

The data format is ASCII, quite simple.

The only thing to note is that data dumps contain both relative and absolute measures.

Other notes

nikon_npl_350 -- Nikon NPL-350

Download is in ASCII format.

Even the brute method cat /dev/ttyS0 > file creates an ASCII file without any problem, so probably the default parameters for the serial port are OK.

zeiss_elta_r55 -- Zeiss Elta R55

Description

This is a quite old device, in use at the University of Siena. The first steps in TOPS development were achieved with it.

Connection

• Baudrate — 9600
• Bytesize — 7
• Parity — None

Output formats

The Zeiss Elta R55 total station can output data in four different formats, only one of which is currently supported:

• if_zeiss_rec_500
• Zeiss R-4
• Zeiss R-5
• Zeiss R-E

Other notes

The hardware interface consists of a serial RS232 cable, that works also with a common serial-USB adapter .

Other models

Unimplemented models can be added to TotalOpenStation.

The best way to have your model included in the next version of TotalOpenStation is to file a support request in the bug tracker and attach some sample data dumps obtained with the Helper application.

If you can write Python code, you can also write a module by yourself using the existing ones as a guide. Should you write a module, we will be happy to receive it and include it in the TotalOpenStation source tree. 💖

SEE ALSO: The contributing page to find out how to join the project and participate actively to the development.

🌸 Input formats

New in version 0.2: Total Open Station supports a number of input data formats, which are implemented separately from the device handling machinery (i.e. downloading data from your total station). This is because one device can output more than one format, and at the same time the same format can be used by more than one device (particularly this is the case for different models by the same manufacturer).

🔎 An overview about input data formats

Generally speaking, data formats can be classified into two large groups:

1. “raw” field data with polar coordinates
2. processed data, with XY(Z) cartesian coordinates

The latter are far more easy to process, because they don't require any computing of measurements.

⭐ XYZ formats

These formats were the first kind of survey data format supported by Total Open Station.

Cartesian coordinates just need to be extracted from ASCII data

💜 Leica TCR 1205

• moduleauthor — Stefano Costa
• moduleauthor — Luca Bianconi

This format is used by the Leica TCR 1205 (and other similar devices), and contains both polar and cartesian coordinates. At the moment, only cartesian coordinates are used to obtain exported data.

Acknowledgements

Support for this format was added thanks to Joseph Reeves, OA Digital.

🎀 Nikon RAW format V2.00

• author — Stefano Costa

This format contains polar data. It is the first polar format supported by Total Open Station.

Data are basically comma-separated values, but each row can have a different format and number of fields. Recorded points are in rows that start with the SS string, while fixed base points start with the ST string.

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okay so this is the actual sample dump, in full, every single line, no skips, do not scroll past it bestie 💀 this is literally what you're parsing:

