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A commercial property is in the closing phase of sale and the only hold up is that the deed description is one that's been lifted from prior deeds dating back to the 1950's and is obviously erroneous. A 1992 survey does appear to properly depict what the Seller's have to convey and both Buyers and Seller agree that the aforementioned survey be the basis of description in the new deed and title policy if ...it plots out in reasonable fashion in Copan.

But, after spending six hours trying to get a result (closure error, or an additional call necessary to close) and a graph, I have been unsuccessful. format I've used is:

Map Traverse
1 degrees distance tab tab tab
2 degrees distance tab tab tab
3 degrees distance tab tab tab
1 degrees distance tab tab tab

That produced a bizarre graph, so I tried making the first call

Map Traverse
1 0.0 0.0 tab tab tab

Then I get an error message saying in effect "insufficent tabs" and use cut and paste to provide missing tabs.

My data:

1                   
2   354.0847    129.65          
3    84.4149    117.82          
4   352.2410     69.78          
5   309.4352     82         
6    37.1300     55         
7   307.4700     61         
1   276.5342     95.62

The original survey plat:

enter image description here

Martin F
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Larrosen33
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  • Welcome to GIS.SE. I indented your data lines so they're formatted nicely. If you want to see how it's done, or even paste in your example data, click [edit] above. – Martin F Jun 01 '14 at 18:29
  • getting error message "too few tabs in data line" ....and aborts. using following: Map Traverse 1 comment
    2 354.0847 129.65
    3 84.4149 117.82
    4 352.2410 69.78
    5 309.4352 82
    6 37.1300 55
    7 307.4700 61
    1 276.5342 95.62     – Larrosen33 Jun 01 '14 at 19:11
  • that didn't display the way I entered.... after trying your suggestion, I receive error message "too few tabs in Data line – Larrosen33 Jun 01 '14 at 19:14
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    Now that the original survey plat is posted, i see that you mis-converted some of the bearings. To keep the Q&A pattern of this site to one topic at a time, please ask a new question, along the lines of "how to enter quadrant bearings into copan map check" – Martin F Jun 01 '14 at 22:27
  • Prior to reading this I double checked the survey against the copan data and made several changes and now have the following: – Larrosen33 Jun 02 '14 at 00:25
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    2 174.0147 129.63
    3 264.4149 117.82
    4 352.2310 63.78
    5 309.4252 82.88
    6 37.1300 55
    1 127.1300 81.00     – Larrosen33 Jun 02 '14 at 00:25
  • the above was entered into comments in 3 columns but this site converted the data to that shown above. 1 tab tab tab tab tab is on a line of it's own; 2 tab 174.0147 tab 129.63 tab tab tab is the 2nd line, etc. – Larrosen33 Jun 02 '14 at 00:29
  • however when above data was put into copan data window, pressed "end", and calculate....Copan CRASHED – Larrosen33 Jun 02 '14 at 00:30
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    Posting data in as comments is not good. Please click [edit], scroll down to the part in the question where i posted your original data. It still has the correct tab format. You can select and copy it to the clipboard if necessary. – Martin F Jun 02 '14 at 01:00
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    To further the explanation of @martinf comments are more limited in formatting options than questions or answers and cannot hold images. It is also undersireable on GIS.SE to have a long trail of clarifying comments to follow rather than a concise question up top to get all the information from. Hence editing (bottom left of your question, just below the tags) is preferred to add additional information. – Chris W Jun 02 '14 at 02:54

2 Answers2

4

According to Map Check in Copan User Manual, each call is of the form

to-point bearing distance <blank> <blank> <blank>

as you (sort of) say. However, the first "call" must have (only) the initial start point (and optional label):

from-point <blank> <blank> trav-label <blank> <blank>

In other words, a traverse will look something like this:

1 <blank>  <blank>  trav-1 <blank> <blank>
2 bearing distance <blank> <blank> <blank>
3 bearing distance <blank> <blank> <blank>
:
1 bearing distance <blank> <blank> <blank>

where the last point no. is the same as the start no. (assuming it is a closed loop).

Note: Because each data line must have five tabs, and things must be in the right column (out of six), each "empty" column above is represented by <blank>. Also, the words Map Traverse should not normally appear in the data window; it's "invisible" text that labels the data file. You'd only see it if you viewed the file in a text editor.

Based on your comments, i think you may be getting mixed up between what a whole .MT file should contain (which you normally never see), and what just the traverse lines should contain (always visible in the big edit window). The former includes 7 "invisible" header lines plus the latter traverse data lines.

This is the whole MT file i used:

Map Traverses
Copan

C:\Users\Martin\Documents\COGO\Copan\larry\jun1KK.mt
1.0000000000
1.0000000000
0.0000000000
1                   
2   354.0847    129.65          
3    84.4149    117.82          
4   352.2410     69.78          
5   309.4352     82             
6    37.1300     55             
7   307.4700     61             
1   276.5342     95.62

and this is just the content of the edit window:

1                   
2   354.0847    129.65          
3    84.4149    117.82          
4   352.2410     69.78          
5   309.4352     82             
6    37.1300     55             
7   307.4700     61             
1   276.5342     95.62

Try to avoid cutting and pasting of large chunks of data within the edit window; it often leads to a wrong number of tabs per line. And if you're having difficulty with editing text files -- stick to editing individual items within the Copan window. I especially recommend not using word processors for editing text files!

