Welcome to the Tractplotter.com Development Blog. I am the owner/developer/proprietor of TractPlotter.com. I also have a “day job” as a landman in the Barnett Shale area of Texas. This is what prompted me to write my own tract plotter, as the existing solutions all seemed to be lacking.
I would like to fill you all in on the plans for the site. First off, the part that you see right now for free will always be there, for free. It will even be improved somewhat, but it will always be a little watered down. However, it will probably be sufficient for 90% of your tract plotting needs. It is for me! Most of the time I just want to know three things about a metes and bounds description: 1) Does it close? 2) Is the acreage correct? 3) What does it look like? The existing free site that you see can do all three of those things pretty well. I know I have a bug or two in the acreage calculations, but fortunately they don’t pop up in most tracts.
But I do want to eventually make money with this site. So I will have a paid section as well. You will be able to log in with your user name, and all of your plotted tracts will be there, organized in folders that you can arrange as you like. You will be able to use arcs in your tracts. You will be able to join multiple plots together, as many as you like, in an easy-to-use interface. You will be able to alter the scale of any plot that you make, to match any scale you desire when you print it out. You will be able to share your plots with other users that you work with. I am even planning to allow overlays to Google Maps so that you can lay out your tracts on photographs of the actual terrain. These are just some of the features that I’m planning to include in the final version. Please comment below if you have a certain feature that you’d like to see, even if it’s one I already mentioned. I’d like to get an idea of which features are most useful to other users.
When I do finally release the pay site, it will have a small monthly fee. I am thinking $5 or $10. Or maybe $5 and $10, if I can figure out some way of having two levels of service. I think the monthly fee is the way to go. All of the competing products that I know of are $150-$200, and they are standalone pieces of software. They have to be installed on one computer, so they can’t be used on any computer with an internet connection. They generally don’t include upgrades in the purchase price, so if you want the new version then you will have to pay again. And they will not see the level of support that I will be able to provide. Bug fixes, custom features, you name it, and it will be a lot easier for me to do than any of those other guys. Of course I will offer a discount if you wish to pay yearly, and I will also offer multiple user discounts.
I am working right now on a full bottom-up rewrite of the site. I have a “hidden” area that I have used for my own personal needs for over a year now that has already implemented most of the features I listed above. Unfortunately I have come to the realization that the current site’s acreage calculations are unreliable in a basic way (again — fortunately this occurs infrequently! but it is indicator of an underlying problem), and therefore almost the whole thing will need to be rewritten. So I am in the middle of that right now. I am also in the process of moving the server from a shared hosting solution to a dedicated, colocated server. I have bought the physical server and rented the colocation space for it, but I still have yet to get the server fully configured and installed at the facility. Hopefully I can get this done in the next month (by July) and have the site transition to the new server during that time. The rewrite and availability of the pay site will take a little longer, but hopefully I will be able to fix the known calculation bugs in the free site within the same timeframe of the server installation.
So there you have it, that’s the current status of the site and a broad idea of the goal that I’m working toward. Please feel free to comment with suggestions, problems, ideas, bugs, and anything else that you might want to say. I realize that I have not been communicating effectively on the site status, and the whole site has been pretty mysterious to everyone up to this point. I hope to change that with this blog, so at least you will know that yes, there is an actual person here, and yes, I am working on the site 
Thanks for reading!
Thank you thank you thank you!! I’m a landman in Denver and tractplotter.com is one of the most valuable webtools I have found. I’ve introduced my whole office to it and nearly everyone has commented on how incredibly helpful and easy it is. Of course, we have a few of the $$$ software mapping packages available for firm-wide use, but most of the time, I just need the few simple pieces of information you mentioned: closure, acreage, and graphic. I can get that from tractplotter any place and time I have internet access.
Now if only you could make it magically figure out where that darn Elm tree is…
Anyhow, best of luck in your rebuild and I look forward to the relaunch. In the meantime, thanks again!
Thank you! I have been using your site for sometime now and love it. I am a technical researcher at a land surveying and engineering firm in Maine. This is so helpful and time saving, especially on lengthy legal descriptions. I look forward to the updates and will watch for status reports.
