Drawing Description & How To Video

Modified on 2020/08/20 22:28 by Adam — Categorized as: Features

The term "Drawing" refers to the mapping tool category that is located in the left hand panel of the Surety mapping software interface.

When clicked, it expands to show multiple drawing tools available for creating boundaries or lines on the main map.

This list includes:

Draw Field
- This is the go-to tool for drawing custom boundaries and calculating acres.
- Create exclusions inside drawn or smart selected boundaries.
Draw Line Tool
- Draw and determine distance between one or more points on the map in feet.
Draw Pivot
- Draw and determine the acres of a whole or partial circle pivot.
- Cut out pivot area from a drawn or smart selected border.
Plot Deed
- Surety Pro exclusive feature that will draw out metes and bounds measurements on deed and legal descriptions.
Smart Select
- An time-saving tool for tracing around existing borders such as FSA's CLU (yellow) borders and saved boundaries within Surety Pro.
- Used to modify Saved Borders in Surety Pro.
- Used to select Exclusions made with the Draw Field Tool.
Merge Fields
- Combine 2 or more adjacent fields into one boundary with a combined acreage.
- Can be used to merge FSA borders and/or a saved borders in Surety Pro.
Split Field
- Separate one boundary into two seperate borders.
- Use this tool to split a FSA border or a saved border in Surety Pro.
- Create exclusions around the edge of a boundary.
Draw Air Route
- Define waypoints to calculate direction and distance in real time. To be used in tandem with the My Location & Follow Me Tools.

Drawing Adjustment Tools

Adjust Acres - modify the acreage to any size within 20% of the original amount. The polygon will expand or contract accordingly.
Buffer Polygon - expand or contract the boundary a set amount of feet along the entire boundary.
Convert the drawing into a Symbol - change the boundary from an editable drawing into a symbol that is able to be colored

Click to play the Draw Field tutorial video below. You can enlarge the video and change the video quality to accommodate your internet bandwidth in the lower right hand corner of the video player after the video has started.

Drawing Count and Delete button¶

After Drawing is selected, a trash can symbol will appear underneath Drawing and a number will be displayed.

This number is indicating how many drawings are currently on the map.

Click the Trash can icon in order to delete ALL drawings from the map. (See below on how to delete individual drawings from the map)

Help On/Off¶

A handy feature is the Help On/Off option that is available for all of the Drawing methods. When the Help feature is enabled it will provide assistance for the different drawing tools.

Locate Drawing in the left hand panel.

Click on Drawing to reveal the different types of drawing tools.

Once Help is checked, the information pertaining to the selected drawing tool will appear in the right hand panel.

Snap On/Off¶

When the Snap On/Off checkbox is checked you can snap your current drawing to an existing drawing's line or node. This snap function is a drawing tool modifier that can be enabled/disabled at any time.

Different ways to modify a drawn boundary (Move/Delete/Add Nodes)¶

Using one of the Drawing tools that are detailed in the links above (not including the Draw Line Tool) to create a closed polygon on the map.

Here is an example of a field that is drawn out and closed the shape. The field is highlighted in blue because it is the actively selected boundary. (Actively select a drawn or smart selected boundary by left clicking ONCE in the boundary with the Draw Field tool enabled.)

You can move an entire actively selected drawing by using your directional arrow keys on your keyboard. One press will move the polygon in a direction 1 pixel, or move 4 pixels by holding the Shift key and pressing the directional arrow keys.

The red points on the drawing are referred to as nodes. Nodes are corner points that can be used to change the shape of the polygon.

Left click and drag a node to change the node's placement.

Delete a node by right clicking directly on it.

You can also add more nodes(points) to a polygon so that the geometric shape and or size can be more precise.

To do this, you can left click on a drawing so that it is highlighted in blue and then right click on an open area of the map (on or off the line) to add a node. If a spot not on the bounday line is clicked, the program will automatically connect the closest line segment to the placed node. Again, if you right click again on the node it will be deleted.

Creating Exclusions using the Draw Field tool¶

With the drawing tool you can also create "holes" or exclusions in the middle of the mapped boundary. An example of an exclusion would be a wet area, slough, building site or anything not included in the desired field acreage.

The example below is a drawn field boundary that has a non cropped area that needs to have its acres excluded from the overall polygon.

If not already actively selected (has a blue fill), use the Draw Field tool and left click once in the boundary to make it the active selection.

Still Using the Draw Field tool left click around the non cropped to add a boundary to place drawing nodes. Once the drawing is complete, the Current Acres will display a negative(-) number and the Total Acres will be reduced.

Now if I left click back in the drawn boundary, only the included area will be highlighted in blue.

Select and display excluded areas of the Map¶

Continuing from the last example, the excluded area doesn't contain any drawing or mapped acres and wont display anything within it on a generated map. In some cases, it may be beneficial to display the excluded acres. To do this we can use the Smart Select Drawing Tool.

Simply Left click once in the excluded area to calculate the excluded acres and show it in the current acres box.

Delete drawings¶

When there are multiple drawings on the map and it is desired to remove only one or some of them and leave others, use the individual delete method. To delete an individual drawing you will need to left click on the drawing with the Smart Select or the Draw Field tool enabled so that boundary is highlighted in blue. (meaning it is the active selection)

Then either click the "Delete Selected" link within the Draw Field panel

OR press the Del or Delete key on your keyboard. Note: Do NOT press the "Backspace" key as this is a shortcut key for the Back button on many browsers and you will lose your entire mapping session including drawings and selections.

You can also can click on the Delete All link in the right hand panel to remove all of the drawings on the map.

Adjust Current Acres¶

A very handy feature is the "Adjust Current Acres" tool. This allows a boundary to be adjusted to a precise acreage without manually moving nodes on the map.

To use this feature, make sure the boundary is an actively selected drawing(highlighted in blue)

Then type in the desired acreage and click Adjust. Keep in mind that the acres can only be adjusted within 20% so it is best practice to get your boundary close before using the adjustment feature. This will expand or contract the boundary to get the desired acreage.

Note: When using Surety Pro, it is possible to smart select saved boundaries and then use the adjust acres tool. Once adjusted, click Save Borders again to update the saved record.

Buffer Current Polygon¶

Use the Buffer tool to move the boundary out or in a desired amount in feet.

On an actively selected boundary(highlighted in blue) type in an amount in feet to buffer. The amount can be positive or negative.

Then click on Buffer to see the boundary expand or contract the set buffered distance evenly.

Move Selected Drawing to Symbols Layer¶

It is also possible to convert your drawing into a Symbol in order to change the color and fill of the border. Keep in mind that this removes the calculated acreages from the polygon and the distance from the lines. See the dedicated page: Convert a Drawn Border to a Symbol