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Chapter 12: Part 1

Traverse Adjustment and Area
Computation
February 29, 2016

Announcements
Exams will be handed back in labs
Lab
Level quiz and lab 5 (total stations)

3 part lecture series + 1 lecture examples

Spring break

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Strange textbook disclaimer (12.1)

This chapter is primarily dealing with land areas
Precision of field work
Balancing of errors
Use of coordinates

First part of the chapter

Situations where the surveyor measures distances and angles
around a tract of land (your lab!)

Second part of the chapter

Irregular land parcels, basis for earthwork volume calculations
Also basis for transfer of land titles

What does #&%$ does this book saying? Calculating Area

What are we going to cover today?

Methods of Calculating Areas
Traverse Adjustment Overview
Balancing Angles
Latitudes and Departures
Error of Closure
Balancing Latitudes and Departures
Example problems

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Methods for Calculating Areas

Many methods for calculating land
area (including Google Earth)
Traverse is plotted to scale on
graph paper and the number of
squares inside the traverse are
counted
Planimeter traverse is drawn to
scale
Planimeter is used to measure
traverse areas on the paper
knowing the scale of the paper
Area estimated using the device
within a range of % to 1% of
correct values

Planimeter designs

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Methods for Calculating Areas

Triangle method
Good for calculating areas of traverses that have only a few
sides
Traverse is divided into triangles and areas are computed
separately
Generally traverses with more than five sides become
somewhat complicated
There are other methods we will discuss later for complicated
traverses
Double meridian distance
Double parallel distance
Coordinate methods
Sections 12.9 12. 13

Triangle Method
3, 4, and 5 sided traverses
Is there more than one way
to divided a 5 sided
traverse?

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Traverse Adjustment Overview

Before we can calculate the area of a traverse we need to
make sure the traversed is closed
What do I mean by closed?

There will be errors with the angle measurements

There will be errors with the distances as a result of the errors
in the angle measurements
Textbook example
We know the sum of the interior angles of a triangle equals 180
Field angles can easily be adjusted to add up to 180
Law of sines tells us that the distances will not equal field
distances with the new anglesdilemma.

Eric, Im confused!
Lets say we survey a tract of land, we start at point A, but
when we close the traverse we are not at point A, but
slightly off
A

We need to adjust our bearings and distances so point A

equals (or closes on) point A

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Compass Rule Adjustment Will do the Trick

General Steps (page 178)
Balancing field measured angles
Calculate bearings of azimuths from corrected angles
Calculate unbalanced latitudes and departures (new terms)
Calculate error of closure and precision
Compute balanced latitudes and departures
Compute balanced angles and distances
Compute coordinates of traverse vertices

Balancing Angles
First step
The interior angles of a closed traverse should total
(n-2)x(180)
Where n = the number of sides of the traverse

Your traverse may not add exactly up to this value (we live in the
real world, not a perfect world!)
What tolerance can we accept?
Total should not vary from the correct value by more than the
square root of the number of sides times the least division
readable by the total station (10 for us)

Example (clarification)
8 sided traverse, the maximum error should not exceed
10 8 = 28.3 or 28
Seconds, not inches!

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Balancing Angles
Generally surveyors will check the sum of the angles of the
traverse before leaving the field
If there is an error, generally have to redo everything
If the mistake was made at just one angle, typically the figure
will be drawn, a dotted line is placed where the error of
closure is, and a line is drawn perpendicular to the angle error

Balancing Angles
When angular errors have been reduced to reasonable
values, they are distributed among the angles so the sum will
be exactly (n-2)(180)
Think: I have x in excesses, need to distribute equally
Each angle
May be corrected by the same amount
Only certain angles may be corrected because of field
conditions
Or an arbitrary rule may be used strange right?
An angle that is suspect in the surveyors mind where obstructions
may be, short distances, or other problems

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Lets go back to this figure

Notice, we made adjustments to all bearings, interior angles, and distances

And got the red traverse. Note that the red traverse starts and ends at point A

Example from book of how we are adjusting

Sums did not equal 540, so 3 were added to each of the five
angles and bearings were recomputed

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Latitudes and Departures

The closure of a traverse is checked by computing the
latitude and departure of each side
Latitude of a Line is its projection on the north-south
meridian
Equals its length times the cosine of its bearing

Departure of a line is its projection on the east-west line

Equals its length times the since of its bearing

What are we really finding?

X, y, and hypotenuse components

Visually what are we talking about?

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A very important chart by Eric

N

Latitude = +
Departure = -

Latitude = +
Departure = +

Latitude = Departure = -

Latitude = Departure = +

Error of Closure
Lets say we walk the sides of a traverse, we would end where we
started (this would be boring)
We would have walked as far north as we would have south,
similarly west and east
What does this mean?
For a closed traverse, sum of latitudes and sum of departures
should equal ZERO
Generally when we calculate this, it really never is zerothere is
always some kind of error
When the latitudes are added together, the resulting error is called
error in latitude or (EL)
When the departures are added together, the resulting error is
called error in departure or (ED)

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Error of Closure
Error of closure is a simple triangle
equation

Precision of the measurement can be

calculated
!"#$!%!"

Example on next slide

Example of the last two slides

First, lets look at the error in closure
C

A
D

EL
A

A
A

ED

Second, ED is negative, EL is positive.

