This tab allows you to set configuration options for the stakeout routines.

- Precision: Use this to control the decimal precision reported during stakeout routines.
- Store Data Note File: This option specifies whether or not to store the stakeout data in the note file (.NOT) for the current job. At the end of staking out a point, there is an option to store the staked coordinates in the current job. Note (.NOT) files are associated with points, so you must store the point to also store the cutsheet note. This additional data includes the target coordinates for reference. Keep in mind that the cut and fill data is also stored in the raw file. You can also store an ASCII cutsheet file using the button at the bottom of the dialog, so storing into the note file is somewhat redundant. SurvCE does not show the cutsheet note within List Points (notes turned on), since this feature only shows notes that begin with “Note:” The one advantage of the note file is that notes are viewable in association with points using Carlson Software office products such as Carlson SurvCadd, Carlson Survey, or Carlson Survey Desktop. See command Cutsheet Report, option Note File.
- Control File Points have Priority for Stakeout: This option, which applies to both total stations and GPS, will give priority to the control file point during stakeout, when the point requested exists in both the current file and the control file.
Note: Use this option with care. You may not realize that this option is set, and will discover that directions to your expected stakeout point of 10 are really based on a point 10 from another file altogether – the control file.
- Use Automatic Descriptions: This allows you to have descriptions automatically entered for staked locations based on the settings defined by the Auto Descriptions dialog.
Stake Offset Desc
This allows you to define what the ID is called for each offset location in the Stake Offset routine.

Auto Descriptions
This button allows you to configure the point description when you store points in stakeout. The very act of storing a staked point is optional. You can stake a point or a station and offset, but must click Store Point within the stakeout screens to actually store a point. If you do choose to store the point, the description is configurable. See image below.

A user in Australia or Great Britain might want to change the STA for “Station” to CH for “Chainage”. An example of a typical stake description, based on your configuration settings, is shown at the bottom left of the screen. The first line (STK1317 CB#22 CUT 2.100) represents a typical Stake Point description, where CB#22 is the description you would enter, and the rest is governed by your Stake Description settings. Similarly, if centerline-based stakeout is being conducted, then the lower line would apply. The description (CL in this case) is the only aspect entered by the user in the field during stakeout. All the rest is reported based on your Stake Description settings. If you turn off an item, note how it will not appear in the reported “sample” description. The “+” in the station can also be configured to appear or not appear, but this is set globally within the Units Tab of Job Settings. The behavior of the On/Off, Up/Down and Update buttons is identical to that discussed above in the Cutsheet discussion.
Other routines, particularly Cross Section Survey and Slope Staking (part of the Roading features), have their own settings for descriptions. When any automatic description for stakeout is turned on, the program will no longer default to the last-entered description; it will use the “automatic” description instead. If you type a new description, you will turn off the “automatic” stakeout description. If you delete the default (new) description, the program will return to using the automatic stakeout description. To delete, you can simply place the cursor in the description field and hit the delete key — there is no need to first highlight the description.
Alignment Settings
This dialog allows the user to define how all alignments and roads are staked.
Alignment Tab
- Increment from Starting Station: For centerlines that start on an “odd” station such as 1020 (10+20 in U.S. stationing format), this option would conduct stakeout by interval measured from station 1020. So a 50 interval stakeout, instead of being 1050, 1100, 1150 would be 1020, 1070, 1120, etc.
- Extend Alignments: This projects a tangent line off of the first and last segments of the alignment for extending them beyond their defined limits.
- Stake Start and End Stations: This instructs the software to stop at these critical locations even when they do not fall on the even station.
- Stake CL Alignment Points: This instructs the software to stop at these critical locations even when they do not fall on the even station.
- Stake Profile Points: This instructs the software to stop at these critical locations even when they do not fall on the even station.
- Stake High and Low Points: This instructs the software to stop at these critical locations even when they do not fall on the even station.
- Combine Station Equations: This allows the user to ignore the station equations so that the station reflects the length of the alignment.
- Limit Station Range: When selected, the program will not automatically advance beyond the natural start and end of a given centerline.
- Use Station and Offset List: Use this option to load a predefined list of stations and offsets. This allows the Stake Offset routine to use a pre-defined list of station, offset, and elevation information as defined by the user. This is sometimes referred to as “Cutsheet” list. An ASCII file with a .CUT file extension is required. The file format is shown below:
Station, Offset, Elevation, Description, as in
20100, -11.5, 102.34,
20109.23, -11.5, 102.35, PC

