If it has good metes and bounds though, it can be reproduced and is a valid survey. Keep in mind that two surveyors can look at the same parcel and come up with different ideas of where the lines are; that's when their job morphs from being a science into an art.
GPS app for locating property lines
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oosik
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My 80 acres has a metes & bounds description - established and recorded in 1890 by the local official government surveyor. It was then and still is today considered an official survey. Since that time back in 1890 three of the four corners have been established by the sale of adjoining properties and surveys of same. Three corners now, each, have a steel rod and brass cap with the coordinates/survey data marked on it. The fourth corner is out in the middle of a large lake and will probably never have this level of detail.
Ha, ha - - its a local joke in these parts. Most all of the government land around this area was open for oil exploration and homestead in the 1880's. To the best of the knowledge of the real old timers - NOBODY ever spent a nickel or ten minutes of time looking for oil. You could scrape more oil out of an old quart can of ESSO than was ever brought out of the ground around here. Folks just went thru the "prove up" procedure and in due time the homestead was theirs.
Ha, ha - - its a local joke in these parts. Most all of the government land around this area was open for oil exploration and homestead in the 1880's. To the best of the knowledge of the real old timers - NOBODY ever spent a nickel or ten minutes of time looking for oil. You could scrape more oil out of an old quart can of ESSO than was ever brought out of the ground around here. Folks just went thru the "prove up" procedure and in due time the homestead was theirs.
Oldoak
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There is nothing wrong with trying to locate existing markers or boundary lines with a hand held GPS. Heck, over the years I have helped locate several existing markers on different properties using a compass.
I would agree, a hand held GPS is not an instrument to be used to establish boundary lines or set markers.
While I don’t disagree at all with the message of your post I think you would be surprised at how accurate many of these newer Garmin handhelds are. Many of them have Glonass, receive SBAS (WASS) corrections, and are within 5 feet a lot of the time. I have three R10’s and three R8’s and we often survey locations with RTK and then come back and find them with the Garmins and they are scary accurate for what they are. Certainly not good enough for a boundary survey but they are good for a lot of things. In the last few years I have not seen one be over ten feet off unless you are in an environment where a survey grade unit wouldn’t initialize.
s219
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Typical GPS in mobile devices and consumer navigational devices has 3m (~9.8 ft) accuracy when you have a clear line of sight to the sky and good signal. It can easily be much worse with any sort of obstruction, including trees. But most good nav apps will give you an estimate of accuracy / dilution of precision so you know what you're getting into. The main problem I see is ignorant users who charge into a situation with no concept of accuracy in their brain (so the accuracy of the hardware/software, good or bad, isn't even something they consider).
You can also use "sub-meter" Bluetooth GPS add-ons with iPhones, iPads, and many Android devices. These use more advanced GPS hardware and can be accurate down to 20cm (0.7 ft), however they are extremely slow and can take 10+ minutes to arrive at that level of accuracy. They too are susceptible to line of sight issues and obstructions. But when they work they are very good.
Any survey instrument, device, or app is just a tool. It's up to the surveyor to know what they are trying to accomplish and work with whatever accuracy their tools have. Methodology and common sense are important. Sanity checks are important. Verification is important. The end goal should be to build some desired level of confidence into the measurements.
Something like what the OP is trying to do is pretty easy with a range of tools, but how easy depends on what information he has. I do quite a bit of surveying, and generally I can put together several information sources and then go out there with my tools and get the desired result. If it needs to be high precision or have some sort of certification, then the best bet is to hire a surveyor.
BTW, there are a lot of situations with property lines where you will have some sort of usable reference to start, such as a pin or landmark mentioned on a survey (something like "24 inch diameter hickory" sounds like charming country-boy talk but if you can find that hickory with confidence, or even the remnants of that hickory, you have a valuable reference). From there it's often just a matter of shooting a bearing or an angle to visualize a line and walk the line. With that method, if you can then find other pins or landmarks, you can stitch together a pretty good idea where the line is. Do this from both directions if you can, and then sanity check everything. Knowing the accuracy of a compass (I use a Brunton Pocket transit) and my eyes, and with many sanity checks, I can establish a line with pretty good confidence. In the end, it's only as good as the landmarks and references, so consider your data sources and methods, and put some sort of confidence level on your work.