Knowing the units, we can solve for EC

Third, we can find precision of the measurement

Perimeter = Length AB+ Length BC + Length CD+ Length DA

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What about Precision?

Most areas of the United States, the minimum acceptable
previsions are provided by law for various kinds of surveying
1/5,000 for rural areas
1/7,500 for suburban areas
1/10,000 for urban areas

If precision is satisfactory, the surveyor will proceed to

balance the errors in latitudes and departures and compute
the areas of the traverse

Okay Everyone is Now Confused

The best thing to do now is probably an example

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Example 1
Lets say we have a closed traverse with 5 sides. Each side has
a distance (in feet) and a direction (in bearings). Here is what
your initial table will look like
I have also provided a rough sketch

Segment Distance

Bearing

164.95
88.41
121.69
115.89
68.42
= 559.36

N 7111 E
S 3100 E
S 4418 E
N 6847 W
N 0721 W

AB
BC
CD
DE
EA

B
C
A
E
D

Note: That I have summed the distance

Example 1
Here is a very important Figure I
found out of my 2002 surveying
book
Departure = Length x sin
Latitude = Length x cos
VERY IMPORTANT
Note the SIGN of Latitude and
Departure in each quadrant

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Now we make a table

I added four columns
Latitude and Departure (along with cos and sin)
North, South, East and West
I also added the sign based on the previous figure
Note: This is where knowing DMS on your calculator will help
Segment Distance

Bearing

164.95
88.41
121.69
115.89
68.42
= 559.36

AB
BC
CD
DE
EA

Latitude (cos)
North (+) South (-)

N 7111 E +53.20
S 3100 E
S 4418 E
N 6847 W +41.94
N 0721 W +67.86

-75.78
-87.09

Departure (sin)
East (+)
West (-)
+156.13
+45.53
-84.99
-108.03
-8.75

Now we squish the table

I want you to combine latitudes and departures from four
columns to two columns keeping the same sign
The Numbers have not changed at all!

Segment Distance
AB
BC
CD
DE
EA

164.95
88.41
121.69
115.89
68.42
= 559.36

Bearing

Latitude

Departure

N 7111 E
S 3100 E
S 4418 E
N 6847 W
N 0721 W

+53.20
-75.78
-87.09
+41.94
+67.86

+156.13
+45.53
-84.99
-108.03
-8.75

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Now sum the latitudes and departures

Segment Distance
AB
BC
CD
DE
EA

164.95
88.41
121.69
115.89
68.42
= 559.36

Bearing

Latitude

Departure

N 7111 E
S 3100 E
S 4418 E
N 6847 W
N 0721 W

+53.20
-75.78
-87.09
+41.94
+67.86

+156.13
+45.53
-84.99
-108.03
-8.75

Latitude = (53.20)+(-75.78)+(-87.09)+(41.94)+(67.86) = +0.13

Departure = (156.13)+(45.53)+(-84.99)+(-108.03)+(-8.75) = -0.11
What does this mean?
Well the traverse doesnt close and this is the error (in feet) in the x
and y direction

This is what the table should now look like

Segment Distance
AB
BC
CD
DE
EA

164.95
88.41
121.69
115.89
68.42
= 559.36

Bearing

Latitude

Departure

N 7111 E
S 3100 E
S 4418 E
N 6847 W
N 0721 W

+53.20
-75.78
-87.09
+41.94
+67.86
= -0.13

+156.13
+45.53
-84.99
-108.03
-8.75
= -.011

Since we have an error in the x and y directions, we can find

the hypotenuse!
This happens to be called Error of Closure
&

0.13,

0.11,

0.17 . /

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Last Step is to find the Precision Ratio

Precision ratio = Error of Closure / Sum of the distances
0

1/

2.345%.
667.895%.

3

8,72

3

8822

: ; ;

So Eric, I think I understand thishow would I visually see

this?

A
A
E
D

Latitude = +0.13 ft.

A
B

Departure = -0.11 ft.

Example 12.1

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12.1 table

Latitude (cos)
Side

Length

Bearing

AB

452.38

N5613E

BC

528.49

S4832E

CA

778.26

N8244W

SUM

1759.13

N (+)

S (-)

EL =

Departure (sin)
E (+)

W (-)

ED =
EC =
Precision =

12.1 table

Latitude (cos)
Side

Length

Bearing

N (+)

S (-)

AB

452.38

N5613E

251.547

BC

528.49

S4832E

CA

778.26

N8244W 98.44

SUM

1759.13

Departure (sin)
E (+)

W (-)

375.994
-349.958

396.019
-772.010

349.987 -349.958 772.013

EL = 0.029

-772.010

ED = -0.003
EC = 0.029 ft.

Precision = 1/60,338

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12.1 table

Side

Length

Bearing

Latitude

Departure

AB

452.38

N5613E

+251.547

+375.994

BC

528.49

S4832E

-349.958

+396.019

CA

778.26

N8244W

98.44

-772.010

SUM

1759.13

EL = 0.029

ED = -0.003

EC = 0.029 ft.
Precision = 1/60,338

Next Class
Correcting Latitudes and Departures
Balancing Latitudes and Departures
Finding Adjusted Distances and Bearings

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