Pathfinder Office (PFO)

When exporting position files, Pathfinder Office treats input positions (*.SSF, *.cor) as referencing the WGS 1984 datum, even if the positions actually reference a different datum, e.g. NAD83 (2011). As a result, you cannot work with map projections in Pathfinder Office the same way as in professional GIS software.

If your positions reference a datum that is not WGS 1984 or the comparable ITRF, specify an output datum in position export setup that will not trigger a datum transformation. After position export is completed, use GIS software tool, e.g. the “Define Projection” tool in ArcGIS software, to enter the correct map projection information in the exported GIS file.

For example, if your *.cor file (corrected position file) reference the NAD83 (2011) datum, set output coordinate system datum ITRF 2000 (as of August 2019). After position export is completed, use the “Define Projection” tool to define the correct datum for the output GIS data file (NAD83 (2011)).

In the above example, if you set output coordinate system datum NAD83 (2011), Pathfinder Office will apply a WGS1984-to-NAD83 (2011) transformation to the output positions and result in a position shift in the output. The shift can be as much as 1 meter (3.5 feet), as shown in the graphic below (Note, positions corrected using CORS station position from base file reference the NAD 83 (2011) datum; positions corrected using CORS station position from base station list reference ITRF 2000. See tab “Exporting Positions” for details):

If your positions are corrected real-time using an external correction source that references a different datum and the datum of the correction source is specified in TerraSync, the corrected positions references the WGS 1984 datum. TerraSync transforms incoming positions to the datum used by the correction source and back to the WGS 1984 datum after positions are corrected.

If your positions are post-processed in Pathfinder Office, the positions reference the datum of correction source.

To learn if Pathfinder Office performs a datum transformation between WGS 1984 and a different datum:

1. Click the “Utilities” menu  –> “Other” –> “Coordinate System Manager”.
   
   
2. Click the “Datum Transformations” tab.
   
3. Click the datum in question on the left pane, then right-click the transformation associated with the datum on the right pane and click “Properties” to see datum transformation parameters. In the examples below, the transformation parameters indicate Pathfinder Office does not apply datum transformation when moving positions referencing the WGS 1984 datum to the NAD 1983 (Conus) datum. There is also no transformation between WGS 1984 and ITRF 2000.
   

    

    

Pathfinder Office runs on Windows desktop. To connect a Windows mobile device like Trimble Geo 7x with a Windows desktop computer, you need to install Windows Mobile Device Center on the desktop. As of May 2019, the latest Windows Mobile Device Center was released in 2012 and needs some tweaks to work with Windows 10. Installation of Windows Mobile Device Center and device setup after the initial connection are not addressed here.

How to connect Geo 7x with a Windows desktop computer?

1. Make sure the USB to PC option “Enable advanced network functionality” in Geo 7x is NOT checked.
   Start icon –> Settings –> Connections –> USB to PC
   
   
2. Make the physical connection using a USB cable.
3. Make sure Geo 7x is turned on.
4. Start Windows Mobile Device Center. The software will connect to the handheld automatically.
   
   

Once connected, you can browse files in the handheld by clicking the “File Management” menu in Windows Mobile Device Center à Browse the contents of your device.

You can also access file in the device from Windows File Explorer.

Data collected with TerraSync can be found at

This PC\(Name of your Geo 7x device)\My Documents\TerraSync

Pathfinder Office uses a project folder to automate organization of project data. When you start Pathfinder Office, you are presented the “Select Project” window for your project choice. Closing the “Select Project” window will let you proceed without using a project folder. Using a project folder is recommended, especially when you perform post processing.

When creating a new project, you specify where the folders associated with the project will be saved in computer disk and the names of the folders. By default the “Backup”, “Export” and “Base File” folders are created as subfolders in the “Project” folder.

The above project parameters create a project named “GEO 1” and a folder structure as shown on the graphic below:

 Set the project folder in a way that works for your workflow. In the example above, projects are created for the different GNSS handhelds, but you can create projects for the different users or project sites. The project folder and subfolders in the example are saved in Windows “Public” user folder for access by all the users of the computer. If you are the only person who should access the folders, save them in your Windows user folder.

