What Does '(RAD)' Mean in Metes and Bounds?

[BrittanyGale]

Hello,

I am trying to digitize my city's boundary, but am running into some problem areas. Specifically, line bearings that say '(RAD)'. For example,

(RAD) | L84 | S 46-55-40 W | 20 ft
&
(RAD) | L85 | N 50-44-51 E | 20 ft

What does '(RAD)' mean?! It sounds like it would mean 'radius', but it's labeled as a line bearing, hence the the L in L84. Thank you in advance!

[JohnSobetzer]

Radian.  You can Google on it but here's two general links to get your started:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radian
http://www.purplemath.com/modules/radians.htm

For your purposes you want to go to Desktop Help and in the cogo section there is stuff on radians.

[BrittanyGale]

Alright. Thank you. I'm still confused though. I breifly read through those sites and am wondering why my line bearing description says '(RAD)' but yet gives me a degree 'S 46-55-40 W'. The sites were telling me how to convert radians to degrees, but I obviously can't do that. Hmm...

[BrittanyGale]

Just bumping my post up the forum list... Is that rude?

[JohnSobetzer]

Will this help?  http://help.arcgis.com/en/arcgisdesktop/10.0/help/index.html#//001t00000009000000.htm

I haven't run into rads very often and I've forgotten exactly how I handled them in the cogo tool.  Like most things I fooled around with the different options, in this case providing for a curve in the drop down on the left, hit enter and looked at what I got.  Finally I got what I wanted, and then I finished the work and as is obvious now, forgot exactly how I did it.

[HardolphWasteneys]

Hello,

I am trying to digitize my city's boundary, but am running into some problem areas. Specifically, line bearings that say '(RAD)'. For example,

(RAD) | L84 | S 46-55-40 W | 20 ft
&
(RAD) | L85 | N 50-44-51 E | 20 ft

What does '(RAD)' mean?! It sounds like it would mean 'radius', but it's labeled as a line bearing, hence the the L in L84. Thank you in advance!

RAD is short for "Radial".    The bearing gives the direction from the centre of a circular arc to an arbitrary point on the circumference of the bounding curve, thus describing that part of the property boundary.  The "20 ft" in your example is the radius of the arc.   The position of the RAD line on the plan can be either from the center of the arc or even just the propagation of the line on the convex side of the curve so long as it shows the intersection with the boundary usually at the start of the arc, and in a narrative description it would be in sequence after a fixed marker or at the end of a mete.

Hardolph

[BrittanyGale]

Thank you very much! I will experiement and hopefully figure it out.