A good surveyor can be accurate down to fractions of an inch, and there are all sorts of situations where that accuracy is required. But there are a lot of other situations where you just need estimates, and accuracy of 1' or 2' is fine. Certainly in situations where you are trying to find old survey pins or landmarks (and you assume they are trustworthy), methods that get you within a few feet of the landmark are going to be just fine. They may not help you find a buried pin or elusive landmark, but they will definitely get you close enough to use your eyeballs and other tools like metal detectors. I've gotten so close with GPS and compass that I have tripped over survey monuments, so even being a clumsy fool can help!
You can also use "sub-meter" Bluetooth GPS add-ons with iPhones, iPads, and many Android devices. These use more advanced GPS hardware and can be accurate down to 20cm (0.7 ft), however they are extremely slow and can take 10+ minutes to arrive at that level of accuracy. They too are susceptible to line of sight issues and obstructions. But when they work they are very good.
Any survey instrument, device, or app is just a tool. It's up to the surveyor to know what they are trying to accomplish and work with whatever accuracy their tools have. Methodology and common sense are important. Sanity checks are important. Verification is important. The end goal should be to build some desired level of confidence into the measurements.
Something like what the OP is trying to do is pretty easy with a range of tools, but how easy depends on what information he has. I do quite a bit of surveying, and generally I can put together several information sources and then go out there with my tools and get the desired result. If it needs to be high precision or have some sort of certification, then the best bet is to hire a surveyor.
BTW, there are a lot of situations with property lines where you will have some sort of usable reference to start, such as a pin or landmark mentioned on a survey (something like "24 inch diameter hickory" sounds like charming country-boy talk but if you can find that hickory with confidence, or even the remnants of that hickory, you have a valuable reference). From there it's often just a matter of shooting a bearing or an angle to visualize a line and walk the line. With that method, if you can then find other pins or landmarks, you can stitch together a pretty good idea where the line is. Do this from both directions if you can, and then sanity check everything. Knowing the accuracy of a compass (I use a Brunton Pocket transit) and my eyes, and with many sanity checks, I can establish a line with pretty good confidence. In the end, it's only as good as the landmarks and references, so consider your data sources and methods, and put some sort of confidence level on your work.
A good surveyor can be accurate down to fractions of an inch, and there are all sorts of situations where that accuracy is required. But there are a lot of other situations where you just need estimates, and accuracy of 1' or 2' is fine. Certainly in situations where you are trying to find old survey pins or landmarks (and you assume they are trustworthy), methods that get you within a few feet of the landmark are going to be just fine. They may not help you find a buried pin or elusive landmark, but they will definitely get you close enough to use your eyeballs and other tools like metal detectors. I've gotten so close with GPS and compass that I have tripped over survey monuments, so even being a clumsy fool can help!
s219
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Here's an example of an old corner marker I found using simple survey methods and tools.
It's a very old marker, probably over 150 years old if I go by historical records. It's still considered to be the legal corner, so how I found it and the accuracy of my tools doesn't even matter once I found the marker, but I can tell you that it was a pretty serious survey effort to get into the ballpark, on some very hilly terrain.
It's a very old marker, probably over 150 years old if I go by historical records. It's still considered to be the legal corner, so how I found it and the accuracy of my tools doesn't even matter once I found the marker, but I can tell you that it was a pretty serious survey effort to get into the ballpark, on some very hilly terrain.
dodge man
Super Star Member
You can talk about GPS accuracy all you want. The problem is what do you have to start with. Most surveys do not have coordinates to start with. There is no master list of coordinates for property corners. I have done hundreds of boundary surveys and maybe less than 10% of those have accurate modern coordinates and those that do aren稚 published.