I am a real estate lawyer is South Florida. We usually have surveyors to answer survey questions, but often I just need to know what the parcel looks like or don’t have the time to wait for a surveyor. At those times Tract Plotter is invaluable. Although a monthly fee is ok for me, it is hard to get law firms to approve of reocurring monthly charges, particlarly if the person that has to approve it doesn’t inderstand the need. It is easier to get a one-time fee (even if it is more money) and charge for upgrades. Even better, sell me a download.
I tried one legal and received what I believe is a correct answer.
s20e 9p 10L
s69w 36.6
n20w 9p 9.6971L
n68e 36.6
then I entered a very similar older description for the same property
s20e 9p 10L
s69w 36.6
n20w 9p 9.6971L
n68e 36.6
Wow — those are the same. However, the diagram on each showed a rectangle but one showed the 36.6 (feet) to be the longer side. They were two distinctly different rectangles. I am excited to see your site but at this time I am concerned about relying on the results it provides.
Steve,
Your comment shows two descriptions which appear to be identical. I got the same plot from both of them. I am sure that you will have a problem though, as I have not included Links as a unit of measure, and the site does not yet support combining two units in one distance call (e.g., feet and inches don’t work in the same line — in fact, inches don’t work at all, I guess I should add them). If you try decimalizing the links as 1/25 of a pole (e.g. 3 links = 0.12 pole) then it might work better. So in your example of 9P 9.6971L, try 9.387884p instead.
But thanks for bringing this to my attention – I will be sure to fix that problem and add links and poles properly as native units!
This gives me options for a move to Ubuntu instead of staying in MS land.
thanx.
Hello,
I have been doing research on some property that had questionable plots and courses. With the tractplotter I’ve been able to establish true acreage and locations of property that old deeds provided. Thank you very much for making my research easier. It would be great if there was an ability to approach other subjects relating to plots and descriptions. For instance such as mineral rights or interests for sale or for leasing. Only reason I’m mentioning this is because you mention you are a landman for the Barnett Shale area. I would appreciate any insight you might have on mineral acres.
Thanks again,
Marty Pena
Excellent software! Congratulations on this and what is to come. As an investor, I usually only need to see a plot / map and verify the square footage from a legal description so your free package is perfect! Dropping an actual photo over the plot would be great. Thanks for a much needed, easy tool.
Great program! I’m a researcher at a power company in North Carolina, and find this program invaluable (although eventually I would get something that can do arcs, as well as print comments). However it would be a plus to be able to print out just the completed plot and acreage information — I’ve been using my SnagIt program to print just that region of the screen, and enlarge it. Sometimes when there are a lot of calls those numbers overlap and it’s hard to see just where the points are. Perhaps the output screen can be configured to be proportionate with the completed plot? Just a suggestion …
I have a rectangular plot set at an angle running NW to SE the long sides.
Description is from 1737, in perches, starting at the NE corner
Here’s what I put in, assuming the directions surrounding the angle show the slope of the line from beginning corner to ending corner. Your website said there was a 60% closure error:
n90w 150p
w90s 226p
s90e 150p
e90n 226p
What have I done wrong?
JRBinkley,
Your angles are formatted incorrectly. The first part of the angle must be N or S. The second part must be a number, and the third part must be E or W. But, in the case of exact cardinal directions, you can just use N, S, E, and W. So, based on the calls you gave, my best guess for your tract would be
W 150p
S 226p
E 150p
N 226p
However, you say that your tract is actually set at an angle. If it is a 45 degree angle, this is how it would look:
N45W 226p
N45E 150p
S45E 226p
S45W 150p
If it is a 30 degree angle, this is how it would look:
N30W 226p
N60E 150p
S30E 226p
S60W 150p
A 90 degree angle doesn’t make sense (90 degrees are the cardinal directions North, South, East and West).
I was thinking of the angles as those in the tract itself — 90 degree angles because the tract was a perfect rectangle, skewed so its middle axis ran from NW to SE. Now I see you are saying 45 degrees OFF from the true E-W axis.
If your website is to help those of us who are working from 18th century info and have never done any land platting, it would be helpful for you to say what the degrees refer to.
Thanks.