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n4ce Point and Feature Editing
So you have your survey on the screen, in the Model editor - so what do you do now? Before going into functions accessed from the graphics environment, let us introduce Duality of Display and Edit. This is the ability to see and change detail in different environments, namely Grid (Spreadsheet) or Graphics.
The twin view shown above has been created by using the View Tiles Vertically option when right clicking on a blank area on the Task Bar. Just a thought here. Fancy expanding your desktop by using two screens? If your laptop or desktop graphics card supports this feature, it works beautifully with n4ce.
The menu bar (left window) contains access to tools for handling Points, Features, DTMs, Contours, and Sections. Additional Icon Bars provide for Zooming, Query and access to the 3D Viewer.
Tools within the View menu allow you to create your own customised Icon bars. Hot keys are available.
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The Grid (right window) edit options are very useful. Items in cells can be changed individually or in blocks. The normal block select options using CTRL and SHIFT are used to highlight rows, as shown opposite.
Edits are column sensitive so if you right click over the height column as shown here you will get edits related to level detail.
Some options like Cut, Copy, Paste and Append are common to all edit menus, but others like Find, Swap, Offset and Set to NULL are related to the column you're in.
The Swap option is particularly useful when surveying building frontages, allowing you to flip the Z and Y axis.
Export and Print options here relate to the highlighted points in the Grid.
Note: edits will affect detail attached to these points, such as features and DTM triangles. |
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Once you are in graphics, another group of tools are available to you including a number of useful Query options, shown above, including Point, Line, Distance, Perp Offset, Area, DTM and CAD (Backcloth).
An Attribute tab in the Query Point Dialog allows access to Dimensions, Comma Codes and Remarks. You will also note that there is a button giving direct access to the Code Table for this point. |
Query Point, shown here, is particularly useful since it can be used as a mini editor changing Number, Code or Coordinates. |
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The Points menu, in graphics, contains options for finding points by point number. Numbers can be alpha numeric and do not have to be unique.
Further options are available for Delete, Move, Rotate and Insert points. Some options like Delete and Move work with the Pick options, namely Element and Rectangle.
The options shown at the bottom of this menu control the editing of annotation and include Delete, Move and Rotate. |
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The Insert options allow to adding additional points to a model. The left hand portion of the dialog shown opposite deals with positioning whilst the centre deals with height determination, which are varied including taking levels of another DTM in the project.
Note: the Lock options are useful here especially if you have detail in a Backcloth. Indicated Text is useful here. |
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The Transformation option allows the data conversion from one coordinate system into another using either two points or multi-point selection. This can be done in either graphics or the station/point/model grids.
The two-point option is simply a slide and rotate and is particularly useful if you simply wish to re-orientate your model to lie in a particular direction.
The multi-point option uses a least squares Helmert transformation, allowing scale changes, displaying goodness of fit.
You will be able to store the transformation and apply it to another data folder - like CAD. |
Features appear by cross-referencing with the Feature Code Table, generating Points, Lines, Symbols, Shapes, Symbols and Annotation, each with its own Layer, Style, Size and Colour. Changing code definitions will change graphical views.
A Find Feature is provided together with options to show Undefined Code and Used Features.
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Options are also available to Create new features, Recode and Remove/Delete features. |
The Features menu also contains sub menus for Lines and Symbols. These have additional edit options, for example Close/Open lines to form polygons, Curve fitting and Apex add, remove and append. |
