California Surveyors Forums

Joking quote aside. I want to mention that I appreciate your efforts Barrett.

Jim's point about how its his map because its his liability/reputation is I think a little too business minded rather than posterity minded. I generally use public interest and preserving information as my reasons to not follow local custom. For example I have submitted maps in counties that don't like AP numbers added, or don't want vicinity maps, or don't want monuments on both sides of a street shown since it makes things "confusing", and so when I add more information than is typical I am comfortable in how I am ignoring local flavor.

To the icecream cone point: I would also point out that most organizations that create waste etc by their nature are things created to address a specific problem, accomplish that goal, and then try to find something else to justify their budget etc. The public works departments and LS reviewing folks are in a completely different situation. They have real world issues that always need addressing and are working on a conveyor belt production line, while also dealing with a crazy amount of requirements and standards imposed from outside their organization (just think of storm water/erosion and EIRs). So helping a reviewer by making it easy to review your map helps your budget, and also helps the community since it allows for a more efficient use of that persons time. I do not believe the DPW or LS office is the reason behind silly requests, and if they are, then it has generally been my experience that a reasoned response and engagement would help them change their policy faster than pigheadedness ( couldn't help it, had to use the term :) ).

To the point of using multiple colors for reviews I would like to add that I use red and blue on my reviews, as I am colorblind and have a tough time with the red/green ink choice.

Mikey Mueller, PLS
Sonoma County

Mike Mueller wrote: Thu Sep 01, 2022 9:01 am ...
If you have butchered/raised pigs you know that those those two terms are one and same :) Oddly enough, both in the metaphorical pigheaded = strong willed aspect and in hard headed skull strength/hardness.
...
Mikey Mueller, PLS
Sonoma County

Truth on skull hardness. I have witnessed a pig take a .22 caliber at nearly point blank range and ricochet off the skull.
Some folks may not know domestic pigs can be dangerous - especially those temporarily unconscious thought to be shot.

In the interest of taste, I will not complete the story. Mikey, you reminded me of something I had forgotten some 40 years ago.

DWoolley

DWoolley wrote: Wed Aug 31, 2022 4:41 pm The public servant has a different level of accountability that requires documentation and maintaining standards. It is not less efficient, it is accountable and is usually tied to a higher level of competence.

Nice post! I was not expecting this response from you but it made me think....

I suppose there is a fine line between maintaining standards and legislating morality as Ms Barrett describes. Perhaps my expectations are too high.

After careful consideration of your points, I will stand by my statement regarding inefficiency. I encounter too much rigorous adherence to checklists and complete lack of understanding of the reasoning and foundation of the standards. While I understand the idea behind the precious standards, there has to be oversight by competent professionals or the system breaks down under the management of checklisting clerks who know not of what they speak. Very little gets done under these systems, costs run high and timelines are stretched. Accountability is important but at some point the cost exceeds the value obtained. Therein lies your unfunded pension liability, etc...

I suppose this thread serves to illustrate my point. You have certainly provided a passionate defense of the map review process but ignored discussion of the main point of the location of statements. Warren's response was probably sufficient and in my opinion little more needs to be said. While we can argue for days on the merits of mapping standards, I thought I asked a simple question.

The donkey surveying comment made me smile. No offense taken, in fact I might try to find a donkey to carry my lunch the next time I run a line through the woods with my steel chain and staff compass.

I've been contemplating a new logo for a while....

David Kendall wrote: Thu Sep 01, 2022 12:27 pm I thought I asked a simple question...

Everyone told you early on in the discussion, including myself, that what you are asking is not codified in the PLS act.
This happened long before the discussion got expanded into more lateral topics.

As far as map checking inefficiency, I would invite you to spend some time checking maps so you are dealing with factual information, rather than regurgitated anecdotal evidence, which has been spun this way or that to align with people's axe grinding activities.

Jim's point about how its his map because its his liability/reputation is I think a little too business minded rather than posterity minded.

I see this quite differently. When you work in a region for awhile you come to know the surveyors who preceded you by their monuments and their maps. It doesn't matter which county the job is in, their maps all have the same look, and their monuments the same character. You get to know their mapping customs -- symbology, abbreviations, manner of referencing record, etc. -- and their monumentation habits. And after retracing them a few (or a dozen, or a hundred) times you get to know how reliable they are. It's that very same sort of legacy that I'm trying to leave behind for the next generation, and it's the reason I try to maintain consistency among my own filed maps regardless of county or county preferences.

