August 2005 - Therion

bug with joins and comments
by Wookey 26 Aug '05

26 Aug '05

Here's an interesting one. There is something about comments containing the work join that breaks actual join commands - presumably the parser gets confused: I had this in the file: join wilfords1_s4 grumble3_s1 #(grumble3 -> grumble1 join) # wilfords1_s4 grumble2_s3 line joins: join grumb2_s3_l2 wilf1_s4_l2:3 join grumb2_s3_l1 wilf1_s4_l1 With this neither of the joins 'worked' I changed it to: join wilfords1_s4 grumble3_s1 join wilfords1_s4 grumble2_s3 #line joins: # join grumb2_s3_l2 wilf1_s4_l2:3 # join grumb2_s3_l1 wilf1_s4_l1 Now the wilfords1_s4 grumble3_s1 join works, but the wilfords1_s4 grumble2_s3 join still doesn't. Then I changed it back to: join wilfords1_s4 grumble3_s1 # join wilfords1_s4 grumble2_s3 #line joins: join grumb2_s3_l2 wilf1_s4_l2:3 join grumb2_s3_l1 wilf1_s4_l1 to try and isolate the problem. This works the same as above (first join OK, second broken). This doesn't work either (I was hoping it would :-( ) join wilfords1_s4 grumble3_s1 # join wilfords1_s4 grumble2_s3 join grumb2_s3_l2 wilf1_s4_l2:3 join grumb2_s3_l1 wilf1_s4_l1 Prety wierd huh? It really does look like using the word 'join' in a comment breaks things. And what exactly is going on ( I can't quite see a pattern about it affecting the current line or the next line) If you need the whole dataset it's at http://wookware.org/mulu/benarat-therion<date>.zip and the above is in benarat/terikan/terikan.th2 Wookey -- Aleph One Ltd, Bottisham, CAMBRIDGE, CB5 9BA, UK Tel +44 (0) 1223 811679 work: http://www.aleph1.co.uk/ play: http://www.chaos.org.uk/~wookey/

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Bug in overlap setting in layout
by Wookey 23 Aug '05

23 Aug '05

If you set overlap 2 cm in the atlas layout, then each 'page' in the atlas takes 2 pages, the second of which is blank, and the 'overview' thingy in the bottom right-hand corner goes slightly off the bottom of the page. Looks like the extra space needed for the larger overlap is not properly allowed for. Wookey -- Aleph One Ltd, Bottisham, CAMBRIDGE, CB5 9BA, UK Tel +44 (0) 1223 811679 work: http://www.aleph1.co.uk/ play: http://www.chaos.org.uk/~wookey/

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labelling the grid
by Wookey 23 Aug '05

23 Aug '05

Can I make therion put numbers on the edges of the grid to match the co-ordinates used in the dataset? I see various things about grid and page-grid but don't see how to get numbers at the edge of the sheet saying what northing/easting the grid-lines represent. Also I don't fully understand the distinction between grid and page-grid, except that 'grid' shows intersection crosses and 'page-grid' draws full squares - is one aligned with the page, and the other with the co-ordinate system? The thbook could expand upon this point I feel. What I really want is a fullly-drawn grid, aligned with the dataset, and the number the line represents printed at the edge of the page (map), each page (atlas). My current layout is: grid bottom grid-size 200 200 200 m Wookey -- Aleph One Ltd, Bottisham, CAMBRIDGE, CB5 9BA, UK Tel +44 (0) 1223 811679 work: http://www.aleph1.co.uk/ play: http://www.chaos.org.uk/~wookey/

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Problems with areas
by Wookey 19 Aug '05

