I use JZip and put a password on the zipped CAD file.
I enclose my own EULA stating that they are limited to the use at hand and that the file may not be provided to others with a few nasty caveats. They type in the password and they are on the hook.
It's a new day and a new age. Paper copies are given out as record copies or for recordation at the court house only now days. The client contracts for the drawing, usually specifying if it's to be in Microstation or AutoCAD, the desired version of the software, the scale and the desired sheet size. I haven't seen a contract that requests paper prints as the final product in years. PDF's are sent for the ensuing dog and pony show, never as a final. Client gets a dwg and a comma delimited txt file of the coordinates. It's been that way in my area for several years now. I have a really nice plotter that may soon become a new ivy planter.
Exactly...we really make paper prints only for boundary only surveys and for planning board stuff. It's worth having a plotter really only for work maps and QA/QC stuff these days. The PDF is my proof of what the CAD file looked like when it went out.
Tom
We never give CAD files of boundary. If we didn’t give cad files of topo we wouldn’t get any topo work.
Worked on U.S. Army Corps of Engineers projects 1991 - 1996 with CAD (Intergraph/MicroStation) word processing and database files being the required deliverable products. Paper copies were required only as backups for easement parcel descriptions and summary reports.
Most of this was handed off to third party engineering design consultants and local government legal staff. Projects often included USACE as well as city and county reviews of various portions of the data. Fielded numerous phone calls questioning everything from SPC grid distance vs ground distance to gaps in title of parcels subject to project easements.
Primary project was the first all electronic data 3D design project for that particular USACE district and a learning project for all involved. Since that experience I have known this is where most of the industry is headed and advocated securing data files using Digital Certificates. Search for my responses here to questions about digital signatures. There is a difference between CERTIFICATE and SIGNATURE when digital data is involved. Although somewhat dated my 2009 article "Electronic Information Transfer Requirements" still provides an answer to the CAD data file question. If I were in private practice today any digital data would follow the guidelines in the article.
Most of my clients are people who have a real need for that AutoCAD file, such as the developers, engineers, architects, and planners. Most of them don't want or have any need for the paper copy. That has become so last century. Everything now is by e-mail.
Hi there --?ÿ I am not a surveyor, I'm managing a few capital projects in my capacity as Assistant City Administrator.?ÿ I've run into an issue where our surveyor wants to charge 40 hours to give our civil engineer the monument coordinates for a parcel of?ÿ muni land which we had surveyed starting in 2005 and then finalized (with site visits both times) in 2016.?ÿ ?ÿThe cost of the survey was a chunk of change and about middling for what survey firms in our area charge.?ÿ ?ÿWe are a muni that pays our debts and while I have been tasked with getting these projects reigned in, budget-wise, I understand quite well that nobody works for free.?ÿ ?ÿ
After some back and forth and 20 hours between the surveyors and the engineers with no results on the monument coordinates, our engineers threw up their hands and stated they could probably pull the coordinates themselves if they had the autocad file (one of the engineers started out as a surveyor but switched to civil).
I requested the autocad file from the surveyor but they balked.?ÿ ?ÿ I read this very informative thread and would like to state that in the future all survey projects will specify autocad files as deliverables but since I inherited this project from an old school type, none is in place as of now.?ÿ
I requested that the surveyor indicate the cost to provide their autocad file as well as our muni's willingness to 'hold harmless,' but the surveyor PM says he 'wants to know what we want it for.'?ÿ ?ÿI told him that I want it to share with the civil engineers first and the architects second and to keep for our records third but he's requested a meeting before he'll agree to anything so he can 'be in his comfort zone.'
It's going on a year that we've been requesting these coordinates and I'm so ready to dump these guys but I'm worried the 20K we've already sunk into this survey will be lost if I tell them just how uncooperative and unprofessional I've found them to date.?ÿ
I'm looking for neutral feedback about this situation -- is 20 hours to pull monument coordinates a reasonable amount of time??ÿ is 40? I'm sure it depends on a lot but the data is 100% this surveyors.'?ÿ My frustration is causing me to judge these surveyors as shady but they have a good reputation and I'm willing to consider other alternatives.?ÿ
I'd be very grateful for any feedback.?ÿ?ÿ
Thanks,?ÿ
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is 20 hours to pull monument coordinates a reasonable amount of time? is 40? I'm sure it depends on a lot but the data is 100% this surveyors.' My frustration is causing me to judge these surveyors as shady but they have a good reputation and I'm willing to consider other alternatives.