After the GNSS handheld is connected to a desktop computer, you can use Pathfinder Office to transfer files between the two. You can copy collected position data files (*.SSF) to desktop computer for viewing, exporting or post processing, or copy a background imagery from desktop to handheld to be displayed in TerraSync.

How to transfer files between Geo 7x and desktop computer using Pathfinder Office?

1. Start Pathfinder Office.
2. See tab “POF Project Folder” for choices to proceed with the “Select Project” window. The “Modify” button can be used to modify the folder names and locations of an existing project.
3. Click the “Data Transfer” button, or the “Utilities” menu à “Data Transfer”.
   
   
4. In the “Data Transfer” window, verify that the Geo 7x device is connected.
   
   

To copy files from handheld to desktop computer:

1. Select the “Receive” tab and click the “Add” drop-down arrow to select files to transfer.
   
   
2. Click the “Transfer All” button to start the data transfer process. If you have selected a project when starting Pathfinder Office, the files by default will be copied to the project folder.
   
   
3. Close the “Transfer Complete” window.

To copy files from desktop computer to handheld:

1. Select the “Send” tab and click the “Add” drop-down arrow. Click a type of files to transfer in the “Add” drop-down menu to open the file selection window.
   
   
2. After files to transfer are selected, click the “Transfer All” button to start the data transfer process. Background imagery and data dictionary files are by default copied to the TerraSync folder in the handheld.
3. Close the “Transfer Complete” window.

In general you won’t be able to perform post processing differential correction right after field work because it takes time for base stations to post correction data. The wait can be a few hours.  Positions corrected real-time can be post processed. Post processing in general yields more accurate positions than real-time correction.

Pathfinder Office offers two options for source of base station position, as listed below. If you are not comfortable working with datums, use a CORS station as base station for field work in the U.S or a correction source that references WGS 1984 (G1150) or ITRF 2000 (as of August 2019), and select using station locations from base station list.

• Base station position from the base station list provided by Trimble. If you use this option, the corrected positions reference the ITRF00 datum (essentially WGS 84 (G1150)) when you use a CORS station. Trimble transforms all CORS base station positions to the ITRF00 datum using station coordinates and datum published by the base stations. If you use a non-CORS station, find from base station provider the correct datum. Subsection Looking up CORS Base Station Coordinate System gives an example on how to find base station coordinate system information.
• Base station position from downloaded base files. With this option the corrected positions reference the datum stored in the header of the RINEX (Receiver Independent Exchange Format) file from the base station. For U.S. CORS base stations, it is NAD 83 (2011) epoch 2010.00 (as of July 2019). Subsection Looking up CORS Base Station Coordinate System gives an example on how to find base station coordinate system information.

The example below shows that a CORS base station position is different between the two options.

Option “Use position from base station list”:

Option “Use position from downloaded base files”:

IT IS EXTREMELY IMPORTANT THAT YOU KNOW THE DATUM REFERENCED BY THE CORRECTED POSITIONS. Post-processing corrected positions reference the datum used by the correction source and datum transformation, if necessary, has been applied during the correction process. If you choose an output datum that triggers a datum transformation from WGS 1984 (Pathfinder Office assumes all input position data files are in the WGS 1984 datum) when exporting the corrected positions, the exported positions will have datum transformatiom performed twice and be in wrong locations. The shift can be as much as 1 meter (3.5 feet). See tab Exporting Positions for details on exporting positions referencing a datum that is not WGS 1984 (G1150) or ITRF 2000.

How to perform differential correction using Pathfinder Office?

Positions that are not corrected are saved in the handheld as *.SSF files. Pathfinder Office saves post-processed positions as *.cor files in the folder specified by you.

1. Start Pathfinder Office.
2. See tab “PFO Project Folder” for choices to proceed with the “Select Project” window. The “Modify” button can be used to modify the folder names and locations of an existing project.
3. If you have transferred the field data to the computer, you can skip this step.
   Follow instructions in tab “Transferring Files” to transfer (copy) field data (*.SSF) to desktop computer. If you have selected a project when starting Pathfinder Office, the field data by default are saved in the project folder and a backup saved in the “Backup files” folder for the project.To display the field data, click the “File” menu –> Open, and select the desired SSF file (optional).
   
