All COGO in TPC is build in. You never leave the program to do a COGO routine. Some COGO happens automatically, like when you enter a radius in a Traverse View and TPC changes that line from a tangent to a curve. Some COGO happens via COGO commands and dialogs. At the bottom of this page you'll find a partial list of COGO tools available in TPC. You can also look under COGO in the table of contents and index. See COGO Commands.
Many of the COGO commands display a dialog where you tell TPC what you want to do. They will include a Save button if the COGO command creates or updates a survey point or a Compute button if the command creates survey data like points and traverses. Most dialogs remain open after you Save or Compute, so you can check your data, Undo the COGO command or repeat the command with additional data. Since the views are synchronized automatically, you will usually see the changes you made to the survey right away. Take a look at the data and if didn't get what you wanted, choose Undo and start over. See Undo GOGO Save and Undo COGO Compute.
Some dialogs include a Summary button. Choose this to record the COGO command's data and results to the active Report.
Other dialogs include a View button. Choose this button to draw a picture of the solution in Drawing View. TPC replaces the current drawing with a temporary drawing showing the COGO results including point labels and line labels. It's a great way to identify which intersection point you want to make sure you got the end of the line you wanted. Click the View button again to close the temporary drawing and return to the one you were working on.
As a rule, TPC has just one instance of each COGO dialog. So for instance, there is just one Rotate dialog. You can close it and re-open it any number of times without loosing any of its data. And since dialogs remember where they were on your desktop, you'll always find them poping up in the last place you used them.
Views that allow Cogo have a pull-down COGO menu at the top of the view and a COGO sub-menu on the context menu that appears when you right click the view.
When you choose a COGO command from a View, TPC uses the data in the view to initialize that command. If you select 2 points in the Points Manager then choose Cogo, Random Inverse from that view, the Random Inverse dialog displays the relationship between those two points. If you highlight a point in a Traverse View and choose Cogo, Random Inverse, the Random Inverse displays the relationship between that highlighted point and the preceeding control point in the traverse.
When you access COGO from TPC's main toolbar or menu, TPC opens the COGO dialog without initializing it's data. If the COGO command has already been opened, it's data is redisplayed when the dialog is opened. Once the dialog is opened, you can change the data you want or work with the data that is already there. This toolbar just provides a common place to access many of the most popular COGO commands.
Some COGO commands like Rotate and Translate, can be used to changed just selected data in a survey or the entire survey. The choice is yours. TPC makes it easy to identify the data that will be affected by listing the options in a pull down list called the What list. See What Data COGO Works With.
Learn to use the Traverses Manager to save time and create consistent results. For example, if you have 3 traverses you need to rotate and translate onto your survey grid, consider selecting thoese 3 traverses in the Traverses Manager then when you rotate and translate, pick '3 Selected items in Traverses Manager' from the What list. All 3 traverses will be modified together, the same way at the same time. Consider this for creating construction set back lines in lots, stationing road centerlines, determineing offsets to an alignment and other COGO routines.
Once you figure out how to selected COGO data from a drawing it may become your favorite method. As a rule, any COGO routine that changes a survey point can be access by right clicking that points symbol or point label in a drawing and choose COGO from the pop-up menu. COGO routines that affect a traverse can also be initiated the same way, by right clicking any drawing object created by the traverse you want and choose COGO from the pop-up menu.
Once you start accessing COGO this way, you also want to learn how TPC can use the selected objects in the drawing to also populate COGO dialogs.
You can recall existing points in a COGO dialog and update their coordinates or you can create new points as needed. See Labeling COGO Points
Many dialogs that allow you to Save a created COGO point also allow you to plot it so you can check it's location to make sure it's right. See Plotting COGO Points
COGO Commands - reference