Expert: Bill DeShawn - 9/9/2004

Question
Thanks Bill, I'm still confused as to how I input the degrees, min, sec. as the AutoCAD program sez "point or option keyword required" and the line or pline I'm trying to generate from 0,0,0 disappears.  So, I'm trying to generate lines in AutoCAD w/o any other programs, is this possible?
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Followup To
Question -
How do I input meets & bounds w/degrees, feet, & inches, length.  That is I am using Arch. Desktop and have a Boundary Survey Plat in Document Drawing form and I want to input the Plat to an electronic file, in scale.  I'm fairly familiar w/ AutoCAD though haven't used the USC/ X,Y system to input numerical dimension or direction.  Actually I often copy a certain parrallel distance, etc.
Answer -
If the lines on the plat already exist, there are routines you can find that will place the next above and below the lines for you with the correct values for length and angle.  Fred Bertagnoli of Ogden Utah, who doesn't list his address publicly, lists his address within his routines.  

FRED BERTAGNOLLI
    745 MAPLE ST.
    OGDEN, UT  84403
    801-621-3634

This routine (bearings.lsp) works with 2D drawings and is 14 years old.  

Land Desktop (LDD) is a program similar to Architectural desktop but for the purpose of creating plats and site plans.  It is a 3D program and will do what you ask with 3D objects.  

Manual input of bearings kind of goes like this:
degree signs are %%d
so:
N 78%%d32'30" E
is N 78º32´30 E

Drawing Units are a little strange in plats.  You have to draw in inches and call everything out as feet.  There are no fractions, but instead there are fractions of feet represented as decimals.  12'-6" is represented as 12.50'.  A 12.50' property line is really drawn 12.5 inches.  Without LDD, there is no paremetric way of doing this, so all the entry is done as TEXT or MTEXT.  Actually TEXT is the method most often used.  

Keep in touch
Bill DeShawn
http://my.sterling.net/~bdeshawn


Answer
Tom:  OK.  I gotcha.  You want to draw a line using surveyor's units.  It goes like this:

To make a line that is 323.49' at N86°26'06"E,
Command: l
LINE Specify first point:
Specify next point or [Undo]: @323.49'<n86d26'06"e

Specify next point or [Undo]:

That's it.  AutoCAD reads the d in n86d26'06"e as "degrees".  There are no spaces in the input.  If you are working in an Engineering drawings, you probably will not need the apostrophe for feet when caling out the line length.  So, in an engineering drawing I would have had to call out @323.49<etc.

There you have it
Keep in touch
Bill DeShawn
http://my.sterling.net/~bdeshawn