ReachView 3 Beta

Today we are introducing a new app to work with Reach. Over the past years Reach has become incredibly popular among professionals in surveying, drone mapping, archaeology, bathymetry, topography, and many other industries and we are fully committed to supporting their needs. We are rebuilding ReachView from the ground up on mobile platforms, so we have the right tools for the job.

ReachView 3 is very different from ReachView 2 that you know. Unlike its predecessor, ReachView 3 is not a web app, but rather two native apps, built specifically for Android and iOS. Today we invite you to join the Android app beta test, with the iOS open beta coming in about a month. You can
sign up to get a notification when the iOS version arrives.

Coordinate systems support

  • Coordinate systems
    This has been our top priority for quite some time now. ReachView 3 supports working in different coordinate systems. The selection is based on the EPSG and IGN registries and supports thousands of different coordinate systems all over the world.

  • Geoids and Grid Shift files are downloaded automatically
    ReachView 3 has built-in support for grid and geoid transformations. Just choose the appropriate coordinate system code and the app will prompt you to download all the required additional files. We currently support EGM2008 and most vertical datums from the registries and will continue our work to add even more.

  • Support for meters, feet, survey feet
    With coordinate system support comes support for different units of measure. The pole height settings and stakeout distances will automatically work in feet or meters depending on the projectā€™s coordinate system.

Projects, collection and stakeout

  • Your projects are stored in the app, not on Reach, so you can access them anytime without turning the receiver on.
  • All interactions are much faster. You can load thousands and thousands of points, the map pans and zooms are butter-smooth. We have tested up to 50 000 points on a recent Android phone.
  • Import and export files using Dropbox, Drive, mail or any other file-sharing app on your phone. For now only CSV format is available, but we are working on more options. This is a great way to show how the new app can take advantage of the native mobile platforms and make your work more efficient.
  • Collect points by averaging or with just one click. Point names are auto-incrementing and you can also add a description.
  • Point stakeout with the ability to zoom and move the map freely.
  • Antenna height settings adapt to the Reach model you use and provide a simple switch to account for the thread adapter.

Receiver connection and configuration

  • Automatic connection to the only receiver on the network. If your phone is on a hotspot created by Reach the app will connect automatically. The connection is much faster too!
  • NTRIP credentials are stored in the app as profiles. Effortlessly switch between different NTRIP casters. The profiles are stored on your phone, so you can configure several Reach units after only entering the credentials once.
  • Globally visible status bar showing Reach solution status and more.

Languages and updates

  • The app is available in English, Spanish, German and Russian today, with more languages to come. Translations appear after new features are introduced, so there might be some English text in the interface temporarily. We are currently working with our dealers on more translations. If youā€™d like to see your language supported, please let us know.
  • New features will be delivered with a simple app update. Now we can deliver new features without updating firmware on Reach.

How it works

Coordinate systems support

Here we create a new survey project. The coordinate system is WGS84 / UTM zone 37N and vertical datum is set to EGM2008 separately.

CRS

Import points from your phone

Import-mini

Export to Google Drive, Dropbox, mail, or any other app

You can export your project in the most natural way, just like you would share a photo.

Export

Collect points without leaving the map

Names are automatically incremented, averaging time is configurable and you can skip averaging to collect points quicker.

Collection-mini

Switch between NTRIP profiles

You only need to enter NTRIP credentials once on your phone. They are stored in the app and could be used to configure any connected Reach.

NTRIP

Stakeout points with the ability to zoom and move the map freely

You can choose to focus on the line from you to the point, or on the whole project.

Stakeout-mini

Autoconnect to the only Reach in the network

If only one receiver is found, the app will connect to it automatically. This comes handy when working with the Wi-Fi hotspot created by Reach.

Autoconnection

Change the pole height

The pole height dialog automatically adapts to your receiver.

Pole_height

Quickly access ReachView 2

During the beta testing phase the apps will complement each other. You can do the configuration with ReachView 2 and surveying with ReachView 3. Weā€™ve added a quick link to load ReachView 2 from the new app.

ReachView2

This is a beta and it requires DEV firmware on your Reach

To test ReachView 3 you need to update your Reach to the latest development version. Even though we spend a lot of time testing, this is the first public release and there will be bugs. Please do not rely on the beta version for your everyday work. This is an early release to get feedback.

There are still some things than you can only do in ReachView 2, like most of the receiver configuration. During the next few months we will cover all functionality from ReachView 2, so that everyone could move all of their work to ReachView 3. This will include:

  • GNSS log controls, RINEX downloads
  • All of the device settings ā€” inputs, outputs, hardware, etc.
  • Additional project export and import formats

During the beta testing phase the apps will complement each other. For example, you can do the configuration with ReachView 2 and surveying with ReachView 3.

How to sign up for the beta

Follow this link from your Android device. The minimum supported Android version is 5.1. Make sure that you enable auto-updates for this app in the Play Store settings to get new features and fixes. For all our iOS users, we will have a beta version ready in about a month. You can sign up to get a notification when it arrives.

Please give us feedback

Weā€™ve been working on ReachView 3 behind the scenes for more than a year and are looking forward to your feedback! Let us know your first impression, what did work and what didnā€™t work, what you would like to see in the app in the future. If you see your coordinate system on the dropdown list please test that conversion works correctly by checking it on a benchmark.

If your case is not supported, contact us with the following information.
  • What CS you use for your end results.
  • What CS is your base usually referenced in.
  • Links to any geoid or grid files you may be using.
  • Some benchmark data before and after transformation from the base system to the target system.

A note on ReachView 2 future

We know that a lot of Emlid customers value that they can easily download log files from a browser. Because of that, ReachView 2 will continue to live on, and eventually become a web version of device settings and logging control. Some things, such as point collection and stakeout wonā€™t be developed any further in the web interface and eventually will be deprecated. We will make sure to let you know of such changes in advance. All new features will be added to ReachView 3 from now on.


