This post is long over due, but it’s been difficult to find time to write – and even now, this is going to be just a quickly dashed update to the Javad Chronicles in between conducting more tests, a mad scramble in helping to write some of the first user manuals for the LS and making videos tutorials all intended to help get first time beta testers started. The primary user interface to the LS, J-Field, is a very rapidly changing and evolving piece of software. Trying to keep any manual up to date while we’re in beta is a loosing battle, but still given that, anything will at least be better than no manual.
Triumph-LS that arrived on the afternoon of April 3rd has been the subject of many tests and experiments
including being left out all night in the rain, allowing the batteries to run completely down to the point of
failure and even an unintentional drop test (something that left a mark) and throughout all of it, this
remarkable feat of engineering has seemed to take it all in a stride.
Almost the entire past nine weeks have been devoted to alpha tests of the software and the user interface now known as J-Field. Last week the base unit, consisting of the 4-watt UHF radio and the Triumph-2, more affectionately referred to as the T-2 (my own homage to the Wild instrument I was trained on) arrived.
The T-2 is an amazingly compact assembly and while the unit itself doesn't have a screen and GUI, the first
blush of the Android app which interfaces with it (v1.0.7) is looking like a newborn star. If you haven’t
already gotten it,
JAVAD Android Tools
is available for the Android platform from play.google.com.
Aside from my guilt for being tardy in posting and that gets me off the dime to write is the next version of the LS arrived yesterday. This is a particularly noteworthy occasion for two completely different reasons, the first reason being the significant improvement made to the display screen which has been completely replaced. The new screen is much more sensitive to touch (capacitance type display like on your iPad or Android device). The new screen is also much brighter and in strong direct sunlight it is much easier to read.
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The second reason for taking note is possibly less tangible than the retooling of an already amazing piece of
tech so early in its young life – it is the demonstration of a developer that has embraced a user community,
its feedback and moreover is implementing changes from that feedback with a dedication never before seen in
this industry. This alone is something surveyors worldwide will want to be paying attention to even if they
aren't shopping for high precision GNSS and RTK surveying equipment.
To those readers that have just gotten their RTK kits, congratulations! Thank you for your help in beta testing and for all of your constructive remarks and suggestions for improving the interface; and now, even the hardware. And to those readers still waiting for their kits to arrive, feel lucky for your place in line as you will be receiving the benefits from those beta testers before you and the implementation of many of their suggestions that will have made the wait worth it. Like Matt Sibole said when we were in San Jose in March, "its going to be a fun ride".
http://panocea.us/2014/06/07/the-javad-chronicles-journal-entry-07/