   
4. Start the post processing process by clicking the “Differential Correction” button, or the “Utilities” menu à Differential Correction.
   
   
5. In the ”Differential Correction Wizard” dialog window:

(1) Click the “+” button to select the position data to correct.

(2) Verify that data collection time period is correct and that centimeter output is enabled if you use the CM edition of Geo 7x. Click the “Next” button when done.

(3) Select the desired processing type. In the example below, the recommended “Automatic Carrier and Code Processing” options is selected using correction information from a single base station.

(4) The following correct settings work for most purposes. Click the “Change” button to change the settings if needed.

(5) You can download correction files from a base stations via Internet (first option), or use correction files you have acquired (second and third options). To download correction files from one of the listed base stations via Internet, select the option “Base Provider Search” and click the “Select” button to select the base station.  If you selected a project when starting Pathfinder Office, the downloaded base files will be saved in the “Base files” folder for the project.

(6) Select a base station. If you haven’t updated the base station list for a while (e.g. a month), click the “Update List” button first. By default the station is listed in the order of distance between base station and field work location (not where you currently are).

In the following example, corrected positions reference ITRF00 if you select a CORS station (e.g. CORS, LITTLE CHICAGO (MNLC)), and use its position from base station list.  If you select a station that is not part of CORS, e.g. MNDT, Little Chicago – RWIS #3, the corrected positions reference the datum stored in the header of the RINEX file from the base station regardless source of base station position.

A mark in the “G” column indicates the base station provides data from Russia Glonass. A mark under the “L2” column indicates the base station provides data from U.S. GPS.

Trimble, vendor of the software, maintains a list of over 6,500 base stations over the world that use Trimble base station software. Trimble only maintains the list and is not responsible for the data. For more information, go to https://www.trimble.com/trs/findtrs.asp

To report problem about a base station, select the station and click the “Properties” button to see station contact.

(7) Choose a source for base station position using guidelines presented at the beginning of the section “Post Processing with Pathfinder Office”.  Leave the option “Confirm base data and position before processing” checked.

(8) Select your folder and output file name options. Click the “Start” button to start the post processing process.

(9) Check that your field data is 100% covered by the base file(s). Click the “Confirm” button to proceed.

(10) Check the Differential Correction Summary in the wizard window to assess the overall accuracy of the corrected positions. The summary along with base file information are saved for future reference in project folder as a text file with post processing date and time in file name, e.g. Correct_2019-07-09_12-24.txt.

Pathfinder Office supports the export of *.SSF (data file), *.cor (corrected data file) and *.imp (imported data file) to a variety of GIS and CAD data formats. This section guides users the process of exporting to Esri file geodatabase and shapefile.

Pathfinder Office assumes all input positions (*.SSF, *.cor) reference the WGS 1984 datum. If you don’t want datum transformation applied to your exported data (i.e. your input positions reference a datum that is not WGS 1984 or a comparable datum), choose an output coordinate system that will not trigger a datum transformation.  See tab “Datum Assumption in PFO” for more details.

When exporting position data to Esri geodatabase, users have to provide the spatial reference XML exported from the geodatabase. If you don’t already have the XML file, you will need ArcCatalog or ArcGIS Pro to create it. See tab “Geodatabase Spatial Reference” for steps to create the XML file.

When exporting position data to an Esri shapefile, users can provide a projection file (*.prj) during export setup, or use a software tool like the ArcGIS “Define Projection” tool to create the projection file for export is completed.

How to export position data to an Esri file godatabase or shapefile using Pathfinder Office?

1. Start Pathfinder Office. See section “Pathfinder Office Project Folder” for choices to proceed with the “Select Project” window. The “Modify” button can be used to modify the folder names and locations of an existing project.
2. Click the “Export” button, or the “Utilities” menu –> “Export”.
   

3. In the “Export” window,

     (1) Click the “Browse” button to select files to export.

