The Survey Map Drafting Discussion TTT

Stephen A. Calder · 2013-12-10T23:57:00Z

Sorry I missed the two debates about survey drafting. You may have noticed that it’s an important subject to me. Too late to really delve into the issues, but let me offer a few points. To the original poster’s plat… I thought it was pretty good. I will make a couple of suggestions, which are mostly in line with Kent’s comments. You should change up the font and size and weights a little to accomplish two things: provide a logical contrast between entities and to provide visual clues to an item’s importance to the survey. Just as there is a hierarchy of importance to the items of the survey, there should be a corresponding visual heirarchy to the items on the survey map. In regards to both of these goals, you should tone down the visual prominence of the adjoiner’s text and road text and use different fonts from those of the owner’s text. To Kent’s map… I think it’s pretty good. It’s better than average. I find a lot of things that I like and a few that I don’t. Kent’s visual style is clean and minimalist, very early 60’s astrophysicist. No poetry to it, none at all. It does communicate, but could do so better if he were to instill a little humanizing flair to it. As an example, I like the fact that he uses dots for leaders. Leaders are close to the bottom of the list when it comes to the hierarchy. They only function to guide the user’s eye from some annotation to an object. It’s not an entity, it’s a connective link between two entities and as such, should always be light and easy, or in Kent’s case, made translucent by using dots. But, I still think they could be improved by having arrowheads at their ends. There are also some text and object conflicts. Unforgivable! I also don’t agree with Kent’s assertion that we should have different symbols for found or set monuments. We definitely should convey the information in some way, but I like to keep one symbol for an accepted corner and let the annotations take care of the rest. I have no problem with his way of doing it, but I think he assigns it more importance than is necessary. It’s very interesting that Kent’s hobby is painting art. I have observed that artistic types often make really good diagrams, and that is a good way to think of survey drafting… the art and science of diagrammetric communication, specific to the geospatial realm. But, Kent doesn’t seem to carry this artistic flair over to his survey drafting. Oh well, life and people are complex, no? To those who assert that this subject isn’t worthy of dissection. I disagree. Communication is one of the four essential tasks of land surveying and without it, you haven’t actually surveyed anything. There are different ways to communicate something, some better than others. So what is anyone’s authority to say which way is better? Well, there are time honored principles of drafting, such as using a North Arrow as opposed to an East Cricket bat and there are scientific principles which have been proven true by empirical experimentation. Yes, it is proven that people read upper and lower case letters better than all caps. So there is a firm foundation of the styles and substance of optimal drafting and it’s available to anyone who cares to investigate them. And finally, I say that Kent McMillan is not a bully. He is an extremely consciencous land surveyor. He is highly opinionated and he’s happy to broadcast his views to the benefit of many. He can be a little obtuse in his argumentation, and close minded to the well-founded arguments of others, but on the whole, he has the profession’s best interests at heart. Aside from learning many good things from his posts over the years, usually of a technical nature, I would be remiss if I didn’t note that he has corresponded with me in the past by email and phone call and has provided several helpful insights.

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Strictly Surveying

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Tom Adams

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> 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.

My only point is/was that you have one definition for two symbols. It sounds like it is more clarified elsewhere in your plat which is more than adequate. To me, on first glance at the legend, it seems like there might be something to let the viewer know why you need two symbols for the same purpose (definition). Although surveyors are probably the primary users of your map, I am sure there are users that might be in similar professions that have the ability to read your map and might benefit.

I probably made my point twice. Sorry for the redundancy. I know you will carry on with your method, and I have mainly learned from this discussion and your plat, and my minor critique was just a thought.

Posted : December 12, 2013 2:53 pm

Kent McMillan

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> To me, on first glance at the legend, it seems like there might be something to let the viewer know why you need two symbols for the same purpose (definition). Although surveyors are probably the primary users of your map, I am sure there are users that might be in similar professions that have the ability to read your map and might benefit.

In more than twenty years, I've never had a non-surveyor user of one of my maps ask about the multiple symbols for found monument since they are all described in a table to which the legend refers them by number. Come to think of it, I've never had a surveyor ask either. So, in terms of communication it would seem to be a non-problem.

Posted : December 12, 2013 3:02 pm

duane-frymire

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That doesn't mean it's correct;:excruciating: maybe like retail the customer didn't mention it.

I agree with most of your comments, but two symbols in the legend with the same meaning is just not right on so many levels.

When I get that map checker job in Texas I'm rejecting that plat. Plus, it doesn't show establishment by a fence:excruciating:

Posted : December 12, 2013 3:23 pm

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The Survey Map Drafting Discussion TTT

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