I apologize in advance if this post shows up twice, but I thought I posted a few minutes ago and the post is not showing up.
Here is my situation. I am new to this forum and new to surveying. I am an engineer with a good bit of experience in the land development and construction industry.
My wife and I bought 50 acres to develop our home and an equestrian facility for her to ride.
I had my land development engineering firm do a site layout in AutoCAD showing existing roads and utilities, as well as my new roads/driveways, buildings (house, barn, riding arena), and pastures.
My goal is to be able to stake out all the various items on the drawing so that I can begin my land clearing and dirt work.
I wanted to do this myself to try to save a little money since I will needs many hundreds of things stakes over the course of the next year, and having surveyors come out dozens of times seemed like it would be expensive.
I bought the Trimble Catalyst DA2 with centimeter level subscription and Trimble Penmap with subscription
I am struggling with what to read or do to get started. I am typically good with these types of things. I have done numerous engineering and site development projects over the years. So far I uploaded the CAD file to Trimble Business center. It seems to have geo located the drawing. I saved it as a project.
I would like to be able to see the CAD drawing in PenMap so that I can stake the various items (and mark appropriate elevations for cuts and fills). But I also see that you can upload CAD files directly to Penmap (which I haven't tried to do yet). I also see something called Trimble Connect that I started reading about. I am getting a little confused, and its clear that this equipment and software has an immense amount of capability, some of which I probably will not need. Bottom line is that I just need a little guidance of what I should be doing and reading and what I do not need to worry about learning. Was I correct to upload my CAD file to Trimble business center, or should I have uploaded directly to Penmap? Any guidance would be appreciated. I can post my CAD file or the Trimble Business Center project if needed.
Thank you for any help you can give!
Greg