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Bearings-distances table generation from drawing command or plug-in


holsteinson

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VW09 LandMark allows input of bearings and distance to create cadastral boundaries of a parcel but as far as I have looked in the manuals, it doesnt allow the user to draw a polygon and generate from it a table of bearings and distances.

Does anyone know how to generate this bearings-distances table from a selected polygon?

If there isnt a VWL09 command to do this, is there a plug-in that can do it?

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  • 5 weeks later...
  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee

Having watched this thread for some time, I am encouraged that most have appreciated the extent of Vectorworks reach, where it comes to the scope of work a landscape designer or a landscape architect can acheive, particularly with Landmark. Even to this current build, Vectorworks Landmark has continued to provide progressive and in some cases, state of the art functionality in the industries of landscape design and landscape architecture. As a landscape architect, who has managed to produce drawings in AutoCAD for over 12 years, I have found it a dream to be able to produce both 2D and 3D plans and models, fully llustrated within the same program, Vectorworks Landmark.

I never once would have expected that a CAD program, designed for landscape designers or landscape architects, should be performing exercises that the Civil Engineering industry routinely requires. That is not to say I would want to limit it from ever doing that, and I applaud the engineers for accomplishing the flexible features that it has in the past 20 years. I am mindful that the ability to add features each year has to be limited to what can physically be done with the resources and manpower available, and to be stretched across the 4 industries represented by each module, while at the same time, kept the purchase price very affordable.

I am glad to see that each year, the ability to collaborate with non-Vectorworks users is expanding, as we are finding from those using our program, it is becoming more essential every day. It's unfortunate that there are some comments in this thread which indicate an expectation of a seamless transfer of data between Landmark users to all operations Civil Engineering related, when the majority of Landmark users are Landscape Designers and Landscape Architects who are working on residential projects, and the features which are added each year come from the requests of our users. It's obvious that the majority of user wishes would reflect the types of projects and workflows they seek to acheive.

With that said, I can tell you that as a landscape arechitect, who sees the value of features essential to landscape architects working on large commercial and public projects, I am also pushing for features that would bring Landmark closer to filling the needs of this part of the industry. With the present ability to manage GIS files (world referenced image files and shapefiles), digital terrain modeling, customized worksheets, the new landscape area, and the potential to improve and expand on these functions, Landmark is poised to become a stronger tool, not only for landscape architects seeking to accomplish larger work (which we already have many users doing just that for the past few years) but even landscape designers wishing to offer more progressive, sustainable, design services to their clients. Hopefully along the way, we can improve the way our users can share their data with other design professionals, including Civil Engineers.

Please receive this comment to this thread with its intended respect that I think every user deserves. I hope that this may encourage each comment to be made with respect to others posting on this, and other threads. It is important to realize we all have different uses of Vectorworks Landmark, and with postive and productive participation, we will continue to build on each other's success and continue to see progress in the development of Vectorworks Landmark.

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • Vectorworks, Inc Employee

You are right, landscape designers and landscape architects do need decent and accurate layout tools, when creating construction drawings that will need to be built. Though I would have already described the existing layout/dimensioning capabilities as "decent", there have been multiple feature additions/enhancements in v 2009 that help a user of any module in Vectorworks be more accurate and therefor more successful in doing that. One of them is a feature proposed for the Landmark module, but had functionality in all aspects of Vectorworks, so it became available with all modules. With this in mind, I hope it can be seen that NNA does continue to add on to, and enhance, the functionality of tools available in the program. This does not exclude data transmission with other disciplines, and certainly does not exclude the advancements on what we already have in georeferenced data management. With the landscape architecture industry relying more and more on sustainable design and thus an increased use of GIS data, you may expect our handling of georeferenced data to continue to expand.

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Eric

One thing to keep in mind is the wide range of opportunities that the Landscape Architecture profession includes. Many of parts of our profession are commonly associated with other professions, and therefore are hard for us to include in our scopes of work. This is especially true with the interaction with civil engineers. Giving us superior tools to theirs will only give creditability to our profession.

Our profession is too often thought of as "gardeners". I have spent 30 yrs. battling this stigma.

