Zupt January Newsletter

WATCH THIS SPACE			THE BACKPACK TODAY: Send us an email at sales@zupt.com and we’ll send you a brochure on the current pack... Did you know?
for useful information “to and from” the users of Zupt Inertial Products. Look out for our new and improved website! It will soon host more features and will have up-to-date information on all our upcoming events and products. Last fall we introduced a new form factor for our pack… See our web site: www.zupt.com SURVEY NEWS: • GPSeismic v2006.4 is out, and “Zupt” is now an option in the Miscellaneous window. With this new feature, you can create Preplot and Control files for Zupt field software “zing”, and it is 100% supported by Cliff and Rudy.( Preplot and Control files will be similar in format and will have the extension “.zgw”, while Surveyed files will have the extension “.zgs”). • The ION National Technical Meeting is April 23rd in Cambridge, Massachusetts… www.ion.org/meetings • A Chinese map would prove that America was not discovered by Columbus… http://www.news.bbc.co.uk/asia SEISMIC NEWS: It is official; the merger between CGG and Veritas will be completed on January 23d. Log on to www.cggveritas.comfor more details. OTHER NEWS: The head of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries said Tuesday (Jan 16) that the market was oversupplied but ruled out an emergency meeting on the issue as cuts were already planned for February.			• The backpack is waterproof up to 30% of its height. I know some lucky ones who are using it in the swamp this winter (around Liberty Texas…). Try not to get more than your waist line into the water, as a rule… • The top orange lid is made of Kydex® a very resistant plastic, it won’t leak in the rain and is UV resistant. • With batteries for 12h of operations the pack weights less than 39 lbs. The next generation harness has been made thicker and more comfortable, check the difference. • The new lighter Nylon battery pouches contain 2 x Zupt Z2420 Lithium Ion batteries. They deliver 6600mAh at 14.4v. Most users observe that one battery pack works nearly all day. Always have two connected for safety, as loosing power means realignment (!). Ah, and always disconnect the cable from the pouch before changing batteries… • We keep striving to make the pack lighter. Using Bluetooth connection will save you the weight of one cable, the Nylon pouches will also make it lighter… • The new Recon mil spec data collectors made by TDS are running Mobile 5 instead of Pocket PC™.
			This should be roughly transparent to all field users except that the \ZING directory is now in “My Documents”, and the actual software files are in \ZING\Application
IN THIS ISSUE: • News • The Backpack today • Suggestions • Inertial survey tips • Seismic info • The rest of the World			ZEST - A monthly newsletter providing information, tips, insights and com-mentaries on the use of Zupt inertial navigation systems, other inertial systems, and their software, bug tracking, navigation in general, seismic survey, the use of GP Seismic™, and internet links etc… To subscribe, email us at: jg@zupt.com

SUGGESTIONS FOR IMPROVEMENT: We have received many suggestions from GPX surveys, STI and PGS; we are waiting for others… • Doug Wiggill of GPX suggested that we change the structure of the \ZING directory to avoid the accidental deleting of files, in particular software files. This is why the software is now in a subdirectory. We will also save a “special” copy of surveyed files in another subdirectory: \ZING\ZUPT more on that soon. • Tim Coleman –also of GPX- suggests using softer (plastic or rubber) feet for the pack to prevent the scratching of truck seats – does this bother you, as well? On this topic: Make sure the packs never ride on the back of a pickup out of their shipping cases… that would destroy at least one accelerometer and that would be very costly… • Many suggestions from PGS (Don Gaddis, and many others) for example: -The ability to review records (shots) from the Surveyed file… - “Close Zing OK or Cancel” pops up all the time… - The ability to select between multiple waypoint files in the zing application. - Save manually entered data in file so we can create our own control points out in the field with GPS on the go. Needless to say we are implementing all or most of the above suggestions… ...Also, do you really want the operator to have access to the survey file in the field to edit it? We don’t think so…			• John Curkan (G.S. Inc) was the first to observe that when driving at speeds over 65 miles per hour, the unit would not recover and would start drifting uncontrollably even when stopped (it is called a “runaway”). • So if you can’t stop for that amount of time, don’t go too fast, and make sure you update the position to a control point before starting a new line. • Inertial survey from inside a vehicle can be very accurate (at low speed and with a zupt every minute). Tracked vehicle such as swamp buggies are even better as the GPX crews working on the PGS job in Liberty have observed. Such vehicle surveys – even airboat surveys- can be used to establish control on a swamp project. SEISMIC INFO… • For generations the seismic lines have been perfectly straight, going up and down hills on the side of slopes and across the oddest patches of land. The reason for this was that it was the only way the optical (theodolite) surveyor could survey due to the narrow view of his scope. To follow that line littered with logs, the drillers had the hardest time “getting to the stake” which could be in the worst location, sometimes a few feet from a perfectly flat and accessible clearing. No wonder the drillers got into the habit of “moving the stake to the drill hole”…rather than the other way around. The cost of all this was an increased error in the location of the actual shot points. • Because the inertial surveyor doesn’t need “line of sight”, he can take the time to follow the path of easiest access, with less environmental damage, and safest progress, while managing to 1) put the point to within specs of the source line, and 2) deliver the actual coordinates of that source hole with the highest level of precision. • If progress from shot point to shot point is easier on the drillers, then it will also be easier and faster on the shooter, which means dramatically increasing the productivity of the whole crew at shooting time… Save money, save the environment, be safe.
INERTIAL SURVEY TIPS: • We have not fully tested long periods between zupts. We recommend a zupt every minute or so. But PGS surveyors have gone at least 15 minutes in vehicles without stops, and have been able to keep the auto-zupt going (all you need is update to a control point at the end of the trip, and before surveying down the line).			The rest of the world… Funny Research on people tracking at University of Washington www.cs.washington.edu/research/sytems Did you know that inertial technology can be used for positioning of lumber jacks in the woods, navigating first response crews in urban intervention, and foot soldiers in “GPS denied” situations? More on that soon… Useful site of the month (if you want to export one of our products): www.fas.org - PART 123-LICENSES FOR THE EXPORT OF DEFENSE ARTICLES Graphically cool site of the month (high speed connection): www.spine3d.com
Last word This was our first newsletter. If you are interested, we’ll have one every month or two. Please let us know what you would like to see in a newsletter. Send us info, tips, suggestions, links, pictures etc… let us know if you want your questions or comments to remain private or to appear in the newsletter. Circulate it around, and /or give us email addresses of others who would like to receive it. No images? visit our online newsletter @: zupt.com			We will soon install “bug” tracking software on our website: probably “GNATS”, please use it to send us any info, not only on bugs in our software, but suggestions etc… Happy New Year 2007!


Issue 1 - January 2007		www.zupt.com
INERTIAL NEWS