GoSurvey·

Workflows

Workflows

Start-to-finish tasks, using only what GoSurvey actually does.

1. Set up a new project drawing

Goal: a drawing configured the way you work, saved as a template.

Prerequisites: none.

  1. File → New.
  2. Type UNITS. Set Length → Precision (3 decimals suits feet), Angle → Type to Deg/Min/Sec or Surveyor's Units, and Insertion scale to Feet or Meters. Press Apply.
  3. Type LAYER. Add the layers you use — BOUNDARY, TOPO, TEXT, VPORTS, and so on. Set each one's colour and linetype. Untick Plot for VPORTS, so viewport borders never plot.
  4. Type STYLE. Create the text styles you use and Set Current on the default one.
  5. Set the annotation scale on the status bar to the scale you usually plot at.
  6. In Properties → General with nothing selected, set Default text height (in) — 0.10 is a common choice.
  7. File → Save As… and save it somewhere permanent, e.g. Templates\project-template.gs.
  8. View → Settings… → Files → Startup template (.gs), browse to that file, and press Save startup preferences.

Result: every new drawing starts with your layers, styles, and scale.

2. Import survey points from the field

Goal: get a day's shots into a drawing.

Prerequisites: a CSV from the data collector.

  1. Type IMPORTPOINTS (or IMPPTS).
  2. Browse… to the CSV.
  3. Set Column order to match — P,N,E,Z,D for PNEZD, P,E,N,Z,D for PENZD.
  4. Tick First row is header (skip) if there is a header.
  5. Read the File preview. Confirm the columns line up with the preset you chose.
  6. Read the Validation summary. Press Refresh preview after any change.
  7. Press Import. If some rows are bad, confirm Import N valid row(s) and skip M bad row(s)?
  8. Read the command log for per-row problems — bad numbers and duplicate IDs are named with their line number.
  9. Type ZE.
  10. Type VIEWPOINTS and spot-check a few coordinates against the field notes.

Troubleshooting: if nothing imported, the column order is almost certainly wrong. Look at the preview — northing and easting swapped is the usual cause, and it puts points in a different county.

3. Reduce a traverse and commit the stations

Goal: coordinates for a closed traverse, with closure documented.

Prerequisites: field observations, or an FBK file.

  1. Ribbon Survey → Traverse.
  2. Starting Station — enter the Start ID, northing, easting, elevation, and the Ref Bearing° of the backsight.
  3. Tick Closed Loop.
  4. + Add Leg for each leg. Expand it and enter the F1 and F2 horizontal and vertical angles and the distance. Set the Zenith° checkbox to match your instrument. (Or press Import .fbk… and skip to step 6 — this replaces the current traverse.)
  5. Check the computed bearings and coordinates in the summary rows.
  6. Calculate Closure… → Unadjusted tab. Read Linear misclosure and Precision: 1:N.
  7. Least Squares tab. Set Angle σ (sec), Dist σ (ft), and Dist ppm to your instrument's real figures. Press Recompute.
  8. Check the Std dev of unit weight — near 1.0 means your stated errors match the observations. Scan the residuals; one much larger than the rest is a blunder to go and check.
  9. Accept Least-Squares Result.
  10. Commit to Drawing. The stations become survey points.
  11. Open Reports in the left panel and confirm the traverse record.

4. Draw a boundary from points

Goal: boundary linework snapped exactly to the corner monuments.

Prerequisites: the corner points are in the drawing.

  1. Press F3 so OSNAP is on. Right-click OSNAP and make sure Survey point and Endpoint are ticked.
  2. Set the current layer to BOUNDARY on the ribbon.
  3. Type PL (POLYLINE).
  4. Click each corner in order, snapping to the survey point markers.
  5. Type CLOSE to close back to the first corner.
  6. Type ZE.

Alternative — from bearings and distances:

PL
(snap to the first corner)
A 132d15m30s
248.55
A 222d15m30s
150.00
...
CLOSE

Troubleshooting: if the polyline will not close cleanly, INVERSE between the first and last corners to see the gap. A gap means an entered bearing or distance is wrong, not that the tool failed.

5. Bring in a recorded plat as a PDF and trace it

Goal: get an old plat into the drawing at real coordinates.

Prerequisites: the plat as a PDF; state-plane coordinates for at least two monuments.

  1. Type PA (PDFATTACH).
  2. Browse… to the PDF, pick the page from the thumbnails, set Raster DPI to 200, and Attach. Place it roughly.
  3. Select the underlay and set Fade so you can see your own linework over it.
  4. Press F3 for OSNAP. Check the underlay's Lines snap toggle.
  5. Either draw over the boundary with PL, snapping to the PDF corners, or press Vectorize to convert the detected lines in bulk onto the current layer.
  6. Run OVERKILL to remove duplicates and merge collinear segments.
  7. Run JOIN on chains that should be single objects.
  8. Now fit it to control — see workflow 6.

6. Move a local drawing onto state plane

Goal: transform an assumed-coordinate drawing to real-world coordinates.

Prerequisites: at least two points whose real coordinates you know.

