I've never understood the point of rotating to match a bearing. Did data collector software kinda suck back in the day and that made it easier to generate search calcs in the field? It really makes no sense to me.
Doing smaller jobs I would do it often to get on a plat's bearings so I could use the plat bearings to comp out search coordinates in the field, but these were for the most part conventional surveys and I probably started off with a compass bearing just to get going and when I found a couple corners that checked well I could rotate my survey to orient myself to the plat and start using record bearings to comp stuff out. Different scenario when you're dealing with GNSS and the survey spans a mile and several subdivisions, at which point it's easier to just bring the mountain to Mohammad than the other way around and rotating your survey to each plat your working in. When you pick up your base and move it a mile, that's when the value of working in a standard projection really shines. It's a right tool for the job thing.
Just because I'm paranoid, doesn't mean they aren't out to get me.
@john-putnam I say poison sumac instead. But here it is what everyone does. We do state if and how to get from the bastardized coordinates to o the real ones etc. I usually give the true state plane on the corners for label purposes so the inverse doesn’t match the ground distance and then all meta data to convert from ground distance to grid for the project. Site. I think when I begin stamping I will just do everything in the state plane. Show the acreage and the ground distance in ground along with grid. I would really rather just show the lat long for the two corners required by most counties. So they can do whatever they want with it. But I agree 100% placing scaled coordinates that look the same is not a good practice at all. Our dilemma is the engineers side. They want to see the map in background I said well I can just give you the parameters and still have the truncated coordinates and you can surely put that in civil 3d so the map appears.
I've never understood the point of rotating to match a bearing.
I believe that the practice is an artifact of the days before GPS. Back then you wanted some way to determine a basis of bearings. One could do a sun shot, but that took some knowledge, some time, some materials, and an at least moderately sunny day. Or you could tie a couple of monuments of record, which likely you were doing anyway, and rotate yourself onto that. Arguably better than a compass bearing or a wild guess. Those were the other options. These old habits die hard.
@norman-oklahoma so true. Solar or star shots were done in older surveys and they hat helped you follow those footsteps before you. On larger rural boundaries we would do a couple sun shots as we went around a property when retracing one that stated that it was based on sun Usually two across the site to check the azimuth. As data collectors came on the scene well one could assume coordinates and after doing the survey in the field the best found and fit mons we’re held hence the basis of bearings became plat bk pg xxxx So based on the plat or deed one was retracing. In the field I hardly ever did a translate and rotate not even in recent times. I always just computed the interior angles of the plat I was retracing and once I found a couple corners that worked well computed any search points that way. So it was on my system. I know a lot of people do the translate and rotate thing even still today. I guess being dyslexic I was always on the opposite of that lol. Does the same thing I reckon all the same math. But I always felt the translate rotate thing was a bit of cheating. Heck we would assume north and roll and using a hand compass for retracement get on that line following the previous surveys and just go.
Surveyors don't let friends scale to ground without truncating.
In Oregon, friends don't let friends work in State Plane. OCRS is the way to go. When 2022 finally hits the streets just about everyone in the US will have a version of LDP to work with. Then this long national nightmare of scaling to ground can come to an end at last.
Then this long national nightmare of scaling to ground can come to an end at last.
I watched a NGS seminar last year about the new state plane and some other surveyor also attending asked them if it will still be necessary to scale and the NGS guys said yes.
Surveyors don't let friends scale to ground without truncating.
In Oregon, friends don't let friends work in State Plane. OCRS is the way to go. When 2022 finally hits the streets just about everyone in the US will have a version of LDP to work with. Then this long national nightmare of scaling to ground can come to an end at last.
This wasn't a situation involving scaling to ground but the office people rotating their work off of SP bearings and shifting everything, but still calling it SP. I completely agree LDPs are the way to go for minimizing distortion, but if a good many surveyors around today can't even use SP correctly, I'm not sure how that's going to work out. I think there's a legacy of old habits that are just not magically going to go away just because a better projection is available. Rather they will find a way to corrupt that as well. People are creatures of habit and surveyors are no different. Mix together some big egos and a desire to shortcut things with an unwillingness to reevaluate how they do things and this happens.
Just because I'm paranoid, doesn't mean they aren't out to get me.
the NGS guys said yes
Possibly a misunderstanding. Also, a few states have elected to go with fairly large zones that don't really qualify as LDPs.
The new NGS zones are trying to keep the scale under 75PPM for 95% of the population in my state. I chatted with DOT and they will still keep using Project Factors, although they will be much closer to 1. 75ppm is 0.75' in 10,000', not great but better than the typical 3' in 10,000' we are accustomed to working with.
This reminds me of our new local city sub division ordinance a while back that required surveyors to " state plain coordinates on all new sub division corners"
I had a discussion with the city attorney on that one.
IMO any new zone that is designed anticipating the user will need to scale to ground is not any sort of improvement to the current system and probably causes more harm than good . The NGS guy misspoke or misunderstood the question. I know Micheal Dennis wouldn't say that. Is he there anymore?
Questions and answers regarding zone design can be and are misunderstood. While all zones use a scale that is embedded in the parameter that doesn't mean the user needs to calibrate or localize to ground.
This reminds me of our new local city sub division ordinance a while back that required surveyors to " state plain coordinates on all new sub division corners"
I had a discussion with the city attorney on that one.
IMO any new zone that is designed anticipating the user will need to scale to ground is not any sort of improvement to the current system and probably causes more harm than good . The NGS guy misspoke or misunderstood the question. I know Micheal Dennis wouldn't say that. Is he there anymore?
Questions and answers regarding zone design can be and are misunderstood. While all zones use a scale that is embedded in the parameter that doesn't mean the user needs to calibrate or localize to ground.
In some situations one will still need to scale to ground. You can look at the beta or alpha site and they have the distortion mapped out. Like here some are less than 20 PPM for a lot of areas. But in the mountains it’s gets a bit higher. Remember when they established this they weighted the projection based off population areas. So in theory the more populated an area is then less distortion in those areas of course the plane can be tilted and which that’s what they did. But honestly depending on what ones doing the PPM can be higher or lower just have to pay attention and see if it will matter. Of course those states that were pro active and created LDP’s and more zones to work within were a bit ahead of states that just decided to leave it like it has always been. Of course even within an area with LDP’s if a project crossed the line of that and enough relief happens then they too might have to re think which LDP or create an no documented one for a specific project. But that’s why surveyors are tested and evaluated and it’s not easy getting a license they are supposed to look at these things. I have already begun making a cheat sheet for us based on that map it is interactive FYI. So I can know on the front end if it will matter or not for projects.