There has been a push at some levels of the government for a national cadastre (database)since the late 60's. This push has always fallen short for several reasons. First and foremost, the laws regarding property boundaries would need to be changed in all 50 states. A national database can be created but it makes no difference if it does not have legal standing. Secondly, in order to create said database we would need to move to a Torrens title system, as any underlying title issues would need to be resolved before a corner could be defined as "the corner" and entered in the database. This requires that the government insure the title per its database. Thirdly, the technology has limited what could be done on such a large scale. Finally, the cost to create this database and the amount of time necessary to survey the entirety of the US, is measured in billions of dollars and hundreds of years. Will it happen? Certainly, but not likely to be finished in our lifetimes. Until that time the GIS maps will still just be another tool in the box.
It's ironic that you advocate OCR capture of the coordinates from your survey documents, Kent, and lambast the idea of a precise GIS based on survey data that performs what you propose without the middleman of scanning/character recognition.
One more time, how fast did you expect this process to be?
Once the system is in place, one parcel or group of related parcels at a time for as long as it takes.
> It's ironic that you advocate OCR capture of the coordinates from your survey documents, Kent, and lambast the idea of a precise GIS based on survey data that performs what you propose without the middleman of scanning/character recognition.
Not really. The map and written description performs a sophisticated function that a mess of data in purely digital form is unlikely to. Just a list of coordinates isn't that useful without the rest of the story that the written description provides. Add in the probability that the GIS would be run by the same folks who struggle to run the present GIS and the odds are good that it would be a total mess.
As for OCR scanning from documents, it has the advantage of data permanence that digital data does not.
> There is little need for the GIS itself to be precise in what Leon is describing. The geographic objects could essentially represent links to survey products. For the user interface, the linework could be left to "close enough" tolerances and resolution to accurately depict the geometry of the parcels. Selecting the parcel could then open recorded surveys. This is fairly easy, I'd think.
Although you may recall that case in Dimmitt County I described where the Texas GLO GIS and Texas RR Comm GIS omitted one entire patented survey completely. When I brought that fact to the attention of the GLO it sounded as if it was going to be major work to fix the mistake. Once enough effort and time goes into producing a GIS and a greater amount of time would be required to fix mistakes, the GIS may take on a life of its own.
The conclusion I draw is that surveyors are still going to need to compile maps that communicate data efficiently,that expecting that data just to stream into the GIS without any interpretive product would be a wreck.
This is important since the point of departure for Leon's riff on GIS is that he doesn't think that drawing maps serves much purpose in modern surveying practice and wants it all to reside as molecules of information in the GIS database.
I don't think it's necessary to go to the Torrens title registration system. There are other ways. Read the paper posted by James Fleming in this thread. Torrens has been tried in the US and most didn't succeed, but maybe they didn't have the current technology.
This is important since the point of departure for Leon's riff on GIS is that he doesn't think that drawing maps serves much purpose in modern surveying practice and wants it all to reside as molecules of information in the GIS database.
Your mind meld must have connected into another server or something. I've got anti-virus on in my mind, specifically just to lock you out.
There you go again, trying to talk for another, another blizzard of text. Contributing your own views just isn't enough, you need to make up others views and speak for them. Why do you post at all. You're perfectly capable of having multiple conversations with many folks right inside your own head.
Let's see, what's next. You pick a sentence from here and proceeded to say what was said and present it to the forum. Of course it will be all twisted and warped but the readers need your interpretation. You give them no credit for their own communication and comprehension skills.
> Your mind meld must have connected into another server or something.
Well, what you posted in your Model T thread was:
>So here we are as surveyors debating how to draft plans on paper for a Model T, riding a jetliner, and soon to be on a spaceship. Anybody even thought about purchasing a ticket for what's coming in the very near future. Probably going to be more than which symbol denotes what, legend, line width or size and amount of text to put on paper or Mylar. What are we besides a bunch of dinosaurs about to become extinct trying to design our Model T graveyard?
If you reread your post, your view was that most of the molecules of information would be submerged in the GIS database, so the graphic presentation of the information on the map was merely an antiquarian interest. That was pretty obviously just a reaction to the critique of the fairly chaotic map that you had posted earlier. The short version: Don't need to exercise any craft in drafting maps since that won't matter in the alternate universe of the GIS map of the future.
Yup, just as predicted!
Here is the symbol for that: [...]
> > There is a discussion going on about whether GIS will be the mapping system of the future and whether it will be the go to place for boundary information.
