Survey Analyst

ArcGIS Survey Analyst is an ArcGIS Desktop extension for GIS professionals who maintain parcel data in ArcGIS. With this application, measurement-based land records are efficiently used to maintain parcels and related features, supporting a single standard of absolute and relative accuracy across all your GIS data. GIS professionals use ArcGIS Survey Analyst to capture, edit, and leverage land records using proven survey methodologies.

ArcGIS Survey Analyst implements a dataset targeted for parcel professionals called a Cadastral Fabric and a new workflow called Cadastral Editor.

With ArcGIS Survey Analyst, you can

  • Manage the integrity of parcel data (including record information from deeds and survey plans) in a cadastral fabric dataset. The fabric delivers a seamless coverage of your parcel boundaries and associated survey control free of gaps and overlaps.
  • Work with coordinate geometry (COGO) tools that use survey records. Track the history of all parcel edits.
  • Use least squares adjustment to incrementally update your parcel fabric with each new survey plan. In parallel, adjust related GIS layers such as utility networks, building footprints, and roads and easements.
  • Integrate survey measurements into a GIS database using field observations and survey data collector files.
  • Manage and process survey data with a set of comprehensive tools.
  • Store survey measurements, points, and computations in a GIS database for future analysis and reuse.
  • Perform survey computations such as traverse and least squares adjustments using the original raw observations.

These are just a few of the ways ArcGIS Survey Analyst can help surveyors and GIS professionals gain the advantage of a new workflow for managing cadastral data.

ArcGIS Survey Analyst Offers Many Advantages

  • Sound survey methodology - Use least squares adjustment (not rubber sheeting) and your control points to fit data, yielding the best parcel location from the data entered.
  • Continuously enhance your data - Incrementally update your data. Existing data is improved as new survey data is added.
  • History is maintained - Parcel records can be traced back in time from stored date information. No historical data is lost, allowing you to see the state of affairs for a given parcel over time. In addition, you can add historical parcels at any time, even after their descendants have been created.
  • Foundation for GIS data - Cadastral Editor includes the ability to run a GIS feature adjustment, which applies the coordinate changes resulting from the least squares adjustment to your overlaying GIS feature classes.
  • Advanced query capabilities - The cadastral fabric data model provides the capability of advanced queries such as "select all parcels in Redlands Ranch subdivision that have boundary lines along Vaquero Rd."
  • Seamlessly use multiple projections - The parcel fabric can reside in a geographic datum and can be edited in any projected coordinate system that uses this common datum. This allows organizations that maintain data in many projection zones to have all parcels in a single seamless parcel fabric and edit the parcels in their respective projected coordinate systems.

ArcGIS Survey Analyst Cadastral Fabric

Cadastral Fabric is a topologically integrated geodatabase dataset designed to store both a continuous parcel fabric that covers a jurisdiction and survey-based subdivision plans without loss of any information in the original survey record. Features include parcels, boundary lines, parcel corners, and control points.

ArcGIS Survey Analyst Cadastral Editor

Using Cadastral Editor, individual parcels and subdivisions are entered using coordinate geometry (COGO)-based plan entry. An integrated Cadastral Fabric is developed from all relevant survey and plan data using least squares adjustment for the best-fit representation of the parcel layer. Cadastral Editor also tracks parcel history and lineage by maintaining the legal recording dates.


Will ArcGIS Survey Analyst work with ArcView?

Yes. Survey Analyst is an extension to ArcGIS 9 and is available for use on ArcView, ArcEditor, and ArcInfo. The system requirements are the same as for ArcGIS 9.

Back to top

Which data formats can be imported into a survey project?

Survey Analyst imports and exports measurements and other field data from Total Positioning System (TPS) equipment using the following survey data converter formats: ASCII converter, Geodimeter converter, GSI converter, SDR converter, TDS coordinate converter, and TDS raw converter. The data import utility can be extended programmatically to import additional data formats.

Back to top

My survey observations were recorded using nonelectronic processes. How can I get my measurements into a survey project?

Data collected from a traditional survey using an optical instrument and tape or electronic distance measurement (EDM) can be entered into Survey Analyst using the COGO functionality. Functionality methods, such as COGO traverse, station and offset, and COGO curves and intersections, are supported with Survey Analyst.

Back to top

How do I import GPS datasets or GPS points?

Coordinate data from GPS can be imported using the ASCII importer. Additional support of GPS baselines will become available in a future release.

Back to top

What is the difference between COGO in Survey Analyst and the advanced editing COGO functionality in ArcGIS Desktop?

The advanced editing tools in ArcGIS Desktop directly act on or create feature geometry. In addition to direct feature edits, feature geometry is subject to indirect change; this might be a result of topology validation, for example, in which new geometry vertices are created or existing ones are shifted during the validation process. Since there is no internal persistence of the procedures that created this feature geometry or persistence of the datum points (points of beginning), there is no recourse to rebuild this geometry from scratch in the spatially correct location. Even if the data has been known to be accurate, no formalised expression of spatial accuracy exists.
COGO in Survey Analyst complements the flexibility of the advanced editing tools with the control of a structured coordinate management system. Survey Analyst COGO computations create survey points, and the geometry of these survey points is not affected by GIS edits. In addition, the procedures for defining direct edits for survey point locations are highly controlled in a surveyor-friendly environment. These procedures are stored in sequences of dependent computations. Survey points form a framework of control for feature geometry. You can link points to feature geometry while still allowing the necessary flexibility in the feature edits. This is achieved by giving to the feature geometry an intelligence known as survey awareness. Over time, feature geometry accuracy can be maintained and formally expressed using the Survey Analyst system of coordinate management.

Back to top