Click the Left Mouse Button in the graphics pane whilst (optionally) holding down the Shift or Control keys.
The drop-down box in the top left of the window (or single letter buttons 'W' 'E' 'P' 'C' 'D' 'I' 'N' 'F') sets the type of the selected path, with 'S' controlling the spline. Buttons:
The img tab has a Snap to grid feature where you can change the grid spacing.
Centreline paths cannot be deleted without setting the menu Action -> Allow Delete Centreline.
The Pitch Bound and Ceiling Bound paths have a dash on one side to show the direction of the 'whiskers' (always to the right according to the direction it was drawn). Click Reflect to reverse it.
Connecting to the correct node among an overlapping set (some will be drawn as diamonds and pentagons) is possible by dragging away from the Control+Left Mouse selected node without releasing it in order to select the next one.
Click and drag with the Middle Mouse Button to move the viewing position. Zoom with the Scroll-wheel or by holding the Control-key down before you click and drag the middle mouse.
The View menu contains the Max feature, and Display can turn on station names. Change the thickness of the lines using the Stroke buttons. Draw the final result with Detail render.
The view tab shows a second pane where you can store the current view using the Copy button.
Click the Right Mouse Button on the desired path whilst (optionally) holding down the Shift or Control keys. Multiple clicks cycle through the overlapping paths.
The Component button selects all paths that connect to the selected path(s). Click Component again to select all paths to one side of the selected path(s).
Fuse and fuse translate
TunnelX is Survex based. (see http://www.survex.com) Either use Import -> Import survex file to load the centreline data, or do File -> Open survex... from the Main window. The centreline data can be previewed by selecting the dotted green (connective) 'S' to see the label text, or do Import -> Wireframe view to see the centreline in Survex-Aven.
If Survex is not found, Import -> Use Survex should be disabled, and TunnelX's computation (without loop closures) will be used.
Do Import -> Import centreline to load the geometry defined by the Survex data.
You can import a centreline as an elevation by including the line:
;IMPORT_AS_ELEVATION 60
somewhere in the survex file (where 60 is the angle of projection).
All this does is loads it through a transformation which swaps the y axis for the z axis.
Select the img tab for loading and moving the background image. Add image adds a new image to the background.
Select image requires the rectangle outline of an image to be selected. Alternatively, use the drop-down box of visible background images.
Move the selected image into position by drawing a single line path and clicking on the Shift ground button. Rotate and resize the image by drawing a three point (two line) path before clicking Shift ground -- the first point is the centre of rotation while the second point is moved to the third point.
Always connect the corner of the rectangle outline of the image to part of the passage it depicts so that it stays in place when the passage moves.
Not done yet: It will be possible to draw smaller areas to trim out from the big rectangular paper to show only what is required and to make it possible to render multiple background images without too much undesirtable overlapping. This may also be used to bring together scattered cross-sectional outlines.
The Main window show the list of sketch files. Double-click (or select it and do Tunnel -> View sketch) to work on the drawing. Open a new file using File -> Open sketch....
The file name is green when it is loaded and up to date, and red if it needs to be saved.
From the drawing window, use File -> Save as... to give it a different name.To copy another sketch into the current sketch (while distorting to fit the centreline), select it in the Main window and do Import -> Import down sketch. Always preview the import using Preview down sketch.
Sketches can be downloaded from the internet by pasting their 'http://...' url into the file open dialog.
The Update areas button creates the areas of the sketch by finding the closed outlines of series of paths that are properly joined up at their nodes. Paths of type Centreline and Connective are ignored, but Invisible paths count. Preview the areas with Display -> Stripe areas. If areas do not appear, check for failed joins or unintended crossings near nodes, and that the area itself does not self-intersect.
Disconnected features or rock pillars within an area must be joined with an Invisible path. The filling in of a rock pillar is disabled by drawing a Connective path into it from one of the nodes, clicking Area signal and selecting rock from the drop-down box. Then do Update areas to refresh.
