Entering Angles in Surveyor's Angles

Many times in AutoCAD, users will enter an angle in Degrees. Maybe even in Degree/Minutes/Seconds. If you are a surveyor or are working with a survey drawing, you will see angles (or bearings) written something like this:

N45d20'6"E (where d is the degree symbol)

This means the angle is North 45 degrees, 20 minutes, 6 seconds, East.

Users can input angles just like this if we need to. When drawing a line, pick your first point, then type in:

Make sure to start with the '@' symbol. Then enter the distance, (here it is 200) then the less than sign (I would type it in but my blog thinks I am trying to type in an HTML tag!!) then N (for north or S for South) the angle number (45) d to let AutoCAD know it is the degree, then the minutes and seconds if any. Don't forget to type in the symbols ' for minutes and " for seconds. Finish up with your last direction e (E for east and W for west.)

This will draw a line 200 units long at 45d20'6" to the "right" (or east) of north (straight up)

It's that simple.

Happy CADDING

CAD & GIS Wikis

Are you looking for some great CAD or GIS tips, tricks and routines? Well Cadalyst and Geospatial Solutions have each developed some Wikis that can provide just that for you.

http://cadtips.cadalyst.com

and

http://wiki.geospatial-solutions.com/

are two places to go. Cadalyst and Geospatial Solutions are subsidiaries of Questex, a company that produces great content. I helped Cadalyst develop the CADTIPS wiki so I am very familiar with what it can do. It has all (yes all) Hot Tip Harry Routines in it! Soon they will start adding the weekly Tips and Tricks in it. I don't know if all of the tips will be added, but I know that they will start adding the new ones to it, eventually.

Check out these sites, I feel that you will fond them helpful.