Managing Surfaces Process

Civil/Survey and GIS add-on for CAD engines.
lmaidlow
Posts: 3
Joined: Fri Jul 03, 2015 7:06 pm

Managing Surfaces Process

Postby lmaidlow » Sat Jul 04, 2015 1:38 pm

I am posting this here to share a support email I sent to DotSoft.

I had a problem with:
> Manage surfaces
> Points on a grid
> Drape

There was no option to select a surface even though I just created both TIN and GRID surfaces.

The response from DotSoft was:
Currently surfaces reside in files and if those surface definitions reside in the same folder as the drawing, or in the search path, then they show up in Surface tools.

We have been experimenting with ways to store surfaces in the drawing (like Civil3D can) but we're still not sure we want to. The speed of I/O and the file size growth are concerns.

twdotson
Site Admin
Posts: 218
Joined: Thu Mar 19, 2015 9:35 pm
Location: Flemingsburg, KY

Re: Managing Surfaces Process

Postby twdotson » Wed Aug 12, 2015 2:15 pm

We're currently working in this area (for 6.0). We're looking at adding the ability to store surfaces inside the drawing (like Civil3D can) as an option. We also want to be able to continue allowing external surfaces. So the question becomes do we still use the search path mechanism or store a link inside the drawing to a path (absolute or relative) like an xref.

The advantage to this would be that external surfaces could be stored anywhere, not just in the drawing folder. The disadvantage being the small amount of time to actually create the link.

lmaidlow
Posts: 3
Joined: Fri Jul 03, 2015 7:06 pm

Re: Managing Surfaces Process

Postby lmaidlow » Wed Aug 12, 2015 4:03 pm

I like your commitment to flexibility. Storing the surfaces in the drawing is ideal for smaller projects and makes everything transparent to the user.

It may taking a few minutes to establish a link to a surface file but this makes the organization of files very flexible. Perhaps by default the files are located in the drawing folder unless the user creates a link to a specific folder.

twdotson
Site Admin
Posts: 218
Joined: Thu Mar 19, 2015 9:35 pm
Location: Flemingsburg, KY

Re: Managing Surfaces Process

Postby twdotson » Wed Aug 12, 2015 8:51 pm

On Grid Create we're adding a field on the dialog that shows the number of cells and an estimate of the KB it would add to the drawing size. As you change the cell size you can see the effect on drawing size (for that surface).

twdotson
Site Admin
Posts: 218
Joined: Thu Mar 19, 2015 9:35 pm
Location: Flemingsburg, KY

Re: Managing Surfaces Process

Postby twdotson » Sun Aug 23, 2015 11:16 pm

The mechanism for future versions will be an option of the surface (GRIDs or TINs) residing entirely inside the drawing, or a link inside the drawing with the relative path to the surface. The Surface Manager will list all surfaces, clicking on a surface in the list will display the storage type (embedded or linked). MapWorks will no longer require surfaces to be external and be in the search path.

So now that we can (typically) count on surface data being found, should we consider display representations (like Civil3D) so that you can say you want to see the boundaries, triangles, or contours, etc. We could store that in a block so the user could easily change the display parameters or explode it to get the objects.

donnieworld
Posts: 7
Joined: Fri Apr 24, 2015 4:34 pm

Re: Managing Surfaces Process

Postby donnieworld » Mon Aug 24, 2015 5:02 pm

twdotson wrote:So now that we can (typically) count on surface data being found, should we consider display representations (like Civil3) so that you can say you want to see the boundaries, triangles, or contours, etc. We could store that in a block so the user could easily change the display parameters or explode it to get the objects.


Displaying the surface as described would be very helpful for our use.

twdotson
Site Admin
Posts: 218
Joined: Thu Mar 19, 2015 9:35 pm
Location: Flemingsburg, KY

Re: Managing Surfaces Process

Postby twdotson » Tue Aug 25, 2015 4:03 pm

We have optimized the inside the drawing storage as much as possible and the only bottleneck we found was recalling large grid files (DEM) from the drawing. Here are some timings on a new well equipped workstation.

NORMAL GRID
468 x 358 = 167,544 cells
Store in Drawing = 0.1 Sec
Recall from Drawing = 0.6 Sec

LARGE GRID
1299 x 1976 = 2,566,824 cells
Store in Drawing = 0.5 Sec
Recall from Drawing = 10.0 Sec

HUGE GRID
4000 x 4000 = 16,000,000 cells
Store in Drawing = 9.0 Sec
Recall from Drawing = 60.0 Sec

We will report back with TIN numbers soon.


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