Edited by Thom
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Thanks Bruce but what I need is an automatically generated distance and bearings table or worksheet from a selected polygon legs

Selected legs? Sorry: a polygon is an object (in a sense at least) and we select the entire polygon.

I have no idea what "bearings" and "distances" are since here in Europe we deal either with dimensions or coordinates. The latter usually (=always) as Cartesian x/y/z.

My surveyors & the cadastral databases I get provide coordinates. The said surveyors are also quite happy with the coordinates I provide. They are either implied in a CAD-document or explicit in a data file even a dilettante as yours truly can generate with a 20-line VectorScript.

Maybe I don't quite get your point, but I've been able to get things constructed.

Notwthstanding: on a site (a public park) none of the data I provided was ever used. The bulldozer drivers had my drawing in front of them and used that as a map. Not a single stake to be seen.

Edited by panta rhei
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Bruce,

I work with data provided by the client. Nowadays I get polygons and am expected to provide those.

Mainly Local Government Authorities, but occasionally State/National ones, such as Road Auhtorities. Until at least now, Cartesian coordinates have sufficed. (Obviously the National Government's land management system - based on MicroStation - does not do long/lat. I have the feeling that the actual, physical equipment of, say, road construction companies, is also based on local flat earth. Just this morning I saw a theodolite on a site, instead of a GPS device providing millimiter accuracy. But then again, it could just be the technological backwardness of Finland: the Dominican Republic could well be decades ahead of us. (They come with much less baggage!)

Well, whatever. I've never used the property line tool.

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The property line consist of two scripts. The property line "tool" is used to input values and to create the associated "plugin". The property line plugin is a 2D path type that behaves like a polyline object. As such you can edit individual segments and vertices on the object editor but cannot select line segments. The only way you can select line segments is by converting the plugin to a group and then the resulting polyline to lines and of course by then, you loose the functionality of the plugin with the conversion.

Panta

Bearings are basically angles from north or south. You can create line segments in VW by entering the angle (or bearing) and distance (or length) of the line.

I am glad to hear that in your area, you are still using the flat earth approach. I have already voiced my opinion in other threads that although GIS functionality might be desirable to interact with other systems, the fact is that local agencies set the rules and we are still designing and building roads the old way. Furthermore, you reinforced my point of view that even when georeferenced data is provided, it is never used in any GIS system.

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Miguel,

Don't get me wrong! I'd prefer to be able to work in long/lat coordinates. However, I gather that cadasters in most countries are based on Cartesian coordinates in a local projection.

I frequently need to interact with GIS-systems; in fact so frequently that some 15 years ago I wrote a MapInfo MID/MIF export filter for VW. The client bodies have been perfectly happy, even with areas of hundreds of square kilometers. My stuff has registered perfectly with theirs.

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Miguel

Some jurisdictions are requiring georeferenced plans, see below, & 1 reason is: "Up until a few years ago cadastral fabric map representations were only important to people that wanted information in quite a localized way. The land surveyor would compile a representation for a specific area that was under survey as a backdrop for the legal survey plan. The local government would compile a map representation as a backdrop for infrastructure such as sewers and water mains. Over the past few years and particularly since the introduction of products like Google Earth and Virtual Earth the general public are using online information

systems for day to day activities."

"British Columbia Land surveyors operating within an official integrated survey area are required to tie their legal survey plans to the control monuments. This supports the ongoing geo-referencing of the cadastral fabric.

Surrey, BC, Canada

? Within the integrated survey area untruncated UTM (NAD83 CSRS) coordinates on

the projection (not ground level) shall be used. The scale factor given in the attribute

data shall be the mean combined scale factor for the survey.

? The scale factor should be suitable for the specific area under survey."

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Yes I know that if the technology is there, some agencies will take advantage of them. Unfortunately, and it has been my point all along, most are not embracing new technology as fast as we would like to. It would be ideal to just go online and get all the infrastructure information needed to do your design instead of holding long meetings just to find out where each infrastructure is.

The problem I see in the two cities I have lived in is that the road infrastructure is managed by different agencies and none would agree to have their data displayed in the public domain. Each guards their data as if it was gold and I suppose this is out of fear of litigation. This is why they prefer to mark their facilities on the site themselves rather than rely on data that may be inaccurate.

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