I like following behind Norm Glover (LS 1880) in Yolo, Sacramento and Solano Counties, because when he says he set a 2"x5' IP with brass cap, I can be pretty sure I'll find it, even though I usually have to dig down about 3 feet to get to it. His maps all look the same, and most have NAD27 coordinates on them. His distances might be a little squishy, but the angles are good.

K.B. Grimm, Jr. (LS 2400) was prolific in Solano and Yolo Counties. He left behind a trove of surveys, many out in the wilds of both counties. There's a sense of comfort that attends retracing his work because of the consistent look and feel.

Ray Dowell (LS 3932) can be challenging to match as far as measurements go, and he has lots of monuments out there with no corresponding filed map, but when he says he found a chiseled stone rancho corner, it's likely to be there. His maps all look the same no matter the county, hand-lettered rather than Leroyed.

(All of the above are deceased, by the way.)

That's what I'm shooting for (not the deceased part!).

in my fifty years of surveying in California (both South and North), I have never seen the statements other than the initial sheets. I do not think it is warranted to make changes to suit a minority opinion. If it ain't broke, why fix it?

If the statements are on sheet 3, and the checker gets their panties in a wad over it, just renumber sheet 3 as sheet 1, Problem solved.

Jim Frame wrote: Thu Sep 01, 2022 2:03 pm K.B. Grimm, Jr. (LS 2400) was prolific in Solano and Yolo Counties. He left behind a trove of surveys, many out in the wilds of both counties. There's a sense of comfort that attends retracing his work because of the consistent look and feel.

This is how people look at maps done regionally. When you see a map which is done differently, the overarching feeling is, new to the area, or not quite as skilled, or unfamiliar, maybe had a new drafter who didn't pay attention, maybe he signed for an engineer, maybe this or maybe that...
People 4 counties away don't know that in your usual county, your maps are known for a certain look.
End result is that whatever you are trying to communicate, the message is not landing, because your audience doesn't see all you maps, but just one or two, which look different from everything else they are used to seeing.

Key to successfully communication something is to understand your audience. Greater burden of communication falls on the communicator.

The following is a somewhat exaggerated example, but the same principle.
I was born and raised in Europe, classic education, used to pride myself on large vocabulary and technical excellence... In my native language and by European engineering standards. Come to the US, none of that mattered, I was just a foreigner with an accent and a school that the US does not recognize. The flaw is not with my, the flaw is that my new audience (US) did not understand how and what I was communicating.

Same happens across states in the US, it is recognized sufficiently that licensing is done state by state - I'm sure this is no news to anyone. State laws are different, because - regional differences happen.

If Jim Frame of Davis California does a map in San Diego, your audience has very likely never seen but one of your maps, it doesn't matter that you have 300 others filed in your county that look the same, They see a map which is different from what they are used to seeing. This will not give them a sense of security and trust. it will give them indigestion and extra stress trying to make sure things are interpreted correctly. You don't have Disney kind of audience reach where you can push for brand recognition and identity across jurisdictions. However, even Disney modifies some of their approach to accommodate target audiences across the word. This is a normal thing to do, in business it is called "Style Flexing"

Working for a large company, like where I work, they recognize this internally. Our company branding, logo, materials, presentation, title blocks, border, all have flexibility to accommodate a myriad jurisdictional standards across the country. Pissing matches with jurisdictional reviewers over something like this has a long track record of being counterproductive, and a disservice to our clients.

I know you are going to say you still disagree.... and noone can 'make you'
This is exactly why I advocate that surveyors put more effort in cross disciplinary and continued education. Volumes of small minded myopia are maddening at times.

I know you are going to say you still disagree

On this, we agree.

The audience is the more survey community than not.

Many years ago, I recorded a completely metric Record of Survey. It went to trial. It went to the Appellate Court. And NO ONE asked me at deposition or trial to explain the “numbers” on the map. It was a graphic representation of the easement and boundary. Who cared about symbols? Who cared about metric scale versus feet ‘n inches? Who cared that the twenty-foot easement, the crux of this particular case(!), was 6.096 (meters)? It was a graphic representation. A picture.

