Extended elevation sketches in Topo Droid and exporting for Therion

Have been using TopoDroid for some time now and happy with most of it. I do have two questions though that I hope somebody can help me with.

Most frustratingly, I don't seem to be able to get an extended elevation view for the sketch. Is this something that can be changed? Currently, most of my elevation sketches look like they are spiralling around themselves making it very difficult to draw and even harder to interpret....

Second thing is exporting the files to therion. Previously I have only used survex centre-line data, but now I would like to draw in Therion. I have found the 'therion' option, which gives all the data points. Is there an option to export the sketch as a scaled image which can be 'drawn' over in therion. Or is actually easier to use the therion output?  My main issue with this is that it looks like a pain trying to correct all the little holes etc in my sketches and making sure I draw the survey 'the correct way around' in topodroid...

Thanks  ;)
 

alastairgott

Well-known member
I couldn?t unpick the extended on electronica, had to use survex to extend then trace around it in therion.

If you survey in shorter sections. Ie electronica. Stop the survey at the base of the pitch, then continue the survey as a ?new survey? from the streamway.

The key is building up the survey in small sections.
 
Cheers Al, pop round whenever

But is this really the easiest way? Seems a bit of a bodge as it works lovely doing a long section in the plan mode and I wouldn't I have to tie all the separate sections together afterwards in therion (or survex).
 

alastairgott

Well-known member
It?s the specific way an extended extends that causes the problems.

A plan doesn?t unfold...

Imagine a square in plan with gradients. If you had to extend (or flatten) a plan along a gradient (at 45deg) for the full length of one side then half of two other sides to bring it back to the same level. Then when you came to rejoin the square with the remaining 4th flat line then it wouldn?t be the same size as the others.

If you use a separate survey for each then tie them in with a map at a higher level then it will work perfectly. This will also allow you to select which elevations you want visible on your final survey.
 

yuvals

Member
Short click on the shot in the table view and you can change the direction  left/right/up/
It can also be done from the sketch view in expert level 
 

andrewmcleod

Well-known member
I thought Topodroid elevation sketch was extended?

But it does (like many things in Topodroid) have some bizarre default options which you can only change to sensible things in Expert mode.

I think it might, by default, choose to extend left/right based on the direction of the passage against some selectable plane (e.g. N-S), which while it sounds good is unlikely to be what you want most of the time...

(Or I could be remembering entirely wrong)
 

Rob

Well-known member
Yes, as Andrew says, TopoDroid elevation sketches are extended automatically. I think it chooses left or right based on the first leg, but it might be based on the compass. Either way it's easy to change on the leg should you need to...

As for Therion export. TopoDroid is already naively in Therion format (.th and .th2). Get your sketch settings on your device right and working on your surveys in Therion can be very quick and easy.  (y)
 

alastairgott

Well-known member
Meanderthal, having another look at electronica I found this topic. https://ukcaving.com/board/index.php?topic=19362.0

I've tried to rectify this now in the .th data tab, by changing the extend left/right but I think this may be a thing we might need to have a play with before exporting the extended from topodroid. i'll keep looking though.
 

alastairgott

Well-known member
2nd in google rannkings for [topodroid extend left right]
http://marcocorvi.altervista.org/caving/apps/tdmanual/page_azimuth.htm

Marco made the app, so his wiki is ultimately useful.

There is also this link from the Therion wiki, I might try and bring back the electronica extended just to see if it's possible.
https://therion.speleo.sk/wiki/extend#summary_of_all_extend_options_for_survey_centrelines
Might require making lots of scraps, and using join commands for all the lines.
 

alastairgott

Well-known member
Sorry me again! I did have a go at electronica, but as the survey points all mesh in with each other from the base of the pitch towards the next main junction all the topodroid sketch lines are over each other.

Due to the unique way therion warps things I have been able to get an output of sorts by deleting the walls between the pitch and waterfall jn.


Instead of outputting to PDF I could output to TH2, which would allow me to redraw in the detail, which I may well do. sadly, I don't think it will include splay detail to help me, as most of the Topodroid outputs (that I've seen) seem to be devoid of this.


I used the extend options to help me with this sketch warp.


Much better to control the extend options from the topodroid while your sketching (I've not done this yet), or as I said before start a new sketch when things start getting too complicated.
 

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Rob said:
Yes, as Andrew says, TopoDroid elevation sketches are extended automatically. I think it chooses left or right based on the first leg, but it might be based on the compass. Either way it's easy to change on the leg should you need to...

As for Therion export. TopoDroid is already naively in Therion format (.th and .th2). Get your sketch settings on your device right and working on your surveys in Therion can be very quick and easy.  (y)

Thanks Rob, can I ask the difference between .th and .th2? What sketch settings would you recommend. Been playing with some of my old topodroid sketches in therion and it seems to be quite a slow/clunky process! However, willing to accept that this is user error!
 
andrewmc said:
I thought Topodroid elevation sketch was extended?

But it does (like many things in Topodroid) have some bizarre default options which you can only change to sensible things in Expert mode.

I think it might, by default, choose to extend left/right based on the direction of the passage against some selectable plane (e.g. N-S), which while it sounds good is unlikely to be what you want most of the time...

(Or I could be remembering entirely wrong)

Ta, how do I get into 'expert' mode. Or do I need to be an expert...
 

alastairgott

Well-known member
Are you free Saturday night? Could come round and have a chat otherwise you could forward your th and th2 files by email and I?ll take a quick look and advise.
 

andrewmcleod

Well-known member
alastairgott said:
Instead of outputting to PDF I could output to TH2, which would allow me to redraw in the detail, which I may well do. sadly, I don't think it will include splay detail to help me, as most of the Topodroid outputs (that I've seen) seem to be devoid of this.

As with most things in Topodroid, if you think you should be able to do something sensible in Topodroid, like export with splays,
a) you probably can,
b) it will be in an option that you need to increase the 'expertness' to access, and
c) the default will be silly.

You can export splays to th2 from Topodroid. If you do all your walls properly with Bezier curves in Topodroid, you can essentially go from Topodroid to Therion PDF with no redrawing. You can even put Therion commands on your walls (like -clip off) in Topodroid and they will appear in the th2.
 

alastairgott

Well-known member
andrewmc said:
You can export splays to th2 from Topodroid.

Ah yes, Advanced settings again...

Settings: Activity level: Advanced

Settings: Therion Export settings: Therion splays [tick]


And another useful one but hidden in Advanced settings is Settings: Sketching: Lines: Join with both sides.

This will presumably reduce even more of the faff of joining lines in Therion when you get home. as when you pick up another line, it automatically rejoins the last one. just make sure you draw the line anticlockwise...
 
Topodroid wiki suggests  doing nearly all of the drawing in the topodroid window before exporting to th2, which would then ideally only be used to do minimal editing (as referred to in the above posts).

This is relevant to splay leg information because exporting the splays to th2 can make the Xtherion map editor slower and unwieldy though, especially as they will appear in the same colour as many in-cave symbols (ie green).

Splitting scraps in TopoDroid is supported in Tester mode. This allows one to draw one big scrap and split it into several small scraps by selecting a region. That way, the wall end lines between the new smaller scraps remain virtually joined.

I find useful to draw a larger scrap in the cave and add 'fake' offset legs for underlying/overlying bits of passage, so that I see everything even in drawing mode, and in the final stages of the work flow, I just go ahead and split everything into Xtherion manageable scraps and move labels, change aligments etc... in Xtherion map editor.
Naturally, I then change to the text editor to remove the 'fake' offset legs and replace them by therion map offsets if/when needed.

I'm curious to see if others do the same?
 
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