We are super excited to share the new app with the community. Thanks to everyone who helped us with beta testing, provided feedback and supported us over the years. A big thanks to everyone at Emlid who helped us get here, this a huge step for Reach!

Update 15.07.2020

The iOS version is out now. You can enroll here. Full details available is this post.

59 Likes

Congratulation !!!

10 Likes

Can you create your own coordinate system?

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Not yet, but we are working on this. We know that it is crucial for working in Russia.

3 Likes

Igor,
First of all, thanks for the clean interface. It is elegant and easy to navigate (pretty straight forward). I unfortunately not finding the desired coordinate system specific to my region. I tried typing the EPSG code and no resultā€¦Coordinate reference systems for "7057" - Coordinate reference systems for "7070". Any help will be greatly appreciated.

8 Likes

Nice work!

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Hi,

Try to search by code, both of them are available!

3 Likes

that was it! i was searching for the following
EPSG: 7057 and drew a blank.
Thanks for clarifying.
I noticed that, once you create a project and select your coordinate system, I couldnā€™t find a way to change the coordinate system or switch between coordinate systems

Thanks! The design team will be happy to hear this.

We do have plans to implement this later, but want to focus on coordinate system support in general first. Could you provide some example cases when this could be useful for you?

2 Likes

Can we say localization? :wink:

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Thanks for all your hard work Team. It is great seeing a great thing progress!

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Egor,
For me would be very useful in a sense like; for example, I created my initial project; since I couldnā€™t find the one I wanted to use, I selected an older coordinate system that I am familiar with (Iowa North in my case). When I was clarified I was not searching right, I wanted it to change the coordinate system quick and start surveying. Instead i have to create another project and select the right coordinate system. Not a huge deal, but might help.
It will be definitely helpful while importing or exporting (exporting points in my case would be really, really great)
IMPORT example-Letā€™s say a project was surveyed with x coordinate system, but 5 years later the project manager decides that moving forward they want to use y coordinate system. It would be great if you can create a project in y coordinate system and import the file from x coordinate system, and off you go to stake out your points, or whatever you need to do.

EXPORT example- you surveyed in x coordinate system (Emlid Reachview 3 project) and when you get to the office realize, the project is in y coordinate system. It would be great if you can choose y coordinate system on export even if your Emlid project is in y coordinate system.

Hope this all makes sense

JM

3 Likes

Localization takes care of this as the coordinate system does not matter as long as you have known points with coordinates. You need at least 3 though.

Project X and Y, lolā€¦ Those letters are mighty close to coordinate systemsā€¦ Maybe A and B. Lol JK, but I get your drift.

Changing coordinate systems after the fact is very easy in QGIS.

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I guess, my brain is still asleep today (A,B or 1,2) would have been definitely better choicesā€¦Not sure what was I thinkingā€¦

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Congratulations @egor.fedorov and the entire team at Emlid - welcome to the Big League!

Iā€™ve been doing some testing ā€˜down underā€™ā€¦

Thanks to CoViD19, everyoneā€™s getting tested these days - anyway, thankfully I passed those tests!

Weā€™ve also been performing some basic precision tests for the new Reachview 3 Beta on some survey marks in Queensland with the Reachview 3 Beta iOS pre-release version over the last few weeks.

We ran our tests using a Reach RS2 on the following projections/height references:
GDA94 Z55/AusGeoid09 and GDA2020 Z55/AusGeoid20.

Summary:
I think the results are excellent, and the Emlid team have done a great job, considering the following average variations of observations against published coordinates

GDA2020 Z55 results n=5
E: average variation 21.2 mm
N: average variation 1.4 mm
Ellipsoidal Height: average variation 21.8 mm

GDA94 Z55 results (against GDA94 Transformed Coordinates) n=9
E: average variation 15.4 mm
N: average variation 19.7 mm
Ellipsoidal Height: average variation 44 mm

Test Project Methodology
We tested on 2 different dates (cold drizzly night, cold sunny afternoon) on 2 different benchmarks: PSMā€™s 179553 & 179554.

Positional Uncertainties: 179553 (HPU 12mm, VPU 36mm) & 179554 (HPU 11mm, VPU 31mm)

We occupied PSM 179553 on both dates, and 179554 only on the drizzly night.

Base Settings:
Base corrections were delivered via a HxGN SmartNet NTRIP service. Due to our location on the edge of the CORS network, we were operating in nearest base mode, on a ~15km baseline.

The SmartNet base was a Leica GR10 with corrections on GPS and GLONASS only, with Reachview pretty consistently reporting 15 satellites in ReachView.

Rover Settings:
The RS2 RTK settings included all constellations running @ 5Hz, usually observing around 35 satellites.

Each point was averaged for 30 seconds.

In case you want the detail, Iā€™ve attached the XLS spreadsheet as a PDF with my observations and calculations:

21 Likes


Now test in the field

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@egor.fedorov it is not possible to stake out imported points, if you are measuring in the field with the new application. To load the base coordinates I must enter rechview and enter them manually. In the new application it would be good to be able to enable base mode and search for the stored points or enter them manually, without going to the previous version of rechview. Congratulations we are very close

@agrimgalina thank you for your feedback! Please share more :slight_smile:

It should be possible, could you please tell us where you encountered difficulties?

Yes, we definitely want to solve this.

4 Likes

Hi all

In UTM Zone 13 N, I put the emlid Rs2Rover with Ntrip signal fixed in one point.

I take a point with Reachview 3, then connect to fieldgenius and the coordinates is different 7cm east and 50cms north in the same point.

Greetings