Some show open circles as set monuments. Some shown solid circles as set monuments. Who cares?! We can read a map. More often that not - J.Q. Public looks at “shapes” - not the intricacies of the surveyors’ opinion. If the lengths were in cubits and the record lengths were in cubits - there’s your “comparison”. Would the sky fall if we made our bearings into azimuths? The real audience is surveyors. We do math. We know how to convert, manipulate, etc.

After all of this . . . any “takers” for Surveyor to Recorder?!

Oh! And GO METRIC!

The ranting, raving, crazy Phil again. Surveyor to Recorder

I

CBarrett wrote: Fri Sep 02, 2022 8:44 am If Jim Frame of Davis California does a map in San Diego, your audience has very likely never seen but one of your maps, it doesn't matter that you have 300 others filed in your county that look the same, They see a map which is different from what they are used to seeing. This will not give them a sense of security and trust. it will give them indigestion and extra stress trying to make sure things are interpreted correctly. You don't have Disney kind of audience reach where you can push for brand recognition and identity across jurisdictions. However, even Disney modifies some of their approach to accommodate target audiences across the word. This is a normal thing to do, in business it is called "Style Flexing"

Working for a large company, like where I work, they recognize this internally. Our company branding, logo, materials, presentation, title blocks, border, all have flexibility to accommodate a myriad jurisdictional standards across the country. Pissing matches with jurisdictional reviewers over something like this has a long track record of being counterproductive, and a disservice to our clients.

Perhaps the perspective you are missing is that a practitioner may view their map as a personal expression or art form. It is for me. I pour my heart and soul into these maps and spend much more time than I could ever bill the client for. The presentation of my survey is my professional legacy. It will be on the record forever.

A large company may view their map as a commodity and the cookie cutter regional map standards that guide your drafting team are ideal in that regard. This is not my style.

Your personal myopia over my personal style of art is none of my business. I would generally prefer that as a map reviewer, you keep your style preferences to yourself. Do your job and leave my job to me. Coaching me on style is not what you are being hired to do. Stay in your lane and we will all be happier.

After a period of relationship building, I may be more receptive to your style suggestions, so long as they are presented to me as suggestions. If the two reviewers who made these comments to me regarding the statements on sheet 1 had communicated effectively than we would not be having this discussion. I asked the forum rather than the reviewer because I did not want to stir this hornet's nest with someone I had to work with directly.

In my personal experience the map reviewer community is just as hypersensitive to constructive criticism as the survey community.

I do not envy your position. It must be a difficult job

Statutes of California / Chapter 506
Approved by the Governor May 24, 1933 / In effect August 21, 1933

Section 11.

(d) Such a record of survey shall be a map made in good draftsmanlike manner on one or more sheets of tracing cloth of good quality, of a uniform size of eighteen by twenty-six inches, and shall show al the data necessary to enable any competent surveyor to retrace the survey.



OK. I’ll do something I try not to do and make a public comment regarding this issue.

First, let me point out that it is not the County Surveyor’s responsibility to check Records of Survey or Corner Records for TECHNICAL correctness. Our responsibility is in two areas, the mathematical accuracy of the map and the properly communicated methodology used.

Notice that I did NOT say proper METHOD used.

The hardest thing I have had to learn as a CS is that your map is NOT mine. Your survey may be one I would be proud of having done myself or one I am embarrassed to see. It doesn’t matter.

My job is to make sure that you meet the statutory requirements found in PLS Act §§ 8766, 8762.5, 8763, 8764.5, 8771.5 and 8772. And I have a very limited time to do that, both statutorily and financially.

Alameda County charges $500 per page for review of Records of Survey. After the map arrives at the County, the mail room needs to distribute the map; our intake person needs to set up the account to receive them money and to charge time against; and, staff need to set up the electronic file to make the map and other documents available for review. Out of the $500, that leaves about an hour or so for the entire review process. That process covers spooling up to figure out where your project lies in the county; understand your map, including which parcel you’re working on; take a look at the deeds, maps and other documents you’ve sent; check for documents and maps you’ve missed or are not usually included (road plans, survey notes – all available on line, but rarely consulted); check street names, spelling and closures (if provided prepare them if not) and THEN try to understand the logic of the survey

It is not incumbent on the CS or reviewers to APPROVE your method. That does not mean that I cannot ask you questions about your methods. You and your team have spent many hours on this project as it has developed in your office. You understand how the site even smells. We do not. All we have is what you tell us on your map. Many times, that means we need to ask questions.

