Published in the ALS (Alberta Land Surveyor) News

March 2000, Vol 29-1, Page 41.

Digital Submissions and MicroSurvey

It has been a year since my last article in the Alberta Land Surveyor News and during this time MicroSurvey has been a very busy company. To keep pace with technology and standards passed by different jurisdictions, MicroSurvey has continued to add new features to our programs. To address the needs of Alberta surveyors in particular, we have added a Mass Layer conversion routine to allow you to submit your drawings in electronic format and comply with new layering standards.

This routine was supplied to every customer free of charge in our latest update of MSCAD Pro and MS98, Service Pack #2. It is also included in all new copies of MSCAD Pro and MS98 and future versions.

The routine is found under the MicroSurvey pulldown menu, under Layer Control, Mass Layer Conversion and is comprised of two commands. First is the Layer Table Editor. This uses the LTO files supplied by Martin Newby and Land Titles and allows you to create new LST files or use existing files from those sources. In short, it allows you to map your current layers to layer names required to submit your drawings. Once you have set the layer table as required, you can save it and then process it. The saved file can then be used again on future jobs. The processing of the LTO.LST file changes the layers set in the table to the match the standards as you have configured them. You can have separate LST files for Land Titles (LTO.LST) and City standards (LTOCALGY.LST) or any other source that requires their own layering configuration. A report is generated to show the changes in your drawing.

The second feature is called, Check Layer Conversion and it allows you to review each layer, one at a time on screen, and allows you to confirm what is on each layer. If you find something that is on the wrong layer then you can change it to another existing layer or one you create on the fly.

Once you have done your conversions and checked your layers you can then save your file in DWG format via the SAVEAS command found under the File menu.

The last thing you need to do is create a plot file to submit. This is the tricky step for some. The first thing you need to do is obtain and configure, in Windows 95/98/NT, a HPGL or HPGL/2 plotter driver. One we can suggest using would be the HP Draftpro EXL driver from the Hewlett Packard web-site (www.hp.com). You would configure this driver to plot to a file instead of COM1 or LPT1. The output plot file will have the extension of PRN by default and will have to be renamed to PLT for submission. You would configure this driver even though you do not own or use this plotter at your office, it is just a means to get the plot file you require.

You can submit the PLT file and DWG file, as required. If you do run into any problems then please feel free to contact either Martin Newby about the LTO standards at (403) 294-1028 or Glen Cameron about the MicroSurvey routines at (705) 752-2911.

"Tips and Tricks" has been brought to you by Glen W. Cameron, CET. Glen is the Technical Support Manager for MicroSurvey Software, Inc. working out of Corbeil, Ontario, Canada.