Some very handy and easy (I think)

[Nate The Surveyor]

I work in the PLSS. Here, we often will tie into a dozen or more monuments. Then, make MID points. Maybe 5, 10, or more times in a day. As we subdivide, and RE subdivide a section. That is, we have an ongoing need to make mid points in the field. Sometimes we over write an existing mid pnt.

Now, if we could just have a simple button, on the inverse screen, That, by pressing it, makes a MID point, between the points showing in the inverse.

The elevation, would be the average of the two end points, unless one was a design point, and then it would be the same as the one that was not a design point. And, if it was a mid between design points, that have 0 elev, then it would have a 0 elev likewise.
That would be awesome!

And, since we already have 2 points on the screen, press ANOTHER button, and it takes you straight to the STAKE LINE by 2 POINTS.
These 2 things, would make it better for us in the woods.

Thank you! Hope you over in Russia, had a very Merry Christmas!

Nate

 

[Matt Johnson]

Have you tried the Divide Line CoGo function yet? It does these things. You can also Draw a line with the CAD Line function from the Review screen and then add a point at the midpoint and then select that line from the map to be staked.

 

[Nate The Surveyor]

I have done the CAD line thing, from review. It does not work real well, when you want A-B mid pt. And, C is mid. Then, you want A-C mid. It's too cumbersome in the cold, while shivering. I worked for a while, to figure out the divide thing, and could not figure it out. How does it work? Working in the PLSS , we want a VERY fast and simple Mid, often.

If you would explain the divide the line thing, It would be much appreciated. (I'm sure I could use it too) Mid is extremely simple, to write the cogo for, (at least with rectangular coords!) N+N/2 (Mid Northing) E+E/2 (Mid Easting)E+E/2 (Mid Elev.) Even if Divide line in cogo works... A HANDY mid at inverse would save time, and it WOULD GET USED. So would "Stake a Line using inversed points". It would get used.


Nate

 

[Matt Johnson]

Nate, we have discussing the Divide Line function more and are considering removing the Create Alignment and Stake Now buttons as they create alignments and are more complicated. In the meantime just press Create to create the points. To create mid and quarter points it would look like this:

 

[Nate The Surveyor]

That would work pretty good. YES.
What if you placed a button, on the inverse screen, that TOOK you to the above screen, USING the two inversed points? HEY!
That would be fantastic. That way, you know you have the right points.

That way, you inverse A-B. You consider a bit, and decide YES, that is what I want. THEN hit the button, DIVIDE LINE, and it takes you to the above screen, and you KNOW you have the right points, BECAUSE they came straight out of inverse.


How it is NOW, is we wind up entering the points twice. Once at inverse, and once again, at Divide.

If you simply count the button pushes, that this saves, it's considerable.

Thanks again, for listening to feedback.
Nate

 

[Matt Johnson]

I requested that bearing and distance between P1 and P2 be displayed on the Divide Line screen also, so would not need to use the Inverse function with it. If you use a CoGo function a lot, you may want to add it to one of U1-U4 buttons so it can be recalled quickly.

 

[Nate The Surveyor]

Adding B/D to the Divide Line Screen is good.
Is it much trouble to add a button to inverse screen?
Thanks Matt.
N

 

[Matt Johnson]

I don't see that there would be a lot of room to add it to the Inverse screen. If you know you might want to divide the line, why not just skip the Inverse screen and go to the Divide Line function?

 

[Nate The Surveyor]

I'm looking at mine.

All the way across the bottom of the screen, between ESC and OK, is un-used real estate. Add buttons. One called DIVIDE-Line, and another called STK-Line. And, there is still room for another button, if somebody thinks of one.

 

[Matt Johnson]

Nate, here is what Andrey has done with Divide Line now. See what you think.

 

[Nate The Surveyor]

That is a great improvement. That will work. That will be fine for now.
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However.... If I were to make it how I want it, this is what I'd Want:

Bearing would not drop leading zeros. In your above example, it would be 174°09'01". Also, it would have decimal seconds. The reason for this, is that it gives you a quick check of source of the numbers. IF they were keyed in (say, from a deed, or plat, which never uses decimal seconds), then the decimals are 0000. If they are computed, there will be decimals. And, it helps keep up with the rounding thing. This simplifies things, for CAD later.
Also, it would show BOTH azimuth, and BEARING. This simplifies things, if you are following a plat, or whatever.
Also, distance should be shown to 4 points past the decimal. This simplifies things, for CAD later.
Showing the northing difference, and easting difference is nice. (not absolutely necessary, but it's nice) We can do without it, IF we got larger text in it's place.

Also, if you press the button above, that says Points, n It could toggle, between the number of points created, and HOW MANY SEGMENTS are made. Many Americans are more used to how many segments, rather than how many points. (This is not real important, but it is cool!)