I don’t care how you established your boundary. I want to be able to figure out how you did it from your map.

Sometimes, it’s really easy. Your method may not be one I would us, but I understand it. GOOD TO GO – SEND MYLAR!

Other times, I can’t figure it out. How in the heck did you go from two points 50 feet apart, that aren’t on a centerline or even uniform distances from any right-of-way, through four curves, some concentric, some not, some broken-back, some tangent, down two streets and over three blocks to set your client’s corners? Usually, there aren’t any closed figures of math to follow…just the remains of a tough CAD exercise forced on the ground and unretraceable.

In 1933, Governor James Rolph signed Chapter 506 into law. It went into effect on August 21 of that year. It was a rewrite of the statutes to include newly regulated engineers in the Land Surveyors Act. Section 11(d) read: (d) Such a record of survey shall be a map made in good draftsmanlike manner on one or more sheets of tracing cloth of good quality, of a uniform size of eighteen by twenty-six inches, and shall show al the data necessary to enable any competent surveyor to retrace the survey.

We seem to have got away from the purpose of the RS. It is meant to be a record of the survey you performed sufficient to allow the retracement of the survey by future surveyors. Just as you rely on earlier work to perform your survey, they will rely on you work as the earlier surveys to them.

Is the survey your opinion? Yup. But I need to be able to understand your opinion.

And that’s what my questions are about.

Recently, I’ve taken to setting up Team’s Meetings with surveyors who submit maps over which we have a number of questions. These meetings have been incredibly successful. Chatting about the methods used and how the survey was done almost always leads to a consensus and a better map.

Sometimes, I can share items we’ve found in our archives that have significant bearing on the surveys. It is very satisfying to be able to share those.

Something must be working because I’m getting emails and calls from surveyors who want to set up conversations BEFORE they submit maps. A coupe of really involved maps have been submitted after those conversations. Instead of taking numerous submittals and rounds of revisions, almost all of those maps have been ready for Mylar and recording after simple drafting revisions to the first submittal.

I’ve been reding through some of the old Cal Surveyors from the early ‘90’s. Apparently, the issue over map reviews is not a new one. CEAC tried to address the issue with the Map Guide. Ric More & Dallas Sweeney have tried to address the issue with their town halls up and down the state.

Perhaps its time to put together a group of surveyors and reviewers to hash out common issues and come up with something that can be used as a template or checklist. No boundary survey procedure will ever be codified into a cookbook approach. No template- will ever be created to cover all boundary mapping situations. But, perhaps, we can come up with something that serves the profession and the public better than what we have now.

I’d rather not have to deal with the headache of reviewing some of the maps I see. But I really cannot support “Surveyor to Recorder” and look the public in the eye.

Jim: Thanks for a thought out response. I know from reading these boards for years that for every post there are prolly lots of folks who read and think about the topics that don't post. I also think this forum is part of our legacy for future surveyors, so well reasoned good discussions are wonderful for our whole community. It will be able to be searched by future surveyors ( if we still exist /wink to Dave) hundreds of years from now. Just think if we had all the letters written by the original GLO surveyors, or had a window into their debates around the campfire after a day of surveying.

Oddly enough the exact idea that you wrote about is what drives my thought process when I write a note on one of my maps. If getting that future surveyor to agree with my map comes down to their faith in my competence, I want to convince them on the map itself, not on my entire body of work. I assume every surveyor who knows "their area" knows which of their predecessors and be relied on or functionally ignored. Locally in West Sonoma County many of the oldtimers (aka 1920-1960) set unique enough monuments that you can guess who set it, even with no tag, map or notes. Knowing who was good/bad is part of what people learn when they are learning how to survey. However I think as our profession contracts in numbers, each surveyor's range will increase and our duty to future folks is higher, since I can't safely assume that all who follow my maps will know me well enough to (I hope) trust my resolution when I fall on the wrong side of the ambiguous/redundant axis.

