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Problems with Carlson annotating short line segments

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(@md-surveyor)
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I recently completed an anchor bolt survey. The contractor requested the data in a table that shows the bearing and distance from the proposed bolt locations to the as-built bolt locations. So I simply drew a 2D polyline from the center of the proposed bolt to the survey node and annotated each segment in a table with the Carlson auto annotate command. The polylines were very short, anywhere from 1/64" to 3/4". I was very particular in drawing the polyline in the correct direction but as I was checking the table I noticed that some of the quadrants were reversed. The more I dug into it I realized that Carlson is not recognizing the direction of the polyline on the majority of the nodes. I have reversed the polyline direction and it doesn't change the direction that Carlson annotates the line. I have drawn new polylines and annotated them, sometimes Carlson gets it correct sometimes it doesn't. The only thing that I can think is the line segments are so short that it cannot recognize the direction? If I draw a line 1" or longer it seems to always get it correct. Anybody else experienced this?

 
Posted : 10/12/2015 1:42 pm
(@toivo1037)
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Call, email tech support. Send them the drawing. I would be surprised if is wasn't fixed by dinner tomorrow.

 
Posted : 10/12/2015 3:15 pm
(@stephen-ward)
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Under Annotate Defaults on the Angle tab, check the setting for Bearing Direction Method. I've had issues in the past with it labeling backwards. Seems like I switched from By Linework to Toward Picked End, labeled a couple of lines then switched it back and it fixed the issue.

 
Posted : 10/12/2015 3:22 pm
(@md-surveyor)
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Thanks for the suggestion. I checked and my settings were already "toward picked end". I played with some of the other options and it didn't seem to help. I have no idea what's going on. Out of the 700+ anchor bolts we located Carlson only annotated about 20% of them correctly. The fact that it got 80% wrong has me confused, it makes me think it's a systematic error and not random.

 
Posted : 11/12/2015 6:54 am
(@md-surveyor)
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Call, email tech support. Send them the drawing. I would be surprised if is wasn't fixed by dinner tomorrow.

Thanks. I am doing that this morning.

 
Posted : 11/12/2015 6:55 am
(@md-surveyor)
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Under Annotate Defaults on the Angle tab, check the setting for Bearing Direction Method. I've had issues in the past with it labeling backwards. Seems like I switched from By Linework to Toward Picked End, labeled a couple of lines then switched it back and it fixed the issue.

After playing with this a little more this was the problem. It is now annotating things correctly by linework. Thanks for the suggestions.

 
Posted : 11/12/2015 7:34 am
(@stephen-ward)
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Yeah, it's been a while since I've run into that particular issue. In general if Carlson is misbehaving I've found that toggling the settings for the misbehaving feature will often clear up the issue. Glad to hear you got it working.

 
Posted : 11/12/2015 7:43 am
(@paul-in-pa)
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For the occasional problem Carlson has a Command, "Switch Bearing Quadrant" under "Annotate / Flip Labels".

I am surprised the contractor wanted bearings and distances, was it per building North?

Did you provide it in å¡ ' " as that is overkill for anchor bolt offsets?

Personally I would not have done it annotating lines, instead I would use points, using your design point to the field surveyed point. That way it is always correct.

I have seen too many foul ups by dimensioning and or staking out from lines instead of points, mostly from engineer originated drawings. I have been an engineer for more than 40 years and learned very quickly to use points rather than lines, many years before I became a licensed surveyor.

Paul in PA, PE, PLS

 
Posted : 11/12/2015 8:05 am
(@imaudigger)
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This is not just an issue with short line segments. I had a map recently, where it did the same thing...I would go in and edit the table values and be fine until I added another line to the table, then it would go back and undo all my edits. Very frustrating to say the least.

 
Posted : 11/12/2015 9:09 am
(@md-surveyor)
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For the occasional problem Carlson has a Command, "Switch Bearing Quadrant" under "Annotate / Flip Labels".
I am surprised the contractor wanted bearings and distances, was it per building North?
Did you provide it in å¡ ' " as that is overkill for anchor bolt offsets?
Personally I would not have done it annotating lines, instead I would use points, using your design point to the field surveyed point. That way it is always correct.
I have seen too many foul ups by dimensioning and or staking out from lines instead of points, mostly from engineer originated drawings. I have been an engineer for more than 40 years and learned very quickly to use points rather than lines, many years before I became a licensed surveyor.
Paul in PA, PE, PLS

The bearings were based on the local coordinate system provided to us by the surveyor doing the layout.

We did provide deg, min, sec but I agree it was overkill.

We did not have the design points only the cad file with the bolt locations shown as a circle. I also prefer to use points and the solution was going to be to place design points at each bolt location and perform inverses if I couldn't figure out the line work issue.

 
Posted : 11/12/2015 9:28 am
(@arctanx-2-2)
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imaudigger, post: 348648, member: 7286 wrote: This is not just an issue with short line segments. I had a map recently, where it did the same thing...I would go in and edit the table values and be fine until I added another line to the table, then it would go back and undo all my edits. Very frustrating to say the least.

When you have the "link labels with linework" setting turned on in the Settings->Carlson Configure->General Settings -- Object Linking, and then you move the labels for a better label position they won't stay put if you drag a line segment. It puts the label back in the default position. You have to remove the xdata from the label object to kill it's relationship to the line.

 
Posted : 11/12/2015 9:31 am
(@imaudigger)
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I don't have object linking turned on, but have experienced behavior like you describe.

 
Posted : 11/12/2015 9:58 am