Adding a Plat

Manual Entry

GPS Stakeout offers two distinct ways to place a plat without deed text or a PLSS lookup: the Manual tab (enter boundary legs by bearing and distance) and Set Location Manually (pin any corner to a specific GPS coordinate). They serve different purposes and can be used together.

Method 1 — Manual tab: enter boundary legs

The Manual tab defines the shape of your plat by entering each boundary line as a bearing and distance — the same metes-and-bounds calls you'd read in a deed, but entered one at a time instead of parsed from text. Use this when you have a survey plat, a hand-drawn map with bearings, or you simply know the leg measurements for the property.

What is a bearing? A bearing describes a direction as an angle measured from North or South toward East or West. "N 45°30′00″ E" means: start facing North, rotate 45 degrees and 30 minutes toward the East. Combined with a distance in feet, each leg defines one side of the property boundary.

Tap + and choose the Manual tab

From the main plat list, tap +. The New Plat sheet opens with tabs across the top — Deed Text, Line, PLSS, Manual, and KML. Tap Manual.

You'll see optional fields for survey date, bearing basis, and notes — fill these in if you have them, or leave them blank.

Enter each leg in order

Tap Add leg. Each leg has five inputs that together describe one boundary line:

N or S — which hemisphere the bearing starts from. Toggle to N (North) or S (South).

Deg / Min / Sec — the angle from North or South, in degrees, minutes, and seconds. A pure cardinal direction (due East or West) uses 90°. Due North or South uses 0°.

E or W — which direction the angle rotates toward. Toggle to E (East) or W (West). For due North or due South the E/W toggle is ignored.

Distance — the length of this leg in feet.

Example: the deed call "thence N 45°30′00″ E, 250 feet" is entered as: N, 45, 30, 00, E, 250.

Cardinal shorthand: due East = N, 90, 0, 0, E · due West = N, 90, 0, 0, W · due North = N, 0, 0, 0 · due South = S, 0, 0, 0.

Add legs in order around the boundary — the app connects them in sequence, Corner 1 → Corner 2 → Corner 3, and so on, closing back to Corner 1 on the last leg.

Example A — Simple rectangular lot (4 corners)

Leg	N/S	Deg	Min	E/W	Distance (ft)	Deed call equivalent
1	N	89	45	E	400.00	N 89°45′00″ E, 400 ft
2	S	00	15	E	250.00	S 00°15′00″ E, 250 ft
3	S	89	45	W	400.00	S 89°45′00″ W, 400 ft
4	N	00	15	W	250.00	N 00°15′00″ W, 250 ft

This closes back to Corner 1 exactly. The lot is 400 × 250 ft (2.30 acres) oriented nearly east–west.

Example B — L-shaped lot (6 corners)

Leg	N/S	Deg	Min	E/W	Distance (ft)	Deed call equivalent
1	N	89	30	E	300.00	N 89°30′00″ E, 300 ft
2	S	00	30	E	150.00	S 00°30′00″ E, 150 ft
3	N	89	30	E	200.00	N 89°30′00″ E, 200 ft
4	S	00	30	E	200.00	S 00°30′00″ E, 200 ft
5	S	89	30	W	500.00	S 89°30′00″ W, 500 ft
6	N	00	30	W	350.00	N 00°30′00″ W, 350 ft

An L-shaped lot with a notch cut from the lower-right corner. Legs 1–3 run along the top; legs 4–6 return along the combined bottom and left side. This tests the parser's handling of interior angle points.

Name and save

Enter a plat name and tap Save Plat. The app computes all corner positions relative to Corner 1. The corners exist but have no real-world location yet — that happens in the next step.

Anchor Corner 1 to the real world

Open the plat, go to the Corners tab, and tap Corner 1. You have two options:

Set as Reference (I'm Here) — stand physically at Corner 1 and tap this. The app uses your current GPS position to anchor the entire plat. All other corners shift to match.

Set Location Manually… — type in known coordinates for Corner 1 (from a survey document, county GIS, or Google Maps). The plat anchors to those coordinates without needing a GPS fix. See Method 2 below for full details on this option.

Tip: If your GPS accuracy is poor when you anchor (red or yellow pill), wait for a better fix. One accurate anchor makes every subsequent corner accurate.

After editing legs: If you correct a bearing or distance in the leg list after the plat is already anchored, the map will continue to show the old geometry. To see the corrected plat on the map, tap Clear GPS Position on Corner 1, then re-anchor using Set as Reference or Set Location Manually. The leg edits are saved immediately — only the map display needs to be refreshed by re-anchoring.

Method 2 — Set Location Manually: pin a corner by coordinates

This feature lets you anchor any corner to a specific latitude/longitude — without standing at it and without needing a live GPS fix. You can use it as the primary anchor for a plat entered via the Manual tab, or to override and improve an anchor set with GPS.

When to use it

You have coordinates from a survey document. Licensed surveyors often include GPS coordinates in their plat documents. Enter those coordinates for the relevant corner and your plat is anchored to survey-grade data from the start.

You looked up the property on county GIS. Most county assessor or tax parcel GIS websites let you click on a corner and read its coordinates. Look up the parcel before you leave the house, note the coordinates for Corner 1, and anchor the plat before you even arrive in the field.

Corner 1 is physically inaccessible. If Corner 1 is behind a locked gate, underwater, or on a cliff face, you can't stand there to set a GPS anchor. If you have coordinates for any other corner — even Corner 3 or Corner 4 — anchor that corner manually and navigate from there.

You want to verify or improve a GPS anchor. After anchoring at Corner 1 with GPS, you can manually set another corner's location using known coordinates from a survey. If the two agree within a few feet, your GPS anchor was solid. If they disagree significantly, you can re-anchor using the survey coordinates instead.

How to use it

Open the Corners tab and tap a corner

Inside any saved plat, tap the Corners tab. Tap the corner whose location you want to set. The corner callout popup appears with three options: Set as Reference, Set Location Manually…, and Navigate Here.

Tap "Set Location Manually…"

A sheet slides up with two fields: Latitude and Longitude. Enter coordinates in decimal degrees.

Format: Decimal degrees only — for example, 34.052235 and -84.153648. Longitude is always negative for US locations (west of the prime meridian). Do not use degrees/minutes/seconds here.

Google Maps shortcut: Open Google Maps, find the corner location in satellite view, then long-press the spot. The coordinates appear at the top of the screen — tap them to copy. Switch back to GPS Stakeout and paste into the Latitude and Longitude fields.

Tap Set

The app anchors the plat to those coordinates. All corner positions — for every corner in the plat — update immediately based on the new anchor. You can now navigate to any corner.

Accuracy note: Coordinates copied from Google Maps satellite imagery are typically accurate to 3–5 meters. County GIS coordinates are often 1–3 meters. Licensed survey GPS coordinates can be sub-foot. The better your source, the tighter the navigation.

Choosing between the two methods

Both methods can be combined. A common workflow: enter a plat using the Manual tab with bearings from a survey plat, then anchor Corner 1 using the surveyor's GPS coordinates via Set Location Manually. This gives you the full geometry of the survey anchored to the surveyor's own reference point — the most accurate result short of a full re-survey.

If you only have a rough idea of where the property is (no deed, no coordinates), use Deed Text or PLSS instead — or use the Manual tab with estimated bearings and anchor with GPS once you locate a visible monument in the field.

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