In the United States of America, the metes-and-bounds system is used to describe land boundaries on deeds. A deed is a legal document that transfers ownership of property from one party to another and is recorded with the local government such as the county recorder's office.
Metes-and-bounds descriptions define parcel boundaries using physical features, references to other parcel corners, and COGO dimensions. Parcel boundaries are typically described in a sequence starting from a commencement point or a point-of-beginning and returning to the same point. Straight lines are described using directions and a distances, while curved lines are described using directions, radii, and other curve parameters such as an arc lengths, chord lengths or delta angles. For example, a boundary might be described as running North 54°32'10' East with a distance of 100.23 feet.
A typical deed contains multiple courses depicting the boundaries of a parcel or the boundaries of more than one parcel. Boundaries start from a well established point-of-beginning and loop back to the same point-of-beginning.
COGO Reader
To construct parcels from deeds in the parcel fabric, deed courses can be manually typed as COGO dimensions into the Traverse tool. This can be a labor-intensive process that can be prone to data entry errors particularly when there is a large amount of courses to type for a parcel.
The COGO Reader tool 
in the parcel fabric can improve this process by automatically extracting text from deed images and converting it into numerical COGO dimensions. The COGO Reader tool uses Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology to extract text and convert it to numerical values and works best with deeds containing simple land descriptions.
Note:
The COGO Reader tool supports deeds with metes-and-bounds descriptions from the United States only. Deeds must be in English. The COGO Reader tool does not support formats of legal documents from other countries.
Text extraction and character recognition by the COGO Reader tool depends on the quality and content of the scanned image. The COGO Reader tool might also have difficulty extracting text from complex legal descriptions.
The following issues on a scanned image can affect text extraction:
- Cursive text—OCR technology may have difficulty extracting and recognizing characters in cursive.
- Watermarks—Watermarks can blur or obscure numbers and text.
- Scanning artifacts—This can include marks, blurring, and various other scan issues.
Open a deed and extract dimensions
To open a deed and extract COGO dimensions, create an active record, and click COGO Reader in the Tools gallery under Parcel on the Parcel Record Workflows tab. Click Open a deed image 
and browse to the location of the deed. Deed image formats can be PDF, TIFF, or other common image formats such as PNG or JPG.
In the COGO Reader tool, the deed image is loaded in the first pane, the extracted text is loaded in the middle pane, and the converted COGO dimensions are displayed in the last pane.
Deed image
Use the navigation and zoom tools to zoom in and out of the deed image, fit the deed image to the pane window, and scroll between pages of the deed image. The extracted text in the middle pane will scroll to match the current view of the deed. For example, if you are zoomed in to a page of the deed, the extract text of that page is displayed in the middle pane.
Extracted text
The extracted text is the text the OCR extracted from the deed image. Text that is used for the generation of COGO dimensions is highlighted. This allows you to identify incorrect COGO dimensions that were generated from incorrectly extracted text.
Typically, a parcel described on a deed might have a commencement point and a point of beginning. In the parcel fabric, a connection line starts at a commencement point and connects to the point of beginning of the parcel. If the deed references a commencement point and a point of beginning, these words will be highlighted.
If either the commencement point or the point of beginning has coordinates, the map will pan to the coordinates and add a red vertex representing those coordinates. Typically, deeds do not contain coordinate information and you will most likely need to pan and zoom to the location of the deed you are processing. You also need to set the commencement point or the point of beginning for the generated COGO dimensions.
You can edit the extracted text to improve the generation of COGO dimensions. See the workflow in the Review and edit extracted text to improve generated dimensions section below.
Generated COGO dimensions
COGO dimensions generated from the extracted text are displayed in a COGO grid. If there is a commencement point that has measurements to a point of beginning, the generated COGO dimensions for the measurements are represented as connection lines from the commencement point to the point of beginning.
COGO dimensions generated for a loop of parcel boundary lines are displayed in the COGO grid under parcels. The misclose information indicates whether the generated dimensions successfully formed a closed loop. Large misclose values indicate either missing or incorrectly generated dimensions. Editing the extracted text and regenerating the COGO dimensions can improve the final resulting dimensions. See the Review and edit extracted text to improve generated dimensions workflow in the section below.
If COGO dimensions have been successfully generated from the extracted text, a preview of the parcel boundary lines are displayed in a preview pane below the misclose information.
Add COGO courses to the map
COGO dimensions generated from the extracted text are displayed in read-only grid views in the first pane. If multiple parcels were detected, dimensions generated for each parcel are displayed in separate tabs in the pane.
To add COGO courses to the map, complete the following steps:
- Examine the misclose information for each parcel generated from the scanned deed.
- If the misclose values are acceptable, click Set Start to set a commencement point or point of beginning for the parcel lines.
If the misclose values are not acceptable, follow the steps in the Edit extracted text to improve generated dimensions section below.
- Choose the line template to use from the Template drop-down box.
The line template is the parcel type line template.
- Click Add to Map under the COGO grid to add the COGO courses as parcel lines to the map.
- After adding the parcel lines, create seeds and build parcels.
Review and edit extracted text to improve generated dimensions
Depending on the quality of the scanned deed image, the extracted text can be affected by artifacts, blurred text, and poor scan quality. This can result in missing numbers, missing degree or minute symbols, and various other erroneous characters appearing in the extracted text. Large and unacceptable misclose values indicate that COGO dimensions should be reviewed and edited.
To edit the extracted text and regenerate COGO dimensions, complete the following steps:
- In either the Connection lines or Parcel courses COGO grids, select the course you want to review and edit.
The middle pane and the first deed pane automatically pan to and highlight the extracted text and the deed text, respectively, that represent the selected course. The direction and distance dimensions in the extracted text may be displayed in blue. Extracted text that has artifacts affecting it may result in the dimensions not being displayed in different colors.
- Compare the extracted text with the scanned text in the deed image if necessary.
You can scroll up and down, and the scanned deed and extracted text panes remain in sync.
- Edit the extracted text to match the dimensions in the scanned text if necessary.
Examples of edits can include the following:
- Delete erroneous characters such as commas and exclamation points. For example, a minute symbol (') may have been extracted as a comma (,).
- Add the correct characters and symbols so that extracted dimensions are successfully converted to COGO dimensions. For example, add minute characters, seconds characters, and degree symbols. Click the Insert a degree symbol button
at the top of the middle pane to insert a degree symbol next to a number. - Correct the spelling of curve parameters and direction words such as south, north, and easterly.
- If you made edits to the extracted text, click the Extract COGO Courses button
at the top of the middle pane to regenerate the COGO dimensions and update the misclose information.
Send to traverse tool
The COGO grid views in the COGO Reader tool are read-only. If the extraction failed to generate correct COGO dimensions, the COGO courses can be sent to the Traverse tool for additional editing. In these cases, click the Send courses to the traverse dialog tool 
above the traverse grid to send the generated COGO dimensions to the Traverse tool. Before sending courses to the Traverse tool, ensure that you set a starting point for the traverse.
In the Traverse tool, dimensions can be edited and closure can be adjusted using different closure methods.