Institutional Affiliate of American Congress on Surveying and - CLSA

SURVEYING AUTOMATION TAKES
ANOTHER MAJOR STEP FORWARD!
As land surveying enters the 1990's, we find widespread usage <strong>of</strong> automation techniques
in the field and <strong>of</strong>fice. Firms are using computer aided design and drafting systems and are
integrating these with electronic field instrumentation to form the much talked about and advertised
"Field to Finish" systems. One <strong>of</strong> the remaining obstacles to achieving a completely automated
"finished" state in most applications is the manual generation <strong>of</strong> metes and bounds legal
descriptions. This burden has been removed once and for all with the development <strong>of</strong> LEGAL
HOLIDAY, a legal description program, taking you another step forward into the future <strong>of</strong>
surveying automation today. See how LEGAL HOLIDAY can improve your productivity,
reduce your liability, and make your job eeisier.
LEGAL HOLIDAY generates the legal description fast.
After computing and adjusting the traverse or boundary courses with your present coordinate
geometry s<strong>of</strong>tware, use LEGAL HOLIDAY to generate a nearly finished description in a matter <strong>of</strong>
seconds. Then use the program's built-in text editor to add any additional required controls or
conditions and print the finished description within minutes. The resulting ASCII text file can be
imported by your word processor for incorporation within a document or by your CADD system for
inclusion on a drawing.
LEGAL HOLIDAY does all the dull, boring, and uninspired work.
To generate a description, you need only select the cogo file and enter the point numbers or figure
numbers defining the courses. Then enter the title, the section(s), township, and range numbers, and
select the locality. The program does the rest. It evaluates the geometric circumstances related to each
course and selects from its inventory <strong>of</strong> 35 user designated phrases, each <strong>of</strong> which is associated with a
situation commonly encountered in property descriptions. The geometric measurements related to
each course are incorporated within the appropriate phrase in each case as the program generates the
description.
LEGAL HOLIDAY eliminates the most common source <strong>of</strong> errors.
Numeric transcription errors occur all too <strong>of</strong>ten in the process <strong>of</strong> manually preparing descriptions
firom data derived from cogo inverse commands. These are totally eliminated by using LEGAL
HOLIDAY. Typographic errors are also eliminated from that part <strong>of</strong> the description generated by the
program. Only text which the user might edit into the finished description can possibly contain a
typing error. Even the best <strong>of</strong> typists are prone to occasional error, and metes and bounds descriptions
are among the most difficult <strong>of</strong> typing assignments. LEGAL HOLIDAY can significantly decrease
your chances <strong>of</strong> ever generating a faulty description through a scrivener's error.
LEGAL HOLIDAY minimizes geometry errors & reduces checking time.
The program employs several procedures to help detect data entry and computational errors. LEGAL
HOLIDAY generates a quality control report addressing several key issues and appends such a report
to every description, as an aid to the person responsible for checking it. The data entry report echoes
the cogo file name and the point numbers on which the description is based. The program generates a
closure report for both the point <strong>of</strong> beginning reference (traverse to the FOB), and the sequence <strong>of</strong>
described courses. Finally, any instances <strong>of</strong> non-tangent intersection are specifically noted in the nontangency
report and appropriately described in the text. This last feature is included because <strong>of</strong> the
possibility <strong>of</strong> unintentional non-tangency conditions resulting from computational error.