The altitude of the paths and nodes are defined by the average of the nearest three centreline stations (by connectivity). Compute this by clicking the Update Node Z button. The areas will be sorted by their average altitude and rendered in order.
Paths (and their areas) can be forced to a relative altitude by connecting them by a Connective line to a centreline node, clicking Area signal, selecting zsetrelative and changing the 0.0 to a different displacement.
Select a Pitch Boundary type path and do Action -> Pitch Undercut to create an Invisible path beneath it connected by two Connective paths, which can be used for connecting a passage that breaks through the wall below the pitch. This is necessary because you cannot connect three areas to one path.
Select an area and do Display -> Thin Z Selection to restrict the drawing to a Z-range close to that which was selected. Expand this visible area using Display -> Widen Z Selection. A vertical bar on the left of the graphics area depicts the Z-region in view and selected.
The altitudes of centreline stations can be shown using Display -> Station Altitudes. Do Colour -> Height to fill in a colour spectrum of heights those visible in the graphics window at the time (zoom in to a small section of the cave to exaggerate the colour spread for that part).
Symbols are placed on Connective paths. They are always part of the area they point into from the node they join (though the rest of the path can go outside the area).
Click on Add Symbols and select the chosen symbol. Some are single symbols (eg stalactite, straws), directional (eg slope, stream), and the rest are area filling (eg puddle, boulders). To render, first Update Areas to bind the symbols into the correct area, and then Update Symbols to lay them out.
The subs tab allows for setting the subset style for rendering the symbols to different scales.
The symbols directory contains all the basic symbols in the form of little sketches (eg a single boulder, one stream arrow, etc). You can see and edit them them by doing Tunnel -> Symbols list from the MainBox.
The fontcolours.xml files contain the real work of defining what happens for each Subset Style. For example, the baseSymbols250 style defines:
<symbolaut dname="stream" description="stream symbol" multiplicity="1" buttonaction="overwrite" area-interaction="allowed-outside" position="endpath" scale="fixed" orientation="fixed"> <asymbol name="stream" picscale="0.5" orientation="nearaxis"/> </symbolaut>
A symbol (usually a puddle) can be set to a solid fill colour using the parameter symbolareafillcolour="#ff0000ff".
The symbols directory will be loaded from [current-directory]/symbols if it exists, or [home-directory]/.tunnelx/symbols (if in unix) or [home-directory]/symbols (if in windows), or finally /usr/share/tunnelx/symbols/. If none of these exist, it will use the symbols directory that comes with the .jar file.
Labels are placed on Connective paths. Click on Write Text and write the label in the text area, selecting the type of label from the drop down box.
The origin position is located at the first node of the path. The 3x3 choice matrix sets which corner or side of the box containing the text is placed on the origin. Fine positioning can be done by drawing a short path from the first node and clicking Fuse.
Always connect one end to the associated passage so it stays with in place when the passage is moved.
Use the Arrow selection to point at one end, and the Box to further highlight a label.
Paste one of the following blocks of text into a label to produce a scale bar. Simple version:
Complex scale bar:
North arrow:
Left arrow:
Depth scale bar:
The ';' at the start of the line means the block stays on the same row. (each new line is displaced down by the vertical height of the first block). The code '%X/Y%' at the beginning of a block makes it have a width of X/Y metres, while '%vX/Y' sets its height. (If 'Y' is left out, then it takes the previous value, so in the first example the 50m scale bar can be converted to a 500m scale bar by changing 1.0000 to 0.1 in the first line.)
The symbols '%whiterect%' and '%blackrect%' fill the block with an outline or a filled in rectangle. Alternatively, place text here and use the blocks to define the cells of a table.
The top and bottom widths of a block can be set independently with '%tX/Y' for the top and '%hX/Y' for the bottom (the 'h' is optional) to produce triangles or parallelograms.
The current subset can be selected from the tree view in subs tab. Select a colour beneath the 'visiblesets' and all the paths will turn grey. Select a path (Mouse Right) or an area (Shift+Mouse Right) and click Add to Subset to make it appear in the subset. Labels should be added to the subset, but their colours will only show after clicking Detail Render.