          CO,Nikon RAW data format V2.00
          CO,FATE2010
          CO,Description:
          CO,Client:
          CO,Comments:
          CO,Downloaded 08-Feb-2010 11:17:17
          CO,Software: Pre-install version: 1.02
          CO,Instrument: Nikon NPL-352
          CO,Dist Units: Metres
          CO,Angle Units: Gons
          CO,Zero azimuth: North
          CO,Zero VA: Zenith
          CO,Coord Order: NEZ
          CO,HA Raw data: Azimuth
          CO,Tilt Correction:  VA:ON HA:ON
          CO, FATE2010 <JOB> Created 04-Feb-2010 13:41:40
          MP,1,,0.000,0.000,0.000,ST
          CO,Temp:20C Press:760mmHg Prism:0 04-Feb-2010 13:47:08
          ST,1,,,,1.430,0.0000,0.0000
          F1,,1.500,,0.0000,110.5344,13:47:08
          SS,2,1.500,8.986,107.9916,102.3376,14:00:04,P
          SS,3,1.500,7.706,110.4894,103.4372,14:00:51,P
          SS,4,1.500,7.620,105.5898,104.3960,14:01:30,P
          SS,5,1.700,7.162,105.5474,103.7754,14:02:48,P
          SS,6,1.500,8.539,105.0304,107.6552,14:04:43,P
          SS,7,0.000,8.318,111.0776,109.4876,14:06:02,P
          SS,8,1.500,7.085,108.6492,101.0370,14:38:22,P
          SS,9,1.500,7.592,112.1108,100.0146,14:38:58,P
          SS,10,1.500,7.616,114.3392,98.3016,14:40:03,P
          SS,11,1.500,8.227,118.5482,97.8578,14:40:53,P
          SS,12,1.500,8.364,111.9586,96.9256,14:41:44,P
          SS,13,1.500,8.233,120.1832,93.9826,14:47:20,P
          SS,14,1.500,7.438,116.4324,95.2816,14:48:15,P
          SS,15,1.500,7.266,115.0854,99.0626,14:49:59,P
          SS,16,1.500,6.622,112.4368,99.6468,14:50:19,P
          SS,17,1.500,7.957,121.7916,93.7194,14:52:29,P
          SS,18,1.500,7.956,134.1078,93.9716,14:53:09,P
          SS,19,1.500,7.515,126.2412,94.4298,14:54:15,P
          SS,20,1.500,6.711,130.6606,96.5976,14:55:03,P
          SS,21,1.500,6.857,118.6338,96.0578,14:56:00,P
          SS,22,1.500,6.433,117.1546,100.2926,14:56:52,P
          SS,23,0.000,8.399,127.3100,103.7122,14:58:30,P
          SS,24,0.000,8.351,128.5522,100.1180,14:59:08,P
          SS,25,0.000,8.270,134.3588,101.1110,14:59:55,P
          SS,26,0.000,8.274,133.8002,104.4368,15:00:26,P
          SS,27,1.500,6.511,124.0842,99.5534,15:03:09,P
          SS,28,1.500,5.974,122.1514,101.6522,15:04:23,P
          SS,29,0.000,8.962,137.1236,98.3588,15:07:38,P
          SS,30,0.000,8.934,136.3310,102.4348,15:08:05,P
          SS,31,0.000,9.184,144.2620,103.4046,15:08:31,P
          SS,32,0.000,9.387,149.0120,103.4142,15:08:59,P
          SS,33,0.000,9.362,148.7352,99.7136,15:09:30,P
          SS,34,0.000,9.219,144.4228,99.5388,15:09:53,P
          SS,35,0.000,7.001,138.7436,114.7446,15:11:07,P
          SS,36,1.500,5.851,131.9558,102.5750,15:22:52,P
          SS,37,1.500,6.328,133.0952,101.2756,15:23:32,P
          SS,38,1.500,5.808,135.2582,104.2262,15:24:29,P
          SS,39,1.500,6.923,134.4702,99.9614,15:25:18,P
          SS,40,1.500,6.879,139.7302,100.1380,15:25:55,P
          SS,41,1.500,7.486,140.0246,98.6866,15:26:40,P
          SS,42,1.500,7.661,135.3510,97.9216,15:28:03,P
          SS,43,1.500,8.199,135.9068,96.7188,15:28:54,P
          SS,44,1.500,8.225,143.5888,97.0652,15:29:50,P
          SS,45,1.500,7.827,145.0258,97.5600,15:31:08,P
          SS,46,1.500,7.860,147.3556,97.3464,15:31:44,P
          SS,47,1.500,8.662,147.2374,95.8390,15:32:27,P
          SS,48,1.500,8.568,144.4556,95.8270,15:33:11,P
          SS,49,1.500,8.729,143.4210,93.5904,15:34:01,P
          SS,50,1.500,8.339,136.3862,93.3592,15:34:38,P
          SS,51,1.500,7.429,141.7392,102.7698,15:36:02,P
          SS,52,1.500,6.913,140.8836,104.3052,15:36:41,P
          SS,53,1.500,7.479,149.9490,103.0626,15:37:25,P
          SS,54,1.500,6.938,149.6110,104.9004,15:38:12,P
          SS,55,1.700,6.718,143.6064,104.5304,15:39:06,P
          SS,56,1.700,6.734,138.1288,104.4754,15:39:44,P
          CO,HT changed at PT=56 Old HT=1.500m
          CO,OLD=56 X-3.787 Y5.548 Z-0.543
          CO,HT changed at PT=55 Old HT=1.500m
          CO,OLD=55 X-4.239 Y5.190 Z-0.548
          SS,57,1.500,6.132,137.6602,109.0124,15:42:43,P
          SS,58,1.500,8.966,150.7654,93.9858,15:44:05,P
          SS,59,1.500,9.739,151.4094,93.7238,15:44:39,P
          SS,60,1.500,9.919,155.4866,95.0466,15:45:26,P
          SS,61,1.500,8.980,152.3926,95.1246,15:46:14,P
          SS,62,1.500,9.107,155.8314,95.5764,15:47:06,P
          SS,63,1.850,9.150,156.6374,93.9602,15:50:12,P
          SS,64,0.000,9.292,157.4092,107.9238,15:52:21,P
          SS,65,1.500,10.059,160.4978,95.4160,15:54:36,P
          SS,66,1.500,9.330,161.8984,97.0678,15:55:51,P
          SS,67,1.500,9.997,161.8576,99.2174,15:56:34,P
          SS,68,1.500,10.786,167.3566,98.9458,15:57:09,P
          SS,69,1.500,10.240,167.1484,99.9180,15:57:48,P
          SS,70,1.780,9.705,169.0404,99.2786,15:59:17,P
          CO,HT changed at PT=70 Old HT=1.500m
          CO,OLD=70 X-8.579 Y4.536 Z0.040
          SS,71,1.500,9.408,162.8840,100.4778,16:00:34,P
          SS,72,1.750,9.183,163.3532,99.4422,16:02:31,P
          SS,73,1.775,9.027,160.3550,99.1590,16:04:06,P
          SS,74,1.900,8.753,160.1354,99.1978,16:05:45,P
          SS,75,1.900,8.437,165.1502,99.4756,16:06:43,P
          SS,76,1.900,8.230,159.7622,99.0878,16:07:33,P
          SS,77,1.500,8.092,155.4420,102.0228,16:08:38,P
          SS,78,1.500,7.861,150.3918,102.1856,16:09:31,P
          SS,79,1.500,8.676,149.3206,100.1448,16:10:12,P
          SS,80,1.500,8.841,154.4180,100.2618,16:11:07,P
          SS,800,1.500,20.726,178.2156,91.7976,16:13:27,P
          SS,801,1.500,21.722,179.8802,92.3712,16:14:05,P
          SS,802,2.550,20.961,179.9716,92.2336,16:18:03,P

