1.) I was at a REALTOR's office this last year. They had another surveyor's survey on the screen of their computer. It had been entered, via bearings and distances. They had aerial photos, under the cad work. They were designing a subdivision. Needed a surveyor to stake it for them.... AND they had a surveyor doing it. (not me!)
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2.) I was thinking. We have deliverables. PLATS.
When will one of the deliverables, that are requested, is a computer file, with the line work, and lat lon 's in it. So a user can put them in their i-phone, or other smart phone, and it has accuracy of 1-2 feet, and they can WALK their own boundary? They just buy an app, from i-tunes, (19.95) or Google play store, and in the app there are several simple buttons.
Stake file name:____________
Clockwise, and counter clockwise.
Nodes
Lines.
Store Point.
The user installs the app. The user downloads the lat lon and boundary file.
They go to the property, and select, Direction (clockwise, or counterclockwise).
Then, select LINES, and it has arrows, LEFT and RIGHT, keeps the user on the line.
Press nodes, and it takes you to the nodes.
Accuracy is coming UP, and cost is coming down.
They STORE points, and email it to the surveyor. The surveyor, puts them in cad, and designs "The piece for my daughter". Goes, sets corners. The surveyor's point, and the clients point are within a foot or two.
Will we ever get away from monuments? well, yes and no. Monuments will still be done for a good while. Even under the above system. But, they will be less and less relied upon, and less and less needed. Just take my little Smart Phone, and it's within a foot... Good nuff.
In Arkansas, ALL our plats are recorded. Public Record. That needs to change.
There needs to be a log in, to access those records.
There needs to be SURVEYOR control of those records.
Title ins companies, are DOWNLOADING those survey plats, and writing ins based on "old survey of record".
Real Estate Agents, are downloading, and using cad, and designing subdivisions, based on our work.
Where are we headed?
Dunno. But, it makes me think.
Nate
I already know people who have gotten the Lat & Long from the county GIS and used a store-bought Garmin to mark their corner.
Nate, have you searched the app stores? There are already apps that "help" people figure out where their boundary is, if they can find a starting point. There are other apps to help them understand a metes and bounds. The local Tax district may have a CAD file that shows their M&B over an aerial, so they can see if it's "close" Yet, we as surveyors, are letting our profession be overrun by lowballing slipshod fly by night operations, who make homeowners just feel more empowered to "do-it themselves", because why not, the tools are almost as good as that cheap guy in the yellow pages tools. FWIW, I do expect to see do it yourself cosmetic surgery kits on the shelves of CVS soon.
It's enough to make a man a little nervous nowadays, eh?
Technology is a wonderful tool. So is my scoped Remington 30.06. Both can perform tasks that would otherwise take a lot longer without. But they both can also wreak havoc if not used properly.
It's been almost ten years ago when I had an argument over the phone with a real estate broker that was armed with a program that allowed him to "traverse" around a description. He said it didn't close by hundreds of feet. I said it closed really well. I actually had the patience to sit and listen to him as he entered everything and soon realized his error. He wasn't using the description but was looking at the drawing. Although the description read a N & E bearing from the P.O.B., one portion of my drawing showed it (properly) as a S & W course.
After we rectified that issue we spent another 15 minutes on why the description called for 660 feet and I had shown 659.87 feet between two found monuments.
What can we do except our best? I'm not going to change the way I execute a survey just because the client is a little more confused than before. I will always perform my work at a professional level. Goof balls out there armed with just enough technology to be dangerous kinda keeps things a little interesting don't ya think? 😉
Usually, by the time Nate figures it out, the whole world knows. I seem to run about 3 - 5 yrs behind...
Technology creates a need for oversight.
I send kmz/kml files to my more sophisticated clients. It allows for a lot of what you are talking about. You can see the survey lines on the aerial images in Google Earth and navigate on it (very coarsely) with a smart phone.
We won't be getting away from monuments in our lifetime nor our children's lifetime.
Yep! It's here! Was working in a county north and east of here. I was having a hard time finding a PLSS corner to tie into. One of the deeds had a hex bolt in a concrete pedestal as a quarter corner, that turned out to be a water valve. A fellow from the hood wandered up to see what we were doing. I told him and asked if there were any section corners to find. He got his phone out and walked over to a railroad tie fence post and said this is the corner. My buddy helping me was an engineer said yep this is it! I walked over and looked at the screen and the was a app showing the corner and property lines with owner names! It was one of those WTF moments! I think that app was named LandGlide. I didn't accept the corner then, but proved it to be correct later. My engineer buddy downloaded that app and drove me nuts the rest of the project.
paden cash, post: 417313, member: 20 wrote: I had an argument over the phone with a real estate broker
When they are rude and obnoxious about matters such as you mentioned I simply ask the "real estate brokers"
(and Attorney's as well) if they are a licensed Surveyor. If they reply "no" then I politely explain to them they do not know WTF they are talking about. 😎
It's fun because some of them understand and the others go berserk.;)
It's getting there fast, guys. But you will have more work than you can do straightening out the messes.
I'm not much of a professional at anything, but let me show you another side of the issue. NCDOT is required by law to publish survey coordinates of highway projects. These are in text files and NCDOT ground coordinates, which rarely differ from state plane by more than a few inches.
So, using that and absolutely free software, I created the attached text file for a project near my home. Change the extension to .kml to open it in GE. The northern part has been mostly completed now, but notice where the GE flags fall in the rough roadway. If you go south, you can see what's in the way of the new construction.
As a citizen, I can make my own map and see exactly what NCDOT intends to do. I can zoom in and out and not be limited by their published PDF map from 30,000 feet. I can judge for myself exactly how close the road might be to something that I own.
I think that's a useful tool for average citizens. The field tools are likely to do more harm than good
[USER=7674]@MathTeacher[/USER]
That is on really messed up soccer field along the way.
It is a shame they are going thru the middle of that pond.
This is where GIS professionals worth their salt can help. A GIS professional won't pretend to survey boundaries, but we can display appropriately your work without the degradation that occurs in Google Earth.
We can map to the decimeter easily today with professional mapping GNSS systems, and tied to NAD83 (2011)! In 2022, even easier. Join forces with GIS and we will both make money wisely.
[USER=81]@A Harris[/USER] The middle school and the soccer field are brand new. Hopefully, grass will grow there. I assume that you're talking about the pond on the west side of Harvey Road. It's one of many in the path. That pond waters the horses that the landowner raises and he's not happy about any of it.
The DOT maps for public discussion are in four pdf files. Here's the:link to the one that shows the pond: http://www.greensboro-nc.gov/modules/showdocument.aspx?documentid=4976 Note the pond and the road.
GE may have some degradation, but when you look at the completed part of the bypass and then compare the DOT pdf to its related section, it looks pretty good. And, I would submit, the GE version is much more readable for the average citizen.