Mikey Mueller, PLS
Sonoma County

As Jim mentioned, you get to know the surveyors whose maps you've seen. There are those you'd be happy to retrace and others who might give you pause. Wouldn't the certificate with surveyor's stamp on Sheet 1 be beneficial, so at a glance you know immediately whose survey you are retracing? That name isn't on all the other sheets, at least not in my county.

Also, as a reviewer, I appreciate the certificates on the first sheet so when I stamp and sign them, it doesn't get smudged by putting sheets back on top.

After spending 15 years preparing and submitting maps for processing, I have been examining them for the past 30. I have come to appreciate pre-submittal chats about not just methodology, but presentation as well. Judging from some of our predecessors' efforts, it is well worth "fleshing out" the means of boundary establishment. Often, this takes the form of a narrative - largely to explain alternatives which were considered and rejected.
It really boils down to legacy and, as my early mentor, Roy Minnick, used to say, "Treat every survey as if it will end up in litigation".
A County Surveyor has little skin in that game but, from experience, knows much about how to avoid such possibilities.
The location of certificates and statements have little bearing on that outcome.

David Kendall wrote: Fri Sep 02, 2022 11:00 am

CBarrett wrote: Fri Sep 02, 2022 8:44 am If Jim Frame of Davis California does a map in San Diego, your audience has very likely never seen but one of your maps, it doesn't matter that you have 300 others filed in your county that look the same, They see a map which is different from what they are used to seeing. This will not give them a sense of security and trust. it will give them indigestion and extra stress trying to make sure things are interpreted correctly. You don't have Disney kind of audience reach where you can push for brand recognition and identity across jurisdictions. However, even Disney modifies some of their approach to accommodate target audiences across the word. This is a normal thing to do, in business it is called "Style Flexing"

Working for a large company, like where I work, they recognize this internally. Our company branding, logo, materials, presentation, title blocks, border, all have flexibility to accommodate a myriad jurisdictional standards across the country. Pissing matches with jurisdictional reviewers over something like this has a long track record of being counterproductive, and a disservice to our clients.

Perhaps the perspective you are missing is that a practitioner may view their map as a personal expression or art form. It is for me. I pour my heart and soul into these maps and spend much more time than I could ever bill the client for. The presentation of my survey is my professional legacy. It will be on the record forever.

A large company may view their map as a commodity and the cookie cutter regional map standards that guide your drafting team are ideal in that regard. This is not my style.

Your personal myopia over my personal style of art is none of my business. I would generally prefer that as a map reviewer, you keep your style preferences to yourself. Do your job and leave my job to me. Coaching me on style is not what you are being hired to do. Stay in your lane and we will all be happier.

After a period of relationship building, I may be more receptive to your style suggestions, so long as they are presented to me as suggestions. If the two reviewers who made these comments to me regarding the statements on sheet 1 had communicated effectively than we would not be having this discussion. I asked the forum rather than the reviewer because I did not want to stir this hornet's nest with someone I had to work with directly.

In my personal experience the map reviewer community is just as hypersensitive to constructive criticism as the survey community.

I do not envy your position. It must be a difficult job

I'm not missing a thing, I don't only mapcheck, I've prepared hundreds of maps.
Art expression?
Nice, let's talk art. I always drew and painted, and having gotten bored during the recession I spent three years in one of the top 15 art schools in the country. Aside from having done loads of it, it also makes me a wee bit more qualified than an average surveyor to discuss aesthetics aesthetics and branding (of a company or of a personal expression).

Art is a form of visual communication, and one of the KEY elements is that you are not doing it for yourself, you are communicating with an audience. I am glad you brought up art, because much of what I was talking about regarding visual communications is drawn from art education and experience.

Branding that 'noone gets' is useless. This is something many freshmen art students have a difficulties with. They developed their own style and interests in highschool and leading up to art school. They they get to the big leagues and they discover that the style they developed is akin to the bear shitting in the woods - noone is paying attention to it. Then they go through few weeks to few years of resisting this concept until they are finally open up to hearing about the psychological aspects of art.

