Total Open Station — The Complete Guide: Downloading Survey Data From Total Stations, Open Source
Total Open Station is open-source software (GPL-3.0 licence) for downloading survey data from total stations to a computer, on almost any operating system. It reads data from the instrument or from a file exported by it, archives it and converts it to formats you can continue with in CAD and GIS.
Total Open Station
Total Open Station developers
Downloads survey data from total stations to the computer and converts it to formats such as CSV, DXF and GeoJSON for CAD and GIS.
Get it from the vendorWhat you get
- Download from the instrument — reading data directly from a total station.
- File import — also from a file exported by the instrument.
- Format conversion — CSV, DXF, GeoJSON and more.
- Survey archive — keeping the raw data in order.
- Graphical interface and command line — for manual or automated work.
What to check before you start
The program has a modular design intended to support many instruments and formats, but not every model is supported. Before relying on it, check in the documentation that your model is on the list. The project is maintained by volunteers; Windows has a portable version, and other systems install it through pip or Linux packages.
Related tools
To continue working on a map — QGIS. To draft the results — LibreCAD. For processing GNSS observations — RTKLIB.
QGIS
QGIS.org
Open-source GIS for spatial analysis, layer work and map production.
Get it from the vendor
LibreCAD
LibreCAD Project
Lightweight 2D drafting with layers, blocks and dimensions, built around the DXF format.
Get it from the vendor
RTKLIB
Tomoji Takasu
Centimetre-level GNSS post-processing — open-source RTK and PPK.
Get it from the vendor
SurveyTools (incl. Alignment Solver)
SurveyTools (open-source project)
Surveying toolkit: network adjustment, road and rail alignment solving, coordinate transforms and levelling.
Get it from the vendorThe bottom line
Total Open Station is a free, open way to get data out of a total station without vendor software. Once you confirm your instrument is supported, it is a useful tool for surveyors, archaeologists and engineers.