What the Field-Maps App is doing:
Right now our measurement crews connect their GNSS-antenna to their iPad (iPad Pro 11”, 2nd generation running iOs 14.3) and add points to our web-feature-layer. The height, which the app is saving is known as “Height Above Ellipsoid”. Germany (and other European countries) use another height called the “Normalhöhennull” (orthometric height). The Field-Maps app can display the “Normalhöhennull” but it will only save the (for us useless) “HAE”.
What is the problem:
If we want to measure the height of the GNSS-antenna, we always need to open the app of the antenna manufacturer, copy the (orthometric) height, and then we paste it into a field of the feature layer we specifically created for this purpose. This adds human error to the process, which is unfortunate. Another workaround would be post processing the data, but that would need a person who does that, and would probably add calculation error, so we would like to have it shown correctly in the first place.
How this will help us:
In the past few months we’ve invested in a lot of hardware (e.g. GNSS-Antennas, iPads, etc.) with the goal to simplify the process of our measurements, but with the wrong height it is more of an obstacle than a relief to use it. At the moment the data that the measuring crews are gathering, needs to be fixed by an ArcGIS Pro operator before it can be further processed and analysed by our CAD or laboratory staff. This adds big delays to our workflow.
Why this is important:
We as a German authority must work with our official German standards especially when we are measuring things. The “Normalhöhennull” is the standard for every German authority, office, department and university. I would say, that every time someone is measuring the height somewhere in Germany, it will most certainly need to be the “Normalhöhennull” because it is the national standard since 1992. Because of that not only our authority has this problem, but everyone who wants to measure the height in Germany using Field Maps.