     (2) If you have not set up the export settings before, click the “New” button to create a setup that you can re-use later. Otherwise, select an export setup you want to use from the drop-down menu.
 

4. If you are using an existing export setup, click the “Properties” button and go to step 5. If you are creating a new export setup, select “ESRI File Geodatabase” or “Esri Shapefile” option for the setup and enter a name for the setup. Click the “OK” button when done.
   

Export to file geodatabase:

5(a). Click the “ESRI File Geodatabase” tab. You will paste the spatial reference xml texts in this tab. If you don’t have the xml file created yet, follow instructions in tab “Geodatabase Spatial Referemce” to create one.

 5(b). In Windows file browser, right-click the XML file exported from the file geodatabase and open it with a Web browser, e.g. Chrome, Microsoft Edge.

 5(c). In the browser window, locate the tag (there are more than one, any one will do). Copy the contents between the open and closing tags as well as the tags.

5(d). Paste the texts in Pathfinder Office “Spatial Reference XML” box. Delete the “LatestWKID” tag and its contents. The export may fail with this tag in the XML.

Export to shapefile

5(a). Click the “ESRI Shapefile” tab. Tracking themes are for Esri Tracking Analyst. Leave the “Export Tracking Themes” option unchecked unless you need it for Tracking Analyst.

5(b). Click the “Coordinate System” tab. You can provide a projection file (*.prj) for the output shapefile.  This is optional. The *.prj file can be the *.prj file from an existing shapfile with the coordinate system you want to use.

     Note that if you don’t provide a .prj file, Pathfinder Office will show a warning about it when you run the “Export” utility. Dismiss the warning and proceed.

Pathfinder Office does not create *.prj file for the output shapefile. If you do not provide a projection file, GIS software have no way of knowing the coordinate system referenced by the coordinates saved in the shapefile and as a result the shapefile is pretty useless. You can mend this problem by running the “Define Projection” tool in ArcGIS desktop software to define the coordinate system for the output shapefile (the tool creates the *.prj file).

 If you provide a projection file, make sure it matches the coordinate system you specified in the export setup. Your positions will display at wrong locations if the coordinate system in the export setup differs from the coordinate system in the .prj file.

Setups common to geodatabases and shapefiles

6. In the “Data” tab, click the “Positions Only” option if you did not enter additional information (attibutes) for the positions in the field.
7. In the “Output” tab, choose how you want to create output file(s) if there are more than one input file. The default option for “System File Format” should not need to be changed.
8. In the “Attributes” tab, check the attributes you want to see in the output file(s). The “Export Menu Attributes As” option on the top is relevant when you used a data dictionary with the positions.
9. In the “Units” tab, specify the units you want to use with the measurement attributes you selected in the “Attributes” tab. “Decimal Places” options apply when exporting to ASCII files.
10. In the “Position Filter” tab, specify the criteria to filter positions. It is recommended to export positions computed with signals from at least four satellites. If you are using a handheld like Trimble Geo 7x, you don’t need to worry about filtering the positions with optimum PDOP (Position Dilution of Precision) and HDOP(Horizontal Dilution of Precision) values because the handheld takes care of it.
     

11. In the “Coordinate System” tab, specify the coordinate system of the output geodatabase feature class or shapefile. Recall that Pathfinder Office assumes the input positions reference the WGS 1984 datum, See tab “Datum Assumption in PFO” for more information.

(1) If input positions reference the WGS 1984 datum or a comparable ITRF and you want the exported positions reference a different datum, specify the desired datum in this tab. Pathfinder Office will perform a datum transformation if necessary.

(2) If the input positions reference a datum that is not WGS 1984 (this happens when your post-processing correction source uses a datum that is not WGS 1984), select “WGS 1984” or “ITRF2000” as the output datum so Pathfinder Office will not perform a datum transformation. Check the map projection information of the output shapefile/geodatabase feature class and use the “Define Projection” tool (in ArcGIS) to enter the correct datum if necessary.  

12. Click the “OK” button to start the export process.

When performing differential correction, it is important that you know the datum referenced by the base station coordinates. The instructions here show how you can look up the spatial reference of a U.S. CORS base station location.

