I was born and raised in the North Island, Warkworth to be exact, and I continue to support North Harbour rugby teams through thick and thin (mostly thin).  However, I have married a Christchurch girl called Donna and together we are raising three more Cantabrians, which should help my application to become a local.  When I am not running a taxi service for the kids you can find me plotting ways to get the boat out and go fishing, or to get the family out of the city for some tramping and camping.

My career over the last 20 years has taken a different path to the rest of the team at Fox and Associates, so I look forward to bringing some complementary skills and experiences.  My working life started with a government department that morphed into a state-owned enterprise, which involved undertaking work to support government agency interests, Crown asset sales and Treaty settlements.  This sort of work continued over the last 12 years in a local private firm, but my experience has expanded to include a variety of projects in the rural sector.  This included rural lifestyle block subdivisions, partitioning for estate planning or defining conservation covenants over special areas of land.  I like resolving tricky planning or legal boundary issues in the rural area, especially where claims to dry river beds are involved.  I have undertaken this work right throughout the Canterbury region, although I am particularly fond of the Banks Peninsula and it’s unique qualities.

I look forward to settling into the team at Fox and Associates and meeting new and existing clients.  For many people, engaging a surveyor will be after a weighty decision to alter their greatest asset – their land.  This cannot be taken lightly, which is why I enjoy charting a pathway to help people realise their aspirations for their land and their futures.  I only hope the earthquakes are done with disrupting our plans!

There were 182 sculptures on display (and for sale) and by the end of the event many were sporting the red sticker meaning ‘sold’ not the more familiar ‘demolition’ status.

Word has it that a number of our clients and friends helped with the red stickering so thanks to all of those who supported the event and see you there again in another two years.

Like many companies based in the CBD in February 2011 we had to leave our beloved premises (The Price Waterhouse Coopers Building ‘PWC’).  As mentioned in our last newsletter we have been lucky to find offices in the Bishopdale Mall – office surrounded by mixed activities that give a greater sense of humanity than found purely industrial or commercial complexes, oh, and we have parking spaces!!

At the end of October 2011 we learned of the fate of the PWC and its imminent demolition.  It is sad to see such a fantastic office building lost to the earthquakes, as one person expressed ‘Thanks to the building for saving our lives’ but unfortunately nothing lasts forever or can withstand such forces indefinitely.

We have been involved with the survey monitoring of the PWC and have as part of our duties explored large parts of the building and thus been able to see the effectiveness of the design but also the destructive force of the earthquakes.

People are lamenting the demise of the high-rise and I for one enjoyed my time in the building but we are living in a new ‘normal’ where we now know we are in an earthquake prone area, globally the markets are not healthy and insurance money is not yet flowing.  The focus or challenge now for Christchurch is to reinvent itself. 

Unlike Christchurch which has had demolition forced on it as a result of a natural disaster, Napoleon and Baron Haussmann flattened large portions of the old city of Paris and rebuilt it in their vision.  Paris is characterised by wide boulevards, buildings are largely four stories high, a city with the highest metropolitan density in Europe and is considered (rightly) one of the great cities of the world. 

There should be little to no reason that provided the people of influence in the Christchurch rebuild and who make the big decisions do so wisely and with courage (for that is what it will take) can provide the basis for a truly lovely city. 

It will also take (and no apologies for the repetition) the recurring theme that we bang away at here is; ‘Design should precede rules’ not the other way around! Let us sort out the goal before sorting out how we get there.

At Fox & Associates we have had the opportunity to be involved with a huge variety of earthquake related work and this has required us to think outside the square about the method of collection but also delivery of the data.

Michael has talked about visualisation of data and how we have had to adapt our process but we have also learnt a thing or two about the collection of data.  We have some very clever people here who would describe themselves as measurement specialists but as always there is usually a project that is so different from any other that we need to adapt our solutions.

This adaption has involved using a variety of non-traditional (for Fox) survey equipment and applying the technology in such a way so as to deal with the physical limitations of the site.

It would be fair to say that we have enjoyed the challenge of the projects though not the sad topic of the projects. 

If we had to summarise in one word the fundamental challenge of the earthquake related surveys it would be – stability.

On a macro level we need absolute stability of control marks so that when we are monitoring we have the ability to compare data and calculate the changes.  If we solely rely on local positions we do not know the global changes, if there are differential changes which marks have shifted and which haven’t whether it be a straight translation or is it a rotation? 

