Resources

We’ve combined everything in one place. You’ll find videos, learning guides, help topics, web resources and more.

 TPC User Forum

  • Be in community
  • Search for existing topics 24/7
  • Choose a specific topic or general discussion
 Quick-Start Guide

  • This simple five-step program will help you get up and running very quickly
Learn Workflows

  • We walk you through typical surveys, step-by-step
  • Boundary, Topographic, Site, …

 Sample Surveys

 Frequent Questions

  • Get answers to the questions we get asked the most
 Learning Guides

 Live Web Seminars

  • Sign up to attend one of our free web seminars
  • Earn CEU credits
 Recorded Webinars

  • Recorded live webinars
  • Pick the ones to watch, when you want to watch them
  • Watch all of it or just the parts you want
Help Topics

  • Help topics are the equivalent of a manual
  • Everything is here
  • Using Help
  • Using the Help Topics (3:34)
    • Open the help topics and use the Table of Contents, Index or Search to find what you want.
    • This is the information we used to include the the thick software manuals.
    • If TPC does it, you’ll find it here.
  • Help When You Need It (4.00)
    • See how TPC’s Message Boxes and Message View provide direct access to the help you need, when you need it.
 Technical Support

Install/Validate

Users manage their licenses on-line. You have 24/7 on-line access to your downloads and keys.

Resources

Customer Area

Sneak Peek

License Validation (2:38)

  • 0:00 Purchase receipt – downloads and keys
  • 0:50 On-line license manager
  • 1:30 Validation Complete
  • 2:00 License information in Tasks Manager and Program Settings

TPC Desktop™

Once you know the views, you know the program

Resources

Customer Area

Sneak Peek

Using the Desktop (7:40)

  • 0:24 Pin Task Manager to Desktop
  • 0:45 Tabbed Group of 4 Views
  • 1:00 Open the Drawing View and a Traverse View
  • 1:20 Obvious Navigation
  • 1:41 Docked Managers
  • 2:06 Maximize desktop
  • 2:27 Traverse Manager / Traverse View
  • 3:50 Closure View
  • 5:40 Drawing View / Drawings Manager
  • 6:36 Use Obvious Navigation to add a surface to the survey

COGO

COGO is integrated into everything TPC Desktop does

Resources

Customer Area

Sneak Peek

COGO: Accessing from Desktop and Views (7:09)

  • 0:00 From a Traverse View
  • 2:17 From a drawing
  • 4:20 From the Desktop
  • 5:15 From a data manager

Closure

Checking your closure should be easy, and with TPC Desktop, it is

Resources

Customer Area

Sneak Peek

Checking Closure (5:06)

0:30 Include the area in a drawing
0:47 Check the closure of a lot
1:26 The Closure View is a snapshot of the traverse
1:41 Show the lot closure and area in the Closure View
2:16 TPC computes an area because its a Closed Loop
2:40 Closed Loop tolerance automatically sets Closed Loop
3:40 Show the lot closure and area in the Traverse Manager


Quick View™

Learn how to draw with TPC Desktop

Resources

Customer Area

Sneak Peek

Our Quick View™ technology turns your data into drawings  (7:30)

  • 0:34 Drawing Learning Guide: 5 steps in The Quick View™ Concept, pg 6
  • 1:30 Traverse groups help us produce drawings quickly
  • 2:43 Tagging traverses and surfaces – similar to CAD’s layers
  • 3:18 Access Traverse Drawing Settings from the Traverse Manager – change fills and line types
  • 5:00 Access Traverse Drawing Settings from the drawing by double clicking – add curve labels
  • 6:00 Copying Traverse Drawing Settings
  • 6:19 Drawing Settings – global settings like Distance Units and Extra Space in Bearings


Smart Drawing Objects™

Resources

Customer Area

Sneak Peek

Title Blocks are Smart Drawing Objects™ (3:12)  Help

  • In TPC, Title Blocks are Smart Drawing Objects™
  • Convert the title block to a group and you can edit individual text objects

Drawings

A survey can have as many drawings as you need

Resources

Customer Area

Sneak Peek

Drawings and Templates (11:58)

In this video, we’ll import data and and convert the points to features in a drawing

