Is [using GPS to survey property] possible?

[Gebo]

My boss (the one whom writes my checks) wants me to be able to go onto a piece of property, find a corner pin, establish it as a wapoint on my Garmin 60CSx, download it into some type of mapping software, enter in survey distance and direction info off a survey (or deed) established from this waypoint I just imported from the 60CSx, then transfer all these waypoints that the software in my laptop has calculated back into my Garmin. Then go back onto the property and using my 60CSx be able to "somewhat" find the general lines of the property.

 

What software will let me do this? My friend said to try and get a program that would "rotate" automatically for the magnetic declination??? I have a Mac for personal use and Windows at work.

 

Oh, and he wants to be able to lay the survey on at least a topo and possibly and aerial.

Edited August 16, 2006 by Gebo

[+Semper Questio]

I can't answer your question, but if your boss wnats this for something legal he may want ot rethink it. I can't see that a consumer-market GPSr would be nearly accurate enough for any legal application of property lines.

[Gebo]

I can't answer your question, but if your boss wnats this for something legal he may want ot rethink it. I can't see that a consumer-market GPSr would be nearly accurate enough for any legal application of property lines.

 

Absolutely! It is ONLY for personal info. I am in 100% agreement. I am a commercial realtor and many times we do presentations and such to our potential clients. Like last week, 2 siblings inherited their Dad's 45 acres and they did not have a clue where the property lines were. If we could do what I've described above, we may be able to find a few of the corners. Notice I said, "FIND" the corners. At least, that is our intention.

[+briansnat]

Moving to a more appropriate forum

[+h2omember]

I don't do this myself but one of our engineers at work plotted the legal description of my 5 acre property in the country into AutoCad and then was able to overlay it onto a GIS map of the area. He was able to give me GPS coordinates for each point and corrected magnitic bearings between points as well. I knew where 7 of the 9 points were but with his work it was easy to find the other 2. Thanks to him, I now have a beautiful birdseye view of my property from about 1000 ft agl.

[GreatCanadian]

My boss (the one whom writes my checks) wants me to be able to go onto a piece of property, find a corner pin, establish it as a wapoint on my Garmin 60CSx, download it into some type of mapping software, enter in survey distance and direction info off a survey (or deed) established from this waypoint I just imported from the 60CSx, then transfer all these waypoints that the software in my laptop has calculated back into my Garmin. Then go back onto the property and using my 60CSx be able to "somewhat" find the general lines of the property.

 

What software will let me do this? My friend said to try and get a program that would "rotate" automatically for the magnetic declination??? I have a Mac for personal use and Windows at work.

 

Oh, and he wants to be able to lay the survey on at least a topo and possibly and aerial.

 

You say "somewhat" find the general lines.....If I am understanding you correctly, then yes, your 60 CSx is quite capable of doing what you ask in this situation. I'm sure that there are quite a few types of mapping software that are suitable, but my preference for this type of stuff is OziExplorer. I don't have 60 CSx, but it is a better GPS than I have so I would assume that your GPS is also capable of waypoint projection. If so, you can also enter your survey distance and direction directly into the GPS from your corner pin, so you may not even need mapping software. Hope this helps

[+Timpat]

I work in the GIS field and survey as well. I do this type of thing all the time but have at my disposal AutoCAD and Arc9. You can accomplish what you describe using free software and your 60CSx. Once you establish a point of beginning (POB) by grabbing one property corner, you can work up the others using the deed description bearings and distances (metes and bounds).

 

Be aware most deed descriptions are based on Magnetic north. Since magnetic north moves over time you need to note the date of the survey and when this description was written to determine how much the declination has changed to the present date. One deed I used was from 1905 and this made a difference of over 3°. This will adjust for the "rotation" needed.

 

To correct for this, if needed, use this Magnetic declination calculator online program. Once you have adjusted bearings you need to convert them from bearings to azimuths. An azimuth is based on a 360° circle, vs a bearing based on four quadrants (NE, SE, SW, NW).

 

Now you are ready to use FizzyMagic's GeoCalc (one example) to project for the other property corners by "traversing" around the deed description. Once you have the coordinates for the other corners enter them into your 60CSx, and hit the field to navigate to them to hopefully discover evidence of the old corners. When found, you can "reposition here" to update each waypoint for the best accuracy.