>
> Actually, the real discussion is about how reliable information will ever get into any GIS if there are lots of folks who feel that they can't be bothered to (a) do adequate research and (b) do adequate field investigation.
How far back to you take a parcel that you are surveying?
Stephen
This is kind of a nice GIS. Doesn't show everything but it's on the right track. Torrens type registration is alive and well in the U.S. in some of the more populated areas. Blue and yellow dots are survey monument info if you hold over them, and original mapping can be found from links on the left.
The technology is here, but the history makes it a long process.
http://gis.co.hennepin.mn.us/Property/Map/default.aspx
> > Actually, the real discussion is about how reliable information will ever get into any GIS if there are lots of folks who feel that they can't be bothered to (a) do adequate research and (b) do adequate field investigation.
>
> How far back to you take a parcel that you are surveying?
Typically, I research back to find the original conveyances or instruments that created all the parcel boundaries, i.e. the descriptions by which the land on either side of a boundary left common ownership and the sequence of transfer. For some rural tracts, this can go back to the original land grants made in the 1830's. I'm not interested in demonstrating a perfect chain of title including the releases of all liens, but in knowing how the parcel acquired its present shape and location.
In Texas, surveyors are expected to take senior rights into account in resurveying boundaries. The only way this can be done is to identify in which landowner those senior rights are vested, hence identifying the original severing instruments.
We don't survey that way here and I'm not aware of any problems resulting from that fact.
Here, meaning GA, AL, and FL, we research back when we find or suspect or are made aware of problems.
I don't speak for all surveyors in those states, but I'm familiar with the work of quite a few, and that's how we do it.
Stephen
> Here, meaning GA, AL, and FL, we research back when we find or suspect or are made aware of problems.
Since generally the purpose of a land title survey is to discover problems, unless a surveyor does enough research, it's unlikely the problems will be discovered. After all, the whole point of a survey is to give a client an opinion as to the boundaries that they may rely upon or, if not, what the potential problems may be. This is a service that to my knowledge only land surveyors can really render, so a surveyor who skips over that step ought to at least make those folks who are going to rely upon his or her opinion know how limited the investigation really was.
Any hint of a problem and we will research it back until satisfied.
Like I said, I'm not aware of the first problem associated with our lackadaisical ways here. Does that mean anything to you?
Side note:
You say that you are required in TX to take senior rights into account. In my opinion, so are we, but it's not mentioned in the statutes. Case law, yes; statute, no. Is it by statute in Texas? Just curious.
Stephen
> Like I said, I'm not aware of the first problem associated with our lackadaisical ways here. Does that mean anything to you?
Well, considering that the nature of boundary problems is that they seldom have neon signs attached to them, wouldn't it go like this when the problem appears and the lawyers are going at it:
Q: "Mr. Surveyor, why didn't you bother to examine this deed by which Jones sold to Smith?"
A: "I didn't think there was a problem."
Q: "Mr. Surveyor, are you a psychic?"
I'm not sure that Mr. Surveyor's end of that conversation gets much better. About all he can fall back on is basically saying that none of the other surveyors look to see if problems exist that simple research would disclose, either. That and pointing to some appropriate warning note or disclaimer on the products of his work would be the main defenses I'd think.
> You say that you are required in TX to take senior rights into account. In my opinion, so are we, but it's not mentioned in the statutes. Case law, yes; statute, no. Is it by statute in Texas? Just curious.
Our Minimum Technical Standards established by the licensing board provide that.
Why GIS [could] prevail [as part of an improved system]
Well said. Very well said.
Why GIS [could] prevail [as part of an improved system]
>Yes, it would be much easier to pull off in tiny countries with more homogenous laws
One more reason why I've always agreed with the Anti-Federalists and thought our predecessors were a little hasty to dump the Articles of Confederation. 😉
One of the things I was trying to point out with this link is the progress toward the torrens type system in some areas.
In order to see it you have to zoom in quite a ways, then click "more" in the upper right and check the abstract/torrens/both button. If you're zoomed in far enough it will show which parcels are torrens and which are abstract. Pretty interesting mix.
Thanks for the extra post.
That is a very good GIS. A Torrens parcel lists a Reg. Land Survey. I'll need to look into exactly what that is.
I clicked a survey monument (1/4 corner) and got a whole list of sheets, pedigree back to the original GLO. Excellent! Where I'm at, unless you can find the original monument, it's pretty much a blank slate beyond the original survey.