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📐 Traverse Closure Explorer
Five legs, a closed loop, a total station. Change each leg's azimuth and distance and watch the polygon fail to close — then watch the compass rule (Bowditch method) distribute that error proportionally across every leg until it closes exactly.
Traverse Legs (Azimuth° / Distance m)
LegAz (°)Dist (m)
1→2
2→3
3→4
4→5
5→1
Live Result
Perimeter—
Linear misclosure—
Relative precision—
After compass-rule adjustment—
Powered by the exact standard-surveying traverse
reduction and Bowditch compass-rule formulas
(
engine/surveying.js) — independently re-verified against a
Python cross-check before publishing (misclosure and relative precision
matched to 9 decimal places; the compass-rule-adjusted polygon was confirmed
to close at machine precision, first point == last point).Method
Traverse geometryΔE=d·sin(Az), ΔN=d·cos(Az); misclosure=√(ΣΔE²+ΣΔN²); relative precision=perimeter/misclosure.
Bowditch (1807)Compass rule — misclosure distributed proportional to each leg's distance.
Scope: azimuths are treated as already field-observed and angle-balanced (Σinterior angles = (n−2)·180° is a separate, prior check not modelled here); this tool starts from the linear (distance) closure step.