Can points not in a feature be roped into an existing feature in Trimble Pathfinder?

Question

I am editing a Trimble Pathfinder .cor file to reduce standard deviation on collected points in features and meet government standards. Some features have a large standard deviation between contributing points, but not many points collected as part of the feature. However, there are numerous points right near the feature which are not part of any feature, but it's pretty obvious that they were collected in the same place as the feature (i.e. they're all <3m away from the feature). The feature's points spread out across a 10m area and average to a point right near these unassigned points, but not many points were collected as part of the feature so if I delete the outliers to tighten the cluster I don't meet government standards for # of points collected.

I would like to tell Pathfinder to take the unassigned points and add them to the existing feature, thereby increasing the number of nearby points in it to average, and allowing me to delete the points furthest away to create a tighter cluster (and smaller standard deviation) on that feature.

Anyone know if this is possible?

Answer 1

This can be done in Trimble Pathinfer using the "grouping" function. It requires saving a copy of the .COR file with only the points you want to group together (ie. delete the point feature to change it to satellite points along side all the ones you want to collect up into that feature, or if they never made it into the feature you want just remove all valid features and leave the loose points) then you run the "grouping" menu command on the .COR file copy, stating what kind of feature you want it to group the points into. A new feature comes out the other end!

Answer 2

I don't think it's possible. You can edit SSF and COR files to a small extent using the Pathfinder Office SSF Record Editor tool, but as the Help file states:

The SSF Record Editor allows you to view SSF format files in detail. The ability to alter the coordinates of a GNSS position record is intentionally omitted. You can use the editor to delete or undelete a position, but you cannot change the coordinates of that position.

I'm guessing the ability to reassign points to features is also "intentionally omitted".

Even if it were possible, I would not recommend doing it, you'd be falsifying your field data. Personally I treat all SSF/COR data as "original" and don't alter it in any way. If you really need to modify your features, for example if sending field personnel out to re-collect the GPS data isn't an option, you can always export the features to shapefiles from the COR file, edit the shapefiles, and explain the edits you're making and why.