  • 0:46 Starting a new drawing in the Drawing Manager
  • 1:09 Selecting the Mortgage template
  • 1:34 Paper Space objects – tied to the nearest corner of the page
  • 2:06 Changing the page size – one template works for any drawing size
  • 2:44 Survey Space objects – tied to the scale of the drawing
  • 3:17 Selecting a new drawing scale
  • 3:28 Drag-n-drop the survey anywhere on the page – coordinates don’t change
  • 3:58 Drag-n-drop curve labels
  • 4:15 Drag-n-drop multiple lot labels – adhoc group
  • 4:48 Line labels that don’t fit on the line are automatically added to a line table
  • 6:00 Inserting a Curve Table – include all the curves in the drawing
  • 6:22 Smart Drawing Objects™ – update themselves automatically
  • 6:45 Insert a Legend – point symbols are added automatically
  • 7:48 Scale Bar and Title Block update automatically
  • 8:18 Write a PDF file of the drawing using the Traverse PC PDF driver
  • 9:17 Exporting a drawing as a DWG file

Drawing Data Manager

This is TPC Desktop’s unique way of accessing drawing data

Resources

Customer Area

Sneak Peek

Delineating Objects (3:15)

  • 0:26 Opening the Drawing Data Manager
  • 0:57 Layers
  • 1:30 Traverses
  • 1:48 Fonts
  • 2:56 Blocks

CAD

These CAD tools read / write CAD files and exchange data with CAD programs.

Resources

Customer Area

Sneak Peek

Exporting Surface to CAD (2:38)

  • We export the drawing as a DWG and open it in  CAD
  • The surface is a 3D polyfacemesh
  • We spin the surface around in 3D so you can see how it models the surface

Calibrations

A calibration is a classic 2D or 3D coordinate transformation which rotates, translates and scales positions in one coordinate system to match coordinates in another. Coming in TPC Desktop 2019

Resources

Customer Area

Sneak Peek

Calibrating an XRef (4:48)

  • 0:00 We have a DWG file that is not on the same coordinate system as our survey
  • 1:07 Create a calibration with point pairs
  • 2:50 Enter information about the calibration for future reference
  • 3:30 Save the calibration to a file
  • 4:22 Reuse the calibration any time

LandXML

Sharing data with Civil3D

Resources

Customer Area

Sneak Peek

LandXML Parcels (5:57) Help

  • TPC shares parcels with LandXML
  • 0:37 Import individual parcels or all parcels
  • 1:24 Parcels come in as traverses in a Parcels group
  • 2:38 Parcels are closed loop traverses and compute area automatically
  • 3:12 Show parcel areas in the Traverses Manager
  • 3:55 Parcels expose LandXML location information
  • 5:22 TPC’s traverse tools all work on parcels

GIS

Traverses and Shapes are a perfect fit

Resources

Customer Area

Sneak Peek

Importing Shapes with Projections (3:17)

  • 0:20 State Plane coordinates on NAD 83 projections
  • 1:00 Import shapes into a survey
  • 1:43 The shapes are geodetic positions
  • 3:00 Geodetic positions got converted to coordinate positions for plotting

Points

Every point in a survey is unique

Customer Area

Sneak Peek

Relabel Points (3:58)

Traverses

Traverses are the heart and soul of TPC Desktop

Resources

Customer Area

Sneak Peek

Deed Research (4:33)

  • 0:00 Enter deeds as traverses
  • 2:26 Delineate a traverse
  • 3:20 Traverse Drawing Settings

Deep Dive

Entering a Lot Traverse (16:07)

This video introduces you to entering a lot traverse by bearings and distances along with curves.

  • 0:54 Changing Traverse Settings for selected traverses
  • 1:00 Add Lot 5 to the Traverse Manager – use the New Traverse dialog to select the format and settings.
  • 2:43 Recalling existing points in the new traverse – shares a line with Lot 4
  • 3:15 Unique points and lines in TPC – there can only be one line between points 10 and 9
  • 4:20 Extending a line, using equations like 8..9 to recall a bearing
  • 5:00 Synchronization – lines appear in Drawing View as you enter them in the Traverse View
  • 5:51 Use COGO Intersect to extend a line to the intersection of a curve
  • 9:00 Using the View button in a COGO dialog to preview the computation
  • 9:39 Updating existing point with the computed coordinates from the intersection
  • 10:00 Position of point 12 is automatically updated in the drawing
  • 10:50 Entering a curve radius in the Traverse View – you see all your data, all the time
  • 12:50 Checking the lot closure in the Closure View and the Traverse Manager
  • 14:30 Creating a Legal Description for the lot we just entered
  • 15:31 Learning Guide chapter: Creating Traverses – learn how to do what we just did in this video

Alignments

Alignments are just specialized traverses

Resources

Customer Area

Sneak Peek

Best Fit Horizontal Curve (4:45)

Surfaces

Surfaces are easier than you think in TPC Desktop

Resources

Customer Area

Sneak Peek

Surfaces: Sneak Peek (3:06)

