This might be a question, but is more likely a request/suggestion.
I believe that Carlson needs to improve/refine its handling of grid/ground translations. What the software really needs, to be an effective tool, is to offer options or switches that allow coordinates, inverses, and labels to be drawn or expressed as ground, grid, or both. Linework should have the option to be drawn as grid or ground, though I imagine ground would be the default. This goes for the entering of data too. For instance, if you are entering a deed or a plat into the system and it is correctly coordinated then you should be entering a grid coordinate and ground distances - i.e. you should not be getting precise ground distance by inversing the coordinates, which is the case with many plats. Another example would be that if you have 2,000.0000 feet of centerline to stake, the grid coordinates you upload into the collector should not be mathematically 2,000.0000 feet apart, but typically a small amount longer or shorter depending on your relation to the meridian and parallel lines.
Now I know you can set a scale factor. That is an incorrect application of grid-to-ground. While it works as a perfectly fine band-aid in most cases, the reality is that each and every unique geographic location has its own scale factor, albeit the change may be in the 0.00001 decimal. If my GPS collector can compute the proper State Plane or UTM coordinate for each location, applying a constantly changing scale factor, I certainly expect my full blown surveying/engineering suite to do the same.
This issue has been poorly understood by many and from my experience poorly addressed by most software offerings. This needs to change to better serve our future.
I see properly georeferenced data as critical in the future because GIS - more precisely high-accuracy GIS - will not be going away. I applaud Carlson for joining with ESRI and I cannot wait to see Carlson running on ArcView. To effectively work with the GIS, Carlson will need to address the issues I have stated. I think it is way past due that someone address this problem for AutoCAD, IntelliCADD, or MicroStation too.
What do you think? Comments and discussion are welcomed. I believe it is time to tackle this issue head-on and get the right solution as soon as possible.