Local Projects: Managing collected data

Terra Office can be used to export data collected in TerraFlex Local Projects to a variety of common, geospatial (GIS and CAD) file formats. Form data is read from a TerraFlex Forms file (.tfout) that has been transferred back to the desktop. If data was collected with a TerraFlex Premium license and a supported Trimble GNSS receiver, data can optionally be queued for automatic Trimble Offline GNSS Corrections to improve accuracy. Export files are then generated locally.

Terra Office uses a processing queue to manage this data from TerraFlex Local Projects. The queue is managed from within the app and as files are added, they will progress through a few statuses:

No processing available (for files that do not have GNSS measurements)
Waiting for base files (queued; waiting for base files to be available)
Correction successful (processing was successful)
Correction failed (processing was not successful; you can re-add the file at a later date if failure was due to unexpected delay in base file availability)

In general, data within a file is available for export at any status. Additionally, it is important to note that a single file might have multiple sets of processable forms within it — a single file might require multiple processing iterations depending on how far apart (in time) the data was collected.

Base station selection and processing is done via a local implementation of Offline GNSS Corrections — the same zero-configuration workflow that exists in the cloud for other TerraFlex workflows. The base station selection itself is in fact identical (it does make a call to the same Trimble cloud API to get a list of base stations), it just does the processing locally instead of in the cloud. Because of differences in the implementation and processing engines, differences will exist between local and cloud results although a comparable level of accuracy is expected. It’s important to remember that the (post-)processed data, on a position-by-position basis, will only be used if it is of better accuracy than the real-time corrected data.

When using these workflows, a separate app icon (Trimble logo in a circle) shows in the bottom of your screen — this is the processing application instance managing the queue, checking for base station data, and doing the processing. Although the starting and stopping of this (console) application is generally managed automatically from Terra Office, it might be necessary in certain instances to close it manually. When exiting Terra Office, the app will be closed if no processing is pending although it might take up to 20 seconds.

To manage TerraFlex Local Project data:

Run the Terra Office application and Sign in with your Trimble Identity and a valid subscription license to Trimble Terra Office Standard or higher.
In the Local Project Workflows section, click the Manage data from TerraFlex Local Projects link.
On the next page, click the Select a TerraFlex Forms file (.tfout) button to select a file. This will add the selected file to the queue displayed immediately below the button.
Once in the queue, Terra Office will check each set of forms (session) within the file and determine the best available base station to use — and schedule processing for when that base station data is expected to be available.
To view processing details about a file in the queue, either double-click the row or select the row and click the Details… button at the bottom of the window. In the details window, for files that have one or more sessions processed, additional Details… links will be available; these can be used to view the detailed processing results (e.g., base station used and number of positions in each accuracy range).
To export data for a selected file, select the row (single-click) and click the Export button.
1. If you are trying to export a file that hasn’t yet been processed, you will be prompted for confirmation.
2. To limit the export to the past number of days (based on last edit), use the Only collected/updated in the last days checkbox and day counter. This will refresh the list of layers and form counts in the Forms to be exported box.
3. Verify the list of layers and form counts in the Forms to be exported box.
4. To change what set of forms you want exported (e.g., original vs processed), use the Processing selection dropdown. Depending on what the status is of the file in the, options presented here will vary.
  - Original forms: forms as collected in the field without any processing in Terra Office
  - Processed forms: forms after processing
  - Processed and original forms: when a file was only partially processed, include all data
  - Original forms only: when a file was only partially processed, only the original forms as collected in the field without processing
  - Processed forms only: when a file was only partially processed, only the forms that were processed
5. Click Next to navigate to the next page and note the Details at the top, summarizing the choices made on the first page.
6. Use the Export format dropdown to select the desired export format:
  - GeoPackage: One .gpkg file will be generated for all of the data in the project (using the file name provided).
  - Shapefiles (SHP): Four files will be generated for each layer in the project (using the folder selected).
  - GeoJSON: One .json file will be generated for each layer in the project (using the folder selected).
  - CSV: One comma-separated text file will be generated for each layer in the project (using the folder selected).
  - DWG: One CAD file will be generated for all of the data in the project (using the file name provided); data will be represented in layers.
    
    This format cannot be used with projects using a geographic (latitude/longitude) coordinate system.
  - DXF (R10 with blocks): One CAD file will be generated for all of the data in the project (using the file name provided); data will be represented in layers and feature attribution will be represented in the feature blocks.
  - ArcGIS File geodatabase: One file geodatabase (as a folder) will be generated for all of the data in the project (using the folder selected). Template schema will be represented as ArcGIS schema where possible.
  - GML: One .gml file (and corresponding .xsd file) will be generated for all of the data in the project (using the file name provided).
7. Use the Store to file (or folder) entry box and … button to specify a file or folder name (depending on the format) for the exported data. The entry option will automatically change based on the requirements of the format.
8. Click Save to generate the file(s). You will be notified when the process completes.
To change the display order of files in the queue, click the column headers.
Once processing has been completed and the file has been exported, you can remove the file from the list by selecting the row and clicking the Remove button.