Road Tab
- Next icon advances to: This defines how the "Next" icon will behave. It can advance to the next station or the next offset location.
- Stake Section File Locations: This instructs the software to stop at these critical locations even when they do not fall on the even station.
- Sections Include Catch Points: This instructs the software whether or not the design sections were extracted to the shoulder or the design catch location. If the design catch location is included in the section, the software will automatically determine the pivot point at the next interior section point for slope staking purposes. The design slope ratio will be determined by the last two points in the section.
- Always Zoom All: This zooms the preview window automatically to fit the extents of the current section.
- Zoom In/Out: This determines the zoom increment of the preview window.
- Vertical Scale: This allows the user to exaggerate the scale vertically.
Cutsheets
There can be as many as three cutsheet files active at one time, one for point staking cutsheets, one for centerline staking cutsheets and one for slope stake cutsheets. All three cutsheet files can be given distinct names, and any of the three can be turned on or off for purposes of storing. It is even possible to have a fourth, named, cutsheet file if cutsheets are turned on within Cross Section Survey in the Roading menu. And finally, if cutsheets are reported from the raw file, a distinct new name can be assigned prior to recalling the raw file and creating the cutsheet file. All cutsheet files are ASCII and can be viewed in a text editor or an Excel Spreadsheet.
The Cutsheets button leads to the following options:

- Point Stakes: Toggling this option on enables writing to the selected cutsheet file. The buttons allow the user to select the file, customize the Point Cutsheet report format as well as edit and view the current point cutsheet file. This applies to the command Stake Points.
- Alignment Stakes: Toggling this option on enables writing to the selected cutsheet file. The buttons allow the user to select the file, customize the Alignment Cutsheet report format, and edit and view the current alignment cutsheet file. This applies to commands within Stake Line/Arc, and to Offset Stakeout, Point Projection and Stake Road (in Roading) and includes station and offset options in the stored file, as well as cut/fill. A special “centerline-style” cutsheet file, containing station and offset information, can be named and saved within the Roading command, Cross Section Survey. This file is viewable in the editor within Set Cl Cutsheet Format, but has no cut/fill values, just “as-built” data. Centerline-based cutsheets have more configurable options in the report, such as Stake Station, Staked Offset, Design Station and Design Offset. The Design Point ID is one of the configurable items to report, and since commands such as Offset Stakeout, Point Projection and Stake Road do not stake out Point IDs, the program uses either the command name (CL for Stake Centerline, PP for Point Projection), offset reference, or template ID as the “design point name”. “RCurb”, for example, would be the name given to the design point in Offset Stakeout for top of curb, right side. This might lead to a variety of ID names for the design point.
- Slope Stakes: Toggling this option on enables writing to the selected cutsheet file. The buttons allow the user to select the file, customize the Slope Stake Cutsheet report format as well as edit and view the current slope stake cutsheet file. This applies only to the commands Stake Slope and Stake Road available within Roading. Slope Stake Cutsheets have an extra option to “Include progressive offsets report”, and also have different options such as “Pivot Offset” , “Slope Ratio” and “Elevation: PP/CP” (Elevation of Pivot Point and/or Offset Point). Note that columns can serve a dual purpose in the slope stake report. If progressive offsets are enabled, the header lines (such as Design Station) are ignored for the additional information, and you obtain the incremental, delta distance and elevation from each point on the section or template from the offset stake to the catch and then all the way into centerline. These last three options allow you to customize the respective output report. To change an item label, highlight the item, change the Header Label field, then tap Update Item. You can select an item in the list and turn it ON or OFF (no reporting). You can also control the order of the report items by using the Move Down and Move Up buttons. Changes must be made prior to starting a new cutsheet file.
- Select File: Tap this button to select the output file. The file name is shown below this button.
Format
Select the format button to configure each cutsheet to your liking. Column order and column headers are completely user-defined and any column can be turned off if not useful.

- Header Label: You can substitute header text of your own choice for the defaults. Here, the text Pt ID was substituted for Design Pt#. Tap Update Item after changing a Header Label. These changes should be done prior to starting a new cutsheet file—they cannot be applied retroactively to a file that already contains information. However, the header line in that file (e.g. Market.txt) can always be edited using Notepad or any text editor to accomplish the change.
- Down-Up: Items in the list can be moved up and down to change their order. For example, if you prefer Fill before Cut in the report, just move Cut down below Fill.
- Cutsheet from Raw: SurvCE automatically stores cutsheet data and header information to the raw file for the job. You can capture and report the cutsheet information directly from the raw file. Before doing this, it is recommended that you start a new cutsheet file, configure the header lines, and order of information as desired, then run “Cutsheet from Raw”.
Edit File
Select this option to edit and review the cutsheet file. Shown below is a point cutsheet file as viewed in the Edit File option. Notice that the vertical bars of the spreadsheet can be moved left and right to condense the display and who more of the header lines. Just pick them in the title line and move them. The Cutsheet editor also includes the ability to insert and delete lines. If you insert a line and enter a Design Elevation and a Stake Elevation, the program will compute the cut or fill. Using the Special button, you can increase or decrease the Pt ID, Design Elevation or Stake Elevation by any desired amount, and the cut or fill will be computed. Do not use the Special button to directly modify the cut or fill.
