Topic: Points on all Lot Corners at once?

[sinc]

I have a subdivision that we're platting.  I've run it through MAP to cleanup the linework and create a Topology.  Then I used annotations to pop Lot No. and Area labels on all the lots/tracts at once.

I can't believe people still use LDD Parcel Manager for that!  Map Topologies take a fraction the time, and are much less likely to have errors.

But now I want to pop points on all the lot corners, so that the field guys can stake them.  Is there an easy way to do that in a single step?  Obviously, I need to get one (and only one) COGO point at EVERY corner, not just at the ends of topology links.

[Lin-Z]

Points menu > Create Points > Automatic?  If you've got any cruves tho you may need to do those manually or do some cleanup - it adds points to the center point as well.

[sinc]

Points menu > Create Points > Automatic?  If you've got any cruves tho you may need to do those manually or do some cleanup - it adds points to the center point as well.

I don't think I've ever tried that option.  I'll take a look.  But yes, there are a LOT of curves...

[sinc]

I made a copy of my topology so I could explode all the links, then the "Create Points -> Automatic" worked OK.

I had a LOT of radius points in there that I didn't want, so I had to go in and manually clean those up.  That took a while.  And all the points were set according to increasing Easting, so the point numbers really jump around.  That annoyed the field guys a little bit - they prefer when I give them points in "walking order".  But I suspect it was much easier than trying to pop points on all the endpoints manually, especially considering the number of compound curves on this site...

[Dent Cermak]

If all you are wanting to do is come up with coordinates on the lots for the crews to set iron rods, then you need to dig back and find the lisp routine Keith wrote a while back. it's a "label points" routine that gives a nice lead arrow to the point and lists the N,E,Z of the points. probabaly would be quicker than having to clean up all of the odd points.
They can key in the points as needed.

[sinc]

Thney can key in the points as needed.

ACCCKK!!!  Yuk!  I'm talking about ~300 lot corners, here...  Why would we want to force a field guy to key in so many coordinates?  Maybe back in the 1980's we would have used a slow, error-prone procedure like that...

[Dent Cermak]

Well isn't that just tacky. not to mention rude. Last question I even try to answer for this clown.  :pissed:

[sinc]

Well isn't that just tacky. not to mention rude. Last question I even try to answer for this clown.  :pissed:

Sorry, I was just so surprised that someone would actually use Autocad that way - as merely a labeling tool, and then forcing the field guys to hand-enter the data from the text before they could start working - that I blurted out a response.  Sorry if I offended you.

But if you think I'm way off-base, and that you offered a perfectly reasonable way of using Autocad for a surveyor, then that makes me stop and think.  If most surveyors out there use Autocad in the same way, then that begins to explain why we've been running circles around most of the survey firms in town, even if I say so myself...  At least, we've sure been getting a lot of happy clients, and have had several clients even fire other surveyor firms and start using us exclusively for all their projects.  We're incredibly busy without even looking for work, so we must be doing something right...   

[Dent Cermak]

I was suggesting an easy way to do a few points. We too dump coordinates to data collectors. At this point they are hand-held units with LARGE screens thet show the shots as they are taken. All of the line work is done in the field. The data collectors have GPS units built in and have a wireless internet connection and a neat cingular hook up. once the job is complete they send it to the office directly fron the field.The data I get from them has ALL of the line work created, including utility hook-ups and all symbols in place and correctly rotated. They srend me that and a coordinate text file and I then do my thing.

[mjfarrell]

I am a little curious about this.
If this were a task I was ask to do I would use MAP.
I would attach the plat, and perform a query set to REPORT mode to get all the lot lines coordinates.
The resultant ASCII file could then be uploaded to a data collector directly; or inserted as points
into the project's database, and then passed to the collector.

[Cannon]

Except that Map doesn't understand the parcels or the AeccParcel segments, IIRC.

You could explode it, then Query probably....

[sinc]

I am a little curious about this.
If this were a task I was ask to do I would use MAP.
I would attach the plat, and perform a query set to REPORT mode to get all the lot lines coordinates.
The resultant ASCII file could then be uploaded to a data collector directly; or inserted as points
into the project's database, and then passed to the collector.

OK, finally had this come up again.  I needed to calculate all lot corners on a ~350 lot subdivision that we have been platting in Land Desktop.  So I decided to try your suggestion.

The first problem I noticed was that it was not possible to query the topology links unless I created a new Map session, and attached my base drawing.  For my Annotations (which get the Lot ID from an object table created using "Generate Links", and the area from the Topology centroid), I'm able to run the Map query directly in Land Desktop 2007.  But for some reason, I couldn't get a query on object properties to work.  It kept finding 0 objects.  No big deal, I just dropped out of LDD and into Map, created a Map session, and attached my base drawing.  Then the query worked.

Next problem was that my query only got the endpoints of the links, i.e. wherever there's a node.  For Lot Corners, I actually need a point at EVERY corner on the lots, not just corners that are also nodes.  So I went back into LDD, isolated all my topology links, exploded them into raw lines and arcs, and WBLOCKed the lines and arcs into a temp drawing (so as not to trash my topology in the base drawing).

Now I went back into Map, and changed my Map session so that the only attached drawing was the temp drawing I just created.  I was then able to run a query that would get the endpoints of all the lines and arcs.  But in order to make sure I got all the points, I had to query both endpoints - i.e., in Map, I had to query both "X1, Y1, Z1" and "X2, Y2, Z2".  That meant that I got a text file that had two coordinate on each line, and contained lots of duplicates.  Although it wasn't exactly simple, I managed to get that all cleaned up in Excel, so I ended up with a listing of point coordinates with no duplicates.  I then dumped that back into Autocad (using the ENZ point format).  All points were correctly calculated, just the way I wanted them.

Net result was that it's more annoying than I had hoped, but only takes about 10 minutes to calc ALL of the lot corners.  Despite the hassle of massaging the data in Excel, net result was FAR easier, faster, and less painful than any other method I've tried so far.

Got any ideas to improve the process?  Or does that seem to be about as easy as it gets?

[mjfarrell]

Sinc,


I think you might be able to simplify this using some drawing cleanup tools, and adding nodes @ all links. Also, I don't think a topology is required to query the end coordinates of the lines, to the report file.
Your object properties probably didn't show, as the points objects in C3D are not accessible to MAP in C3D. If that makes any sense, the programmers have one over on me for sure.

[mjfarrell]

Except that Map doesn't understand the parcels or the AeccParcel segments, IIRC.

This is a defect I have attempted to point out to Autodesk for better than 2 years. They have yet to respond to those concerns, as if the C3D data being inaccessible to MAP isn't a problem.

[sinc]

Sinc,


I think you might be able to simplify this using some drawing cleanup tools, and adding nodes @ all links. Also, I don't think a topology is required to query the end coordinates of the lines, to the report file.

How do you get nodes at all points?  I can only get nodes at the ends of links, as shown by the points labelled in white as "nodes" in the attached image.  I also need to calculate corners that are not at the ends of links, at the points labelled in pink as "lot corners".

And yes, you are correct that a topology is not required.  In fact, that's how I got the query to work - I exploded the topology, and queried the resulting lines and arcs.  That's the only way I could get coordinates for all the points I'm interested in.  A query on the topology only returned the ends of links - the points labelled in white as "nodes" in the attached drawing.

Your object properties probably didn't show, as the points objects in C3D are not accessible to MAP in C3D. If that makes any sense, the programmers have one over on me for sure.

This is actually in Land Desktop.  This is an old project that's been going on for a while, and I didn't want to try and convert a 350-lot subdivision as our first C3D plat, when the work was nearly complete in Land Desktop.