Kent, I am with you 100% on this. If I am hired to do a topo I send the paper and pdf and the cad file because I expect it to be used by engineers and/or architects to do their job but giving another surveyor a cad file just to make his job easier with the possibility of making me liable for his mistakes is a no go. When we do construction layout I always ask the engineer to supply the design cad files but I don't go asking the surveyor to send me his boundary or topo cad files. We go onsite confirm the boundary location, check the benchmarks, get everything on SPC and then start with the layout. Also I only make the topo cad availible for a limited time, a few weeks ago I had an local engineering firm ask for the files of a topo I did 5 years ago. I wouldn't send them without an update and after being hired we found both adajcent streets torn out and new streets and underground under construction, fifty new trees had been planted onsite, and two additions to the building and the removal of one detention area.
Dan:
Probably the most sensible reply in this whole thread. I would never give out a cadd file to anyone, especially someone that was not your original client.
Oh Kent,
I agree with you on the nine year thing, but it's just so much fun to pick on you.
In all seriousness, when the issue has come up in the past (regarding engineering plans, in my case), I call the original client who paid for the plan, and ask for his authorization before shipping the CAD file. You can stick to your guns and refuse to release CAD files, but you will most likely lose a client.
Oh Kent,
> You can stick to your guns and refuse to release CAD files, but you will most likely lose a client.
I don't need a client like that. In fact, I usually fire them first since they are too much trouble. There are just some people whose projects are going to be one never-ending train wreck. I'm perfectly willing to let some other surveyor enjoy that ride, but they'll have to do it without my CAD drawing files.
I'll discuss the track ahead with them and mention that I hear a distant whistle of an on-coming train, but what they do with that information is up to them.
In this particular instance, I may agree with Kent. For a boundary survey, if all the info is on the hardcopy map, why would the other surveyor need the CAD file?
If I'm continuing work on a project for which another surveyor performed the boundary, I see recalculating the boundary from the map to be a part of the review of data that I'm going to use as a basis for control. If there is a problem with the data, I'll find it in the calculations from the map data. Once that check is done, I'll establish control from the monuments and in the process, field verify what's on the map.
If another surveyor is asking for a CAD file of the boundary, he may be hoping to also get the control points and intend to just work from those, performing minimal checks and shortcutting the checking and control work he would otherwise have to do.
I have regularly provided boundary and topo CAD files as design base. Before sending it, I strip out any data that does not directly show or support the data as shown on the hardcopy map. That includes temporary working layers and random control points/traverse. I have a release form that covers me if they mess up the CAD data and try to come back after me.
IMO, it is good business to provide data when it is needed by a client for a legitimate use, such as design base, but it is unwise to do so without at least the minimal agreement that the data on the hardcopy provided is conclusive of the content provided in the CAD file. Whether or not you want to potentially help another surveyor shortcut some of the procedures he should be doing, is really more of a personal choice than one of liability. If something goes wrong on that job, he was the last licensee to work on it. The State Board will look to him as having been responsible to verify whatever he presumed to work from. On the other hand, you may be providing the other surveyor with the data he was counting on when he proposed a budget for the proposal that edged you out of the work, the data which provided you a competetive advantage had he prepared a budget that envisioned having to establish his own site control.
If it is a fellow surveyor that I know and "NOT" a project that I bid on then I will share the cad file and do so quite regularly and they return the favor in kind.
In N.C. The board considers Residential plot plans Surveys . So they could be turned in for surveying with out a license .
Nothing. They were trying to shift liability, nothing more.
FWIW, we keep an original reproducible of the survey plat and one paper copy in the file so we don't have to hunt it all up again in the computer.
It's nice to pull the file and not have to go to the map room to get the map of what you did last week or 30 years ago.
I wouldn't have asked for your cad file, and probably not anything due to the fact that I would have gotten the deeds and presumably, your description would have been of record.
Wasn't this settled in the 90's
Most companies I have worked for since the late 80s have specify in their contracts what the deliverables are to be. In most cases, the deliverables were a certain number of paper copies of whatever plans or maps are created. All other file materials, information, including CAD files are specifically mentioned as being owned by the company.
Most of them that released CAD files, did so by signed agreement specifically addressing CAD files. Those that didn't do so by separate agreement had standard language in their contract that stated if CAD files were provided and differences with hardcopies were discovered, the hardcopies were presumed correct, no warranties of CAD info, etc.