To resolve this issue we extensively used GPS (iBase and VRS) and post processed the data to relate the control to stable/reliable positions.  In this case we used National Survey Control Marks 87km away at Lake Taylor.  These marks are outside of the area of influence of the Canterbury Earthquakes and we also have continuous access to observation data. 

On a micro level we need situational stability for the observation equipment.  Many times vibrations from demolition or nearby equipment caused severe enough vibrations that we were unable to take observations let alone precise observations.  This has involved us isolating the equipment from the vibration or more often than not working outside the normal hours of operation so thank you to all our staff who have assisted with this process.

I am proud of the service and results that we have been able to provide and we have received many positive comments from engineers and clients in respect of the information supplied.

My task was to try and maintain the water level against the datum mark while he took the other end of the hose around the house and marked level at his end.  The difficulty was waiting for the water to stop oscillating in the hose.

Times have moved on and we’ve recently purchased a new level  (a ZipLevel Pro 2000) that also uses a hose.  Modern technology has been bought to bear on this age-old method of transferring levels, and now the hose contains both a liquid and a gas, and the end of the hose has a digital readout. 

It allows us to read or transfer levels over an area based on the length of the hose – a radius of 30m.

The earthquake has generated a lot of work inside buildings, and getting our optical level set up so that we have line of sight to everything is always a challenge (and sometimes impossible if the building is being actively used).  The new level doesn’t require line of sight, so it’s a bit more flexible.

The trade-off is that accuracy is reduced a bit – back to 2mm per measurement, so when you come to us with a  levelling job, we’ll check what it’s required for, and then choose the best method to get the job done.

And by the way, there’s no waiting for the levels in the hose to stabilise – fantastic!

But data is only part of the story, as without good presentation the facts get lost.  So we use various tools to visualise and present the data.  In the case of cadastral surveys the format for the visualisation (plans) is dictated by government regulations.  Other plans we produce are based on accepted practice or standards.

We’ve found that a lot of our post-earthquake monitoring work has demanded new ways of presenting the data to show changes since the previous measurement – usually it’s a vector showing the direction and magnitude of movement.

Where levels are involved we are able to show differences from a vertical plane using contours and shading maps.

For building face we have used software that is able to take a cloud of measurements and create a best-fit plane and then indicate how each individual point diverges from that best-fit plane.

Mostly we use tools available to us with our Cad software (Autodesk Civil 3D).  But we are also using excel to assist with monitoring measurements around a local tank farm - a simple line graph shows the changes over time.

Visualisation is a bit of a buzz word at the moment.  You can see some excellent examples here:

http://datavis.tumblr.com/

http://www/informationisbeautifult.net/visualizations/

And Gapminder.org allows you to create your own visualisations of various metrics about the worlds countries.

Or for something a wee bit different, wefeelfine.org aggregates content off the web to provide an emotional snapshot of web content.  You will find some similar projects at www.number27.org.

Fox and Associates have for a number of years been a principal sponsor of this extraordinary biennial event that caters as an outlet for the artistic expression of our sculptors and also as a fundraising event for the Cholmondeley Children’s Home.  It is a pleasure to support both of these causes.

Sculpture on the Peninsula is the South Island’s largest sculpture exhibition and features work from New Zealand’s established and emerging artists with all proceeds from the Charity Auction going to the Cholmondeley Children’s Home and School.

Grand Opening night on Friday gives you the opportunity to meet the sculptors who have created the works on sale, enjoy live music, innovative catering from Crater Rim Cuisine, fine Canterbury wines and boutique beers, all while being entertained by The Loons Circus Theatre Company and followed by the ‘Saws Auction’.

Then open to the public from 9.00am to 5pm on both Saturday and Sunday we encourage you to go along and enjoy some good coffee, some simple cafe style food onsite or take a picnic to share with family and friends.

Tickets can be purchased directly from their website http://www.sculpturenz.co.nz or alternatively you can phone 03 328-7402 or 021 0227-1557.

Just to put things into context we at Fox & Associates are very lucky.  There was no loss of life and any physical damage we have individually suffered has been relatively minor.  However in saying this everything we knew about Christchurch has changed as a result of the earthquakes – we now have a ‘new normal’!

4 September 2010

Although the initial September 2010 earthquake was huge, gave everyone a large fright and hit some residential areas very hard it did not generate a massive amount of earthquake related work for surveyors in general. 

