OK So I have this METRIC drawing, from another surveyor

Scale the whole drawing from 0,0 by 3.28083343668.

ps - I don't think in metric either, it's hurts.

> Would you convert it to feet, or would you work with it as is?

It depends on what you want to accomplish. I generally do geodetic control projects in meters, but anything involving boundary or topo I do in US feet.

DANGER

Do you work in an International Feet State? If so, carry on.

Like the ancient Greeks, I prefer rational numbers:

3937/1200 = US Survey Feet

10000/3048 = International Feet.

The US Survey Foot is great, why they had to screw around with the International Foot is beyond me.

I have some boundary work to do. Not even a big project.

N

Work with it Nate. It's just another unit of measure like rods, links, fathoms, veras etc... perches, poles and so on....get a grip on it !!! LOL Surveyors can use any units in the world, shoot, convert it to smoots and send it back! 🙂

:good:

you are a young man Nate, you can learn easily.
If you wait until the whole world is Metric (not just the USA) then you will be old and have a real tough time of it.
Just bite the bullet and learn!

Hey Nate!

First, you gotta learn French so you can really get down in the "Metric" wee, wee!

Then - comes the Metric System: You should start by immersion; go 'round your place with a metric tape and tape everything in sight so you get a "hands on" with the Metric System. Then spend your time doing calculations in metres, and chattering under your breath in French, since I suppose no one wants to hear it aloud.

Finally - convert all your drawings to Metres for the practical experience of it all.

Only then can truly be a Metric Master!

............ William running for dear life here ............ Ha!

I don't recognize that number 3.28083343668 - where is it from?

US feet = meters * 3937/1200 = meters * 3.280833333333

Int'l feet = meters/0.3048 = meters * 3.280839895
actually derived from 1 inch = 2.54 cm
Int'l feet = 100/(12*2.54) * meters

For estimating (within 0.6%), meters are about 10% longer than yards. That should get you started in thinking about them.

May not need to convert anything! USE ALL YOUR TOOLS!!

> I don't like Metric. I don't think Metric. I don't do metric. My mind does not like it. I want to convert it, somehow to my mental units.
>
> I have Carlson. Would you convert it to feet, or would you work with it as is?
>
> Thank you!
>
> Nate
>
> PS, may have to start a new club... the 402.336 M club!
>
> N

I would base my decision on why I need the information and what the end result will be. During the bad old "going metric" days I was asked to plot all the deeds for a metric road right-of-way project. All survey control was in metric all deeds in English units. Another surveyor had started the project, project was shelved, year later I inherited the results. These included a spreadsheet of control points with both metric and English units 3D coordinates.

Few of the deeds had been marked up with metric conversions not entered into CAD. Created a new AutoCAD file and xreferenced the survey control file inserted at 0,0,0. Then scaled about 0,0,0 using the required 3937/1200 ratio. Checked the foot value coordinates of several control points, opposite ends of the project. These checked good to 5 or 6 decimals. Then opened the metric file and attached the English units file with scaling reversed.

Using the English units file and the recovered property corners (in the metric file) to entered deeds in English units. In the process checking for agreement between adjoining deeds and rotating to survey control. Handed the two resulting files off to the surveyor charged with producing the right-of-way take plans and deed descriptions.

Final plans worked well and our supervisor was impressed that we did not need to convert every deed to metric.

being "metric surveyor" I don't mind working in feet, but I then surveyors seems to work with decimal feet. Couple years ago I had to stop and think every time I needed to convert 0.3ft to inches 🙂

It would depend on the units of your final product. If you do end up scaling from metric to imperial I would recommend that you bring in the metric drawing as an xref and scale it inside your usual imperial template, mainly because if there's any dimensions in the supplied metric drawing, they'd be scaled too.

X ref

I like that idea...sorta. The Metric dwg is on SPC, (I think) and my work is old, and NOT on an objective brg system. I have to go and integrate things. And do some boundary work for my client. My tendency is to scale the Metric job to US Survey feet, download it's coords into my Data collector, go and LOCALIZE my gps, and then shoot a number of points on my old job, and then come home, with freedom and ability to work with everything on the same system.

N

my number..

is one over .3048006.

Thanks Payden

3.280833436679587

From: http://metricsystemconversion.info/foot-U.S.-survey-ft-to-meter-m.html?func=detail

I am sure that yours was "good 'nuf", but I had to check it!

N

Three step process.
Scale the drawing by 3.28083333333333
Measure the height of one of the characters and determine at what imperial scale that size would have been.
Rescale the drawing with the "old" scale being the one you derived and the "new" scale being the one you typicaly read at.

Boom, done.

In the 70's the nation was to go metric and we were were showing both feet and meters on our survey drawings. The battle was waged and metric lost, that was a loss we still are paying for. Even mechanics need to have two sets of tools to work on vehicles, metric and SAE. Now that we have lost our manufacturing base, the switch would be less costly because of the price of retooling the needed machinery to metric to manufacture using metric measurements. The loss of wealth in this country has made a change to metric less costly, we might as well make the change.
jud

Nate

Be careful. Seven places may seem like a bunch, but the further you get from SPC "origins" it can bite you in the butt by a tad.

my number..

I'm coming from the software side, where values may be converted between units or coordinate reference systems multiple times. I grok significant figures, but I don't want to see numbers 'creep' as they're converted.

Is 0.3048006 precise enough if you're working with 7 (or 8 in other states) digit SPC values? If I take NAD83 Oklahoma's false easting value of 600,000 meters and convert to US survey feet:

0.3048006     1968500.06 USft
0.30480061    1968500.00  (if extended to 3rd decimal place, 1968499.997)
0.3048006096  1968500.00

Melita