1. Open the CORS Map Web page, https://www.ngs.noaa.gov/CORS_Map/. Locate the station on the map or by entering CORS site ID. Click the station on the map and click “Get Site Info” in the pop-up window.
   

2. Click the “Coordinates” link on the station page.
   

3. In the example below, the station publishes its coordinates in two datums, IGS08 epoch 2005.00 and NAD 83 (2011, MA11, PA11) epoch 2010.00. It also noted that coordinates in the older datums that are no longer supported.
   

4. If you are not sure which datum your post processed positions will reference, click the “Position and Velocity” link to see the published station coordinates and the datums they reference.
   

5. Note the station coordinates and referenced datums. You can use this information to match reference coordinates Pathfinder Office (or other post processing software) displays to the correct datum.
   

As an example, station coordinates recorded in the log file from a post-processing job match the published NAD 83 (2011) coordinates of the station.  The corrected positions from Pathfinder Office therefore reference the NAD 83 (2011) datum.

The spatial reference XML is required when exporting positions to an Esri file geodatabase feature class.

How to create a spatial referemce XML from an Esri file geodatbase?

If you are familiar with the process of creating a new feature class in a file geodatabase, create a feature class of any geometry type with the coordinate system you want to use, then go to step 11. The instructions are written for NAD83 (2011) UTM Zone 15N from modifying the out-of-box WGS 1984 UTM Zone 15N coordinate system.

The instructions are written for ArcCatalog, but are applicable to ArcGIS Pro.

1. 1. Open Esri ArcCatalog. If the file folder you want to work with does not display in the Catalog Tree, click the “Connect to Folder” button to select the folder you want to connect to.
      

In the example below, only the M:\GIS folder can be accessed from ArcCatalog. 

To access the C:\ drive, click the “Connect to Folder” button and select C:\.

Once connected, C:\ displays in the Catalog Tree.

1. 2. In the Catalog Tree, navigate to the folder you want to save the file geodatabase. Right-click the folder, click “New” –> “File Geodatabase”. Rename the file geodatabases if needed.
      

1. 3. In the Catalog Tree, right-click the file geodatabase you created and click “New” –> “Feature Class”.
      
      

1. 4. In the New Feature Class dialog window, enter the name for the feature class. Note that feature class names cannot contain spaces and special characters except _. You may use the default “Polygon Features” option for feature type. Click the “Next” button.
      
      

1. 5. If the coordinate system you want to use is in the lists, select it, click the “Next” button and accept default settings on the remaining pages to create the feature class. Continue with Step 11. In the example here, we will select the out-of-box “WGS 1984 UTM Zon 15N” coordinate system and modify the datum to NAD 1983 (2011).
      Expand the “Projected Coordinate Systems” folder, locate the “NAD 1983 UTM Zone 15N”coordinate system in subfolder “UTM” –>“WGS 1984” –>“Northern Hemisphere”.
      
      

1. 6. Right-click the coordinate system and click “Copy and Modify”.
      
      

1. 7. In the “Projected Coordinate System Properties” dialog window, enter the name for the coordinate system. Use a name that reflects datum and map projection of the coordinate system. Click the “Change” button to change datum.
      
      

1. 8. Select the datum and click the “OK” button. Click the “OK” button in the parent dialog window.
      
      

1. 9. The custom coordinate system you created is displayed in the “Custom” folder. For easy access to it in the future, save it to the “Favorites” folder by right-clicking the coordinate system and clicking “Add to Favorites”.
      
      

1. 10. Click the “Next” button and accept default settings on the remaining pages to create the feature class
   11. In the Catalog Tree, right-click the feature class you created, click “Export” à “XML Workspace Document”.
       
       

1. 12. In the “Export XML Workspace Document” dialog window,

 (1) Check the “Schema Only” option, specify name of output XML file and output location, uncheck the “Export Metadata” option. Click the “Next” button.

(2) Confirm that the feature class is checked as an item to be exported. Click the “Finish” button.

1. 13. In Windows file browser, locate the XML file exported from the geodatabase to verify the export is completed.

To be completed.