FreeCOGO - Software Evaluation and Feedback

Why must all coordinate values be greater than zero?
Can you display at the bottom the current coordinates of the cursor to help navigation?
Or maybe click a point to see its coordinates?

Coords don't have to be positive.

FreeCOGO processes positive or negative co-ordinates but considers a point with 0E, 0N co-ords as undefined.
If a 0,0 point is produced as a result of computation FreeCOGO ignores it.

In our local UTM system in the southern hemisphere the true zone origin is 0,0 at the intersection of the central meridian and the equator but all coords are referenced to a false origin 500,000m west and 10,000,000m south of the true origin.
So down here all coords in the UTM zone are positive.

If you use a mix of positive and negative coords with FreeCOGO you wont have any problems unless a point is produced with zero coords.

I hadn't considered the need to display the cursor position in real time - thanks for the suggestion - I'll look into that.

ENQUIRE>POINT will display the coords of a point.

Barry Graham
Melbourne, Australia

You're right, it takes a point with negative coordinates. But, it rejects a point if EITHER coordinate is zero, not just if both.

It is often useful to work problems with local coordinates instead of UTM or other mapping values. Hence allowing (0,0) might be a good thing.

OK Bill,

You can now enter 0E, 0N as valid coords.
(Actually stored as 1e-10 for x and y - I doubt that you will be surveying to that accuracy!!!)

Download this small file and copy it over the existing file in your FreeCOGO folder.

Zero coord permit

Let me know if that creates any problems.

Regards

Barry Graham
Melbourne, Australia

Download link to the latest version.
FreeCOGOv2.07 (April 15 2011)

If you have already installed FreeCOGO use the Help>Version menu item to check for and download the Update.

Barry Graham
Melbourne, Australia

Thanks Barry, gonna try it this weekend!

Have a great weekend!

Interesting.

Did you ever consider adding a command line at the bottom ?
Many coomands could be entered quickly with just a few letter command abbreviation or a command number - such as

Locate point by bearing

Command line: LB

Prompt "From Pt:"
Prompt "Bearing" [Bearings either as quadrant or NE, SE etc.]
Prompt "Distance"
Prompt: "Set Pt:" [Display Next available Pt or user could enter a Pt]

or

Inverse distance

Command Line: D
Prompt "From Pt"
Prompt "To Pt"

Displays Distance and Bearing/Az

There are many others.

Just curious, what language did you write this in and are you directly managing the graphics (or is there some other library of program handling that ?)

Just some thoughts

Russ

Looks like some crummy version of a BASIC compiler.

Hi Russ,

Originally the program was all text entry without graphics but college instructors preferred something visual which led to the current format. The aim was to produce a program that students could use on their home systems without the expense involved in buying commercial software. It also kept my brain cells working in retirement.
It's not meant to be a commercial program but a student aid limited to plane co-ordinates without geodetic adjustments or scale factors.

It's written in Liberty Basic - all the graphics are handled by the software with a limited command set similar to HPGL (Pen Up/Down, Go, Line etc.). Unfortunately text is upright only. If I wanted to display bearings and distances along a line I would have to develop a shape font and suffer the overhead of drawing the text. I have opted for DXF output instead.(Students can download a free version of ProgeCAD, which is almost identical to Autocad, to plot the plan annotated with bearings and distances).

I didn't consider quadrant bearings. The old Lands Department maps down here in links, feet and quadrant bearings have all been converted digitally to full circle bearings with distances in metres.
But it's an option that could be added.

How do you enter quadrant bearings in other programs.
S45.1530E or S45.15.30E or SE45.1530 ?
What's the standard?
For example how are they entered in an HP calculator?

Regards

Barry Graham
Melbourne, Australia

> How do you enter quadrant bearings in other programs.

It varies but the most common is quadrant codes preceding or after the DD.MM.SS is input.

1 = NE 2 = SE 3 = SW 4 = NW

In microsurvey you enter like this...

489.5055

which would be N 89-50-55 W

Carlson you enter 4 enter 89.5055 enter.

The 89.5055 format was necessary on the early HP calculators. Its use anywhere spaces or punctuation is available is a mistake leading to confusion. The software to accept 4.89.50.55 would not be a problem for the larger processors in use now.

Well it looks like others answered the question, but the correct quadrants are as follows:

1=NE 2=NW 3=SW 4=SE

I wrote a DOS cogo program 30+ years ago (in Fortran) that I still use (too numerous of revisions to count, but still some bugs !) and it allows bearings like

NE30.1025
30.1025NE
N30.1025E

With quadrants (I like to use just the numeric key pad - a lot quicker than alpa entry) it would be like this:

130.1025 equals N 30 deg 10 min 25 sec E

This first digit is presumed to be the quadrant.

with azimuths I would us "LA" Locate point by azimuth "From" "Azimuth" "distance" "set point" [descriptor]

Thanks for sharing the info.

Russ

Looks great, just what I needed, except can you add the option to choose clockwise azimuths from SOUTH instead of North (you call them bearings).
Thanks Rich.

quadrant bearing entry

There was quite a [msg=16029]long discussion on short-hand quadrant bearing entry[/msg]
last year. (There appear to be a few "standards").

I was asking because, while Copan already allowed the N12.3456W style of entry (and display), i was (and still am) considering adding an option for something like 412.3456 as a slightly-faster-data-entry mode alternative.

BTW, Copan is another free COGO program for everyone to use -- and offer feedback on.

I still have the old Sierra Cybernetics codes seared into my memory.

1 through 4 for quadrants.
6 for pick two points
7 for angle right.

clockwise azimuths from south

> ... can you add the option to choose clockwise azimuths from SOUTH instead of North

Already an option in Copan 😉

quadrant bearing entry

Microsurvey uses the "412.3456" style entry.

Or you can put in 1..2 for it to calc the bearing from 1 to 2 and use that.

Or you can put in 1..2+90 to do the same but go right 90 degrees. It's pretty fast once you learn it.

quadrant bearing entry

> Microsurvey uses
> 1..2 for the bearing from 1 to 2
> 1..2+90 to do the same but go right 90

In Copan, they are 1,2 and 1,2.1 respectively (and "1-to-2 minus 90" is 1,2.3)

Excuse my paraphrasing.