Coaching on style, if it is so off the wall that most people are unable to understand is exactly what you are going to get. A map that can not be understood or illegible is not technically correct. One can't even get to the parts of evaluating it's technically correct merits is if is poorly presented. I will also check people's punctuation and correct it if it inadvertently changed the meaning of a sentence. Probably easy 30% of the maps are so poorly presented that it makes you scratch your head trying to understand them.

I don't know what to do about your map reviewer community. I am a 33 year surveyor, who has done just about everything there is. I don't subscribe to map reviewer vs. map preparer communities, I do both on daily basis. Currently I have maps that I am checking, and my own maps being checked in various jurisdictions. Perhaps before getting judgmental and subscribing to one camp or another, start with gaining some experience in both. It is easy to point fingers 'at the other side' when you are not fully familiar with the set of interests and considerations each side deals with.

If you are unhappy with the level of services you are getting from mapchecking, learn the considerations and offer your services, before you start casting stones about how they are making your life miserable.

Back to art expression, in real art circles there is no such thing, it is an ignorant myth propagated by modern abstract art circles. Art is very technical, specific and targeted. This is actually something I will be discussing in my seminars, adapted for technical presentation. Every mark one puts on paper communicates something. it is the artists responsibility to understand enough psychology so that their communication is effective. Realist art and graphic communications are really just technical skills, they have their own cannons, meanings and gestalt and grammar, just like written languages. Only the amateurs and startving artists who never 'got' these basic concepts think it is about expression your own personality. On a rare occasion you get someone whose personal expression style is congruent wit what most people understand when they see it and it works.
99.9% of other artists, including many highly successful ones work very hard to hone their craft. Unfortunately, masses tend to use this vague conceptual idea of 'art' and attribute it to complex systems which they don't understand.

Much like boundary analysis "Oh it's art"... sure, but it is not, it is an evaluation of a very complex system with complex set of rules. Nothing about is random personal expression and happenstance.

When it comes to our company logos and branding, they have been designed with flexibility in mind, by professional artists who understand all of this. Following agency requirements is not going to stifle your branding when done well, I promise you.
While I don't specialize in graphics design and branding, we did have few classes on it and I can point you to the material which will help with understanding of basic concepts, that way your professional legacy will also look professional in more ways than one.

yet another reason why I encourage a bit more multi disciplinary education for surveyors, especially those who want to be leaders and educators. Willful ignorance is holding us back.

David Kendall wrote: Fri Sep 02, 2022 11:00 am Perhaps the perspective you are missing is that a practitioner may view their map as a personal expression or art form. It is for me. I pour my heart and soul into these maps and spend much more time than I could ever bill the client for. The presentation of my survey is my professional legacy. It will be on the record forever.

A large company may view their map as a commodity and the cookie cutter regional map standards that guide your drafting team are ideal in that regard. This is not my style.

Your personal myopia over my personal style of art is none of my business. I would generally prefer that as a map reviewer, you keep your style preferences to yourself. Do your job and leave my job to me. Coaching me on style is not what you are being hired to do. Stay in your lane and we will all be happier.

After a period of relationship building, I may be more receptive to your style suggestions, so long as they are presented to me as suggestions. If the two reviewers who made these comments to me regarding the statements on sheet 1 had communicated effectively than we would not be having this discussion. I asked the forum rather than the reviewer because I did not want to stir this hornet's nest with someone I had to work with directly.

In my personal experience the map reviewer community is just as hypersensitive to constructive criticism as the survey community.

I do not envy your position. It must be a difficult job

Is this your first map?
I mean seriously, after you've done 50 or a 100 these kinds of things will not matter. You will have seen dozens upon dozens of odd requests, and when you mapcheck, you will have seen just as many and then some of oddly prepared maps.

You talk about style - you need to define or post an example of what you consider style before you assert this. Otherwise the discussion is silly, and style is an immensely broad subject. If your 'style' is bumping against the legibility and county recorder's ability to reproduce your map, style goes out the window. Map which can not be read is not technically correct.

If you call your monument a disc (while you mean an aluminum washer affixed by a mag nail), and you are in the part of the state Where a Disk means a brass disk, the monument is likely to be misidentified. This is no longer a matter of style, confusing monument pedigree arising from your language style is a technical correctness issue. You don't believe me - why do you think black's law dictionary is concerned with how we define certain words. They convey a meaning. Same with graphical communication and placement of map elements. They all convey a meaning.

