Tutorial #2
Working with Waypoints

This tutorial will show you how to mark a miscellaneous waypoint within a legal description drawing.

Note:  This tutorial assumes that are using a registered Pro version. If you are using the Basic or Unregistered version, not all of these features will be available. However, this tutorial will attempt to make it clear when a step or feature requires the Pro version.

Note: This tutorial was written for use with v2.3.0 of Metes and Bounds. If you are using a different version, your screenshots may look slightly different. But the basic functionality should be the same.

Start by opening the "Tutorial 2 Sample File.mabf" file located in the Tutorial 2 Sample Files folder.

This is the legal description used for this drawing:

The first thing we are going to do is find and enter the waypoint (latitude/longitude) of our layer's POB (Point of Beginning). In order to draw additional waypoints, we need a reference point. The reference point used by the software is a layer's POB. Since our plot's origin is the southeast corner of the section, we will start there. You can find the latitude/longitude of the section corner either using a GPS unit or by using some other resource. For this tutorial, we will say that our section's corner is located at Lat: 46.680166655, Long: -85.217805261.

Option #1 will show you how to find our layer's POB waypoint if all we have is the lat/long of the section corner.
Option #2 assumes that we already know our layer's POB waypoint.
Both options are shown to demonstrate different techniques for finding and entering a layer's POB lat/long.

Option #1

To start, choose Latitude/Longitude Calculator from the Calculate menu. This will open the Latitude Longitude Calculator form.

Enter the section corner's waypoint into Point 1.
Press the Project Point button. This will bring up the Project Waypoint form.

The starting waypoint data will already be entered. We know from our legal description that our plot's POB is 410 feet west of the section corner. So enter in 270 degrees and 410 feet, then press the Find Waypoint button.

Point 2 will now be filled with the waypoint data for our plot's POB.

Choose Set Current Layer POB to Lat/Long from the Options menu. This will set the layer's POB to the waypoint detailed in Point 2.

Press the Close button to close the Latitude Longitude Calculator form.

Option #2

If you already know that layer's POB, you can enter it directly by choosing Set Current Layer POB Lat/Long from the Layer's menu. This will bring up the POB Lat/Long form.

Enter the POB's Lat/Long and press the Set button.

Next->

Now we are ready to set our other waypoints.

Choose the Layer tab from the tab panel on the main screen.

Press the Waypoints button.
This will bring up the Waypoints and Tracks form.

At this point we could enter our waypoint by hand, but it is much easier to import waypoints from a GPX file. So we will do it that way. Note: Importing waypoints requires the Pro version. If you do not have the Pro version, you can enter the waypoint by hand using these coordinates (lat= 46.681 lon= -85.2217)

Choose Import GPX File as Waypoints from the File menu.
Browse to the Tutorial 2 Sample Files folder and choose the "Tutorial 2 Waypoints.gpx" file.
At this point you can choose to import the description field from either the name field or the description field of the GPX file. Different software stores these two fields differently. Our example GPX file uses the description field, so make sure that radio button is selected and press the Continue button.

At this point you should have imported 1 waypoint called Camp Site.

Click on the blue X icon to get a menu showing additional waypoint icons. Choose the red ball icon.

Now press the Save and Close button to save the changes to the waypoints and to close the waypoints form.

Your drawing should now look like this: