Help with Staking Alignments

[Wes Hand]

I've been asked to stakeout the tree locations for the planting of pecan trees on a 140 acre field. My method is to first define the row direction as specified by the client and then turn 90 or perpendicular to the line and calculate a point well outside my site area. In the end I will have only 3 points created and I will stake out the line perpendicular to the row instead of the actual row itself. We do not stake every tree due to cost and the end goal is to have wire flags at 100' intervals along the row at the specified row width and the client has his employees use a 100' tape and set the others in between. So lets say my row runs due north defined by numbers 1 - 2. My perpendicular is defined by 1 - 3 running east/west. Our client wants the rows 40 feet wide with trees at 20 foot spacing so I created an alignment under the STAKE screen using numbers 1 as my start station (0+00) and 3 as the end station. I set my interval under STAKEOUT ALIGNMENT SETTINGS to 40' and choose centerline only and set the offset to whatever 100' increment I am offset from the perpendicular line of 1-3. I use the next button to increment up the 40' interval as I go along the perpendicular alignment. This works great until I get to the end of the field at station 20+40 feet and I need to offset 100 left or right. I have to select BACK and then select the icon for STAKEOUT ALIGNMENT SETTINGS then select STAKE TRAVERSAL/OFFSETS and change my offset to the next 100' offset. I go back and start staking but my station has dropped back to 0+00 and I have to hit the next button multiple times to get back to where I am at station 20+40. I simply want to be able to tell the LS to step over another 100' on the defined line and keep the station I am currently at. I am having to go back way too many times to tell it to offset another 100'. Don't shoot me but I use the yellow stuff too and the station and offset routine works well as I can easily change the offset distance without having to go out of the menu screen and hit a button 20 plus times to get back to where I just stopped staking. Am I making this harder than it should be? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Adam]

Wes, I haven't tried it to confirm but you might try entering the start station and checking reverse when you get to the end of the line, then entering the station and checking reverse off at the end of the next. There is also a cogo function for Line offsets that creates design points based on the number of segments and interval/segment length. If you used points then you can set up the stakeout by nearest point or by selecting the points in the order you want to stake them.

 

[Matt Johnson]

The CoGo Line Offsets function already does exactly what you are asking for.

 

[James Suttles]

I have not done this, but have looked at it, how do you tell it left or right of the line? Is it a negative for left and positive for right, etc.

 

[Adam]

Yes, in the cogo functions you can press the icon in the top left to display the cogo in a map view and see what it is doing.