> Leon, I thought you were complaining that some title insurance company hadn't understood the information that you were trying to communicate on that map you posted and so had rolled their own, so to speak. My first impression was that part of the problem was almost certainly the way in which that map presented the information. It was a very, very busy map that didn't communicate very well because of how it was drawn up.
LOL!!!! Now THAT is funny!!
> BTW: one of my pet peeves is the use of abbreviations without a legend explaining what it really means in plain English. Especially in monument descriptions!
YES YES YES. IRF and IRS - WTF?!
You spent all of that time to find the monument, to tie it in accurately and to map it, all to put a "IRF" label on it? Really? And does the general public know what an IRF is? No.
Does it really require a lot of extra effort to put 'Found 1/2" Iron Rod'?
sorry. you hit a pet peeve of my.
Steve - great thread and well communicated. I agree that our final documentation deserves consideration and scrutiny. Outside of some flagging and lathe, it's the only tangible part of our product to our client.
I hear ya.
I just don't agree with you. I've stated my reasons.
Stephen
> I hear ya.
>
> I just don't agree with you. I've stated my reasons.
Yes, and I understood that your view is that survey maps are really just something for the client to have, that as long as the client likes it, things are fine.
The extreme example to the contrary would be the record of survey maps that are filed in California. Apparently some counties require a different symbol be used for the monuments established by different surveys to make the rationale of the boundary construction even more explicit.
Most surveyors should find that the happy median lies somewhere in between.
Kent, recalling your map posted previously, I saw your convention was filled circle for found and hollow for set. I also noticed that you had a filled circle and then a filled circle with a larger circle around it (like a plan view of Saturn). I did not, however, ascertain what the difference was between the filled circle and the ringed, filled circle?
Does that distinguish a found monument held as controlling versus a random monument found?
> Kent, recalling your map posted previously, I saw your convention was filled circle for found and hollow for set. I also noticed that you had a filled circle and then a filled circle with a larger circle around it (like a plan view of Saturn). I did not, however, ascertain what the difference was between the filled circle and the ringed, filled circle?
The dark circle and dark circle within a circle are both indications of found monuments. The second is a smaller variation of the widely used symbol for original land grant corner that has been used locally to indicate an original stake found or some marker that has been accepted as a perpetuation of that stake. The symbol has an iconic quality of looking like what you'd add to a plot, indicating which monuments have been determined to control the boundaries by circling those markers.
The dark circles can be open to question as replacements, the circles within circles are considered to be primary evidence of the lines they were set to mark. Note that on the West line of the subdivision, the original lot corner stakes are shown as controlling the side lot lines, but not the boundary of the tract subdivided.
Hmm.. Seems odd to have a symbol only partially defined, convention notwithstanding.
> Hmm.. Seems odd to have a symbol only partially defined, convention notwithstanding.
Well, there are lots of things that aren't explicitly defined on survey maps but are understood by surveyors as conventions. What quadrant bearings mean isn't usually defined, for example. The convention that leader arrows usually mean something isn't either.
If a surveyor didn't believe that some surveyor ten years from now would know how to read a map of a survey, probably a much longer legend might be in order. The system I follow assumes that surveyors will continue to be wanting to know which are found monuments that were considered to control boundaries when they examine maps, but will also have examined so many maps that they aren't starting without any background knowledge at all.
You guys just crack me up. Excellent discussion on a topic I find fascinating. Kudos to Mr. Calder for having the courage to post his plat and open himself up to the critique of his peers. In the end, the recorded plat will likely be the only remaining evidence of your efforts to uncover the truth and present that information to those who will follow in your footsteps when most of us will be nourishing weeds.
There is such a thing as information overload on a plat. I believe it is the surveyor/drafters responsibility to winnow the wheat from chaff and distill down the most critical information that needs to be relayed to those that follow and relieve the end user of all the superfluous information. The art of the plat is presenting it in such a way that the layman end user is not overwhelmed and the following surveyor can have confidence in the determinations described and sufficient information to carry forward. Just like a good writer references their material, so to should a surveyor, rather than regurgitate some legal description, make reference where to find it should it be needed.
The science is in the measurements. The art is in the interpretation and presentation.
Carry on!
Just because I'm paranoid, doesn't mean they aren't out to get me.
Yes, that is the response I expected. It's a reasonable reply and I'm not trying to bully you but, the use of that symbology convention does not seem widespread from my observations.
> Kudos to Mr. Calder for having the courage to post his plat and open himself up to the critique of his peers.
The art of the plat is presenting it in such a way that the layman end user is not overwhelmed and the following surveyor can have confidence in the determinations described and sufficient information to carry forward.
>
> Carry on!
I'm assuming Williwaw is referring to the maps I posted about a week or two ago. Thank you, and we should commend LRDay and Kent for posting work examples. We all benefit from this. For the record, I thought LRDay's map was pretty good. It could stand a littel brush up, just like all of our maps could.