19 Aug '05

The area control is better than it used to be, but is still a major pain in the arse. I have put very few areas in the Terikan survey because I know they cause trouble. I've just tried putting some in and it was a rather frustrating experience. I'll detail the problems I had so we can decide how to make things more user-friendly. First one question - what to do about areas which join across scraps? Obviously we try to avoid areas which cross scrap joins but cannot always do so. Other considerations like altitude colouring make it difficult, and in a cave which has a lot of mud or water we could find that most scrap joins have areas crossing them. Currently if an area crosses a scrap join we just put an area either side - one in each scrap. This needs a 'border -subtype invisible' line across the passage at the join on _both_ scraps - these lines are directly on top of each other. The problem here is that you can't click on the line which is 'below' so you can't complete one of the areas without first moving the top line to the side temporarily. This is clearly not satisfactory. Is there a better way? If not then selecting the new scrap should move the border line to the 'top' for the purpose of clicking. There is also a big problem with line id's disappearing. I find I sometimes need to split a line (e.g. a very long wall, or a wall passing behind a feature that I want to include in the area boundary (e.g. a mudbank) (if the wall has the same id either side of the mudbank then the mudbank tends to get ignored when setting the area outline). The problem is that if a line has been used in another area anywhere, then splitting it loses the id and breaks the area. When this happens I get an error saying 'id does not exist at line nnnn', but I can see no way to find the offending area in the map editor. I have to find it in the text editor, then try to work out where it is in the map editor, and having both open at once leads to the usual problem of which changes end up getting saved last. Ultimately, so far as the user is concerned id's that have been used shouldn't 'disappear' unless the line is deleted. Obviously there is a problem of knowing which id to use when a line is split but xtherion could probably make a good guess... One other comment - the 'show area' button is useful but it only seems to show 'border' lines, not walls or contours, so it's difficult to know whether an area is broken or not. Bit of a whinge that, sorry - I've just had a rather frustrating hour. Thought it was best to record the problems before I forget. Wookey -- Aleph One Ltd, Bottisham, CAMBRIDGE, CB5 9BA, UK Tel +44 (0) 1223 811679 work: http://www.aleph1.co.uk/ play: http://www.chaos.org.uk/~wookey/

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Scale and Base-scale and font sizes
by Wookey 18 Aug '05

18 Aug '05

I used to have scale 1 2000 base-scale 1 1000 in my layout. That worked OK, but the symbols were very small and the text was microscopic. So I added code metapost fonts_setup(10,16,20,24,28) And that made the text a sensible size. I just changed base scale to read base-scale 1 2000 which makes the symbols a much more sensible size, but makes the text too big. My understanding of these two values is that scale sets the scale of the output (i.e how big the final PDF sheet is in map mode, or how many sheets in atlas mode) , whilst base-scale 'has the same effect as if the map printed in base-scale would be photreduced to the scale' (quote from thbook) But if it was photoreduced then the fonts and symbol size shouldn't change. So I am confused about how this should work. When would I ever want scale and base-scale to be different? Why does changing base-scale effect the size of symbols and text? On a related point I tried doing an atlas version with the defaults (i.e. 1:200) and get loads of 'number too big errors' from metafont. I can see why such a scale is a problem in map mode (page larger than PDF can manage), but in atlas mode the page size is limited to A4 (or whatever) - so why can I not print an atlas (with a lot of sheets) showing the system in high detail? Is it a fundamental problem of the way the PDFs are generated or can it be fixed? Wookey -- Aleph One Ltd, Bottisham, CAMBRIDGE, CB5 9BA, UK Tel +44 (0) 1223 811679 work: http://www.aleph1.co.uk/ play: http://www.chaos.org.uk/~wookey/

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Feedback on 0.3.8 - queries
by Wookey 17 Aug '05

17 Aug '05

OK, and here are some queries I have: You can see the survey these problems refer to here: http://wookware.org/mulu/ terikanaltitudecolour.pdf is the latest, but scrap-coloured (terikanmapcolour.pdf) and grey-shaded (terikan.pdf) versions exist too. I'll put the corresponding therion and survex dataset files there too. 1) Is there a dripline symbol for the entrance extent? Do I use 'overhang'? I tried using overhang and nothing appears (because it is outside the clipped area?) Should I use overhang and add a -outline out option? 2) How can I represent a surface cliff line between a series of caves? I have a lot of cave entrances with a defined cliffline between them. the survey makes a lot more sense if this surface feature can be seen. How can I draw a line on to represent this? 3)What to do when entrance line draws scrap end across to the wrong point (e.g. deception entrance?) In the bottom LH corner of the survey above is 'Deception Cave'. If you look at '1st entrance' you will see the problem I mean. Therion has decided to ignore the last bit of wall and just draw a line across the gap between the nearest points. How do I make a wide, flared entrance like this have the 'correct' entrance area? This may be related to question 1. 4) How is length in legend calculated when data is imported from .3d file? The survey above consists of a lot of scraps round real data and a lot round 'fake' data made from surveys which are nothing but drawings scaled with the scale bar or a few nearby or fake survey stations. The survex .3d file used includes survex data for the whole mountain including another 50km of cave or so. So where is the number in the legend coming from? 5) How do I get rid of the 'dummy' survey surrounding all my data which means the title of the whole thing is 'dummy'. I may have been told this before in which case I apologise for forgetting the answer. 6) When is a label under passage and when over? As you can see I have some of both in this survey. Is it to do with the ordering of walls and labels within the scrap? Or maybe there is an 'ontop' option? I have a couple of more complex queries, but will put those in their own thread. TIA Wookey -- Aleph One Ltd, Bottisham, CAMBRIDGE, CB5 9BA, UK Tel +44 (0) 1223 811679 work: http://www.aleph1.co.uk/ play: http://www.chaos.org.uk/~wookey/

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Wishlist - scrap preview, low-res preview
by Wookey 16 Aug '05

16 Aug '05

The interface needs a better way of previewing scrap names so one can join up a lot of scraps without having to slowly open each file and click about. Being able to see a scrap number somehow without selecting the scrap would also be useful. At the moment if editing a .th2 file to put in joins one needs to close current scrap and open new one, then click on correct part to find out which bit is which. Not sure how best to deal with this problem. Maybe showing scrap-names in the debug ouput would be sufficient. Or a separate low-res output with scraps coloured differently and labelled? The 'without pics' option helps somewhat here, but what I really need is some kind of low-res scrap overview. There is a related problem that the 1.5Mb PDF file now takes at least 2 minutes to render on my 900Mhz laptop. Having some kind of low-res ouput would be generally useful for checking that joins have worked and caves have appeared would be very handy - is that at all practical? I'm not sure where all the time goes. Wookey -- Aleph One Ltd, Bottisham, CAMBRIDGE, CB5 9BA, UK Tel +44 (0) 1223 811679 work: http://www.aleph1.co.uk/ play: http://www.chaos.org.uk/~wookey/

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questions on therion
by Wolfgang Zillig 16 Aug '05

16 Aug '05

Hello, I'm not really using therion yet (there were always other people who draw the caves ;-) but that will change propably. a) I try to get an overlay of the centreline on a scanned topographical map but I always get an error ( test.th [47] -- number expected -- end) but I don't know where to insert more numbers examplecode: surface bitmap ur.png [1 11 211065.0 2139614.0 6310 4474 237623.0 2158455.0 meters] grid-units meters grid 211000.0 2139000.0 20000.0 15000.0 2 2 10.0 10.0 10.0 10.0 end surface b) at loops: is the standard error for the measurement devices included when the loops are closed? IE when more than one GPS measurements (with high errors are used to fix the cave)? Thanks for any help Wolfgang

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changed thconfig files not noticed
by Wookey 12 Aug '05

12 Aug '05

Therion now notices if you have edited a file externmally and asks what do about it. However this doesn't seem to work for thconfig files. If I have an xtherion open (and have processed data so it has a thconfig file open/referenced) then if I edit a thconfig file externally, then hit F9 again to reprocess - the thconfig in xtherion overwrites the modified thconfig on disk. It would be nice if xtherion noticed the changed thconfig file and used that, or at least asked before overwriting the modified one. (this is with 0.3.8) Wookey -- Aleph One Ltd, Bottisham, CAMBRIDGE, CB5 9BA, UK Tel +44 (0) 1223 811679 work: http://www.aleph1.co.uk/ play: http://www.chaos.org.uk/~wookey/

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PDF viewing comments
by Wookey 10 Aug '05

10 Aug '05

I have noticed that waterflow -subtype presumed symbols in the 'Blue Moonlight bay' area (top right hand corner). Appears fine in xpdf, but not at all in gpdf. Do they come out in acrobat? What is going on here? Someone else remarked that it was nice to have layers appear as 'bookmarks' and that acrobat could do this. It would be nice to have each 'map' appear in the 'bookmarks' list (so you could easily move to it) and maybe be a separate PDF 'layer'. I know almost nothing about PDF and maybe this is a bad idea, but I pass it on in case it is helpful. Wookey -- Aleph One Ltd, Bottisham, CAMBRIDGE, CB5 9BA, UK Tel +44 (0) 1223 811679 work: http://www.aleph1.co.uk/ play: http://www.chaos.org.uk/~wookey/

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