It's not clear to me what you mean by "monument coordinates."?ÿ Coordinates of boundary monuments already in the ground??ÿ Coordinates of boundary corners that aren't yet monumented, for the purpose of monumenting them??ÿ Coordinates of monuments to relate an engineering design to fixed points on the ground? What's the nature of the project, and how big is it??ÿ I'd need more information to even begin estimating whether or not the surveyor's demand is reasonable.
Depends on use. If its for engineering work. We will always provide CAD along with associated PDF of said file. This is a check record if someone changed the CAD files. It happened before and as the email also had the PDF which showed the original, the guilty party owned up shifting some lines for their benefit. While you may have trouble with that, with CAD, it helps the design team much more than a PDF would do and vice versa where I use their design drawings to set out( also with my own internal checks before setting out on site).
For any litigation purposes, it is only PDF no CAD. As PDF are submitted to court as evidences, CAD cannot be shown as evidence.?ÿ
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So are you asking for State Plane coordinates after the fact so that you can put the survey into the GIS or something similar??ÿ I can understand a surveyor balking at that.?ÿ ?ÿIf it wasn't in their original scope of work, it's not as easy as clicking on a report.?ÿ Especially if the tract is large.?ÿ?ÿ
If the original data wasn't collected in a published datum, then no, your engineers couldn't just figure it out from a cad file.?ÿ?ÿ
If it was just assigning N/E to points on a survey map, they could do that in an afternoon from the paper copy.?ÿ?ÿ
Dang, didn't realize this was a re hash from 2014 and thought Kent Mc was back online for a minute!?ÿ?ÿ
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....I'm looking for neutral feedback about this situation -- is 20 hours to pull monument coordinates a reasonable amount of time?.....?ÿ
That does seem like ample time - to say the least - to extract that sort of data. I dare say that I could do it from one of my drawings in 20 minutes and have 15 left over. But I can imagine reasons that I would want to charge a great deal more if I could.?ÿIt doesn't matter how long it takes them. It only matters how much it is worth to your team.
Your story leaves me with some questions which I am filling in by reading things between the lines that may or may not be there. You say you are at the end with this consultant. Well, they may be at the end with your group also, and are just getting in one last ruthless kick at the cat.?ÿ Your city paid $20000 for a survey but how much service did the consultant provide for that? How difficult and demanding has your team been over the ensuing 12 years? Have they expected this consultant to support the survey for?ÿ all these years without additional fees? Is it that the consultant is just taking the opportunity to make themselves whole on the job after 12 years??ÿ
You may offer to hold them harmless for this new data but there is a certain amount of professional liability that cannot be disclaimed away by either side.?ÿ The point data is interpreted to form the mapping. There are bound to be "bad shots" in any large data set which could be misinterpreted. A lot of what you are paying for is accepting liability for what might be done by your team with that data.?ÿ Again, that liability just can't be entirely disclaimed. And even if it could the bad feelings and damage to reputation that would certainly follow such a misinterpretation are worth a lot more than some hours of technician time.?ÿ ?ÿ ?ÿ ?ÿ
It boils down to this. They have something that your team needs. They have fulfilled their contractual obligations, and you can't get it anywhere else, so you must pay for it.?ÿ They have named their price. Pay it or proceed without it. You have held up your design team for a year over what - $2000 in charges??ÿ ?ÿ$4000??ÿ ?ÿFrankly, that smells.?ÿ Nevertheless I do applaud your efforts to be responsible with the public purse.?ÿ?ÿ
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Dang, didn't realize this was a re hash from 2014 and thought Kent Mc was back online for a minute!?ÿ?ÿ
Also noticed a posting in this thread from Bruce Small. His last posting was 3 months ago, and it was about having a melanoma cut out.?ÿ Hope he is well.
It's not clear to me what you mean by "monument coordinates."?ÿ Coordinates of boundary monuments already in the ground??ÿ Coordinates of boundary corners that aren't yet monumented, for the purpose of monumenting them??ÿ Coordinates of monuments to relate an engineering design to fixed points on the ground? What's the nature of the project, and how big is it??ÿ I'd need more information to even begin estimating whether or not the surveyor's demand is reasonable.
Sorry I wasn't clear... we marked up pdf with a request for 6 coordinates.?ÿ Not monument markers.?ÿ My mistake.?ÿ
Others have responded to "Questionner's" post with some valid comments.?ÿ However, Questionner stated he is not a surveyor and I presume may not fully understand what the comments imply. My intent is to add context to the comments of others.
- "I've run into an issue where our surveyor wants to charge 40 hours to give our civil engineer the monument coordinates for a parcel of muni land which we had surveyed starting in 2005 and then finalized (with site visits both times) in 2016."