  1. Select the geometry to transform, or select nothing to transform everything.
  2. Type AL (ALIGN).
  3. If nothing was selected, window-select and press Enter (or press Enter with an empty selection to move everything).
  4. Source 1 — snap to the first known point in the drawing. Destination 1 — type its real coordinates, e.g. 1543268.25,483112.90
  5. Source 2 / Destination 2 — repeat for the second point.
  6. Add more pairs if you have them. Press Enter to solve.
  7. In the results window, read the Resid column and the Point error (RMS). Press - on any outlier and watch the RMS update.
  8. Untick Apply Scale if the drawing is already at true scale, then press Apply. Tick it if the drawing was traced or digitised.
  9. Type ZE. The status readout now shows real-world coordinates.
  10. Check the Reports tab for the transformation record. Source points are now tagged ADJ and destinations CON.

7. Build a ground surface

Goal: a TIN from field shots, kept up to date as more shots arrive.

Prerequisites: points in the drawing with field codes.

  1. Ribbon Survey → Groups → New point group. Name it EG.
  2. Set Raw description matches to EG*. Watch the live Matches N of M points. count. (Use Raw description, not Description — office edits to descriptions will not break it.)
  3. Ribbon Survey → Surfaces → New from group… Name it Existing Ground.
  4. Tick the EG group. Confirm the point count is at least 3. Press Create.
  5. Read the reported point count, triangle count, and elevation range. An elevation range that is obviously wrong means a bad shot is in the group.
  6. Type ORBIT and drag to tilt the view. Elevation problems are obvious from a 3/4 angle and invisible in plan. (Visual style does not shade a TIN — see Known Limitations.)
  7. Type SE (SURFELEV) and spot-check elevations against known shots.

Later, after importing more shots coded EG:

  1. Survey → Surfaces, select the surface, press Rebuild. The new points are already in the group — nothing needs re-selecting.

8. Annotate a survey

Goal: labelled points and sheet notes.

  1. Set the annotation scale on the status bar to the scale you will plot at. Do this first — it decides the size everything is created at.
  2. Select the points to label and set their Label style in the Properties panel.
  3. Settings → Drafting — adjust Label center east/north of point (plotted in) so labels sit where you want them, and set Coordinate display precision.
  4. If a label lands on top of linework, drag it away. A leader arrow appears automatically.
  5. For notes, set the current layer to TEXT, then type MT (MTEXT), drag a frame, and type. Use the Text Formatting toolbar for fonts, sizes, and colours.
  6. For dimensions, use DAL (aligned) or DLI (linear). At the linear dimension-line prompt, H and V lock the orientation.

9. Build a plot sheet and produce a PDF

Goal: an 11" × 17" sheet at 1" = 50', plotted to PDF.

  1. Press + on the status bar to add a layout. Right-click its tab ▸ Rename and give it a name.
  2. Right-click the tab ▸ Page Setup Manager… Set Paper size to ANSI B (11" x 17") and Drawing orientation to Landscape. Confirm the reported plot size.
  3. Right-click the tab ▸ Viewports… → + Add viewport. Set X, Y, W, H in paper inches, Center X / Center Y to the model point you want centred, and Scale (model/in) to 50.
  4. Set the viewport's Layer to a non-plottable layer so its border does not print.
  5. Set the status-bar annotation scale to 1" = 50' so text and labels are sized to match.
  6. Turn VPLOCK on so panning cannot rescale the viewport.
  7. In paper space, draw the border and titleblock with RECT, LINE, and MTEXT — all in paper inches.
  8. To fine-tune what the viewport shows, double-click into it (FLOAT), pan, then press Esc. Or set Center X / Center Y numerically, which is repeatable.
  9. Use VPFREEZE to hide layers you do not want in this view.
  10. Ribbon Layout → Plot. Choose an output path. The log reports PLOT — wrote 1 page(s) to <path>.

For a multi-page set: repeat for each sheet, then ribbon Layout → Batch, tick the layouts, and Plot to PDF…. Pages come out in layout order — reorder with Move or Copy… first if that matters.

10. Exchange with AutoCAD or Civil 3D

Sending work out:

  1. File → Export DXF… for the linework.
  2. EXPORTPOINTS for the survey points as a CSV — the reliable route into Civil 3D's point database.
  3. Tell the recipient the DXF is ASCII AC1032 and that dimensions are exploded.

Bringing work in:

  1. File → Import DXF… for the linework. Read the log — it names the paper-space entities and unsupported records it skipped.
  2. IMPORTPOINTS for the points as CSV. Do this in either order — importing a DXF keeps the survey points already in the session.
  3. If IDs collide at the DXF merge, choose overwrite or offset.
  4. ZE, then OVERKILL to clean up stacked duplicates from the import.

Civil 3D COGO points will not come through a DXF — they are custom objects. CSV is the route.

11. A complete small project

  1. New drawing from your template (workflow 1).
  2. IMPORTPOINTS — the field CSV (workflow 2).
  3. Traverse Editor — reduce and commit the control (workflow 3).
  4. ALIGN — onto state plane if the work was local (workflow 6).
  5. PL — boundary and linework from the points (workflow 4).
  6. Survey → Groups and Surfaces — a ground surface (workflow 7).
  7. Label points, add notes and dimensions (workflow 8).
  8. OVERKILL — final cleanup.
  9. Build the layout and plot the PDF (workflow 9).
  10. EXPORTPOINTS and Export DXF… for the client (workflow 10).
  11. Ctrl+S.

Related

Getting Started · Survey Points · Traverse Editor · Coordinate Alignment · Plotting · Troubleshooting