The pincushion issue - Quote of the Day
I guess that guy does not mind creating gaps and overlaps.
> > I find an uncalled for ip/w tack 0.13 off the my final boundary resolution.
> This is not an original monument (there are none in the area)
I know a guy who uses 1 1/2" Alum caps, but he never punches them. He just says "...the point is somewhere on that cap...". Now it's not 0.13' off anymore, only 0.04' which is likely 'close enough'.
Some people believe that the hole in a plastic cap is to mark the point. It's not. It is to relieve the air pressure from when you pound it on the rod, so it doesn't explode off and hit you in the eye....:-P
Not true at all!!
You really think your clients know where those pins are? 99% do not.
If you ask them to show you the corners, they will pull out the plat to find them. AND look at all of the lands sold without benefit of a survey. Do you think those owners know where the pins are?
When you go to do a survey for a new client, what is the FIRST thing you do? Deed research or pin hunting? You get a copy of the last plat and you then go pin hunting.
I rest my case.
"The differences was one corner of about 0.003 feet"
Three-thousandths of a foot? Wow... how could they disagree by so much? 😉 😛
In my state, a CAD Person can NOT form a PLLC and can NOT get professional liability insurance. (Only Licensed Engineers, Surveyors or Architects.
Kelly...comon now.....it's a big deal and....
now's not a time to make fun of the result.....geesmonneezz!......:)
That is typical debate between those that hardly every leave their desk to solve problems that occur in the field. 😉
I have an associate that I call on to help me keep up at times and would keep him more busy if he was not so dependent upon cad to make the paper trail fit things the same way when evidence is different on the ground and to accept 1:5,000 as good work just because that is minimum standards.
His 0.003 misclosure is creating a gap in his object that keeps certain cad tricks from being used, a gem of a problem indeed.
Time to put more numbers after the decimal place, not really. I always like the descriptions that had the unique fraction to indicate a more precise number for areas less than 1 acre, like 5.00266 acres = 5 and 1/376 acre
My opinion is... are your clients insane?
Do they have any idea what 0.13' REALLY means?
Just keep the deeds/plats as they are, and say the found monument is consistent. A key part of us being Land Surveyors is that we use COMMON SENSE, and don't create legal waves when they are completely unnecessary...
And if you were to be so crazy as to set ANOTHER point 0.13' from a found monument, I'd say YOU were the one who was insane... 😉
And I suppose my other comments could also be qualified by your statement that there were no other original monuments in the entire area. So how did you even decide that the one monument you found was out by 0.13'...?
Never said they could. That is NOT the definition of a professional. A professional is anyone who accepts pay for special skills. That covers whores, drafters and surveyors.
I use CAD with Carlson, so I use PDD to input the boundaries. I create curves by hand to ensure they are tangent at both ends. I then find the misclosure in the lot and use LENGTHEN -> DE -> 0.004 or -0.004 to make the math work to close. If the misclosure is greater than what I can manipulate with less than half a hundreth, then I will just break a line and show the difference on my base plan.
Then comes the field and I look at it all over again and break the record math as necessary.
0.003 is awesome, lengthen the line to be 100.003 and it rounds right back to 100.00 and you will never see the misclosure. Now you have the closed figure so you can create the closed 2DP or my new favorite MPOLYGON.
Apparently some of the deed stakers and pincushion artists around here have determined that because I use CAD software as a tool to do my job I am somehow not a "professional".
Stay classy there folks.
> My opinion is... are your clients insane?
THE 0.13 is very easy for a surveyor to understand.
Hard for a laymen.
Client: "I hired you to set my corners and now your tell me you cant?"
"I need this property line staked so I can build my house addition right up to the
5' setback line"
>
> Do they have any idea what 0.13' REALLY means?
>
> Just keep the deeds/plats as they are, and say the found monument is consistent. A key part of us being Land Surveyors is that we use COMMON SENSE, and don't create legal waves when they are completely unnecessary...
wrong, the client needs precise stakes here. In my first post I stated this is an urban area with High property values and every inch counts.
> And if you were to be so crazy as to set ANOTHER point 0.13' from a found monument, I'd say YOU were the one who was insane... 😉
Urban area, client needs exact corners.
its a valid situation, I'm pretty sure everyone here has rejected a pipe or two in their surveying careers.
There is nothing so important in Land Surveying as monuments.
It's a legal problem, not a math problem.
Carry on.
I would be real interested to see the results that would occur when these pincushioners go back to their own work at a later date and run the corners. Would they get EXACTLY the same coordinates? In my 44 years doing this stuff, I have never seen that happrn. Not once.
SO many factors affect your measurements. And if you told me that you had a rod guy that held absolutely plumb on EVERY shot, I would have to call you a liar. Same if you told me that you checked calibration and alignment on a daily basis. Or even a weekly basis. Or if you told me that when you plotted this stuff that a/c pad came in as a perfect square. Or the distances on the building corners matched your "measure-up" precisley.
What's "Close Enough"? You state's minimum technical standards gives you that number. That's the one you should hold to, not some overly inflated, ego building number.
Just Mapit, that cad guy is just as much a professional as you are. He is just not required to be licensed. Not all "professions" require one to be licensed.
What we teasingly used to refer to as a COGO monkey, we now refer to as a CAD monkey. I don't put down good cad jockeys at all. Understanding each other's job and limits is, in fact part of the professionalism.
There is a difference between having good traverse closure and good adjustment on your traverse than to have a difference in property corner locations. I make a professional judgement as to what monuments I think adequately represent the corner called for in the deed. It doesn't (specifically) matter whether my math is missing them 0.003, 0.03, 0.3, 3, or 30 feet. It's a matter of taking that evidence in along with all of the other evidence, and coming up with an expert opinion. I always state my measured distance between points, and the original call-for distance. It's a matter of showing all the evidence I used in drawing my conclusions. It doesn't matter to me that I may get the same exact (as-measured) number the next time I measure it, or not. It only matters to me that I have confidence in my measured distance to the tolerance I am reporting it as.
Many engineers, mathemeticians, CAD experts, GIS experts and other math-based technicians have a larger struggle with this concept than the land surveyor. It's a matter of different 'languages' or logic methodoligies based on the job than it is a matter of different levels of 'professionalism', or 'intelligence'
Finally, I would note, that it is the land surveyor who is certifying to the work regardless of who works in support of providing his product. Even if a CAD tech is more intelligent than I, they need to understand that relationship as well. If the CAD tech wants to practice land surveying, they should procur a license.
The Cad Monkey's ONLY job is to draw the plat as you want it. You are stamping it and are liable, he is not.
That being said, he also has the duty and obligation to call to your attention anything that does not "look right". He should be your QA/QC guy. He also should produce your plats in a style that reflects professional competence. He should make you look better than you are.
He knows he is doing his job when clients say things like, "WOW!! That looks good!! I think I will frame a copy and hang it on my wall." I have heard that comment several times and can show you offices where our work is indeed on the wall.
As he/she respects what you do, so should you treat him/her the same. NEVER utter the words, "You drew this wrong.". They didn't, you did or you did not clearly express your intent.
They may not hold a license or registration, but a good CAD tech is indeed a "professional" and he/she takes just as much pride in what they do as you. To denigrate that effort is just wrong. A license does not necessarialy make one "superior".
