Parcel Fabric measurement methods should be clearer

[MarkVolz]

The parcel Fabric Editor should be more clear as to whether or not it is using as recorded, as measured, as fit, or as estimated* distances in the parcel fabric..

Using these definitions for distances:
As recorded:  the legal distance on the plat.
As measured: the actual distance measured by a surveyor.
As fit: the distance of the parcel as it fits into the parcel fabric
As estimated: a way of indicating that the distance on a line is a guess.  This would be a way of allowing a high accuracy on the direction of a line, while indicating that the actual distance is a guess.  This indicator might be used in legals that make a statement "then S 89-29-34 W to the center of the river"

First,
Currently when we add lines in the parcel detail windows there is only one distance that we can enter.  In addition to the measured distance it would be useful to include: 1)  the recorded distance and 2) indicate if the distance is guessed.  Which would be useful if to indicate cases where we are confident about the direction of a line, but not the true distance.

Second,
It would be nice if ESRI was more transparent about how some of the parcel creation tools work including but is not limited to duplicate, merge, and construct from parent tools.  It seems that sometimes the parcel tools will use the distances that were entered in the parent(s) parcel detail window, and other cases the tools use the distances as they fit in the fabric.  I think the latter is quite annoying.   If I construct from parent from two 100 by 100 foot parcels I expect the result to be 200 feet by 100 feet.  Not 199.76 by 100.24.


Thanks

[AmyAndis]

For the first idea the Fabric captures this information in the Accuracy field. Accuracy can be set on Parcel lines,Parcels and plans. For the lines you can enter these values in the construction grid. The accuracy categories are,
Highest=1, After1980=2,1908-1980=3,1881-1907=4,Before1881=5,1800=6,Lowest=7(excluded form the adjustment.)http://resources.arcgis.com/en/help/main/10.2/index.html#//00wp0000001m000000

[AmyAndis]

For the second part can you provide the steps to reproduce the distance issues?

[MarkVolz]

@aandis 

Concerning the first comment, the accuracy field works to indicate if the line is good or bad, but it has a couple flaws.

1. It does not deal well in cases where the true direction is known, but the distance is a guess.
2. Some of the older plats specify distances for some lines but not others.  It would be useful for metadata purposes to indicate if the distance of a line came from a legal description including plats, or if the distance was estimated by the person drawing in the parcel.  This might also be useful to tell ArcGIS not to make a annotation for this specific line.

This is how I reproduced problems on the second part:

1. Started construct from parent, drew in 4 quarter sections in a single section by snapping to the monuments.
2. For testing I changed all of the distances to 3000 feet.
3. I joined the four quarter sections to the fabric.  I snapped the points only to the existing control points.  The scale changed to about .88.  Then from the newly created parent parcels I did the following on all four parcels at the same time:
4. Duplicate:  All of the lines have the expected 3000 feet.
5. Construct from parent:  I used the breakline tool to break the W side of the NW quarter, and the E side of the NE quarter.  No additional lines were added.   I thought everything was fine until I noticed that all of the distances in the SE child parcel changed from 3000 feet to 2996.610 feet, which is close but not right.
6. Merge:  I merged only the two east parcels.  The north to south lines became two 3000 foot segments on each side.  So the total distance is correct.  the east to west segments changed to two 1334.034 feet segments on the north, and two 1321.948 feet segments on the south.

[AmirBar-Maor]

This has been implemented in ArcGIS Pro.

It will not be implemented in ArcMap Parcel Editor.