Tunnel workflow

From Fs_wiki

A quick outline to demonstrate the recent changes.

Workspace directory

Use File | Open XMLdir... to select your working directory. Tunnel can have several sketches open at the same time, like a word-processor. In fact it needs to in order to import drawings from smaller areas of the cave into the master sketch.

Doing it by directory is for legacy reasons. In the future you'll open the files individually, like in a word-processor.

Creating a new survey sketch

Use Tunnel | New Empty Sketch to start a fresh drawing area. You can open older sketches by double-clicking on them where they appear in the right hand panel.

The commands under the Import menu are used for bringing in drawings and data from outside sources.

Use Import | Import Survex File to bring in the text data from a survex file into your sketch. The text will appear in the invisible label associated to an S-shaped connective line. (Do it and you'll see what it means.) The whole survex data is in the label window on the left. If you change the type of the label from "Survey", which is rendered as invisible, you'll see your entire unwound survex file appearing as one big tall label which you can zoom out to see.

By attaching the data to a line, it gets saved with the sketch and can be selected using the standard drawing functions. You can also edit this text as the label.

In the future we want a survex text editor with syntax highlighting. It'll be possible to run it without creating a .svx file.

Tunnel can call survex directly if the path is set up. Look in symbols/fontcolours.xml for the setting. Then use Import | Wireframe view to view the survex data in Aven. If it's not available, Import | Use Survex will be deselected and the native Tunnel wireframe view will be shown. Note, Tunnel does not do loop closure error distribution.

Finally, with one of these paths with the survey on it, use Import | Import Centreline to bring in the centreline data into your sketch.

Now we can get to work.

Background images

With the Background tab (middle of left hand pane) selected, click on Add Image. You can do Positioning the Background using the Shift Ground button.

Note that the background image is outlined with a connective line so you can see it. You can import more than one image and select between them by selecting the appropriate rectangle shaped box and clicking on Select Image

These image positions will be imported when you bring it into the master sketch so your originals will still be available, even after the sketches have been distorted to fit.