the setting for what?

arri, I want to be helpful but I don't quite understand your question. What do you mean by "setting", do you mean what units should the drawing be in? And do you have a paper drawing or a CAD file?

Survey drawings drive me crazy because civil engineers usually draw things to some given scale, like 1"=20' rather than just draw in paperspace at full scale and adjust the viewport scale to plot. Argh.

1. it is spelled AutoCAD.
2. Use the following syntax when drawing a line:
first point: pick a point
endpoint: 100'@S42d59'15"E

this'll give you a 100' line at the specified angle.

that's my guess for what you're asking.
were any of us correct?

Thanks for all of your replys!
Sorry for not being clear on my question. I'll try again. Here goes.
I have a print out (hardline) from an engineer for a topo drawing of a site. We don't have access to the CAD file so my boss wants me to redraw it in CAD.

On the print out, the property lines have numbers like S42degrees59'15"E. I was hoping to just type this info and the line would appear on the screen correctly.

My first thought was to change the unit setting in AutoCAD to match the info on the print out of the topo. But none of the setting match.

Here's my first question: How do I input this information in AutoCAD? What setting do I need to use?

Maybe I don't need to change the setting, anyway I'll try El Jeffe suggestion.

Thanks for your time and help!

yeah, el jeffe knows his stuff. follow that

You can also go into:

Format/Units/

And then choose the type of Angle units. Sounds like Surveyors units to me. Just make sure to get the North Orientation correct.

s42d59'15"e is the bearing of the property line taken from a point of origin ie a steel post. so, it is indeed that angle taken from that bearing point and is the specified length found on survey.

Hi

There are so many tricks with AutoCAD , ---- try spend a few hours looking thru the sysvars . Say you need to print on drawing any value stored in the sysvars , -- quite a lot are temp. stored --- all you need is to change the "Texteval" variable from 0 to 1 ; Say you just measured an area by either points or internal area of a line , then the value are stored without you bothering it, and you can by changing the Texteval variable and use the Text command , just type ( getvar "area") at the text prompt --- then the text will not read "(getvar "area") but the value of the sysvar "area" will be evaluated and what is printed are the latest area measure.
Sound complicated, well it is not, several other values are stored , and they will be stored in the measure system you work in.

WTF

Why don't you just scan the surveyors sheet, bring it into AutoCAD as a raster image and trace it?

because it wouldn't be to scale, ref. Who is responsible for the land survey?

per is rube goldberg.

You can scale it in AutoCAD w/ the "scale" tool

how much error will be induced?
how do you know if the printout was to scale?
almost all printing then scanning causes distortion that can't be fixed by scaling - all you be doing is scaling the distortion.

how much error will be induced?

Zero. It will have as much tolerance as the human eye would from reading the plans.

how do you know if the printout was to scale?

By looking for the scale at the bottom right hand corner of the sheet on which the printout of the topo is on.

almost all printing then scanning causes distortion that can't be fixed by scaling - all you be doing is scaling the distortion.

There is distortion, but it is so minimal that it won't affect you. There is also a margin of error in transfering dimensions from paper to autocad if you don't scan it in. Bottom line is thru scanning you'll have an exact replica of what you received. Nothing more nothing less. And at the end of the day that is all you can do.

Hi

When I look at a screen and know that my new flatscreen 19 inch architecture drawing, is there , is damned there if drawin free hand 3D or digitized from 3 planes and simply matrix calculated into a 3D repersentation, --- this can be made, maby we are not mastering this yet, but digital arts -- digital tools as I see them never will shape as we expect anyway , at the moment I can't see the difference even the thing are snapped into a digital --- representation graphics cards are made for that, a flatscreen even better than the old toasters , el jeffe what is it exactly you mean by a scale foult , when you scale you simply multiply the X's with the X' , the "Y's" with the Y's and the Z's with the Z's ---- produce a new entity from that , process this.

Thanx Per Corell, that's what I'm trying to say. "when you scale you simply multiply the X's with the X' , the "Y's" with the Y's and the Z's with the Z's"

what?

is that even in english?

i have no idea what this guy
/\
l
l
is talking about

kinda missing my point tec.
my point is that if you trace a scanned printout, you're relying on the accuracy of the physical locations of the various lines & arcs; regardless of the metes & bounds info which may or may not be correct.
i'd just assume to enter the metes & bounds myself and verify that it closes. once i've verified that, any dimensions i take from my drawing will be precise.
personally, i've never had a survey not close when i've duplicated it, but it could happen right?

