SurveyorSim

student guide · getting started

Getting into your class

You need two codes and a PIN you choose yourself. That is the whole system — there is no password to invent and no account to create. This page takes you from there to your first measurement: signing in, getting out onto the site, setting up the instrument, and taking a shot. If something has gone wrong, skip to the end.

№ 1

Your two codes

one is yours, one is everyone's

People mix these up. The sign-in box does catch it — type a 6-character code into the personal box and it will say so — but knowing which is which once is faster than being corrected twice.

Your personal code — 8 characters

H7QM2PXR

Yours alone. Your instructor either hands you a printed slip or emails it to you. It is what proves the seat on the roster is yours, and you use it every single time you sign in. Do not pass it to a classmate — anyone holding it can sign in as you.

The class code — 6 characters

AB3K9Z

The same for everybody in the class. Your instructor usually puts it on the board. It is also printed on your slip and in your email, and it is inside the sign-in link if you were sent one. It says which class — on its own it lets nobody in.

It can change. Because it is public — on a board, in a photo — your instructor can replace it at any time. When they do, the old one stops working straight away, along with any sign-in link they emailed you earlier. Your personal code is not affected. See when something has gone wrong if that has happened.

The short way. If your instructor emailed you, the link in that email already carries the class code, so clicking it skips straight to the box that wants your personal code.
№ 2

The first time you sign in

you choose the PIN
  1. Open the classroom and choose I'm a student. (Or click the link in your email, which skips the next step.)
  2. Enter the class code — the 6-character one.
  3. Enter your personal code — the 8-character one. The screen then greets you by name.
  4. Check that the name is yours. If it is not, use Not you? Use a different code rather than carrying on — you would be claiming someone else's seat.
  5. Choose a 4-digit PIN. You are making this up right now; nobody issued it. Pick something you will remember, and do not use a classmate's.
  6. Press Claim my seat. That seat is yours from then on.
Keep the slip or the email. You need your personal code at every sign-in — the PIN alone is not enough. It stays the same unless your instructor resets your PIN, which issues you a new code at the same time.
№ 3

Signing in after that

same codes, plus your PIN

Every later sign-in is the same three things: the class code, your personal code, and the PIN you chose. The button says Sign in rather than Claim my seat once the seat is yours.

On a computer you share — a lab machine, a library desktop — use Sign out on this device when you finish. Closing the tab does not sign you out, and the next person to open it would be looking at your class.

№ 4

Getting out into the field

the sim itself

Once you are in, your class page lists whatever your instructor has posted. Open an assignment and it takes you to the site set up for it, with the task on screen.

The practice site seen over your avatar's shoulder: open grass, scattered trees, a total station on its tripod over a survey mark with a marker board beside it, and a second crew member holding a prism rod just beyond it.
what you arrive to — nothing is set up for you

If nothing is posted yet, Open the simulator (free play) gives you the full kit on a practice site — the same instruments, no grading. It is the right place to get used to the controls before a graded lab. When you want to go back, the simulator's opening screen carries a Back to my class button.

Each assignment is one kind of exercise, and the walkthroughs say what each one asks of you. One of them sends you to a subdivision with its recorded plat: a plat retracement, where you find the lot corners, set a new iron rod where a corner is missing, and tie orange flagging on a rod that has moved.

№ 5

Your first setup

nothing is set up for you

On a graded site there is no instrument standing ready: you carry one out and set it up, in that order, the same as on a real site. Free play is different — it starts you with a total station already on its tripod over BM-1, so you can get straight to the setup itself. The picture above is free play, which is why there is one standing in it. A subdivision is the exception: it has no BM-1 or BM-2 and no instrument standing ready. It carries its own four tract corners, T1–T4: the two with a coordinate sign are the control you are given, the other two are there to check, and you carry the instrument out to them.

The interact menu open beside the tripod, listing numbered actions: Set up instrument, Remove total station, Move tripod, Take chain, Place tripod, Place mark and Place lath. A green bar at the bottom reads E, Tripod T-1 over BM-1, total station.
stand next to any piece of kit and press E — everything in the sim starts here
  1. Stand at the mark and press E to open the interact menu. Choose Place tripod — it plants where you are standing. There is no truck to walk back to; your kit is always with you.
  2. Press E once more and mount the instrument on it. The guided setup panel opens by itself.

For a total station the panel walks you through five steps: spread the legs, rough-level, centre over the mark with the plummet, fine-level on the footscrews, and measure your height of instrument. Every read carries a small error, so press Measure again for a second read: the panel keeps the mean of the heights you measure and says how many reads it holds.

Each tripod is planted with its plummet near the mark, but its head is not level. Changing a leg's length tips the head and runs the bubble, but it does not move the plummet's point on the ground, so level with the legs first. The slide then finishes the last centimetre or so. If the slide runs out of travel, pick the tripod up and plant it again.

Not sure what to do next? Press Hint, at the foot of the panel between Next and Close. It tells you your next move in words and marks the control to use, when that control is on the panel. Where there is a rule behind the move, it shows that too, with where to read more. In free play the button is on. In an assignment it is there only if your instructor switched it on, and they can also set it to glow when you seem stuck — its tooltip then reads "Stuck? A hint can help".

