More on Electronic Recording of Plans

In response to my earlier blog entry on plans, I've already heard from an expert in electronic recording who tells me that filing plans electronically is feasible although no one in the country is doing it yet as far as we can tell. It certainly is an interesting concept, one that we'll continue to pursue. But I was really talking about something much simpler. My initial idea was to have an electronic version of the plan submitted to the registry in addition to (not instead of) the hard copy. Here's the rationale: the surveyers and civil engineers create the plans on computers. They print a hard copy of the plan on "mylar" a plasticy substance much like super-thick plastic wrap for those of you unfamiliar with it. The mylar version is brought to the registry and recorded. At the registry, we scan the mylar, creating an electronic version for our customers to use on our computers and over the Internet. This electronic file to hard copy back to electronic file process is very inefficient. Why can't we just get the computer file that was used to produce the hard copy along with the hard copy. That way, the electronic image on our computers would be much crisper and easier to read. Just a thought.