Surveyor's bearings

[Tom Krowka]

Any way to put angles in by surveyors methods: e.g. N75degrees45'32"E.

Or can I assume that north is always to the top of the page? Is there some place to change where north would be? What would happen if I rotated the grid to change where I wanted north to be.

In the camera settings, the sun button has a north arrow. Does that only refer to North for shadow calculation?

[James Murray]

Tom wrote:
Any way to put angles in by surveyors methods: e.g. N75degrees45'32"E.

Set the working units preference to Surveyors Unit. In the "a" field type "n 75 45 32 e". Punctuation is not needed, lowercase is OK. To do a bearing and a length: Type a. Enter the bearing as above. Lock the "a" field by typing Alt+a. Type r. Enter the length and return.

In the camera settings, the sun button has a north arrow. Does that only refer to North for shadow calculation?

Nope. That's north for everything, and that's where you set it. You can also get it with the More Sun button in 3D Projection Settings.

[Tom Krowka]

So then all surveyors information will be relative to the position of the arrow in the sun settings?

[James Murray]

Tom wrote:
So then all surveyors information will be relative to the position of the arrow in the sun settings?

Yes. If you draw a line with an angle of N 0º 0' 0" W, it will point in the direction set in the sun dialog.

It can be tedious to get north set precisely right. The easiest way is if you have a surveyors DWG with a North arrow on it. Then you can XREF or merge it, turn it so it's oriented correctly with the building, and measure the angle of the arrow.

If you aren't doing sun studies or other shady images, you can draw the bearings without north being correct. Just draw the lines/polylines/whatever as they read on the survey, then drag/rotate the whole thing when you're done.

Once you've drawn the shape, if you need north set precisely: Measure the angle of one of the bearings by moving the origin, and tweak the north angle until the "a" field gives the angle shown in the survey. Tedious. I would love to know a better way.

Even if you are doing shady images, if you are within a degree or two or three, it's probably OK? In which case you can eyeball it.

[Tom Krowka]

Thanks for the info. You just saved me a bunch of time.