Also, if you overwrite a previous DESIGN coord, (Which should be allowed) But, with a good visual warning, (OVERWRITE WARNING! Y/N) and a DIFFERENT sound, when coord is created. When a point gets over written, it should NOT be deleted. It should be renamed. Add to the Prefix, or Suffix "DELX_" (This would be controlled by the POINTS DASHBOARD) I would love to see a POINTS DASHBOARD somewhere, where we set up what numbers are allocated for Field Shots, and what are for field cogo, and what layers things go to. But, we have discussed this elsewhere.

Now, we have one last issue. It should also display the created segment distances.

So, if you created 3 Points, (4 segments) and P1 and P2 were 1320 apart, then the dimension shown would be 330.0000'

OK? Well written software, is complex to write, but simple to use.

They tell me that POINTS are now divided, so that field calc points and field GPS observations are maintained with 2 groups. I will wait to see how they implemented this, before I comment.

Thank you, I hope you find my suggestions palatable.

Nate

 

[Nate The Surveyor]

I don't yet know what H, Abs does. Does it start at one end, and make coords at even distances, such as every 100', and then leave the remainder, at the end? OK, I don't know yet.
I know that you guys have thought of things I have never seen.

But, I have a pile of ideas, taller than a garden rake can pile. You would need a front end loader, to get it all!

 

[Matt Johnson]

H,Abs is height absolute so it sets the absolute height of the points created. The delta heights are height differences from one of the endpoints.

 

[Matt Johnson]

That is a great improvement. That will work. That will be fine for now.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

However.... If I were to make it how I want it, this is what I'd Want:

Bearing would not drop leading zeros. In your above example, it would be 174°09'01". Also, it would have decimal seconds. The reason for this, is that it gives you a quick check of source of the numbers. IF they were keyed in (say, from a deed, or plat, which never uses decimal seconds), then the decimals are 0000. If they are computed, there will be decimals. And, it helps keep up with the rounding thing. This simplifies things, for CAD later.
Also, it would show BOTH azimuth, and BEARING. This simplifies things, if you are following a plat, or whatever.
Also, distance should be shown to 4 points past the decimal. This simplifies things, for CAD later.
Showing the northing difference, and easting difference is nice. (not absolutely necessary, but it's nice) We can do without it, IF we got larger text in it's place.

Also, if you press the button above, that says Points, n It could toggle, between the number of points created, and HOW MANY SEGMENTS are made. Many Americans are more used to how many segments, rather than how many points. (This is not real important, but it is cool!)

Also, if you overwrite a previous DESIGN coord, (Which should be allowed) But, with a good visual warning, (OVERWRITE WARNING! Y/N) and a DIFFERENT sound, when coord is created. When a point gets over written, it should NOT be deleted. It should be renamed. Add to the Prefix, or Suffix "DELX_" (This would be controlled by the POINTS DASHBOARD) I would love to see a POINTS DASHBOARD somewhere, where we set up what numbers are allocated for Field Shots, and what are for field cogo, and what layers things go to. But, we have discussed this elsewhere.

Now, we have one last issue. It should also display the created segment distances.

So, if you created 3 Points, (4 segments) and P1 and P2 were 1320 apart, then the dimension shown would be 330.0000'

OK? Well written software, is complex to write, but simple to use.

They tell me that POINTS are now divided, so that field calc points and field GPS observations are maintained with 2 groups. I will wait to see how they implemented this, before I comment.

Thank you, I hope you find my suggestions palatable.

Nate

I agree that it would be good to show the segment length when the line is equally divided. If you did not notice, it can currently be changed from dividing it with points equally to entering a segment length:

It probably isn't a problem to add an option to specify Segments or Points, although the number of segments will always just be 1 more than the number of points. The bearing/azimuth display is currently controlled by the chosen option in Settings>Advanced>Units. It may be good to be able to assign a User Defined button to toggle the displayed units between bearing/azimuth. This would solve this problem in all the screens then.

Another line would need to be added to in bearing/distance/offset display if more decimal are to be displayed I think.

Overwriting points seems like a bad idea to me. It does not take long to delete a point or range of points currently. Do you want multiple points to be allowed to be overwritten? Divide line, other CoGo functions and some other functions in J-Field can create multiple points. When multiple points are created it would be very easy to accidentally overwrite points that you did not want to be overwritten.

 

[Nate The Surveyor]

Matt Said: Overwriting points seems like a bad idea to me. It does not take long to delete a point or range of points currently. Do you want multiple points to be allowed to be overwritten? Divide line, other CoGo functions and some other functions in J-Field can create multiple points. When multiple points are created it would be very easy to accidentally overwrite points that you did not want to be overwritten.