Fox & Associates was however engaged by the EQC to monitor Kaiapoi, Dallington and Horseshoe Lake areas and a number of private topographical or boundary definition surveys but there was not a large amount of other earthquake related work.

Much discussion was entered into as to the effect on the boundaries as a result of the September earthquake.  Land Information New Zealand released new regulations (Rules for Cadastral Survey [Canterbury Earthquake] 2010) regarding the determination of boundaries of properties affected by the earthquakes.

22 February and 13 June 2011

Like everyone else we thought the September quake was as bad as it could get – February proved us wrong.  Following the February quake we received a huge number of requests for building assessment and monitoring surveys.

Prior to the earthquakes we had not carried out a lot of building surveys so we have enjoyed the opportunity to exercise different skill sets but it’s obviously sad that this opportunity has come from such unfortunate circumstances.  It means that we’ve spent time inside the cordon and around some of the worst hit streets and it can be disheartening seeing the sheer scale and extent of damage to land and buildings.

We hope that in playing our part in providing these measurements we are allowing the decision makers to make informed decisions and allow go forward with whatever direction they need to take.

We have used a variety of equipment including:

• Trimble GX Scanner – able to scan 4000-5000 points per second, creating a huge point cloud and photo image to provide a realistic model of whatever spatial area you wish to observe.
• Trimble S6 Reflector-less Total Station – an instrument that allows us to take measurements remotely and is particularly useful on measuring discrete positions such as corners of buildings or monitoring targets.
• Trimble DiNi Level – a very precise instrument capable of observing levels to 0.1 of a millimetre.
• Trimble R8 GPS units – survey grade GPS units that help us roam far and wide collecting data to assist with creating a strong frame work from which we use more precise terrestrial based equipment.
• Trimble Business Centre – a lovely piece of software that takes the hassle out of calculating least square solutions to provide the most accurate results from the recorded observations.
• AutoCAD Civil 3D – our CAD software of choice for three dimensional processing and presentation of data.

Some of the very interesting projects we have been involved with include:

• Land monitoring in Kaiapoi, Horseshoe Lake and Dallington – it has been interesting to track the changes in absolute position (Northing, Easting and Height) after each major earthquake and hear from the experts what is happening and what they expect to see next.  On these projects we established a methodology and workflow that allowed us to install and monitor survey marks to an accuracy of 5-10mm (Vertical and Horizontal) over large areas.  The data was observed using Trimble R8 GPS units and we process the data in Trimble Business Centre using Least Squares Analysis.
• Infrastructure surveys of fuel tanks in Lyttelton and Woolston and the associated fuel pipeline over the hill from Lyttelton to Woolston – we need to assess the shape and verticality of the tanks and provide as built data of any repair to the pipeline over the hill from Lyttelton to Woolston.  This required a combination of Trimble DiNi Precise Level, S6 Reflector-less Total Station and R8 GPS units.  All the data was collected and processed in AutoCAD Civil 3D providing a three dimensional model of the data to the client.
• Multi-storey buildings in the CBD – the majority of these projects included verticality and level surveys to support the assessment of the condition of the buildings.  We used a range of equipment including using the GPS units to establish new control around the sites, S6 Total Station to observe the verticality at corners of the buildings, GX Scanner to observe large amount of data so as to assess the verticality and condition of the building facades and the DINI Precise Level to observe the levels of floors and establish precise levels of the benchmarks.  There has been a huge range of styles of output to cater for the various uses of the data and preferences of the clients/engineers.  We have received some great feedback about the quality of the data which is pleasing to hear.
• Observing the verticality of the CDHB chimneys on the various campuses.  These are very tall structures with limited space to observe the full height of the structures.  Some of these structures are tapered so the challenge was to observe enough of the surface that we could recreate the surface in the computer, slice sections through the surface so as to calculate the extent and direction of the lean of these structures.

 Some of the earthquake memories that stick out in our minds include:

• David, Mike, Phil, Rebecca and Morgan being in the Price Waterhouse Building on the 22 February 2011 on Level 13.  The surrealistic departure down the stairs and out of the inner city passing through the liquefaction and destruction.
• Vodafone ringing from our offices days after the earthquake offering to extract some essential items for us.  A big thank you to Sandra from Vodafone.
• Carl, Mike, Mike Downs (big thanks) and Morgan being in town on 1 March 2011 extracting the remainder of our essential equipment and being at the Art Gallery at the time of the 1 minute silence / memorial.  During the silence not hearing a single noise; cars, conversation, birds or diggers.
• Mike, Morgan, David Patterson and Jeff being at the intersection of Durham and Kilmore Streets when the 6.3 13 June 2011 hit Christchurch and watching the buildings swaying and particularly the Crowne Plaza opening and closing.

