Surveyor's angles, please

brookefox

I have a typical (in Louisiana, USA!) legal description of a property which I am trying to draw...easy enough but that calls are in survey-o-speak, like so:

            North 01 degree 25 minutes 30 seconds East, a distance of 458.56 feet to a point; thence measure 
	North 01 degree 25 minutes 50 seconds East, a distance of 999.79 feet to a point; thence measure 
	North 01 degree 26 minutes 10 seconds East, a distance of 850.22 feet to a point; thence leaving etc.

So I'd like to be able to draw in surveyor's units, or at least with surveyor's angles. Otherwise I think I can do the translation but I am a little slow...

Tips appreciated.

Meantime, I'll figure it manually (not look for a converter)...

@unknownuser said:

Given a DMS (Degrees, Minutes, Seconds) coordinate such as W87°43′41″, it's trivial to convert it to a number of decimal degrees using the following method:
Calculate the total number of seconds:
43′41″ = (43*60 + 41) = 2621 seconds.
The fractional part is total number of seconds divided by 3600:
2621 / 3600 = ~0.728056
Add fractional degrees to whole degrees to produce the final result:
87 + 0.728056 = 87.728056
Since it is a West longitude coordinate, negate the result.
The final result is -87.728056.

mitcorb

This is called a "metes and bounds" property description. You should have a Point of Beginning, or some other landmark. You are to head mostly north, but 1 degree and some change slightly east from POB 458.56', then again head mostly north, but slightly east another bearing of about 1 degree for a distance of 999.79', and so on until you close on the point of beginning. Is this what you were asking? If you are drawing this in Autocad, you can actually input as written.

utiler

Try the Survey tool by Wehby, Brooke.
http://rld.crai.archi.fr/rld/plugin_details.php?id=434
Might be just what you need....

brookefox

Well, yes, mitcorb, but I still need the 'facilitatoring', as it were...

Here's most of the description, as is necessary to close:

*Commence at the Northeast Corner of Section 13, Township 6 South, Range 11 East, said Corner being the Point of Beginning, thence measure

	South 89 degrees 37 minutes 10 seconds West, a distance of 1376.19 feet to a point located on the easterly right of way line of La. Highway 1082;

thence measure along the easterly right of way line of La. Highway 1082,

	North 01 degree 25 minutes 30 seconds East, a distance of 458.56 feet to a point; thence measure 

	North 01 degree 25 minutes 50 seconds East, a distance of 999.79 feet to a point; thence measure 

	North 01 degree 26 minutes 10 seconds East, a distance of 850.22 feet to a point; thence leaving the easterly right of way line of La. Highway 1082, measure 

	South 89 degrees 10 minutes 10 seconds East, a distance of 5517.88 feet to a point located on the westerly right of way line of La. Highway 21; thence measure along the westerly right of way line of La. Highway 21, 

	South 25 degrees 20 minutes 40 seconds West, a distance of 1389.52 feet to a point; thence measure in a 

	southwesterly direction along the are of a curve to the right having a radius of 975,0 feet, a distance of 335.90 feet to a point; thence measure 

	South 45 degrees 04 minutes 00 seconds West, a distance of 1086.72 feet to a point; thence leaving the westerly right of way line of La. Highway 21, measure 

	North 89 degrees 10 minutes 30 seconds West, a distance of 1585.04 feet to a point; thence measure 

	North 89 degrees 11 minutes 10 seconds West, a distance of 1057.35 feet to a point; thence measure 

	North 00 degrees 08 minutes Vest, a distance of 39.6 feet back to the Point of Beginning...*

So it seems I have to draw each segment and manually rotate it into position as there is no length-at-an-angle input...

~ Oh, goody, utiler snuck a tip in while I was composing... ~

pbacot

If the survey tool isn't working and you just want it done... I can do it in cad for you-- unless you want to learn a way ( or create a way) in SU.

mitcorb

La. 1082 is called Old Military Road near Covington, La. Are you doing something with horses?
The description of Sections Townships and Ranges are from the U.S. Geodetic Survey

brookefox

Thank you very much, Tim, Andrew and Peter. The ruby Andrew pointed to worked charmingly, and so I thank J. Wehby as well. Now if I could get the calls readily labeled on the drawing, I'd consider this one fully done.

You got the location, Tim, and the fact that there are horses in the neighborhood, though not here in particular. Ours are issues of land/timber management, post-Katrina, post-family partnership dissolution. Katrina's impact here was more like that of multiple tornadoes; mature and beautiful woodlands were flattened for the most part. We are hoping to plant many thousands of seedlings next winter, something I did once before in life and found it to be the most satisfying work I have ever done.

mitcorb

Hi, brookefox:
I salute your purpose. I wish you the best of success.
Oh, by the way, I assume you know about downloading quadrangle maps from usgs.gov?

utiler

Glad we could help....

brookefox

Thanks, Tim. I have the quad from various sources...One of the good ones surprisingly to me is the county (parish) forestry GIS portal. There's just a couple of things to be gotten from the quad, I think, mainly the contours but this is pretty flat land. The water features we know from the ground; but the corroboration is nice. The historical imagery from google earth is cool. I made crude little videos of the property over time, from 1998 to 2011.