Nate Said: This is a great example of how much we need the dashboard.... I have utilized the freedom to overwrite coords.. in my data flow. and Matt is opposed... I can see situations, with a field crew, where I also would not want overwritten coords.
This is where the POINTS CONTROL DASHBOARD comes in. User can select "Allow Overwrite" with a check box. This way, Matt can work the way he works, and I can work the way I work.

Since this is being developed, I'd like to never allow a TRUE overwrite. Any point that gets overwritten, simply gets a new name, and is hidden in the data base. It can be retrieved, and renamed back, any time. A point can be overwritten as many times as you like, and it simply increments up. If we do what Matt said above, ie, delete, and remake the coords, then they are PERMANENTLY gone. I can even see manually renaming them, with some sort of code. I'd like to automate this process.

I'd like to see the POINTS CONTROL DASHBOARD added in. The usefulness of this can be expanded and (I think) will be very useful in the long run.

MY 2 cents, from the woods.

Nate

 

[Adam]

Nate said: .. I can see situations, with a field crew, where I also would not want overwritten coords.

Adam said: I am aprehensive about my field crew using the LS and changing a setting or using functions that they dont know how to use yet. I would like to see a user lock added. When I am using it all functions and settings are unlocked. When the crew is using there should be limited access to a lot of the settings, functions, overwriting coords, deleting jobs, stuff like this. Call it Basic and Advanced.

 

[Nate The Surveyor]

Nate said: .. I can see situations, with a field crew, where I also would not want overwritten coords.

Adam said: I am aprehensive about my field crew using the LS and changing a setting or using functions that they dont know how to use yet. I would like to see a user lock added. When I am using it all functions and settings are unlocked. When the crew is using there should be limited access to a lot of the settings, functions, overwriting coords, deleting jobs, stuff like this. Call it Basic and Advanced.

If the points were never truly deleted, never truly overwritten, and were easily retrieved, because they simply got a new name, that contained the original number, (for identification purposes) and an added number, that incremented, you'd have it all, I think.
Cover all the bases.
N

 

[Nate The Surveyor]

I'm gonna mention this again. Put a MID pt button, on the inverse screen. There is room. I blew a mid point, about a month ago. I set a monument WAY down in the woods. I just found it. It is 10 feet off. With witness trees. There are other problems out there, and it will probably go to court. So, I just now caught it. The client was following me around. You know. Not too badly, but now, I have to call him...

It's important to make the cogo in this thing, so that tech support is not needed. I can tell you, a mid point at the inverse screen is in order. I actually have spent WAY too much time already trying to figure out how to mid things. It is a needed, and handy thing.

I finally called tech support, to ASK how to make a mid point. They sighed. Said, well, the best way is..... And it was overly involved. Nobody needs to be working a combination lock, to un-zip their pants, to to wee wee.
It's just the wrong time to try to work a combination lock! Mid can be simple.

Mid should not need a tech support call.

I'm up against the time line this month, having been without functional computers for 2 wks, and the last week, has been hectic. Reinstalling software. Etc. Getting plotters to work. This is a simple thing, and would make a number of us happy.

Thank you!

Nate

 

[Shawn Billings]

Nate,
Creating a midpoint has been simplified and includes many of the things you've requested. It's not under inverse, it's under CoGo>Stakes>Divide Line

Select the two points defining the line that you want to determine a midpoint between. In this case, I've selected L001 and L004.
The bearing and distance between them is shown (as you requested). I do notice that the distance is not given to 3 decimal places as it should be. I'll make note of this.
For a midpoint I want to only create one point, so I have "Points,n" set to 1. I want the height to be the average of the two points, L001 and L004.

Press the diagram pane on the upper left of the screen and the map appears showing the two points and the proposed midpoint.

I pressed Back to return to the calculation screen and pressed create. Here it shows the resulting point information. Notice that the height is not the average. Apparently they are not correcting for Geoid Height. I will make note of this.

When I'm calculating in the field, I always try to check myself and the software. It's too easy to make a mistake in the field. In this case, I intended to have a midpoint between L001 and L004.
So I went to CoGo Inverse and performed an inverse between the new point, C1, and L001 then between C1 and L004. I should see the same direction and the same distance. I should also see the same height difference, but again there is clearly a bug here. From these results the new point C1 is on the midpoint.

 

[Matt Johnson]

I would also add that the CAD interface has been improved and makes it very simple to draw a line between 2 points and then add the midpoint of that line::

Select Line to draw a line starting from the currently selected point and then select the endpoint and press End.

Select the line, its bearing and distance will be displayed at the top of the screen. Use Median to add the midpoint.

The midpoint has been created.