How many have received back from an engineering company a drawing, built on your boundary, for additional work and find no way to extract coords. except to click on,
write down and manually input.
Do a google search for SURVEY PLAT TOOLS. Makes that and many other survey/civil things a snap. I know it works with autocad 2000-2010 and maybe later versions. I know the guy that wrote it very well.
First You Have To Confirm The Drawing Coordinate System
Some engineers can mess up a drawing so bad it is useless. Be especially wary if you did not receive a signed and sealed record paper copy with all needed dimensions.
Paul in PA
You're talking about a digital drawing, correct? (Inferred from the "click on" reference.) So isn't it automatically coordinated? Can't you set points on anything in the drawing?
Maybe I'm misinterpreting the original post...
I called the engineer
The engineer told me that he had no way to know or send me the several hundred points that he used in all the lots, manholes, street alignment, center of cul-d -sac's.
He took my boundary and started building. If I hover on a point I get the coord. for that point, plus or minus.
He explained that his software doesn't generate a coordinate for his work. He is using the latest and greatest AUTOCAD.
This sounds just plain crazy to me.
I am not a "cad guy", so I am wondering how other surveyors handle this.
I did call another surveyor, when I asked if he ever heard of this, his answer was,"hell I quit doing work for engineers for this very reason. I got tired of having to re-build all the stuff in my own system".
Am I missing something here?
I sent a site survey to an engineer and I told him, cause he had done it before, that I can't use it if it's shifted.
Then I got it back and it was moved from state plane coordinates to 0,0 just SW of the site, all my control and hard points were stripped out, totally no way to recreate the site to go stake it. Nothing to tie to:-(
The drawing I got back with all the hundred or so lots, etc.is on my coordinate system. He said AUTOCAD does not create points in its operation for all the additional stuff he placed on it.
I am still walking around talking to myself.
I would say it's industry standard for an engineer or contractor to give a surveyor a set of plans with minimal coordinates and expect them to calculate the design from dimensions given (at least it used to be).
What should be given is the coordinates of the beginning and ending points for all the alignments (as well as all the geometry). The design features along those alignments should have a station/offset assigned to them. All curves should be treated as tangent unless a radial bearing is provided.
I'm not a big fan of providing coordinates on plans, other than minimally required.
If the plans (drawing) does not have station & offset, then it's not buildable without additional guidance from the design engineer.
I would not stake a project based only on a digital drawing without proper dimensions. Usually if digital drawings and hard copy plans are provided, there is a clause that the hard copy plans hold in the case of a discrepancy.
Not uncommon! First you have to bring in your point data, and confirm this drawing is in your coordinate system. Make sure it's not been moved or rotated or both. If it has been moved out of your coordinate system, and rotated, move and rotate it back. Then generate coordinate points for your stakeout. I'd rather generate coordinate points because some cad monkeys like to bomb points near the area, not on the end points or intersections of lines. Then there are gaps where end points and intersection should be. Then there's curves on both sides of the ROW that don't match radius.
If you need help email me. I don't have anything going on right now.
Jules J. Perret PLS
Thanks for the input everyone.
What hacks me is that I will be doing and signing off on a 50 lot subdivision, preparing the preliminary plat for approval. I sent the engineer what he needs for design purposes, the boundary. He does all the water, sewer, streets, detention pond, and I get back a drawing that I have to re-do everything on in my system so that I can finish all the cad work for the preliminary and the eventual final plat and then stake.
Things will be different next time.
Many techs around here do not compute anything, they use CAD technique to draw an image from a set of actual located points.
They then pick points of intersection, end points, etc for their computations and point coords.
Their coords rarely match that of COGO determined coords, results in numbers that are close but no cigar, much like the 0.04ft continuum. Once a dozen of those have occurred it turns into garbage.
Eccentricity of error ellipses catch my eye and when points along a straight line creates a wiggly line after being annotated is a prime example of sloppy point calculation.
The latest thing I rejected was a creek boundary that consisted of curves, reverse curves and a crude attempt at a compound set of curves with length of curve as the only given data. It reminded me of an early deed call similar to "along the courses of a creek Northeast for 1345ft".
😉
I called the engineer
> The engineer told me that he had no way to know or send me the several hundred points that he used in all the lots, manholes, street alignment, center of cul-d -sac's.
I always deliver a topographic point file and xml along with the dwg but I never assume that the engineer will use it, or even recognize it for what it is. If I had a dollar for every time an engineer has denied getting something like that, which I then re-delivered by re-sending the same old archived email with attachments while on the phone with him, I'd probably have enough dollars for a nice dinner.
> He took my boundary and started building. If I hover on a point I get the coord. for that point, plus or minus.
If you have Carlson, LDT, C3d, or most any other surveying package that works in .dwg format, or can get there, you should at least be able to click on a point in the drawing and create a point in your database. ID'ing a point you hover over! and writing it down! Wow. Google OSNAP. Get the exact coordinate of the line endpoint.
> He explained that his software doesn't generate a coordinate for his work. He is using the latest and greatest AUTOCAD.
Plain vanilla AutoCAD would not generate points in the surveying sense.
> This sounds just plain crazy to me.
Engineers do not work numbered point to numbered point like surveyors do, even if their software will.
> I am not a "cad guy", so I am wondering how other surveyors handle this.
They either hire a "cad guy" or become one themselves. It is a basic tool of our profession now. I wonder that a certain amount of CAD knowledge testing isn't on the exam.
> Am I missing something here?
CAD skills. Something worth having.
The engineer may be using UCS coordinates or he simply moved and rotated your drawing to different coordinate system.
Very common, and very simple to correct.
Just Xref his drawing into your original survey. Find a few common points to move and rotate the Xref back to your coordinate system.
[sarcasm]What about the 13 XREFS and 65000 layers?[/sarcasm]
Dave,
No reason for sarcasm That's easy to deal with also. When you reference in the grading plan, be certain to toggle on nested references. At least I can do it MicroStation.
So long as the engineering or survey cad operator didn't bastardized the cad file when sending it to you. I think some do this intentionally. They surely can not be so stupid as to use a single cad file with all xrefs copied into to one large dwg.
> No reason for sarcasm ...
The OP doesn't know OSNAP, doesn't know how to create a point by clicking. It seems unlikely that advise to XREF and then ROTATE & MOVE (or ALIGN) is going to be comprehended.