Using the above data, and running Copan's Map Check, here's the text result:

1) Map Traverse Results  [1 - 1]
    Leg Count              7
    Total Distance   610.870

    Coordinate Misclosure
    N  354.096       Dist       362.600   <-- Warning: Extremely Large Misclosure!!!
    E  -78.068       Brng    347°34'01"
    Relative precision  1 : 1        <-- Warning: Extremely Large Misclosure!!!

                               Start or  Curve
         Bearing   Distance    To Point   Code
                                      1 
      354°08'47"    129.650           2       
       84°41'49"    117.820           3       
      352°24'10"     69.780           4       
      309°43'52"     82.000           5       
       37°13'00"     55.000           6       
      307°47'00"     61.000           7       
      276°53'42"     95.620           1       

        Area        13143.8 (sq. units)

and here's the graphic result:

Graphic plot from Copan's Map Check

After combining the distance data you provide above, and the direction data you provide in a separate question (how-to-enter-quadrant-bearings-into-copan-map-check), I reran Copan's Map Check:

Checking Bearing-Distance Traverses at 20:40 on 31 May 2015

MapTrav data not yet saved!

 1) Map Traverse Results  [1 - 1]
    Leg Count              7
    Total Distance    610.87

    Coordinate Misclosure
    N     0.06       Dist          0.40   <-- Warning: Extremely Large Misclosure!!!
    E     0.40       Brng   N81°52'49"E
    Relative precision  1 : 1525     <-- Warning: Extremely Large Misclosure!!!

                               Start or  Curve
         Bearing   Distance    To Point   Code
                                      1 
     S 5°52'13"E     129.65           2       
     S84°41'49"W     117.82           3       
     N 7°36'50"W      69.78           4       
     N50°17'08"W      82.00           5       
     N37°13'00"E      55.00           6       
     S52°47'00"E      61.00           7       
     N83°07'18"E      95.62           1       

        Area          18618 (sq. units)

and the plot finally at least resembles the one you supplied:

enter image description here

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Martin F
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  • starts at circle 1 thru 7 and back to 1 – Larrosen33 Jun 01 '14 at 21:59
  • couldn't get comment to accept pic of survey so I emailed with it both embedded in text in one email and as attached jpg file in the other. Meanwhile I'm attempting to find conversion error in bearings – Larrosen33 Jun 01 '14 at 22:09
  • I might suggest a format of 2[tab]bearing[tab]distance[tab]<blank space>[tab]<blank space>[tab]<blank space> in this case for clarification (and assuming I've got that fifth tab in the right place. Something to explicitly state exactly what characters are typed across the line. Are spaces needed or can you just 2[tab]bearing[tab]distance[tab][tab][tab]? – Chris W Jun 02 '14 at 02:57
  • @ChrisW: Your suggestion would work (and spaces are not necessary). – Martin F Jun 02 '14 at 03:51
  • @hrisW that is helpful. I have tried several methods of getting the correct input to coplan, including using word where show format provides control of tabs, then pasting from word into notepad and saving result as "mt" file, then loading it into copan. And entering the data directly in the data window in COPAN, with either comma delimted entry within each line or tab delimited. I'm not getting a good result with any method. – Larrosen33 Jun 02 '14 at 08:28
  • Martin - sorry for the confusion, I meant a format for posting your answer. You had used an explicit statement of some non-printing characters, but I was suggesting making all of them 'visible' as I did (and similar to the Word method mentioned). @larrosen33 Martin's edit and assistance will be more useful than my input as I don't actually use Copan (yet). It appears Copan is a little more... involved with formatting than the tools I usually use (ArcGIS's traverse format). While there are some character differences, switching between Word and Notepad hasn't ever really caused me issues. – Chris W Jun 02 '14 at 19:04
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I tried plotting this in Plat Plotter http://platplotter.appspot.com/

and got an 84 foot / 14% error. Don't know if I copied the calls correctly: the Plat is a little fuzzy. This was my input data:

s 5 57 15 e 129.65

n 84 41 49 e 117.82

n 7 36 30 w 69.78

s 58 17 e 82

n 37 13 e 55

n 52 47 w 61

s 83 07 18 w 95.62

http://platplotter.appspot.com/mapserver?pid=6189685743288320

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JR in WV
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    Seems to be another question? – Mapperz May 29 '15 at 21:31
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    This appears to be the result of putting the calls into an alternative program. It's a nice suggestion and provides an evaluation of the calls themselves, but the actual question is mostly about the proper format to use when inputting the calls specifically to Copan. ArcGIS would use yet another format, as would the other alternatives. There might be a question around here that asks for alternative softwares to do metes-and-bounds checks, and if so this answer mentioning PlatPlotter might be better there than here. – Chris W May 29 '15 at 22:07
  • Here's one: http://gis.stackexchange.com/questions/78909/ – Chris W May 29 '15 at 22:21
  • @Mapperz - To be fair: i did a similar thing, the other way around, over at http://gis.stackexchange.com/questions/149009/using-plat-plotter-calculate-curve-table-feature-given-an-arc-and-radius/149166#149166 – Martin F Jun 01 '15 at 04:10
  • @jr - You may wish to try again with the data OP provides in the linked question (http://gis.stackexchange.com/questions/99606/how-to-enter-quadrant-bearings-into-copan-map-check) – Martin F Jun 01 '15 at 04:13
  • @Martin: Thanks, getting the bearing from column 3 closed to 0.4 feet (0.07%) so I feel much better. – JR in WV Jun 05 '15 at 13:26