Blue Marble talks about High-Accuracy GPS data. So, how accurate is your GPS data?

Blue Marble Geographics gave an interesting presentation on the accuracy and quality of GPS data on March 3rd at the 2011 Maine Municipal Technology Conference. What are the issues affecting the accuracy of GPS data? Read on for more.

Blue Marble talks about High-Accuracy GPS data. So, how accurate is your GPS data?

Blue Marble Geographics is one of the leading experts in the field of geospatial data conversion solutions. Better known for their expertise in coordinate conversion and the company has developed many ingenious GIS tools and solutions in the last 18 years.

On March 3rd, Samuel Knight of Blue Marble gave a presentation on High Accuracy GPS – Pitfalls of Post-Processing. There’s no doubt in my mind that it is a subject that should concern GIS professionals anywhere in the world. Samuel Knight also shared the challenges that his company has encountered in data management. According to Samuel Knight, best practices must be adhered to in order to maintain the quality of the GPS data that users have collected. The attendees of Samuel Knight’s presentation were very lucky. They had the opportunity to learn some of the best practices that they can use to get high-accuracy data in time-based coordinates, datum transformations and vertical datums.

While I’m on the subject, I might as well mention that a few years ago I had the opportunity to use Geographic Calculator on a Petronas project. Geographic Calculator is one of many Blue Marble Geographics excellent products and it is a very powerful coordinate conversion tool and you can even install it as an ArcGIS extension app. Geographic Calculator made my life easier at that time. I had to convert thousands of insane coordinates but Geographic Calculator made it all look easy. :)

Let’s go back to the story. I guess at the end of the day, you just have to ask yourself the following question; ‘How accurate is your GPS/GIS data?’