 

Back in the office use Doug Cox's USAPhotoMaps program to download your good 60CSx data for overlaying on aerial photos or USGS topo mapping. Most areas of the U.S. have black/white photos but some urban areas have high-res color photos. This would give you a nice aerial graphic to show your boss.

 

You could also export your good property corner waypoints to a .gpx file and open it in Google Earth. If you wanted to get fancy you could create a track in Mapsource from your property corner waypoints to export to a .gpx file. This will open in GE and show the parcel polygon over better photos, and print the screen, or save the .gpx file in GE as a .kml (.kmz) file to email to friends.

 

Remember, this is NOT meant to replace a real survey. It will allow you to give a fair representation of a property over aerial photos. Good luck and have fun. Lots of cool things you can do all for free to impress your friends and neighbors, and boss!

[bgarland]

For some friends just playing around, I used my 76CSx to mark the waypoints for each corner marker on their property. The by uploading those waypoints to the PC I used National Geographic Topo to show a "route" between the waypoints. That shows the approx property lines. We also used the Garmin Mapsource program to do the same thing and then roll over to display them in Google Earth for the arerial view. From there you can save the images as simple JPG image files to be emailed or printed out.

 

Granted, this was about a 4 acre parcel. It would have been a hike to do the same for 45 acre parcel. :-)

[+Pegasi]

You can do this as many others have said. The problem is, what are the "surveys" for. The accuracy of even the best consumer GPS unit is in no way good enough to locate points used for legal or construction purposes. GPS surveyors are using differential units which are also calibrated to known "benchmark" positions for <1cm accuracy. For a general overview the accuracy may be "good enough" but at the very least your points will be off by 6 to 9 feet, or a possible 10% error in every direction for a small lot.

[Grasscatcher]

You can easily do it with Expert GPS by Topografix.

If you can find one pin and if you know which one that is on a survey etc, then by using "project a waypoint" (with distances and directions), you can construct the whole property layout and display it on a Topo or Aerial Photo

[GreatCanadian]

You can do this as many others have said. The problem is, what are the "surveys" for. The accuracy of even the best consumer GPS unit is in no way good enough to locate points used for legal or construction purposes. GPS surveyors are using differential units which are also calibrated to known "benchmark" positions for <1cm accuracy. For a general overview the accuracy may be "good enough" but at the very least your points will be off by 6 to 9 feet, or a possible 10% error in every direction for a small lot.

 

Pegasi....i have to disagree somewhat here. You state that a consumer GPS unit is in no way good enough to locate points used for legal or construction purposes. As you state, you may be off 6 to 9 feet, but this often will be close enough to locate or find points that have already been established and marked, which is what the original poster of this thread inquired about. Perhaps you mean that a consumer grade GPS is not good enough to ESTABLISH points for legal purposes. If so, then I would agree.

[Ray&Nat GeoExplorers]

I work for a surveying company and we use mapping grade GPS as well as Survey grade GPS. It's amazing at the difference between the two. Mapping grade which is similar to all the hand held GPSr running around is good at finding general locations of things and corners and will work fine for what you are wanting to do if you are just aware that it will not be no where near accurate, which it sounds like you are. Our Survey grade GPS runs upward to 30,000 bucks if that gives you an idea of the difference. Some days the mapping grade can be right on the money and others it may put you 40'+ in the wrong place, so it's almost a luck of the draw thing. But if all you want to do is overlay aerials and such to make a nice presentation in a somewhat accurate format I think you'll be fine. 2cents.

[WR8Y]

Is using GPS to survey property possible?

 

When you ask like that, the answer is simply 'No'.

 

But if you are asking about using the GPS to find a "pin", MY answer is "Yes, but it aint easy."

 

I tried using my GPS to find the 5 pins on my lot, starting with the 6th pin - which I found with my lawn mower!

But even a Lowrance with a WAAS lock was off by 8-10 feet! My neighbor found it easier with a 125 foot tape measure!

[Curious George]

Don't forget some of the other tools you could use, a laser range finder, and a magnetic locator (pin detector)