- The original survey data may not have been collected or computed using geodetic (State Plane Coordinate) coordinate systems. In 2005 many older survey companies had assumed coordinate systems in place for areas they frequently worked in.?ÿ An example would be N5000, E10,000 at the intersection of two streets south and west of the first project in the area.?ÿ That first project may have been 1970 or earlier predating the advent of GPS.?ÿ Providing State Plane Coordinates in this situation requires a site visit with GPS equipment and recovering three to five monuments for GPS observation.?ÿ Minimum one day of field work for two man crew.?ÿ Once this is in the office all the coordinates for the project must be compared to insure the monuments have not been disturbed.?ÿ If there are more points than those recovered in the field the remaining points will need to be recomputed in State Plane Coordinate system.?ÿ This process would take a few hours to a full day depending on the complexity of the project.
- "After some back and forth and 20 hours between the surveyors and the engineers with no results on the monument coordinates, our engineers threw up their hands and stated they could probably pull the coordinates themselves if they had the autocad file (one of the engineers started out as a surveyor but switched to civil)."
- Not all surveying companies used AutoCad in 2005 and there are still a number that use other software and produce only hard copy drawings for clients.?ÿ When local government agencies started requiring AutoCad files as part of new descriptions these surveyors said they would sue.?ÿ At the time (about 2000) a few were still hand drafting their plats and used only hand held calculators for computations.?ÿ They did not have AutoCad or computers that were capable of running the software.?ÿ For these companies producing coordinates for the project would require hand copying numbers and double/triple checking for transcription errors.?ÿ Again the coordinates may not be in the required system and be useless for the civil engineer.?ÿ If this is the case there may be no AutoCad file and making one would require hours of work and checking against the original hard copy.
That does seem like ample time - to say the least - to extract that sort of data. I dare say that I could do it from one of my drawings in 20 minutes and have 15 left over. But I can imagine reasons that I would want to charge a great deal more if I could.?ÿIt doesn't matter how long it takes them. It only matters how much it is worth to your team.
Your story leaves me with some questions which I am filling in by reading things between the lines that may or may not be there. You say you are at the end with this consultant. Well, they may be at the end with your group also, and are just getting in one last ruthless kick at the cat.?ÿ Your city paid $20000 for a survey but how much service did the consultant provide for that? How difficult and demanding has your team been over the ensuing 12 years? Have they expected this consultant to support the survey for?ÿ all these years without additional fees? Is it that the consultant is just taking the opportunity to make themselves whole on the job after 12 years??ÿ
You may offer to hold them harmless for this new data but there is a certain amount of professional liability that cannot be disclaimed away by either side.?ÿ The point data is interpreted to form the mapping. There are bound to be "bad shots" in any large data set which could be misinterpreted. A lot of what you are paying for is accepting liability for what might be done by your team with that data.?ÿ Again, that liability just can't be entirely disclaimed. And even if it could the bad feelings and damage to reputation that would certainly follow such a misinterpretation are worth a lot more than some hours of technician time.?ÿ ?ÿ ?ÿ ?ÿ
It boils down to this. They have something that your team needs. They have fulfilled their contractual obligations, and you can't get it anywhere else, so you must pay for it.?ÿ They have named their price. Pay it or proceed without it. You have held up your design team for a year over what - $2000 in charges??ÿ ?ÿ$4000??ÿ ?ÿFrankly, that smells.?ÿ Nevertheless I do applaud your efforts to be responsible with the public purse.?ÿ?ÿ
Thanks for your reply, Norman.?ÿ No we have not asked them to support the survey in the ensuing years.?ÿ The initial survey lay inactive until funding and permitting for the project could be secured. It was then completed 10+ years later to plat.?ÿ ?ÿ
No we have not held up the design team for a year over this issue,?ÿ the project is delayed due to funding issues.?ÿ If we were at a jumping off point in the project I'd pay the 4K and be done with it but I would still want the autocad file for our records and for future info requests.?ÿ To be clear it's not about the 2-4K, which is not a significant sum on this project.?ÿ It's about having trust in the project partners and it's also about having digital files.?ÿ I know we will end up paying them.?ÿ My question is not about that, it's about whether or not what they are asking is reasonable so as to judge if they are worth retaining as project partners.?ÿ
I won't go into a lot of identifying details here but your comment that it doesn't matter how long it takes them, it only matters what it's worth to our team may hold true for private money jobs with tight deadlines but not really for long term relationships with small munis.?ÿ Sure, they'll get their money now, but they won't get our future business, if they are being gouge-ey.?ÿ And that may be the answer -- this surveyor just might not be the right fit for us.?ÿ?ÿ
Thanks for the info about liability, especially.?ÿ It helps to understand the pushback.?ÿ?ÿ
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Others have responded to "Questionner's" post with some valid comments.?ÿ However, Questionner stated he is not a surveyor and I presume may not fully understand what the comments imply. My intent is to add context to the comments of others.
