Octo for total stations, levels and adjustment
What comes off the data collector is text or XML: Leica GSI, Trimble JobXML, Carlson RW5, Sokkia SDR. Octo reads dozens of files at once, checks each traverse against the tolerance your office adopts, adjusts the network by least squares in two programs and controls leveling section by section. Rejecting an observation, going back to the field, accepting the job and signing the ART or TRT stay with the licensed professional.
Six possible deliverables, drawn from the research. All of them work on a copy of the field files and all of them go to review by the person accountable for the survey.
Reads GSI8, GSI16 and JobXML from an entire folder, unit by unit, and writes a single spreadsheet with station, target, angles, distances, heights and a warning per line.
Deliverable: standardized spreadsheet + list of warningsAngular and linear misclosures against the tolerances the technical lead sets for the job, and Bowditch adjustment, traverse by traverse.
Deliverable: one line per traverse, WITHIN or REVIEWBuilds the network for GNU Gama or for the STAR*NET your office already licenses and checks it with an independent script: global test, normalized residuals and ellipses.
Deliverable: residuals report and suspect pointsChecks sightings, setups and, when the field book has the stadia readings, all three wires; compares leveling and reverse leveling section by section against the adopted leveling tolerance and distributes the error between benchmarks.
Deliverable: table by section + adjusted heightsComputes side-shot points with instrument and prism heights, lists those with no redundancy and computes area by the Gauss formula, stating the coordinate system.
Deliverable: coordinates + area summaryCopies the field files to a dated folder, records the SHA-256 of each one and leaves the copy read-only. The original raw data is never edited.
Deliverable: campaign folder with hashesThe same Octo cycle, applied to the total station and the level. Each arm has a narrow role; the ones who reject observations, accept the survey and sign the ART or TRT are people.
Station and level models, data collectors, recorded formats, the licensed adjustment program and the spreadsheets the team already uses.
Units (gon, degree, foot), angle conventions, local survey plane or projection, control monuments and official benchmarks.
Raw files read-only with hashes. Owner names and property data assessed with the client (LGPD, Brazil's data protection law) before going to any external service.
A custom script for triage; GNU Gama, STAR*NET, Columbus or JAG3D for the deliverable; simple adjustment or least squares depending on the network.
Python with the source of each formula noted and a test case taken from an already approved survey.
Redoes an already approved survey and compares two adjustment paths. A difference above 1 mm becomes a question, not a tweak to the numbers.
Reports and spreadsheets go to the project folder. Octo sends nothing to the city, the registry or any other agency.
Adopted tolerances and who approved them, rejected observations and the field reason given by the surveyor.
Octo works on a copy of the field files and in a support role. It does not accept surveys, does not discard measurements on its own and does not issue or sign an ART or TRT: that belongs to licensed professionals.
The criteria Octo uses to choose, always with the standard and the client's contract in hand.
| Task | Path | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Read GSI, RW5, SDR33 | Custom script or Total Open Station | Read the unit word by word |
| Read JobXML | xml.etree with the header's XSD | JXL from Business Center comes without observations |
| Read DBX or Topcon format | Export from the collector or the vendor's software | No public specification confirmed |
| Traverse closure | Script against the project tolerance | Test first on an already approved survey |
| Simple adjustment | Bowditch or proportional to the projections | Method chosen by the person in charge |
| Network with redundancy | Least squares: GNU Gama, STAR*NET, Columbus, JAG3D | Two paths for checking |
| Differential leveling | Script against the adopted tolerance | A failing section goes back to the field |
| Trigonometric leveling | Script against the adopted tolerance | The project's sighting criteria |
| Area | Gauss formula on adjusted coordinates | State the coordinate system |
Three steps. Each one only makes sense after the previous one has shown results on your survey team.
A proposal, not a promise
You send the files from a traverse and Octo returns the closure against the adopted tolerance.
Networks with redundancy go through least squares two ways, with a residuals report for the surveyor to decide.
The collector folder goes in and a summary comes out: hashes, spreadsheet, closures, leveling and adjustment, with what needs to go back to the field.
Every point below has a source published by the responsible agency (Planalto, INCRA, IBGE, ANAC, DECEA), by the vendor or by the project. ABNT standards appear only by number and title. The sources are in the next section.
2
points with a published source, each with its reference shown alongside.
gama-local (version 2.33, Jan 31, 2025) reads a network in XML and writes reports in text, HTML and XML; Total Open Station (GPL-3.0) reads 9 data collector formats, including GSI, RW5 and SDR33.Source: GNU Gama manual and FTP; Total Open Station documentation and repositoryOcto prepares everything, but it does not sign. The document of record stays with whoever is accountable for it.
Surveys, calculates, organizes and produces the documents: spreadsheets, reports, drawings and draft legal descriptions.
Deliverable: material ready to checkThe licensed professional checks what Octo delivered before signing. If something doesn't add up, it goes back to Octo with the correction.
Step: checked by the person who signsOcto does not sign. Designs, technical reports, ART/RRT, statements of account and any official document are still signed by the licensed professional at the company or agency: here, the surveying or cartographic engineer with an ART filed with CREA, or the surveying technician with a TRT filed with CRT; for rural properties, the professional accredited by INCRA, who submits to SIGEF.
Signature: licensed professional, with ART or TRTStandard, vendor documentation and open-source project documentation used in the research, consulted on Oct 31, 2026.
The assessment starts with a traverse or a leveling run your team has already calculated, without touching the original files. You get a proposal for what can be automated, with the result compared to yours, and you decide with that in hand.