The guided setup panel at step 3 of 5, Center over point: the round optical plummet view at the top, the Slide instrument controls beneath it — up, down, left and right nudges with a Fine toggle — and the cue “mark left — slide left”. Along the foot of the panel: Back, Next (greyed out), Hint and Close.
the setup walks you through it one step at a time — this is centring over the mark
An automatic level's setup is shorter, and the panel says so — it counts Step 1 of 2 instead of Step 1 of 5, and when the bubble is in it tells you "bubble centered — compensator active". It is legs and bubble only — no plummet, no fine levelling, and no height of instrument to measure. The compensator does the rest, but only once the bubble is inside the circle: its range is ±15′, and a level leaning further than that tips its line of sight, which balanced sights do not cancel. If you are hunting for the plummet step at a level, it is not there and nothing is wrong.
You cannot sight through an instrument that is not set up. The eyepiece is simply not offered until the panel is finished.
№ 6

Your first shot

find it, then centre it
  1. Get to the eyepiece. At a total station press T. At an auto level walk up to it and use the interact menu — the level has no hotkey.
  2. Find the target with the rough sight first. Press V to swap to it. The telescope's field of view is far too narrow to search with, and hunting through it is the single most common way to waste ten minutes here.
  3. Swap back to the telescope with V and centre the crosshairs. Drag to aim, arrow keys for the last of it.
  4. Press Measure. It is the on-screen key under the display — there is no keyboard shortcut for it. Click it, or Tab to it and press Enter.

The shot lands in the Shot Log by itself. It does not land in your field book — you write that yourself, and on a graded leveling assignment the book is what gets marked. Your records explains why that distinction costs people marks, and which record is marked on the other exercises.

The telescope eyepiece: crosshairs on a distant prism, with the instrument's LCD showing horizontal and zenith angles, the slope distance, and the Measure key.
through the telescope — the numbers on the LCD are what the instrument is reading right now
Shoot both faces — on a traverse. Plunge the telescope with F1⇄F2 and shoot again. Reduce face 2 before you mean it. Its horizontal circle reads about 180° more than face 1, and its zenith about 360° minus face 1's — so the two raw numbers cannot simply be averaged. Face 1 at 88° and face 2 at 268° average to 178°, which is not your angle. Mean the reduced pair: that cancels the instrument's index error, and its collimation too if the backsight was also shot on both faces (BS Face 2 before you store the setup) — a mean cancels collimation only in a direction seen on both faces. The difference left between the faces is your check on the pointing — two careless pointings can still mean to a tidy-looking number. Not on topo. Detail shots are single-face work.
№ 7

Reading the screen

two names, one measurement

The instrument display uses the manufacturer's labels and your field book uses the textbook's. They are the same measurements.

The Shot Log panel listing one recorded shot: point BM-2 on face F1, with columns for horizontal angle, zenith angle, slope distance, horizontal and vertical distance, instrument and reflector heights, and northing, easting and elevation.
every shot lands here by itself — and not in your field book, where copying what matters is your job
On the instrumentIn your bookWhat it is
HzHAThe horizontal angle — the circle reading.
VZAThe zenith angle. 0° straight up, 90° horizontal.

The rest of the readout is distance: SD along the sight line, HD flat, VD up or down.

Long sights read low, at every error setting. The earth curves away and the air bends your sight line, so a distant target of equal height appears below level. That is geometry, not a fault in the instrument, and it is there even on Zero. Correcting it is your job — balance your backsight and foresight distances, or apply the correction by hand.
№ 8

When something has gone wrong

most of it your instructor can fix in seconds

"It says my code isn't recognised."

Check which box is complaining before you check anything else — the two codes fail in completely different ways, and the fixes have nothing in common. If it is the personal-code box, this is usually the two codes swapped: the class code is 6 characters and that box wants your 8. If it really is your personal code, ask your instructor to look it up — they can see it and reprint it, and doing so disturbs nobody else in the class. If it is the class-code box, read the next paragraph rather than counting characters.

"The class code doesn't exist any more — and my instructor gave it to me."

Your instructor has replaced the class code, which they can do at any time because it is public. That is not a mistake on your part and nothing is wrong with your account. The old code died the moment they replaced it, and so did any sign-in link they emailed you before then — which is why a link from your own instructor can lead to "no class with that code". Ask them for the new 6-character class code, or watch for a fresh email. Your personal code and your PIN are unchanged, and so is all of your work.

"I've lost my slip."

Ask for another. A reprint gives you the same code back, so there is nothing to re-do and nothing else changes.

"I've forgotten my PIN."

Use Forgot your PIN? on the sign-in screen. That flags it for your instructor to see next time they open your class — it does not email anyone, so tell them too if your lab is sooner than that. They will reset it and give you a new personal code: the old slip stops working, which is the point. Your work stays exactly where it is.

"It greeted me with somebody else's name."

Do not continue. Use Not you? Use a different code on that screen, or This isn't me — sign out and start over if you are already in. Then check you are holding your own slip rather than a neighbour's.

"I'm not on the roster at all."

Tell your instructor your name is missing. Adding you takes one line and produces your slip; nobody else's code changes.

“It says too many wrong PINs.”

After five wrong PINs in a row the seat locks for fifteen minutes. Nothing is broken and nothing is lost — the clock simply has to run down, and the screen's “try again in a few minutes” is understating it. Forgot your PIN? does not unlock it either; that only flags your instructor. If your lab is happening now, tell them — a PIN reset clears the lock immediately.

What your instructor can and cannot see. They can look up your personal code and reset your PIN. They cannot see the PIN itself — nobody can, including us. That is why a forgotten PIN is a reset rather than someone reading it back to you.