Metes and Bounds for Windows

Surveyors, environmental impact researchers, historical impact researchers, cell-phone tower site locators, and real estate developers--these are just a few of the folks who will find real value in this nicely featured application for plotting maps based on survey or GPS data.

Metes and Bounds launches a large window with a row of icon-buttons along the top, a vertical pane with some data controls on the left side, and a large drawing and editing pane taking up most of the window's real estate. A Drawing Wizard automatically opens at launch to prompt the user for the type of drawing he or she wants to develop. The interface design isn't jazzy or overly colorful, but it's very functional and clearly marked so even novice users will quickly understand how to navigate its features. This app performed very well during our tests, and we were very pleased with the features it offered. Entering latitude and longitude was a snap. We particularly appreciated the robust feature set for creating a variety of plots and the editing functionality for manipulating the completed drawings. We liked how we could devise multiple layers for overlapping plots based on latitudinal and longitudinal data or GPS data.

Metes and Bounds includes a link to a series of online tutorials that are nicely designed and fully informative for any novice users getting up and running with this tool box. Likewise, the Help feature is very thorough. The "Unregistered" watermark on the drawing pane may aggravate some users, but that's a minor quibble. The price should be sweet enough for anyone needing to rely on this sort of tool on a frequent basis.