Orthometric Heighting with GNSS
DISCLAIMER
Before purchasing, review the rules of your licensing or certifying entity. It is your responsibility to confirm this course meets your CE requirements. See the credit tab on the course page for details.
What’s Included: Full webinar recording, written course materials, expert instruction, a mandatory quiz, and a certificate upon completion.
Deliverability Timeline: All courses are generally available within 1-2 weeks after the live presentation.
CE Credits: AIA and/or LA/CES accreditation is available by request for courses recorded prior to March 11, 2026. All courses after that date include those accreditations by default, if applicable. With these accreditations, our courses qualify for credit in nearly all states for engineers, surveyors, architects, and landscape architects.
Learn more about the on-demand format in our FAQ or contact us at (715) 835-5900 or customerservice@halfmoonseminars.org
Agenda
Webinar instructions will be emailed 24-48 business hours before the date of the webinar.
Please log into the webinar 15 – 30 minutes before start time.
Tuesday, September 23, 2025
9:00 am – 1:15 pm CDT
Agenda:
Presented by Thomas H. Meyer, Ph.D.
Gravity, Geopotential, and the Geoid
- Gravity affects almost everything a surveyor does
- Water flowing downhill is not the same as geometric separation
- The quest for a perfect vertical datum
- Mean sea level
- Definition of the geoid
- Definition of an orthometric height
- Normal gravity
- Gravity potential energy
- Geoid models
Heighting Systems
- Physical (geopotential) heights
- Geopotential numbers
- Dynamic heights
- Orthometric heights
- Geometric heights
- Geodetic (aka ellipsoid) heights
- NAD83 vs WGS84
- Geoid heights
- Geodetic (aka ellipsoid) heights
- Leveling Orthometric correction for differential leveling
Orthometric Heighting with GNSS
- Occupation times
- Passive vs. active control
- Error budget
- Practical example
Webinar Instructions
All attendees must log-on through their own email – attendees may not watch together if they wish to earn continuing education credit. HalfMoon Education Inc. must be able to prove attendance if either the attendee or HalfMoon Education Inc. is audited.
Certificates of completion can be downloaded in PDF form upon passing a short quiz. A link to the quiz will be sent to each qualifying attendee immediately after the webinar. The certificate can be downloaded from the Results page of the quiz upon scoring 80% or higher.
Webinars are presented via GoToWebinar, an easy-to-use application that can be run on most systems and tablets. Instructions and login information will be provided in an email sent close to the date of the webinar. It is highly recommended that you download, install and test the application before the webinar begins by clicking on the link in the email.
GoToWebinar App requirements:
Windows 10 or higher, macOS 11 or higher, Linux, Google Chrome OS
Web Browser:
Google Chrome (most recent 3 versions)
Microsoft Edge (most recent 3 versions)
Internet connection: 1 Mbps or better
Hardware: 2GB of RAM (minimum), 4GB or more of RAM (recommended)
For more information, visit the Support section at www.gotowebinar.com
Credits
Engineers
4.0 PDHs
Land Surveyors
4.0 PDHs
PIE - Practicing Institute of Engineering
4.0 PDHs
Continuing Education Information
This webinar is open to the public and is designed to qualify for 4.0 PDHs for professional engineers and land surveyors in most states. Please refer to specific state rules to verify eligibility.
HalfMoon Education is an approved continuing education sponsor for engineers in Florida (Provider License No: CEA362), Indiana (License No. CE21700059), Maryland, and New Jersey (Approval No. 24GP00049300). HalfMoon Education is an approved continuing education sponsor for land surveyors licensed in Indiana (License No. CE10600325), and Maryland. HalfMoon Education is deemed an approved continuing education sponsor for New York engineers and land surveyors via its registration with the Practicing Institute of Engineering (PIE).
This webinar has been evaluated for compliance with NYS Mandatory Continuing Education requirements for professional engineers and land surveyors by the Practicing Institute of Engineering, and has been approved for 4.0 PDHs.
This webinar has been registered with the Florida Board of Professional Surveyors and Mappers for 4.0 continuing education credits. This webinar has been approved by the Missouri Board of APEPLSPLA for 4.0 PDUs.
Attendance will be monitored, and attendance certificates will be available after the webinar for those who attend the entire course and score a minimum 80% on the quiz that follows the course (multiple attempts allowed).
*On-Demand Credits*
The preceding credit information only applies to the live presentation. This course in an on-demand format is not pre-approved by any licensing boards and may not qualify for the same credits; please consult your licensing board(s) to ensure that a structured, asynchronous learning format is appropriate.
Speakers
Dr. Thomas H. Meyer, Ph.D.
Professor of Geodesy, University of ConnecticutDr. Meyer is a professor in the Department of Natural Resources and the Environment at UConn’s College of Agriculture, Health and Natural Resources (CAHNR). He is a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers and the American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing, and he is a fellow and past president (2016, 2019) of the American Association for Geodetic Surveying. Dr. Meyer is a past president (2006-2007) of the Geomatics Society of New England (previously known as the New England Section ACSM) and a member of the editorial boards of the Journal of Surveying Engineering and Surveying and Land Information Science. Dr. Meyer earned his Ph.D. degree from Texas A&M University (College Station, 1998) where he was a research associate in the Mapping Sciences Laboratory. He was named a UConn Teaching Fellow (2015), and he has taught geomatics courses at the graduate and undergraduate levels in geodesy, geographic information science, digital terrain modeling, spatial statistics, and global navigation satellite system surveying. Dr. Meyer has authored an undergraduate-level geodesy textbook and numerous peer-reviewed papers about surveying and mapping, and he teaches professional education seminars for surveyors throughout New England and the United States.
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