Tie Card Scanning Project



The Tie Card Scanning Project is a partnership between IGIC, the Indiana Society of Professional Land Surveyors (ISPLS), the Office of the State Geodetic Advisor, the County Surveyors Association and the private sector. Using a grant from the Central Indiana Community Foundation, IGIC and ISPLS purchased equipment for use on the Tie Card Project. The grant paid for laptops and scanners that can be checked out and used by County Surveyors to scan and rename their tie cards. Tie Cards contain the County Surveyors' information about the PLSS corners. Most PLSS corners do not have coordinates. The cards are the source used to locate the PLSS corner.

The geodetic subcommittee created a GIS map layer containing a Point Grid System. The Point Grid does not represent the surveyed locations of the PLSS corner, but it is a way to make Surveyors' Tie Cards accessible in a digital, geographic manner. The workgroup determined that the Tie Card Project would be beneficial in the absence of surveyed coordinates for the PLSS corners. As coordinates become available, we will work toward a PLSS coordinate layer.

Are you a Surveyor? Want to know more? See the latest project update, or email us for more information.


Equipment Check-Out


Fill out the Sign Out sheet


Information for Participants (or the curious)





Documents and Presentations


Cadastral Standard
Map Scale Accuracy Standard
Projections, Datum, Coordinate Systems, and Units of Measure Standard
To see more about GIS standards for Indiana, visit our Standards pages

The Public Land Survey System GIS Framework: How It Applies to Surveyors, Assessors, Recorders and the General Public (March 2007)
Tie Card Scanning Pilot (July 2005)
Tie Card Scanning Project Status (January 2004)
Geodetic Control and Tie Card Scanning Project (March 2003)