Do Clear subset selection to undo the subset selection. The subsets of a selected path appears in the drop-down box at the bottom, which can be used for quick selection of an individual subset.
Named subsets can be made by making a Connective path, clicking Area signal, and choosing frame from the drop-down box. Above the line '</sketchframe>' (the last line), insert:
... then click Copy. The tree view in the lower window will now have '(Secret Grotto)' beneath 'visiblesets' -> 'blue'. Select it to add paths and areas to the 'Secret Grotto' subset. The colour can be altered later by changing the value of 'uppersubset'. The colour set when 'name="default"' applies to all remaining areas.
Start a new empty sketch, and make a Connective path, click Area signal and selecting frame from the drop-down box. Now click Import -> Import paper -> Make A1 to create an A1 size sheet of paper.
Draw a rectangle in it, make a path into it, and make it frame type too. Now we can add another sketch to it, apply Max, move it around into position, set its colours, and render it.
It's possible to render the same survey at two different scales in the same area with different subset styles overlaid on a aerial photo or bitmap of a map.
Also put in all the title box and other clobber in this, so as not to clutter the main survey with it. Use subset style baseA3page or similar to find a new set of fonts.
Images can be placed inside areas (as well as other sketches) where they will be trimmed. This allows for background overlays of aerial imagery.
Multiple sketchs can appear in the same window, where the order is controlled by setting the nodeconnzsetrelative values.
Provisional owing to user interface difficulties
Drawings for cross sections and extended elevations are tied to a Connective path by all being in a subset of name "XC stationname" or "ELEV stationname1 stationname2".
To make a cross section, draw a Connective line from a node in one wall across the passage into a node in the other wall. Then (with the path selected) do Elevation -> XC Subset to create the new subset (with a name of the form "XC something") and the axis of the cross section (as a disconnected centreline piece). Move and fit this axis to the cross section (using Fuse and Component) and then draw around the cross section (connecting it to the axis). Note that an arrow pointer moves along the corresponding path cutting the passage for the purpose of lining up features between the plan and the cross section.
To make an extended elevation, draw a Connective line from a centreline node (or a node immediately connected to a centreline) to another such node, then do Elevation -> Elevation Subset to generate a long centreline path for use as the axis in the elevation drawing.
After the elevation has been drawn (with all the paths in the "ELEV" subset), the endpoint of the centreline axis can be moved (using Fuse) to stretch and fit the pieces together.
Use the img tab to see what is happening when the elevation/cross section drawing and corresponding place in the plan are too far apart to show in the same graphics area at a resonable scale.
The print tab enables output to PNG or JPG type images, which can then be printed using standard image handling software. The printing area is either the bounding box for the currently selected subset (set through the subs tab), or the viewable graphics area. Select the subset for the A1 frame to produce a consistent result.
The dimensions stated in Real dimensions: correspond to a baseline scale of 1:1000, so a 500m wide cave will be 50cm on the paper. Vary the pixel dimensions by changing the resolution in dots per inch (on this 1:1000 paper).
The directory for output and name of file are listed below.
Because the same sketch may appear as in different subset styles, a proper rendering may require the symbols to be layed out multiple times. Select Full draw to enable this, or preview using one of the lesser modes.
Other options include output to Gray scale and Transparent colour to make the white areas alpha=0 for use in other graphics packages.
Requires re-implementation: If the centreline is in the right coordinate space, click on Overlay to render it and upload it to the cave map overlay automatically, for maximum speed of publication.
To compile do:
"C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.6.0_26\bin\javac" -target 1.5 -Xlint:deprecation -d . src\*.java
To run do:
java -showversion -ea -Xmx1000M -cp . Tunnel.MainBox C:\\Users\\goatchurch\\tunneldata\\
Other options:
Welcome to TunnelX, a free Cave drawing system that depends on Survex and which does the same thing as Therion, except completely different. See https://bitbucket.org/goatchurch/tunnelx for updates and development.
If this is your first time using TunnelX, try opening the tutorials and double-clicking on the first one.
Updated 2012-06-01