12/03/2026
📍 Finding the best total station setup on complex sites
On some projects, choosing where to set up the total station can be surprisingly difficult:
obstacles, visibility, target types, distances, geometry…
So we built a tool in TopoNinja to help surveyors plan their station setup before going to the field.
Workflow:
1️⃣ Import your reference points (targets or nails)
2️⃣ Configure their properties
• prism height for nails
• incidence angle for targets
3️⃣ Define survey parameters
• station height
• maximum / minimum distances
• terrain model (flat terrain or upload a DEM)
4️⃣ Import obstacles that block the line of sight
TopoNinja then evaluates potential station locations and calculates:
• horizontal and vertical parallax
• visibility to each reference point
• geometry quality (angles between rays)
• distance constraints
🎯 The tool searches within a defined area and helps identify the best station position based on a global score combining geometry, distances and visibility.
This is another workflow we built to help surveyors plan complex setups faster and more reliably.
🎥 See the tool in action in the video.
