This course aims to provide an understanding of graphical and spatial concepts and skills of plane surveying for students of the built environment, who are not intending to study higher courses in surveying. The course develops problem solving skills in relation to practical surveying problems and group work and technical report writing skills. The course includes the South African co-ordinate system; introduction to reduction of observations to a reference surface and projection to a mapping surface. Joins, polars, error, traversing, theodolite and level instruments and their calibration, height determination by levelling and trigonometric heighting, distance measurement, tachaeometry and map creation and interpretation, GIS as a tool for representation and analysis of spatial data, construction surveying: setting out of horizontal works and vertical alignment, calculation of volumes from plan, introduction to GPS as a data collection tool.

*Course content subject to change