surveyorsim.com · field notes, page 1

A working survey crew, in your browser

Set up the total station over the mark. Run the rod. Turn angles, tape a line, keep the book — and close the loop knowing every hundredth of misclosure is yours. SurveyorSim is a scientifically accurate land surveying simulator: real instruments, real field procedure, and a real error model underneath all of it.

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free to play · no install · runs on a Chromebook

Through the total station telescope: crosshairs centered on a prism. The instrument's LCD panel sits at the middle of the left edge, level with the crosshairs, carrying the live Hz and V circle readings and the reduced distances; a strip above the glass confirms the target is centered. — F1 · Hz 16°41'57" · V 90°02'44" · SD 104.405 m — on the BM-2 prism, centered. Check it: BM-1 to BM-2 is 16°41'57" over 104.403 m.

№ 1

Who's on the crew today?

pick your page —

For instructors

Every student runs the instrument

One lab kit can't teach thirty students at once. Give each of them a full instrument set, publish assignments with real tolerances, and grade against the ground truth — the sim knows the true elevations because it built the terrain.

Read the instructor's page ▸ For students

The whole kit is yours

Set up over the point, run a level loop, keep the book, close the traverse — as many times as it takes. Whether it's practice before lab day or your course runs entirely online, the instrument in front of you is a real one.

Read the student's page ▸ For sim players

The most honest machine in sim gaming

If you love flight sims, train sims, or farming sims, this is that — for the instrument that measured every property line you've ever crossed. Real optics, real math, multiplayer crews, and a closure number that is entirely your fault.

Read the player's page ▸

№ 2

What's in the kit

everything below is simulated, not skinned

A total station with faces, circles, and settings menus — DMS readouts, angle-right workflow, Face 1 ⇄ Face 2, EDM measurement modes, prism constants, atmospheric ppm you set from a thermometer and barometer you read yourself.
An automatic level and a 25-foot rod whose face is drawn to exact graduation geometry — you read hundredths by eye, wave the rod through plumb, and book the minimum.
A 100-foot engineer's chain with a ring of eleven chaining pins and the real tally discipline.
A data collector in the SurvCE mold: station setup, sideshots, traverse, D/R sets, stakeout, on-board COGO, and raw-file processing with compass-rule adjustment.
The field book — ruled left page, graph right page, no-erase corrections, and a sketch you draw yourself.
A magnetic locator and a shovel, because half of surveying is finding what the last crew left in the ground.

The field controller open beside a set-up total station, showing its task chooser: Set up, Measure, Stake, COGO and Job, with a status rail down the left and six softkeys below. A rodman waits in the distance. — the instrument, the rod, and the collector — station stored over BM-1, backsighting BM-2

№ 3

The part nobody else builds: the error

Guided instrument setup, step 3 of 5: centering over the point with the optical plummet inset visible in the corner, tripod straddling a benchmark disk. — step 3 of 5 — the plummet doesn't lie, and neither does the vial

Most "educational" software shows you a procedure. SurveyorSim gives you an instrument with the textbook's whole systematic-error chapter running underneath: collimation you can cancel by shooting both faces, an EDM with a zero offset and a scale error, a compensator with a residual, curvature and refraction bending your long level shots, and a rodman whose breathing sways the rod until the call goes out to brace it.

Every world is seeded. Same seed, same terrain, same error sequence — so a class can compare misclosures, an instructor can grade against truth, and when your loop doesn't close, the reason is in your notes.

Turn the error model to Zero and every instrument constant and per-shot draw goes to zero, for exact textbook demos — with one deliberate exception, curvature & refraction, which is geometry rather than an error and so applies at every level. Turn it up, and it becomes the field.

— the one setting that changes everything

№ 4

By the numbers

booked, checked, initialed

instrument systems modeled

0.01 ft

you read the rod to

1.00 ft

stadia intercept @ 100 ft — exact

gradeable classroom exercises

crew roles, live multiplayer

to play, in any browser

Third-person view of the observer walking toward a tripod-mounted total station in an open field, with the minimap and HUD controls visible. — heading to the instrument — the rodman's already out there

The digital field book open to a data spread: ruled columns on the left page, a graph sketch page on the right with drawn shapes and a north arrow. — left page for the numbers, right page for the sketch

The expanded site map: a plan view of the survey site with the crew and control points marked. — the site in plan view — pan, zoom, get your bearings

The field is open

No account, no download, no tutorial gate. The tripod is fifty feet ahead of you.

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