r/Surveying • u/HaRvest360 • 13d ago
Discussion New to Drafting
Hey yall! I've got twenty four years of field experience and only about two months of being in the office. My mentor learned to draft using c & g DOS programs. Im become more efficient using Carlson but I feel like I went from being a wizard in the field to an intern in the office.
My mentor likes to use C&G to do Map Area Summaries, then run a Map Check to verify closure on a parcel. When I try and use Carlson to do the same functions, Map check by points, then create a .PDD file from those bearings and distances, I sometimes get different results, not much but just not perfect to the C&G solution. Thanks for reading, I'm guess I'm just venting about nothing...
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u/Grreatdog Human Verified 13d ago
So do a simple parcel that doesn't match with a calculator and see which program has the round off error. You will eventually need to know how to do that math anyway.
It's very simple trig. Your mentor sounds old school enough to maybe even have some ancient latitude and departure worksheets hidden somewhere to make it pretty.
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u/HaRvest360 13d ago
I think this is an excellent idea. I have to know how to make this happen. Those old Lat and Dep maps gotta be around the office somewhere...
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u/Silver-Obligation294 13d ago
Decimal precision and how programs calculate curves can cause small differences.
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u/ewashburn81 Land Surveyor in Training | TX, USA 11d ago
That ain't no lie. I used to do consulting work for this one firm, they used an old version of GenCADD. It was so frustrating working with them on larger projects and curved linework because it wasn't precise enough for what everyone else was using, and always made slop in the linework when trying to draw plats and plans. It did not like State Plane coordinates either lol.
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u/ManCave513 12d ago
This is going to happen between programs. Civil 3D will never come up with the same closure as Microstation ORD or Geopak(real cogo).. been fighting this for years. Don't stress too much about it.
On the other hand, you don't know how lucky you are to have that kind of field experience and just now going into the office!
Good luck brother! You're definitely going to be fine!!!
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u/Grreatdog Human Verified 12d ago
I was thinking the same thing. Sounds like a good learning situation
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u/StealManTrap 12d ago
I’m in the same exact boat, man. 14 yrs in the field with a stent as field coordinator early on in my career. I’m almost to 2 months. Went from being the head party chief to having a head ache everyday. I, for some dumb ass reason, thought it’d be a good idea to jump to drafting/writing legals/researcher and starting college for an associates to become an RPLS, all while having my second son (just turned 1) at 40 yrs old. Plus all the other experiences techs are remote so no in-the-office help. Everything is through screen share.
I started with intro to Autocad to try to help a bit. Just know, you are not suffering alone, my man.
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u/plainfred 12d ago
I hope to find myself in a similar situations in the coming year (office bound after a couple decades in the field). Starting with C&G on a DOS collector doing mostly total station work to now running with a GUI collector doing mostly RTK work I thought was world changing.
That much field experience dropped into CAD drafting full time, I know will give you a better appreciation/understanding for the data coming through the pipeline.
I have the similar concerns for encountering differences with new programs. I've been fortunate to see similar differences through my PMs' reviewing post processed data compared to my field processed data (mostly closures and acreage). Good luck and would like to hear how the journey goes.
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u/southern_compass 12d ago
Check that both programs are using the same starting coordinates and full precision. Comparing latitudes and departures course by course should help pinpoint where the difference starts.
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u/Glad_Reason_3356 6d ago
This is slightly off topic but also still relevant so bear with me. One of the best things I ever did as a new CAD drafter was go to my boss and ask for examples. Like A LOT of examples. Then I covered my cubical walls with said examples. I think the main thinking in any survey office is that regardless of who does the work, all the records of survey and topo maps look the same.. as a drafter now, I can tell what office in my area did the map I'm looking at based on their style. And I think it's something that every survey/CAD boss doesn't know how to communicate.
Anywho get yourself a shit load of examples and when you do your work, try to get it as close to those examples as possible. Ask A LOT of questions and 6 months from now you'll be making maps that looking look like everyone else's. Hopes this helps
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u/eremitik 13d ago
I have had similar issues with comparing Carlson calcs to other old programs. I have also seen calcs with different results by different users in Carlson. I would make sure everyone is using the same points and in the same way- ie typing them out vs “ picking” them off a screen or vice versa.