As mentioned above it has been interesting work but it does become a little disheartening to see damage day after day.  From hereon we hope that we can continue to be meaningfully involved with the rebuild of Christchurch and the surrounding areas by being involved with the projects that will make a big difference to how we live and view Christchurch. 

We as a city have an opportunity to create something special but it will take courage from the decision makers to make the difficult decisions, the designers to change the way in which we think about our designs and deliver our concepts but equally important is how the authorities assess the proposals.  It cannot be business as usual because nothing is usual anymore – we have the ‘new normal’ to deal with, let’s make the new Christchurch special and the envy of the rest of the world.

The site for the city of Christchurch was selected by Captain Thomas in the late 1840’s with the design and layout completed shortly thereafter – a seriously challenging task for Canterbury’s first Chief Surveyor – a model of design in its day.

Over the last 160 years the citizens of Christchurch have developed a city with charm, a city centre with a graceful meandering river, beautiful mature trees and the atmosphere of an old English town – a city loved and admired by its citizens and by many international visitors.

While the recent earthquake has dealt many parts of the city a serious blow it is the damage to the CBD and its cultural buildings that has been the most upsetting to many.  The impacts both economically and culturally are severe.

Vigour and action:  the central city needs these things now.

The Focus needs to be on restoration and enhancement of the CBD area between Lichfield Street, Madras Street, Peterborough Street and Rolleston Ave (the beautiful heart of the City).

• Long term we need to create spaces and places that people want to visit and revisit
• New buildings and structures need aesthetic qualities that will enrich the city-scape
• Cars and vehicles should not dominate the city hub but provision needs to be made for access and parking in the new CBD
• The one way system provides good access to inner city areas and supplements traffic on the four avenues however traffic movement on Durham and Montreal Streets need to be slowed
• The grid style layout of the central city was excellent and worked very well for a hundred years.  However many intersections need to be modified, some roads closed off to vehicles and roading priorities set so that motorised traffic on the grid layout does not create gird-lock (think Manchester Street!)
• Air bridges, buildings or structures across roads would soften the streetscape providing interesting spaces and shelter from the easterly’s
• We need new medium housing close to the new CBD based around small village greens

Act now – the city centre needs to be populated, it needs people and it needs as much activity as it can get ASAP.  Such actions could include:

• The completion of a cricket ground in Hagley Oval for test cricket
• The stand-off between the Arts Centre and The Dux needs to be resolved – The Dux has been one of the “energy spots” for years
• Re-establish back packer accommodation – this will support city life
• Get hotels up and running ASAP

the scanner in action

The scanner we have been using is a Trimble GX which was made available at no cost for a period of time after the February earthquake (thanks Trimble).  Mike spent a week on a training course to learn about operating the scanner in the field and then processing the data.  Trimble have a software package called Realworks which we are using to process the data.

The Trimble GX is able to measure 5,000 points per second with an accuracy of 12mm at 100mm.  This creates a huge amount of data called a point cloud (basically a list of x, y, z positions and a colour for each point).  The processing software can model objects (planes, spheres etc.) from the point cloud which increase the accuracies because it is basically “averaging” the shape to the point cloud.

...

We’ve been using the software to measure faces of high rise structures and then modelling each face to a plane to measure the tilt.  We have also been able to compare each individual point to the average plane which exposes any bumps in a building facade.

The results of the scanning always look stunning – there is so much data that it’s like being at the location.  In fact it changes the way you carry out a survey.  Normally we capture discrete points such as the top of a kerb or a tree trunk.  The scanner is able to capture the whole scene (including the individual leaves of the tree).

Finally, because you can capture so much data, it’s a fantastic way of taking an accurate snapshot of an item.  Amongst the data at the training course we came across a scan of the front face of the Cathedral. 

Click here to view a video of the point cloud.

As you can see the detail is incredible. 

Scanning is ideal for capturing a lot of data very quickly and measuring remote objects.  Call us if you have any questions about scanning.