Over my many years of reading the discussion groups, I constantly see posts on how to recreate a legal description in Civil 3D. Most of the time, the people answering suggest the line and curve tools or transparent commands or object snaps or some combination thereof. Well, how about using the tools in Civil 3D to recreate it directly? Keep reading to find out how.
The Mapcheck tools where introduced in Civil 3D 2009 and are also available in 2010. Pretty much the only thing I’ve heard about them is you can calculate a closure based on the labels in the drawing. Well, they aren’t used to just check the labels in your drawing, you can use them to check any linework you want, even that on a piece of paper. The only requirement is that the linework is annotated in some way shape or form, and this can include a legal description.
The Mapcheck tool is found on the Analyze tab of the ribbon under the Survey pulldown of the Ground Data panel.
I’m not going to go through the process of using this on labels, there is a lot of information on that. I want to focus on recreating that linework from a legal description. In order to be able to type in your legal description, you must turn off the command line input. The command line input allows you to select the labels in the drawing. Turning this off, you can then manually create each of the sides and curves and input the data exactly as you have it in your legal description.
I found an example legal description HERE that you can practice with. The nice thing about using the mapcheck tools is if you make a mistake, you just have to go back to the side with the mistake and fix it. When you do that, the rest of the sides update. Once you have the description input into the mapcheck, you can have it create a polyline at the press of a button. In the following image, I’ve recreated the property described in the sample legal description and I’ve accidentally (on purpose) made a mistake. One of the lines has a typo and is going the wrong direction (I accidentally typed in a E instead of a W in side 2).
Make the changes that need to be made and you’ll see the graphics update immediately.
Once you have everything just the way you want it, you can quickly see the closure report and, if it meets your criteria, you can then create the polyline in the drawing.
February 23, 2010 at 12:51 pm
I have three surveyors to send this post to right now. Thanks for the post.
February 23, 2010 at 1:05 pm
Excellent. Spread the word. I think this is a VERY underutilized tool.
February 23, 2010 at 4:48 pm
Very informative post. My favorite part is how CAD allows you to paste the distance & direction text into your drawing or another document. Is it possible to use Mapcheck to generate a discription of a created polygon? For instance if I use Mapcheck to create a parcel. Can I then draw a new easement or lot split with polylines and pull that easement into mapcheck to have it generate the distance & direction discription? If not then is there an easy way to automaticly generate a disctiption?
February 23, 2010 at 4:58 pm
The mapcheck tools are used on labels only, either in the drawing or on a piece of paper. If you have the linework labeled, you could use the mapcheck tools. If you have a polygon, create a parcel from it and in the parcel properties, you’ll see the analysis tab. Change the analysis type Mapcheck and you’re done.
February 24, 2010 at 3:38 am
Nice post, could be very usefule. I would like to see the ability to adjust the the sides (change order via drag and drop) in order to change the location of the error, prior to doing an adjustment. Maybe something for the wish list.
February 24, 2010 at 6:43 am
Hey Rick, definitely a wish list item there. In the meantime, you can delete the offending side and then insert a side before or after another side. Not the best solution in the world but it works. Still better then drawing lines or polylines.
April 12, 2010 at 6:56 am
We have been using this tool for all of our legal description inputting and love it. You have a record of the actual calls that you used to recreate the boundary and can always redrop the lines into a drawing. We use it as a database of our legals for projects, and for retracing work we have done as you can’t “move” the original lines.
Only one issue and wondering if anyone else has the same problem. You put your legal calls in, closes reasonably well (plus or minus 0.02′). You now right click on mapcheck name and perform an adjustment. We cannot apply a Crandall Rule adjustment on our mapcheck (in 2009 or 2010). We can apply all of the other methods (which we don’t use and aren’t interested in). We get the same error in both 2009 and 2010. “No angular closure. Applying Compass Rule.” We can put in a Survey Traverse with similar information and apply Crandall’s but very tedious and an extra step. Any body else getting the same error? Thanks!
June 29, 2011 at 10:49 am
I just tried this. I am not figuring out how to put in a tangent curve without a chord or radius point bearing. Can this be done?
April 12, 2012 at 2:21 pm
I am having the same problem. Please share if you have found the answer.
April 19, 2012 at 11:53 am
Here you go: http://screencast.com/t/x45ADasznK
As for the featurelines, what do you want tested?