Hey thanks!?ÿ This is very helpful.?ÿ These comments have helped me come to the realization that there's a personality clash between surveyor and myself.?ÿ They are not being unreasonable, but neither are they being helpful / providing good customer service.?ÿ ?ÿ
I appreciate you taking the time to reply.?ÿ
Surveyor:
Noun. A necessary evil. A waste of money. A useless, incompetent, technician, who developers and realtors despise. They often can be seen strolling in the field, and woods. With fancy gadgets. Fancy gadgets, that they want others to pay for. I wish I could get paid to walk around. I'm not a cheapskate, I'm willing to pay for flagging, and rebar, but that's it! They should pay me, to let them stroll my big expensive pastures, and woods. If there is woods, maybe they should hire someone to whack brush for a day.... I can see that. No more than 100.00 a day though! Ripoff artists, with no business sense, and look like they need a bath...
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Surveyor:
Noun. A necessary evil. A waste of money. A useless, incompetent, technician, who developers and realtors despise. They often can be seen strolling in the field, and woods. With fancy gadgets. Fancy gadgets, that they want others to pay for. I wish I could get paid to walk around. I'm not a cheapskate, I'm willing to pay for flagging, and rebar, but that's it! They should pay me, to let them stroll my big expensive pastures, and woods. If there is woods, maybe they should hire someone to whack brush for a day.... I can see that. No more than 100.00 a day though! Ripoff artists, with no business sense, and look like they need a bath...
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Nate you forget to mention that most states now require either a two year or four year degree in land surveying and two to four additional years of experience under a licensed surveyor.?ÿ The "necessary evil" also wants to pay off student loans and many need to put food on the table for a few dependents as well as pay for his fancy toys.
To add to Dallas' excellent clarification, many, if not most firms who use CAD use it not only as a drawing tool/environment, but also for calculations and analysis.?ÿ A drawing file may have several layers which are not directly pertinent to the final drawing as plotted.?ÿ They may contain temporary construction lines (drawing construction, not on-the-ground building facilities), preliminary data, rejected data/evidence, etc. that were all necessary at some preliminary point in the job but not to the final results.
Prior to providing a CAD file, assuming that there is such info in the DWG file, the surveyor may want to know how the file will be used to determine just how much file cleanup he will need to do before providing a copy.?ÿ If it will be available to multiple users for multiple purposes, then you can bet that one of those users will end up using some preliminary, rejected, or seemingly random line or data instead of that representing the final survey determinations if that data is not first cleaned out to avoid the possibility of such confusion.?ÿ The surveyors may also want to know so that he does not have data that is pertinent background data (perhaps site control point coordinates) removed from the cleaned up version provided.
Also consider what the surveyor was contracted to provide when the survey was performed and drawing provided.?ÿ If State Plane Coordinates were not specified, it?ÿwill take additional effort to make the conversion if he had worked on a local or assumed system (which would have been acceptable and probably normal practice if SPCs were not specified in that contract).?ÿ If providing a CAD file was not specified, then there would likely have been no effort to clean up the extraneous and potentially confusing data.?ÿ Those layers would have simply been turned off or frozen when plotting the final drawing(s).?ÿ Background data, such as the locations of and coordinates for on-site random proprietary control has value and if providing that data was not part of the original contract, should not be expected for free now.
If what you are asking for now is the coordinates for points that are shown on the final drawing and there is no need to convert those coordinates from a local or assumed system to State Plane or some other project coordinate system, then I would think the cost to supply that data would be nominal - something along the lines of 2 to 4 hours of CAD tech work and 1 to 2 hours of Project Surveyor or Principal's time at most.?ÿ If the relationship is ongoing and the survey firm gets a fair amount of work from your municipality on a regular basis, many firms would provide the data for free (again, assuming data is already in requested format and represents points shown on final drawing) as an act of ongoing goodwill between the organizations.
Bottom line, consider what was required by the original contract and consider what you are asking for now.?ÿ What seems like a simple request might actually require a significant amount of work if there are differences in the bases of the data, or it might be quite simple if current project specs, including and especially project datum, have not changed.
I wouldn't chalk it up to a personality conflict if it hasn't actually elevated to that so much as a lapse in communication due to each not having a good understanding of what the other needs.