http://ask.metafilter.com/32643/Land-Survey-coordinates-to-UTM/ Comments on Ask MetaFilter post Land Survey coordinates to UTM Tue, 14 Feb 2006 11:50:35 -0800 Tue, 14 Feb 2006 11:50:35 -0800 en-us http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss 60 http://ask.metafilter.com/32643/Land-Survey-coordinates-to-UTM Is anyone aware of a program that converts The United States Public Land Survey (such as found on platt maps) coordinates into UTM coordinates? I would like to input land survey coordinates and have it convert the data to UTM coordinates for my GPS. Many thanks... post:ask.metafilter.com,2006:site.32643 Tue, 14 Feb 2006 11:34:06 -0800 orlin GPS Land Survey UTM Coordinates Program Platt Map http://ask.metafilter.com/32643/Land-Survey-coordinates-to-UTM#509826 It's my understanding that PLSS coordinates are an approximation rather than based upon exact coordinates. That said, aren't they based rather loosely upon lat/lon? I think it would be easier to get them into a lat/lon format then from there are numerous programs to convert lat/lon to utm. comment:ask.metafilter.com,2006:site.32643-509826 Tue, 14 Feb 2006 11:50:35 -0800 rlef98 http://ask.metafilter.com/32643/Land-Survey-coordinates-to-UTM#509902 It should be a simple matter of writing an Excel spreadsheet to do that as long as you have the conversion factor. A section is a mile by a mile. comment:ask.metafilter.com,2006:site.32643-509902 Tue, 14 Feb 2006 12:43:09 -0800 JJ86 http://ask.metafilter.com/32643/Land-Survey-coordinates-to-UTM#509938 It might be easier to convert if you have a coordinate from the State Plane System. The problem with trying a direct conversion is that there are always discrepancies between originally platted lands and actual distances. Sometimes these discrepancies can be large. That is one of the reasons why surveyors get paid the big bucks. comment:ask.metafilter.com,2006:site.32643-509938 Tue, 14 Feb 2006 13:04:30 -0800 JJ86 http://ask.metafilter.com/32643/Land-Survey-coordinates-to-UTM#510041 When looking for conversion numbers be aware there are numerous projections from round globe to flat map compounded my intial survey errors. I'm not familiar with US data but for example here in Canada you'd be worried about what zone you are in, which projection was used, whether you were in NAD 27 or NAD 83, etc. Even something as small as a section of land is only a mile on the sides, the top and bottom are some slight, different, amount only approximately equal to a mile. comment:ask.metafilter.com,2006:site.32643-510041 Tue, 14 Feb 2006 14:07:58 -0800 Mitheral http://ask.metafilter.com/32643/Land-Survey-coordinates-to-UTM#510530 Thanks to all... comment:ask.metafilter.com,2006:site.32643-510530 Wed, 15 Feb 2006 09:35:56 -0800 orlin