Curtin University, Perth, Australia
Sten Claessens, Senior Lecturer, School of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Curtin University, Perth Australia
We use MOVE3 in the second, third and fourth years of degree programmes specialising chiefly in surveying, geodetic positioning and mining. Students in these programmes use MOVE3 for the adjustment of terrestrial networks (total station and levelling observations), for example, occasionally combined with satellite observations (GNSS).
How MOVE3 is used differs from one programme to another. In one of our programmes, for example, students have to measure a control network using a laser scanner for the 3D modelling of buildings, whereas in another, we use MOVE3 for the adjustment of a network in an underground mine. In one of our programmes, students have also begun using MOVE3 during their fourth-year camp. That involves measuring and adjusting a large-scale geodetic network at a site with only partial internet coverage.
There are several reasons why we work exclusively with MOVE3:
- MOVE3 has a user-friendly graphic interface which makes designing and adjusting networks much easier than many of the other software packages.
- MOVE3 has many options that other adjustment packages do not include as standard, such as various constraints (inner constraints, weighted constraints, pseudo-constraints) and the output of the reliability measures (MDB, BNR, etc.).
- MOVE3 is reliable. We have had negative experiences in the past with other software packages (crashing, losing licences), but MOVE3 works well.
- Sweco provides good technical support and is very helpful.