Ok I agrea, I even would invent a one unit measure If I didn't have a tape. The door Halve the house distance from the corner of the surrounding box for the measure entity house. Scale don't matter don't you know your surealists ? The corner of the window frame .xy 3.3,3.4 house from the opposite corner , you don't need millimeters or inches,
For the record, I see on one eye only, likevisecirtain nodic god , that sacrifised one eye to find wisdom. This mean my brain the neural network I use for the thinking process, share more volume in my brain, than in your two eyed one. I need to "construct" a 3D vision in a different pattern than how the nerve cells do the same trick in a two eyed brain, I use double of that for one sight only , now that ought to be 4 times better ;))
Anyway this prove that you can't learn me anything about arogance, or realising there are allway's two sides --- now why is it I still say that we shuld try some of the new exiting architecture?
I agrea that I have a different view about architecture than most academics, I still see it as works. Well they are made.

*)gulp(*

defensive and nonsensical....what a combination!

yeah - i'm somewhat speechless...

Ofcaurse you can go from a foto to a 3D model , isn't the "foult" then calculated. Now when you model isometric and then render the drawings, perspective are added when you ask it , but taking 3 pictures with known measures in various colors, make enough callibration, if you just place the picture on a digitizer, and callibrate from the measures on the side, the top and the front foto's.
Guess you guy's know how 3D are calculated from 3 planes, and that digitizers must be callibrated.

Or is this also just talk

no, you're just making the problem and solution too complex.

or calculate yourself.....

15/60=.25

59.25/60=.9875

42.9875 degrees is the angle of the line

el jeffe,

I see where your coming from. But doesn't speed make up for that extra .000001 of accuracy?

you just don't know the margin of error, and in a tight urban site it doesn't take much to bust it.
i'll bet i could draw the PL in surveyor's units in the same time it took to scan, import & trace.

Point well taken, also if you don't have many elevation changes it's definitly a good point to consider. Usually tight urban environments don't have many elevation changes. Good point.

Plexus1 use real not integers, if you want to add degrees do it with Rtos
------- The digital way to calculate will caurse that a calculated 90 deg. will be returned from bit calculations and that can show 89.9999999 deg. with foults like that I allway's use Rtos. that will round the numbers the precision you ask. In the drawing there will not be such foults as what is displayed are the digital calculations ,but when you ask for values that need to be rcalculated from exact bit numbers into our decimal system then foults like that occour--- like when you know that the model you model isometric have no trouble being processed within the computer and that the "foult" are not there but in the translation into the decimal count system we use --- if degrees was experssed in bit math.numbers there would be no foults to say it short.

PER, WE'RE TALKING ABOUT SURVEYOR'S UNITS. NOTHING IN THE PHYSICAL WORLD IS MEASURED WITH JUST INTEGERS.
SORRY ABOUT THE CAPS - I WAS JUST USING AUTOCAD

Sorry it's me that mixed up reals and integers, in AutoCAD the foults come using reals in decimal systems --- I wonder if some of the same foults wouldn't occour in other units. --- What I know is that you shuld never write ( / 15 30) as that will yield 0 even you would expece 0.5.
What I say is that maby something like the same foult could occour with other measures , that I don't know but it do in decimal system there you need to put in the decimals even they are 0 .

Hi Guys,

Well, I tried typing in 100'@S42d59'15"E in AutoCad to get the correct location of this line for the site/property line and it doesn't work! Is there a setting I need to change under Units(in AutoCad)

Come on all you well experienced Cad users, help a newbie/idiot out!

El Jeffe,

Have you done this before? Can you meet the challenge!

try setting your length units arch and angle units to surveyor's.
then disregard the syntax i gave you above because it's wrong.
type @100'<S42d59'15"E instead. sorry...

be sure to pick a start point first

start point

AutoCad 2002

Command: _Line Specify first point: Click anywhere on the screen

Specify next point or [Undo]: What do I type in here ???????

@100'<S42d59'15"E

or whatever length of line you want if it isn't 100'

pretty cool!!

i'm curious if arri has any curves to draw....bwah ha ha ha...now the fun begins.

thanks el jeffe !