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🫶 Acknowledgements 🫶

Support for this format got added thanks to Cynthia Mascione, Università di Siena. Absolute queen behavior, no cap. 👑

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🌸 Trimble AREA format 🌸

The moduleauthors on this one, in order:

• moduleauthor — Stefano Costa
• moduleauthor — Luca Bianconi
• moduleauthor — Alessandro Bezzi

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🦋 zeiss_rec_500 -- Zeiss REC 500 🦋

This one is the OG, bestie — it was the very first format Total Open Station ever supported. And for historical reasons, its documentation is way more extended than every other format's docs. So yeah, it's extra. But that's lowkey a gift to you, because the step-by-step procedure below is genuinely useful for anyone who wants to hack on TOPS itself. 🛠️

💅 Step-by-step download procedure 💅

Back when the first tests were happening, it was found useful to collect all the steps. Good news: the program goes through them automatically, so you're just here for the lore. ✨

>>> import serial
>>> ser = serial.Serial('/dev/ttyUSB0', \
    baudrate=9600, bytesize=serial.SEVENBITS, timeout=0, \
    parity=serial.PARITY_NONE, rtscts=1)
>>> ser.open()

At this point you have to start the download from the device menu. Once that's finished, it's good practice to control if you've actually received any data:

>>> ser.inWaiting()
648L

A non-zero result means something has been downloaded. Good enough. 💅

That number can be saved to a variable and passed as parameter to the read() command:

>>> n = ser.inWaiting()
>>> result = ser.read(n)

The result object is a string that contains our data:

>>> print(result)
   0001 OR.COOR
   0002                   0S        X        0.000 Y         0.000 Z     0.000
   0003                                            Om     397.0370
   0004 POLAR
   0005 INPUT                       th       1.500 ih        0.000
   0006 INPUT                       th       0.000 ih        0.000 Z     0.000
   0007                   1         X       -0.472 Y         1.576 Z     0.004
END

So far, we can say that the downloaded file contains this information:

• OR.COOR: but I don't know if this line can take other values too
• origin point defined by the OS string followed by its X, Y, Z coordinates
• orientation angle Om: are these gradiants?
• POLAR: but I don't know if this line can take other values too
• INPUT: are there always two INPUT lines?
  • th
  • ih
  • Z
• points, expressed as N (starting from 1), X, Y, Z
• END: after this line no more data

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🎀 Other formats 🎀

Unimplemented formats can be added to Total Open Station. Like, that's the whole vibe. 💖

The best way to have your format included in the next version of TotalOpenStation is to file a support request in the bug tracker and attach some sample data dumps obtained with the Helper application.

