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vegetation type, historic topo maps and parcel boundaries. Footnotes:
When these parcel boundaries are projected true scale through 1. For more on this, see this video where I explain that boundary
smartphone screens or AR glasses they will not be projected onto points (dimensionless) and boundary lines (no width) are
their exact locations. Without some visualization of positional invisible abstractions: https://tinyurl.com/y57faz7z
uncertainty, these AR boundaries will cause misinterpretations
and confusion. The advantages of using AR glasses for survey 2. In this video I explain the fallacy of exact measurements: https://
fieldwork also will continue to grow. For all these reasons, it tinyurl.com/y5delov4
is prudent for surveyors to anticipate these AR problems and 3. I proposed just such a standard in the May 2018 issue of
benefits. A committee of leading professional surveyors should Surveying and Land Information Science. See also http://edac.
develop a narrative to best frame the problem to the public as unm.edu/projects/surveypage.
well as formulate an approach to organizing current and future 4. See link to example ESRI application at https://tinyurl.com/
digital data. Surveyors can seize the opportunity to create and y2ro5d9w.
maintain properly published parcel geometries which include
positional uncertainties and to work with software engineers to About the Author: Dennis McKay is a retired land
effectively render visualizations of these uncertainties through surveyor who worked for decades with the Bureau of
augmented and virtual reality platforms. Land Management in Arizona and New Mexico,

Editor’s Note: Author Dennis McKay has published a series much of the time closely involved in developing
of videos that can be found on YouTube. You can find them and improving the Geographic Coordinate
here: https://www.youtube.com/user/dmckay28/videos or by DataBase. He lives in the Southern California desert with his wife,
searching “SurveyorThink” or his user name “dmckay 28” on Goldhara. They spend their summers far from home - camping and
www.youtube.com. photographing beautiful places. Dennis can be reached for comment
at denniskmckay@yahoo.com.

Reprinted with permission from Surveyor California, issue #192

12 EMPIRE STATE SURVEYOR / VOL. 57 • NO 2 / 2021 • MARCH/APRIL