My company has drawn up our counties GIS system. Is based on visual locations based on aerial photos. In other words the data might be spot on or off 100 feet.
Also there is a hierarchy to evidence such as 1. Natural monument. 2. Man made monument. 3. Call to adjoiner etc. Dead last on the list is coordinates. You never know how someone else determined them
Also the basis for bearings varies on surveys. Often based on magnetic north. The bearings do not mean much to a surveyor but are the method used to calculate the angles at the corners.
There is so much to surveying it is tough to even explain even some of the details like how to us GPS. Like I said in a previous post there is nothing wrong with a landowner trying to locate his boundaries if it is for a reasonable use.
My company has drawn up our counties GIS system. Is based on visual locations based on aerial photos. In other words the data might be spot on or off 100 feet.
Also there is a hierarchy to evidence such as 1. Natural monument. 2. Man made monument. 3. Call to adjoiner etc. Dead last on the list is coordinates. You never know how someone else determined them
Also the basis for bearings varies on surveys. Often based on magnetic north. The bearings do not mean much to a surveyor but are the method used to calculate the angles at the corners.
There is so much to surveying it is tough to even explain even some of the details like how to us GPS. Like I said in a previous post there is nothing wrong with a landowner trying to locate his boundaries if it is for a reasonable use.
Agreed. Again I was not stating anyone should attempt a boundary survey with a Garmin. Heck I have close to 100k of survey gear and I wouldn’t attempt a boundary survey. The closest I have come to that was surveying in freshly set corner pins set by a RPLS and snapping a line between them and marking it at easy to see intervals for building a fence.
All I was stating was Garmins are more accurate than many people give them credit for but even if they had total station accuracy I wouldn’t suggest someone go do a boundary survey.
All I was stating was Garmins are more accurate than many people give them credit for but even if they had total station accuracy I wouldn’t suggest someone go do a boundary survey.
houska
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Reawakening this (moderately) old thread since during my recent property purchase I found some apps and workflow that others might find helpful. I agree that one should leave actual surveying to surveyors, with their expertise and gear. But consumer-available technology has improved tremendously in recent years, and I found the below invaluable to walking properties I was considering purchasing and getting a good idea of their extents, and then for mapping out the boundaries of the land we've eventually purchased.
1) In Ontario, where I live, you can get an online topo map with a parcel boundary layer. In addition, many but not all counties have their own internet accessible GIS systems with even more layers. Doubtless it varies in other states/provinces, but poke around.
2) Use the best online GIS you can find to identify important corners (latitude/longitude) and use that to draw a path delimiting the outline of the property in Google Earth. If the property is a simple rectangle, just manually copy the coordinates (Lat/Long, ie WGS84). If it's more complicated, here's a shortcut. Do a screen print of the GIS map with the marked parcel boundaries. Then add it to Google Earth as an Image Overlay, manually positioning it (making it semitransparent) as precisely as possible over the satellite image in Google Earth. Then add a path in Google Earth, tracing over the boundary in the image.
3) Export the path you've created, or several paths in a folder if the property is more complicated, as a KML file.
4) You can now import the KML file into Google Maps, or even better into the iOS or Android app "Galileo Offline Maps Pro" (I'm not affiliated with them; but it's the best offline mapping app that accepts KML files)
5) When you walk the land, Galileo can indicate your position vis-a-vis its offline map and your imported boundary using iOS or Android GPS. (As others have noted, accuracy can be less than stellar, though also sometimes very good. In my area and with our local tree cover, I can count on 3-5' accuracy most of the time, with occasional 15-20' errors. Not enough to delimit your property with the neighbour, but good enough to know if the land ends here or at the next headland.)
6) If you feel like it, you can try various other map sources for Galileo to get a topographic map, or detailed Google satellite map tiles instead of Galileo's default offline vector map. You can also track your whole journey and mark waypoints.
7) At a certain point (for your own property, or one you're seriously considering), you'll get a hold of the most recent survey (from the current owner, or from the local registry). This may well be decades old and not "GIS friendly", but using 5) above I've been able to find many of the survey markers. Smartphone GPS accuracy is not (yet) good enough to pinpoint exactly where the survey line is, but is often good enough to send you to within a few feet of the physical marker in the ground, which you can then find.
8) To walk along the boundary from a survey marker you've found, the Theodolite app (which others have mentioned above) can help you set off along the right bearing that is marked on the survey. Together, survey + traced GIS parcel boundary + Galileo map + Theodolite can help you triangulate, as long as you don't expect excessive precision.
9) As you're doing all the above, you can track your physical walking bath in Galileo and set bookmarks (waypoints) for interesting points you come across. You can then export them from Galileo, import them back in Google Earth, clean them up, and maintain your own personalized property map. After about a dozen trips, pre- and post-purchase, of our new property, we've now mapped out all the roads and ATV tracks, and about 2 dozen sites of interest, from places to build a duck blind to culverts that need replacing, to a tire we need to pull out of a ditch once the winter is over.
Hope this is helpful to someone, and would love to hear improvements/alternatives from others who have done something similar.
1) In Ontario, where I live, you can get an online topo map with a parcel boundary layer. In addition, many but not all counties have their own internet accessible GIS systems with even more layers. Doubtless it varies in other states/provinces, but poke around.
2) Use the best online GIS you can find to identify important corners (latitude/longitude) and use that to draw a path delimiting the outline of the property in Google Earth. If the property is a simple rectangle, just manually copy the coordinates (Lat/Long, ie WGS84). If it's more complicated, here's a shortcut. Do a screen print of the GIS map with the marked parcel boundaries. Then add it to Google Earth as an Image Overlay, manually positioning it (making it semitransparent) as precisely as possible over the satellite image in Google Earth. Then add a path in Google Earth, tracing over the boundary in the image.
3) Export the path you've created, or several paths in a folder if the property is more complicated, as a KML file.
4) You can now import the KML file into Google Maps, or even better into the iOS or Android app "Galileo Offline Maps Pro" (I'm not affiliated with them; but it's the best offline mapping app that accepts KML files)
5) When you walk the land, Galileo can indicate your position vis-a-vis its offline map and your imported boundary using iOS or Android GPS. (As others have noted, accuracy can be less than stellar, though also sometimes very good. In my area and with our local tree cover, I can count on 3-5' accuracy most of the time, with occasional 15-20' errors. Not enough to delimit your property with the neighbour, but good enough to know if the land ends here or at the next headland.)
6) If you feel like it, you can try various other map sources for Galileo to get a topographic map, or detailed Google satellite map tiles instead of Galileo's default offline vector map. You can also track your whole journey and mark waypoints.
7) At a certain point (for your own property, or one you're seriously considering), you'll get a hold of the most recent survey (from the current owner, or from the local registry). This may well be decades old and not "GIS friendly", but using 5) above I've been able to find many of the survey markers. Smartphone GPS accuracy is not (yet) good enough to pinpoint exactly where the survey line is, but is often good enough to send you to within a few feet of the physical marker in the ground, which you can then find.
8) To walk along the boundary from a survey marker you've found, the Theodolite app (which others have mentioned above) can help you set off along the right bearing that is marked on the survey. Together, survey + traced GIS parcel boundary + Galileo map + Theodolite can help you triangulate, as long as you don't expect excessive precision.
9) As you're doing all the above, you can track your physical walking bath in Galileo and set bookmarks (waypoints) for interesting points you come across. You can then export them from Galileo, import them back in Google Earth, clean them up, and maintain your own personalized property map. After about a dozen trips, pre- and post-purchase, of our new property, we've now mapped out all the roads and ATV tracks, and about 2 dozen sites of interest, from places to build a duck blind to culverts that need replacing, to a tire we need to pull out of a ditch once the winter is over.
Hope this is helpful to someone, and would love to hear improvements/alternatives from others who have done something similar.