If you place your "Detail A" north arrow so close to the body of the map that it becomes confusing it if belong to the detail or the map body, it is a technical error concern - even though a lot of people will argue that it is a matter of style. It is not driven by how you want to express yourself, it is driven by how human brains process visual information.

Processing visual information in certain ways, is something we learn before we learn to walk an talk. If you are a professional who engages in presenting your information visually, you have the responsibility to understand how this works. This is actually something which is getting lost in more recent decades, because the latest fashion is to perceive drafting as a lesser skill... well, until someone produces a garbled looking map and get comments on their drafting and get their panties in the bunch that their style is being stifled.

If your style of graphical communication is well honed, you wouldn't be getting stupid mapcheck comments, you would be getting compliments on your maps.

CBarret:

The topic of graphic design lessons incorporated into how to draft a RoS sounds like an awesome topic for a CLSA webinar, or a talk at a conference or something of that nature, (10 minute Surveyor?)

My sister (a programmer very into information theory) gave me a book about how to convey information and prevent errors etc early in my surveying career and I have found it to be quite applicable. One of those easy lessons was a graphic like this one. Hard to argue with that :)

Its why I use the largest font (generally L160) for reference maps, chain of title deeds, and road names. With each of those three categories using a different linetype or font to help differentiate.

While trying to implement new ideas I have found that it is occasionally hard to change office inertia regarding "how its always been done". Most of our procedures were/are created by folks that started on tables. The table drafters grafted their ways onto the old CADs, then to LDD and now to Civil 3D. Now with Civil 3D there are so many nifty tricks that we just don't implement because of a "don't fix whats not broke" approach. Reminds me of the diatribe Ayn Rand wrote about why columns are fluted.

Mikey Mueller, PLS
Sonoma County

Absolutely correct.

There is a set of little rules that have been developed based on how out brains process visual information - my seminar starts with this.
It is one of the basics taught in art schools before people get exposed to much of anything ese. Art fundamentals and Gestalt of Graphics Design.
I am adapting those to Gestalt of Drafting. I just did a first of a series of hour-long lunch and learn presentations at my office (Via Teams) - testing it on my coworkers in southern California first.

I go over principles of grouping, common fate, visual hierarchies, page organization, foreground and background etc...

Here are couple of quick slides talking about the basics. Most of what I am pointing out in this session has to do with how much we communicate visually/non-verbally, by placement of visual elements. Every mark we place is a piece of communication, it says something, and our minds react to it subconsciously long before we formulate words and conscious thoughts. The more we cater to this form of communication, the easier and quicker it is to interpret maps and plans and documents, and we minimize misinterpretation.
After understanding the basic concepts I will go over how to apply them more or less successfully in our work product.

This will eventually appear on Mentoring Mondays, and couple people have suggested conference seminars - so it is gaining some traction.


Recognizable layout here: .
.
.
"What the heck am I supposed to look at first" AKA Don't communicate chaos and tension:
This could also serve as a piece of modern art at a pop culture after-party, sitting next to a bowl of self-serve white powder.
When you want to communicate longevity, dependence, stability and 'trust me I am an engineer' message, it fails.

Visual Hierarchy - our brains naturally focus to the areas of highest contrast and visibility (sharpness of vision first). Contrast gets expressed in light and darks and in complimentary colors if one is using color.
If you look at any successful piece of art or an infographic they use these concepts extensively.

People learn how to understand and visually perceive our environment long before we learn to walk and talk. This instinct is one of the keys to our survival and something that gives us ability to make microsecond decisions based on very little information. Understanding this instinct (and researchers have done a fine job at documenting this in last 100 years) we can make use of it to present information in easy to understand chunks.

Lot of old drafters were taught how to do this. Since CAD came around this got lost because we accepted what programmers have served us. Little bit like blind leading the blind, because neither programmers nor Engineers or surveyors were getting much education about these concepts. Our STEM education has done us a disservice by neglecting the basics of visual communication.
There is no talent or personal expression involved in this, the way our brain processes visual information is actually very formulaic. It is only those ignorant of the concepts that add 'artful mystique' and talent to it. Anyone can do it, whether they will get good at it depends on how much time they invest in practicing - like any other .... sport.