Tunnel Trauma

SamT

Moderator
You guessed it - Can a flippin' heckers like get Tunnel working.. despite following Footlegs half decent instructions on the ULSA site.

First window.. File>New Empty Sketch

Opens the sketching window..

Import>Import Survex File... select my .svx file

just seems to reveal some sort of weird S in purple.

:confused:
 

graham

New member
I am told that the Tunnel user interface has been improved, but if I were you I'd go for Therion, instead.

Just please don't ask me how to use it 'cos I'm still learning.
 

Peter Burgess

New member
Not having a lot of luck today, are you Sam? Loadsatrauma. Back to basics, methinks. I've got an old Commodore calculator somewhere.  ;)
 

SamT

Moderator
Peter Burgess said:
Not having a lot of luck today, are you Sam? Loadsatrauma. Back to basics, methinks. I've got an old Commodore calculator somewhere.  ;)

Nope, and I'm supposedly computer literate, I know graham has expressed similar sentiments in the past, but I've no idea how a technophobe would even begin.

graham said:
I am told that the Tunnel user interface has been improved, but if I were you I'd go for Therion, instead.
Just please don't ask me how to use it 'cos I'm still learning.

Hmm - I was thinking on this, and was gonna post up a Survex and Tunnel vs Therion thread.

Why.
 

SamT

Moderator
all very droll..

but can anyone actually help  ::) - this has been driving me crackers and eating up far to much of my time  :coffee:
 

footleg

New member
Yes, the interface for getting data into Tunnel has been massively improved since I wrote my earlier instructions. I'm not sure how up to date the Tunnel wiki tutorials are (http://www.freesteel.co.uk/wiki/index.php/Tunnel), but here is a quick guide:

1. Select 'File/New Empty Sketch'. An empty sketch window will appear.
2. On the sketch window, select from the menus: Import/Import Suvex File. A big pink S appears. This is a connective line (used to attach various sorts of data to). It has your survex data attached to it (you can see the data in the panel on the left).
3. Now select: Import/Import Centreline. How Survex will process your data and you should see the plan view of the cave centreline displayed.

From here you should be able to start drawing, following the tutorials on the wiki. Don't forget to save the sketch. The big change from the old version is that now all the data is saved in the one file, so you can back up your sketch file or send it to other users and it contains everything.
 

footleg

New member
SamT said:
graham said:
I am told that the Tunnel user interface has been improved, but if I were you I'd go for Therion, instead.
Just please don't ask me how to use it 'cos I'm still learning.

Hmm - I was thinking on this, and was gonna post up a Survex and Tunnel vs Therion thread.

I've played with both programs, and have found Therion much harder to get into than Tunnel. I know it has a big following, and it does some things very well which Tunnel does not. But I find Tunnel much easier to understand, especially with the usability enhancements made in the past year or so. Plus it works directly on Survex Data, rather than 'Survex like data but not quite the same' which Therion uses. I know in the UK there are a number of keen Tunnel users, but I have not yet heard of a keen Therion user in the UK caving community. Just several people who say they have heard it is 'better'.

(That should bring the Therion users out in force  ;) )
 

SamT

Moderator
:bow: thank you once again Footleg.

Gonna stick to Tunnel/survex for the moment I reckon.

As for using tunnel

1. Select 'File/New Empty Sketch'. An empty sketch window will appear.
2. On the sketch window, select from the menus: Import/Import Suvex File. A big pink S appears. This is a connective line (used to attach various sorts of data to). It has your survex data attached to it (you can see the data in the panel on the left).
3. Now select: Import/Import Centreline. How Survex will process your data and you should see the plan view of the cave centreline displayed.

:confused: did this - All that happened when I did import centerline was that the big pink S turned green.  :confused:

I'll continue to fiddle about and see if I can figure it out.
 

graham

New member
footleg said:
.... but I have not yet heard of a keen Therion user in the UK caving community. Just several people who say they have heard it is 'better'.

(That should bring the Therion users out in force  ;) )

The survey of Charterhouse cave, Mendip, which you may have heard has "gone" recently is being done using DistoX/PDA and Therion. I cannot speak for the surveyors as most of them are currently in Europe but I can speak for the quality of the product.

As for Therion and Survex data, well, as part of this project we are creating a bigger picture. We are doing this using a number of tools, but the main one consists of importing Survex 3d files directly into Therion and drawing the maps directly on this data. Using this method, we have redrawn the survey of G.B. which uses the original (quality) 1950s data and are adding to it, using the DistoX/PDA and Therion system as above, for the bits of the cave for which decent data does not exist/has been lost.

I do not know what the output from Tunnel is like, but we can output maps and sections as PDFs, 3d files viewable using "Aven" and kml files viewable with Google Earth.
 

sluka

New member
footleg said:
I've played with both programs, and have found Therion much harder to get into than Tunnel.

OK, but there is a big difference: Tunnel produce a map and nothing more. Therion is not the program to draw maps, maps are only product of data archived in therion. From those data you may generate the elevation, 3D, atlas, database, list of caves of an area, list of continuations, maps and others exported in different languages, export to GIS, etc. etc. And all of data in Therion are human readable text files.
 

mulucaver

Member
footleg said:
SamT said:
graham said:
I am told that the Tunnel user interface has been improved, but if I were you I'd go for Therion, instead.
Just please don't ask me how to use it 'cos I'm still learning.

Hmm - I was thinking on this, and was gonna post up a Survex and Tunnel vs Therion thread.

I've played with both programs, and have found Therion much harder to get into than Tunnel. I know it has a big following, and it does some things very well which Tunnel does not. But I find Tunnel much easier to understand, especially with the usability enhancements made in the past year or so. Plus it works directly on Survex Data, rather than 'Survex like data but not quite the same' which Therion uses. I know in the UK there are a number of keen Tunnel users, but I have not yet heard of a keen Therion user in the UK caving community. Just several people who say they have heard it is 'better'.

(That should bring the Therion users out in force ;) )
I'm a keen Therion user. See my examples on Therion Wiki. http://therion.speleo.sk/wiki/doku.php?id=proj#mulu_borneo_malaysia
 

SamT

Moderator
Praise be - Hallelujah  :bow:

right - wonder what my next stumbling block might be.......watch this space
 

footleg

New member
Ah, you didn't have Survex installed. That would explain it!

Be aware that if you untick the 'use survex' box and you have loops in your survey then Tunnel will not perform error distribution around the loops. Instead you will just get kinks in the loops somewhere where the loop does not close up. Better to install Survex and keep the box ticked, as then Tunnel will use Survex to generate all the station positions and distribute the errors evenly around any loops.
 

Duncan Price

Active member
footleg said:
Ah, you didn't have Survex installed. That would explain it!

Be aware that if you untick the 'use survex' box and you have loops in your survey then Tunnel will not perform error distribution around the loops. Instead you will just get kinks in the loops somewhere where the loop does not close up. Better to install Survex and keep the box ticked, as then Tunnel will use Survex to generate all the station positions and distribute the errors evenly around any loops.

I do have Survex installed and Tunnel does nothing unless I uncheck the "Use Survex" box.
 
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