If you can write Python code, you can also write a module by yourself using the existing ones as a guide. And should you write a module — we will be so happy to receive it and include it in the TotalOpenStation source tree. 🫶

🔗 SEE ALSO 🔗

The contributing page to find out how to join the project and participate actively to the development.

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🌈 Adding a new input format 🌈

There are hundreds of survey data formats out there. One by one, we will get them added into Total Open Station. Here's a general process that defines some minimum requirements when implementing new formats.

📄 Documentation 📄

Always write documentation for the format. Add a new document in the docs/input_formats/ directory of the source tree with a bare description, including:

• raw (polar) or processed (cartesian) format
• fixed-position based or fluid -- this changes the way the parser should work
• which devices or manufacturers use this format
• name of contributors

Shortcomings of Total Open Station that the format exposes shouldn't be hidden, but rather made explicit both in code and documentation. No sweeping it under the rug, bestie. 🙈

🍓 Sample data 🍓

Never commit support for a new format without including the relevant sample data in the sample_data directory. Generally speaking, sample data files should follow these simple rules:

• quality is better than quantity, so prefer a smaller file with many different corner cases rather than a larger file with a bulk of ordinary data
• multiple files are OK, if they serve the purpose of showing different issues with the format
• files should be named with the same name of the Python module that implements the format, using a .tops extension, like topcon_gts.tops for a format implemented in a module named topcon_gts.py -- this will allow for simple automated tests

💻 Code 💻

When you have fulfilled the two previous tasks, you can start writing code (or at least you should pretend doing that). New code is always better than old code, because you have learned better programming techniques, or because you are more confident with Total Open Station. Writing tests for your code isn't (yet) required, but it's highly encouraged. Don't break current practice.

All code implementing new formats should not break the existing API. Changing the API should be done at the scale of the entire library, to take into account the many different needs of each format and parser. The development of Total Open Station is not in a stable shape, so expect the API to change in future versions. However, please understand that a new format parser is not the right place to do that. 💅

Experiments are welcome. Mercurial allows for easy branching: you are encouraged to clone our repository and go crazy with new features, formats. 🔥

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👑 Contributing 👑

Total Open Station is free software, released under the GNU General Public License v3 or (at your option) any later version.

Ok bestie, so the whole project is tracked with Mercurial, which is a fast decentralized version control system. You literally don't need it installed unless you wanna get in on TOPS development — but please do it anyway, fr fr. The main dev repository lives on bitbucket, and it's super easy to fork the source code there for your own lil experiments. 🧪

The suggested way to contribute? Send patches using the Mercurial patchbomb extension to the development mailing list. That's the vibe. 💌

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✨ Coding standards ✨

We try to follow as much as possible PEP-8. (yes, the whole thing, we're doing our best ok 😭)

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🗺️ Roadmap 🗺️

🌱 Present 🌱

Total Open Station is at version 0.2, which is an alpha release. She's baby. She's growing. 🍼

🚀 Near Future 🚀

Total Open Station 0.3 will be released by June 2011. Planned features include:

• more responsive download dialogs
• more solid internal data format

🌈 Future 🌈

Our plans for Total Open Station are focused on different areas of user experience and development practices. We envisage future versions based on concepts like:

• seamless integration with geospatial data software
• dedicated layout for intensive survey use
• enhanced mobile experience
• supporting always more devices and formats

If you have an incredible idea on how Total Open Station should look like, let us know! 👑 We are so serious, your idea could be the moment.

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📚 INDICES AND TABLES 📚

• genindex
• modindex
• search

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©️ COPYRIGHT ©️

2008-2011, Stefano Costa, Luca Bianconi

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And that's the whole page, bestie — you made it to the end 🫶 This was version 0.3, dated July 31, 2014, and it's the TOTALOPENSTATION(1) manual. Go forth and slay your survey data. 💅✨