Also, your comments are right on. Our maps should be useble to both lay people and other professionals.
Stephen
> I hear ya.
I agree with Kent on this. The principal audience for a record of survey is the next surveyor. I also agree that there should be different symbols for found and set.
> ... the use of that symbology convention does not seem widespread from my observations.
It's true that I've seen some strange maps produced by surveyors from other places where the monuments that were set were given lots of graphic weight and those that were found were not. However, in my experience those sorts of strange conventions are the exception to the rule.
Probably the most widespread monument conventions are those that attempt to assign different symbols to every type of something that might be used to mark a boundary corner. So you get different symbols for rebar, PK Nails, pipes, brass tablets, and 60d nails instead of a proper description of what was actually found and what it was determined to be.
Do we really think that a competent surveyor will have any difficulty recognizing that using a common symbol for original and/or controlling monuments means what it does? If a surveyor has given zero thought to the entire concept, sure. In that case, though, he or she isn't going to be helped by the most elaborate explanations available.
I'd love to see some better way of presenting three different main categories of survey markers that one deals with in boundary resurveys. Perhaps you can provide an example.
Well, it might not hurt to add one more item in the legend to differentiate between the filled-in circle and the filled-in circle with the circle around it. I didn't automatically understand the difference in those two either. Intuitively, to me anyway, it doesn't make sense to have two symbols with the same definition.
I have normally used an open circle to denote a monument either found or set with an attached note detailing what the monument is. I picked up a lot of my drafting standards from my mentors and that was the way it was done when I started learning. An open circle is visually easy to pick out especially when you have a junction of multiple lines and I was partial to being able to align the hollow center of the circle with the scale to measure distances (seems easier to determine center).
However, I have been mulling the idea of open and filled circles to readily distinguish set/found monuments for the past year and this thread is all the more reason I am going to start implementing that practice on future survey plats. Controlling monuments in past have been identified by an asterisk in the attached note. I am considering changing that but if I were to go to the additional circle, I would add it to my legend.
This discussion and critiques of survey plats has been quality discussion in my opinion. We have had this discussion before back on Mark Deal's old website. I bravely posted one of mine and got a lot of good advice and critism. I'm not feeling that froggy today to post one of mine, but maybe the next one with the new monument symbols and the duncehat buttkick north arrow.
As I have said before, I like clean, straightforward plats with minimal font variety, easy to read fonts, property weighting of lines in order of importance, proper use of text size to distinguish importance. I believe the stereotype about an overly ornate plat is true in many cases. The artistic, colorful plats can be a natural warning flag like colorful insects/animals being toxic/poisonous. Excessive art is a subtle warning to the viewer as to the quality of the document (not always, but experiences I have had indicate that to be a common truth). I have had limited experimentation with color to emphasize the boundary, but have not yet settled on that.
> Well, it might not hurt to add one more item in the legend to differentiate between the filled-in circle and the filled-in circle with the circle around it. I didn't automatically understand the difference in those two either. Intuitively, to me anyway, it doesn't make sense to have two symbols with the same definition.
Well, aren't different symbols for found monuments routinely used on survey maps? I'd certainly think so. What is different about that map is that the description of the monument is actually provided in the written list, not in the symbol. The symbol for controlling monuments is simply to provide a quick way for a surveyor to distinguish between those that were found but disregarded from those that were taken as controlling the location of some line or corner. The double circle is a convention that has been in use for over a century. I didn't invent it.
> I have normally used an open circle to denote a monument either found or set with an attached note detailing what the monument is. I picked up a lot of my drafting standards from my mentors and that was the way it was done when I started learning. An open circle is visually easy to pick out especially when you have a junction of multiple lines and I was partial to being able to align the hollow center of the circle with the scale to measure distances (seems easier to determine center).
If a dark symbol gets lost in the linework, it means either (a) the symbol is too small or (b) the linework is too wide. It would be interesting to identify the origins of various conventions used in monument symbols. I suspect that the open circle for controlling monument probably will turn out to have originated at some engineering firm somewhere. I'd never seen it used until I saw a map drawn by fellow from far away. Probably worth looking in old surveying texts as well.
I have always thought that an open circle symobl for a set monument naturally lent itself to being able to ink in that open circle and make it a found monument symbol on future maps 🙂
> I have always thought that an open circle symobl for a set monument naturally lent itself to being able to ink in that open circle and make it a found monument symbol on future maps.
Actually, that is the logic of the symbol. It's just the outline of a future "found" monument. Naturally, that practice has been carried to an extreme by surveyors who set a monument one month and then return to "find" it the next, with no mention of having set it themselves.
The Perfect Opportunity
Looks like there is a perfect opportunity to settle this. The judging criteria should suit Kent's style just fine: