June 2021 - Therion

Re: [Therion] Point altitude/deph, Help !
by Xavier Robert 28 Jun '22

28 Jun '22

Hi all, I think I have found a trick. The other Xavier led me to the right tracks, thanks a lot ! Finally, this is quite simple with the point altitude, and no need to change anything inside the : - If we use the point altitude only with the option -align, we get the altitude - If we use the point altitude with the options -align and -value [-1004 m] where 1004 is the altitude of the main entrance, we print the depth only for that point (Do not forget the " - " before the altitude of the main entrance), and thus, we do not erase the classic point altitude. The only (small) limits are : * If the main entrance changes, we need to manually update ALL the points that print the depth. But that should not be be everyday, and not a big issue to do that. * the symbology of the two points is the same. I will have a look for a way to modify that and let you know if I find a trick (If I copy the code of the point Altitude, and call it p_u_depth(expr pos, R, S, A), it crashes...). Cheers, Xav

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How to calculate the volume of a cave
by Bill Gee 31 Jan '22

31 Jan '22

Hello everyone - What tools can be used to calculate the volume of a cave based on center line and LRUD data? I found an email from Martin Sluka from about 4 years ago describing how to use Loch to export a .lox file in other formats, then run that file through CloudCompare or ParaView. The process looks very complex to me, and besides - Loch does not run on my computers, so there is no way for me to generate an export. As far as I can tell, Survex does not have a way to calculate volume. Could it be done with a KML file and Google Earth? -- Bill Gee

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Minimum symbol scale
by Tarquin Wilton-Jones 28 Oct '21

28 Oct '21

Hi folks, There is a setting: min-symbol-scale M That allows you to hide all symbols of S or XS scale. That's useful when you want to show only the most important symbols in a low resolution survey. But is there a way to control this differently only for certain symbols? Eg. I want to be able to hide all "point label" symbols of scale M-XS but I don't want all my cave walls or breakdown choke symbols to disappear (which are at the default M scale). Essentially I want something like this: min-symbol-scale point label L min-symbol-scale point anchor:foo M Some of this I can of course do with MetaPost. But labels (the thing I care most about) don't allow you to easily redefine the MetaPost macro ... or at least the syntax is so weird that I don't understand it. Thanks for any advice. Tarquin

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How to morph sketches
by Torsten Schnitter 04 Jul '21

04 Jul '21

Hi As I read some of the last mails I came to the question how to morph a sketch. I searched the wiki and the Therion book but could not find how to do it. All I found was on page 89 ff in the book which shows some pictures before and after morphing. But no explanation how to do it in detail. If I got it right it is possible like that: Someone have an image, a sketch of a cave area (which is not orientated correctly at all). And you have some survey data from that passage (which should be correct). The sketch is scanned to a png or jpg file. Now you can morph this image file into a xvi file where the image is morphed to the correct orientation matching the messured survey data. The final result is a new xvi file (with correctly morphed) image inside so you can use this new xvi file (including survey data as a line and the correctly morphed sketch itself) as a background image to draw the final scrap. Or did I get this wrong? Can anyone describe in detail how to do this please!? Apparently I'm too stupid to make it... I put a sketch and the survey data from a small passage to this email as a possible example to show how this process does work. Many thanks in advance. regards, Torsten

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Some metapost symbols defined so they cannot be scaled
by Bruce Mutton 29 Jun '21

29 Jun '21

I've just noticed that some metapost symbols are coded so that they ignore scaling options xs, s, l, xl. For example point dig is positioned but not rotated or scaled. def p_dig_UIS (expr pos,r,s,al) = U:=(.4u, .5u); T:=identity aligned al shifted pos; thfill ((-.075u,-.5u){down} .. {up}(0.075u, -.5u) -- (0.075u, .15u) -- (0.3u, 0.15u) -- (0.3u, 0.5u) -- (-.3u, .5u) -- (-.3u, .15u) -- (-.075u, .15u) -- cycle) rotated 45; enddef; Point camp is similar. I can understand why it is not ideal to allow these to be rotated, and usually they should be inserted unscaled. However it is possible to have big, small, major, minor camps and digs that one might want to symbolise with size. In my actual use case I have a plan and elevation at differing layout scales exported to the same pdf. I want these symbols to output the same (unscaled) size and for some reason the size differs by the ratio of the layout scales (I had thought that layout scales were meant to ensure text and symbol size were constant irrespective of layout scale, but the text and symbol sizes in fact differ unless I compensate by symbol scaling). I cannot help thinking I am making some illogical brain-fade error in thinking. A similar symbol, danger, is coded to enable scaling. It works, in that I can make them bigger or smaller with for example -scale l, so the solution appears obvious. picture SBE_danger_raw; SBE_danger_raw := image( fill (331,489)..controls (330,489) and (328,489)..(326,488) --(291,422)..controls (291,422) and (291,421)..(291,421) ..controls (291,417) and (294,414)..(297,413) --(365,413)..controls (369,414) and (371,417)..(371,421) ..controls (371,422) and (371,422)..(371,423) --(336,488)..controls (335,489) and (333,489)..(331,489) ..controls (331,489) and (331,489)..(331,489) --cycle withcolor red; fill (336,427)..controls (336,430) and (334,432)..(331,432) ..controls (328,432) and (326,430)..(326,427) ..controls (326,424) and (328,422)..(331,422) ..controls (334,422) and (336,424)..(336,427) --cycle withcolor white; fill (335,464)..controls (336,466) and (332,466)..(331,466) ..controls (330,466) and (327,466)..(327,464) --(330,436)..controls (330,435) and (330,435)..(331,435) ..controls (332,435) and (332,435)..(332,436) --cycle withcolor white; currentpicture := currentpicture shifted (-(llcorner currentpicture)-(urcorner currentpicture - llcorner currentpicture)/2) scaled (u / max((xpart urcorner currentpicture) - (xpart llcorner currentpicture), (ypart urcorner currentpicture) - (ypart llcorner currentpicture))); ); def p_danger_SBE(expr pos, theta, sc, al) = T := identity rotated theta aligned al scaled sc shifted pos; thdraw SBE_danger_raw; enddef; What do people think of changing the point symbol metapost definitions so that they can all be scaled? Bruce

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Custom Lookup title for colour legend no longer working and request for horizontal colour legend
by Bruce Mutton 27 Jun '21

27 Jun '21

Hello Therioneers A bug report (maybe) and a feature request. Something has happened to custom lookup titles in the last year or so. Here is my lookup. #SPECIFY COLOUR PALETTE LOOKUPS #============================== lookup altitude -title "Passage Altitudes" 750 [] "800 m" # a fudge to bias higher passages towards red 650 [] "700 m" 550 [] "600 m" #default is green 460 [] "500 m" 370 [] "400 m" #default is magenta endlookup The 17Oct2020 Therion version was OK. However the 12May2021 development version has dropped the custom title, outputting instead the default title (the colours are not as good either, but I think that might be an opacity setting on my part). I checked with a simpler lookup definition, and the same thing happens. #SPECIFY COLOUR PALETTE LOOKUPS #============================== lookup altitude:Celebration -title "Passage Altitudes" # for Celebration Series plan feature map 700 660 620 580 540 500 460 endlookup And now my feature request. Has anyone transposed the default orientation of colour legend so that it extends horizontally? The current vertical orientation suits elevations but just takes up unnecessary space with plan projections. I guess specifying the number of columns would be the way to go, to make it consistent with the symbol legend syntax/structure. It should be independent of the symbol legend specification however, as typically a colour legend would have more columns than a symbol legend, and usually a colour legend would be best with a single row. Bruce

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Problem when compiling on MacOS
by Philippe Vernant 23 Jun '21

23 Jun '21

Hi guys, Has anyone been successful compiling xtherion on a Mac with the M1 chip and Big Sur ? I can compile and run therion but I have the following error message and fail to compile xtherion : extern/catch2/catch.hpp:8205:13: error: unrecognized instruction mnemonic, did you mean: bit, cnt, hint, ins, not? CATCH_BREAK_INTO_DEBUGGER(); ^ extern/catch2/catch.hpp:7916:83: note: expanded from macro 'CATCH_BREAK_INTO_DEBUGGER' #define CATCH_BREAK_INTO_DEBUGGER() []{ if( Catch::isDebuggerActive() ) { CATCH_TRAP(); } }() ^ extern/catch2/catch.hpp:7881:34: note: expanded from macro 'CATCH_TRAP' #define CATCH_TRAP() __asm__("int $3\n" : : ) /* NOLINT */ ^ <inline asm>:1:2: note: instantiated into assembly here int $3 ^ 1 error generated. make: *** [utest-main.o] Error 1 Thanks, Phil

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xtherion - Multiple background sketches
by Bill Gee 22 Jun '21

22 Jun '21

A week ago we had two teams of surveyors working in some very tight side areas of a cave. In the end we discovered that it was all one room. We came away with at least five pages of sketch depicting various areas of the room. It is probably not complete ... Doing a join on room sketches like this is probably not possible. Some of the sketches don't have any wall, and for two of them the wall is only along one side. I think I need to some up with some way to do the whole room in one scrap. In this case the sketches are all the same scale (1 inch to ten feet), and I rotated the scans so that north is the same direction on all of them. In xtherion I see that multiple background images can be brought in to a single th2 file. I tried it and did not immediately see what I want. So my questions to the group ... 1) Is there a way to drag/drop reposition a background image? 2) Is there a way to make images transparent? I tried fiddling with the gamma slider but it did not do anything for transparency. 3) Is there a way to crop off arbitrary sections of a background image? Some of the sketch pages also have cross-sections, and those will seriously confuse things when trying to place objects. I would like to crop them out. 4) Is this something that I need to do in an external image editor like Gimp? I have not used Gimp in several years. The learning curve is daunting. Thanks! ======== Bill Gee

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Adding a creative common image to each page of an atlas
by Philippe Vernant 19 Jun '21

19 Jun '21

Hi, I tried several lines of code, but couldn’t success in adding a creative common image on each page of an atlas. I guess this is possible and I’m just too bad at metapost code to be successful. Has anyone a recipe to make it work ? I’ve managed to make it on a map, but not on an atlas. Thanks, Phil

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Two extended profiles for same survey
by Roger Schuster 17 Jun '21

17 Jun '21

Hello cavers, assume there are survey shots like this 0-1 1-2 1-3 1-4 (the numbers are the station names) forming a cross-shaped survey. I want to draw two extended profiles along the legs 0-1-2 (hiding stations 3 and 4) and 3-1-4 (hiding stations 0 and 2). This means the station names required for the "extend hide" directives are mutually exclusive. Is it possible to work around this problem? Thanks in advance! Regards, Roger

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