Surveying

Latitude and Departure

The north-south and east-west components of a traverse line, L·cos(bearing) and L·sin(bearing).

Each course of a traverse can be split into a latitude, its projection on the north-south axis, and a departure, its projection on the east-west axis. North and east are positive. Adding them course by course carries coordinates around the traverse.

For a closed traverse the latitudes and the departures should each sum to zero. What is left over is the misclosure; its length divided by the traverse perimeter is the precision, and the compass rule distributes the correction in proportion to each course’s length.

How much of the FE Civil exam is Surveying?