  • 0:00 Sample survey of 3″ stock pile
  • 0:30 Create a surface from an existing surface
  • 0:55 Report surface information including area
  • 1:00 Compute volume of stock pile
  • 1:26 Add volume to report
  • 1:45 Surfaces manager
  • 2:04 Export surface to CAD

Surveys

In TPC Desktop, you work with one survey (project) at a time

Resources

Customer Area

Sneak Peek

Starting a New Survey (4:27)

Importing / Exporting

TPC Desktop speaks your language

Resources

Customer Area

Sneak Peek

Import ASCII Coordinates (2:11)

Printing

Printing

PDF Files

Traverse PC PDF Driver

Page Setup

Creating a Custom PDF Page Size in Windows

Creating a Custom PDF Page Size in Windows (2:28)

  • Create a custom PDF page size for your Windows PDF printer driver.
  • Tell TPC to use that custom PDF size for a drawing

Google Earth

TPC Desktop and Google Earth are a great team

Resources

Customer Area

Sneak Peek

A Really Quick Look at KML (1:07)

  • Let’s export a KML and look at it quick in Google Earth.

Legal Descriptions

Turn any traverse into a legal description using our Phrase Driven Legal Description Writer

Resources

Customer Area

Sneak Peek

Phrase Driven Legal Descriptions: Sneak Peek (2:27)

  • 0:46 Tools, Legal Description Report
  • 1:02 Generate Default (style) legal description
  • 1:24 Edit a phrase

Reports

You’ll love the way you can document everything you do in TPC Desktop

Resources

Customer Area

Sneak Peek

Output Lot Closure From Traverse Manager (1:42)

Point Codes

Point codes turn your data into drawings

Resources

Customer Area

Sneak Peek

Point Codes in Attributes (4:18)

  • 0:23 Point Codes in Descriptions
  • 1:53  Sort Points into Traverses
  • 2:00 Point Codes in Attributes
  • 3:40  Sort Points into Traverses

Drawing Codes

Create line work in the field and render it in TPC Desktop

Resources

Customer Area

Drawing codes are sometimes referred to as Control Codes because they control the line work associated with points. They allow you to begin and end lines, close figures, fit a curve to points and more.

Adjustments

Adjust coordinates, angles, precision and lots more

Resources

Customer Area

Sneak Peek

Accessing the Closure View (2:44)

  • 0:24 From Traverse Manager
    • 0:46 From Navigation Toolbar
    • 1:23 From Closure View Button
  • 1:40 From Traverse View
    • 1:59 F6 Hot Key

Least Squares

TPC Desktop has complete 2D/3D Network Adjustments

Resources

Customer Area

Sneak Peek

Intermediate Least Squares Check (6:32)

ALTA/NSPS

TPC Desktop does ALTA/NSPS (ACSM) Surveys

ALTA/NSPS Land Title Surveys

  • TPC Desktop has the tools to do ALTA/NSPS surveys
Relative Positional Precision

These surveys are described as follows on the ALTA web site  www.alta.org/standards/standards.cfm.

Coordinate Reference System

Coordinate Reference Systems (CRS) – relating coordinates to geodetic positions

Resources

Customer Area

Sneak Peek

CRS From PRJ File (1:47)

  • 0:12 Access the CRS used for a survey
  • 0:27 Review common projections like NAD83
  • 0:47 Use an ESRI PRJ file as the CRS for a survey

Transformations

TPC Desktop has lots of tools to Transform Coordinates

Resources

Customer Area

Sneak Peek

Converting Between Grid and Ground (5:01)

  • 0:25 Import ground coordinates from an ASCII file
  • 1:09 Project combined (grid + elevation) factor
  • 3:09 Details of import and transformation

Geodetics

In TPC Desktop, Geodetics are easier than you think

Resources

Customer Area

Sneak Peek

Geodetic Intro (13:18)

  • Learn how geodetics are used in project settings, traverses, COGO and drawings.

PLSS

Resources

Customer Area

 Cadastral Learning Center

Sneak Peek

Geodetic vs Grid Closures and Areas (6:59)

  • 1:00 Geodetic bearings and distances
  • 2:22 Geodetic areas
  • 4:00 Geodetic closures

Other

We can’t begin to list everything TPC Desktop can do for you

Spell Checking

  • Check your spelling in reports and drawings
Sun Shots

  • TPC supports the Leitz Hour Angle method
Areas

  • Learn how TPC updates areas automatically
Units

  • See how TPC handles survey units
Scale Factors

  • Scale factors can be applied many ways in TPC
Angle Sets

  • Use repeat or direction method angle sets
Remote Observations

  • Compute points which can’t be measured directly.