LRUD in Survex

[David Doolin]

On Wed, 1 Aug 2001, Olly Betts wrote:

> On Wed, Aug 01, 2001 at 07:01:35PM +1000, Mike Lake wrote:
> > On Tue, Jul 31, 2001 at 03:25:23AM +0100, Olly Betts wrote:
> > > On Thu, Jul 19, 2001 at 09:46:45PM +0100, Peter Wilton-Jones wrote:
> > > > Is there any plans to implement [LRUD data] into survex? It may be that
> > > > you intend to try and put it into Spud?? Is this a thaught.
> > 
> > One problem I see is that there seems to be no concensus on the format of
> > LRUD data. Some users have just one set of 4 LRUD data points per station
> > others have two sets; one set "looking into the station" and another set
> > "looking out of the station". 
> > Certainly makes it difficult for programmers.
> 
> There are various problems like this, but as Wookey pointed out to me - even
> an implementation which only accepted a subset of what people actually
> record is better than simply declaring the problem to be too hard.  We can
> look at what other packages that allow LRUD can handle, and come up with a
> useful model.


So I wrote an extensive comment on this last night, then did not 
send it because I did not want to become embroiled in yet another 
lrud dispute...

Succinctly, I think the whole lrud format debate is Stupid because cave
maps are not accurate enough that it matters.  Thus, when mapping,
whatever format people want it in is Fine By Me.  Life is too
short to argue about it.

This is similar to long running disputes in geology about how to 
take orientation data, such as strikes, dips, dip directions, etc.
Some people really care about this, and get really worked up about 
The Right Way To Do It (Yawn).  

In that case, it was faster to implement all three methods of 
recording data than to argue about relative merits of one form 
over another.  

Regards,
Dave D