None, big company or small, considered the CAD file to be some commodity purchased by the client.
Wasn't this settled in the 90's
We also have it in our contracts that the electronic file is the companies.
And I would not give a CAD file to anyone who is not a professional.
Don't other professionals share information?
I think its just common courtesy in today's electonic age to swap files with other professionals. If you feel differently, don't do it.
Today I just received a CAD file from another surveyor, he sent me everything. If he ever needs anything from me, I'll be sure to give it to him.
Maybe I feel this way because we are in a non-record state. But its the way may dad did business (o.k. no CAD files but fieid notes) and thats the way I do business.
I forgot to mention...
We are having a clearance sale on all old CAD files.
For a limited time, while supplies last, they are 3 for $100 or you can get them in a special limited edition commemorative case for only an additional $10.95!
Don't miss out on this special deal! Come in today! You won't see these prices again!
I'm with Kent on this.
If the new surveyor can't use the paper copies and record data that's already on hand to create (or recreate) the information they need, then they shouldn't be doing the job.
And, if you read his original post, he said he "don't mind giving a paper copy or a pdf in most cases."
Gene
I disagree. Remember, your argument is that the client owns it, and not the surveyor/architect/engineer who is calling asking.
99% of the time, if I know my job is for the purpose of a new building, I get the client to release me to release the cad file for that purpose.
9 years later, not no but hell no, and maybe only if the client 9 years ago called personally.
If the data is in the public record, it's not that hard to produce your own cad overlay and make the job work. You have no idea what the individual will do with your work. What if it's another surveyor who has been contracted to resurvey your site 9 years later? Are you still going to give them a CAD file? I hope not.
Wasn't this settled in the 90's
> .... Any and all materials used to put this product together he paid for. (please spare me any squawk about copyrights! They sound so childish)....
You can assert that all you wish but it isn't so. The client does not have a right to "any and all materials". He has the right to the product he contracted to receive. How the surveyor gets it done is no concern of his.
It has nothing to do with recording/non recording state
My experience in the non-recording states I worked in was that they were less open to sharing data with other surveyors than those in mandatory recording states are. I doubt that my observations are sufficient to draw broad conclusions on that score. I suspect it has more to do with how well the surveyors in a particular area know each other than it has to do with which broad geographical region one is in or the state recording laws.
With selected colleagues that I trust, I'd share a CAD file and just about any other data in my files apart from a formal agreement, but that's a different matter. Someone calling out of the blue that I don't know well enough to trust or not trust? Nope. Not without a signed release and not without having stripped out data not pertaining directly to the mapped data.
I forgot to mention...
Does that special pertain just to boundaries, or are parcel maps and topos also on sale? Are your Parks and Calfire surveys included, and do those commemorative cases have the agency logo on them? If so, send me the Parks collection, with the bonus monument photos.
> I wouldn't have asked for your cad file, and probably not anything due to the fact that I would have gotten the deeds and presumably, your description would have been of record.
See, that's the puzzle. Why wouldn't any careful and comptetent surveyor want to plot up the actual description of record as a first step? At some point in the construction surveying process, you're going to have to produce an as-built plan showing the new construction in relation to the boundaries and you're on the hook for the correctness of the boundary locations at that point.
I am not fond of letting a CAD file go to anyone.
On a rare occasion I will do a survey that the purpose is to gather the data and then send it to an engineer or architect. Very rare.
Since I began using GPS, I have connected together many individual boundary surveys within project areas and have them combined on a network CAD file.
I have several entire subdivisions in some areas together on one CAD file.
Many calls come in where they ask me for a copy of my survey from a few years ago to 20 years ago. I usually decline that because it is already in the public records. What they really want is the old survey with a new date attached.
So, NO, I don't do any of that.
I will swap info with surveyors that know how to share.
About 10 years ago, I had graduated from party chief to office
technician. The boss came by with a disk and said, "Here, take
this Autocad file and convert it to some coordinate projection
near the North Pole, put a copy in the disk mailer, and send it
to the architect marked on the mailer.
A week later, the architect called and ordered a topo survey
of the same property.
Evan
I am sorry but we aren't offering this deal in conjunction with other special offers or coupons such as the special framed monument photo 10 for the price of 1 coupon you must have which I'm pretty sure expired on March 31.
