Ogof Draenen survey

[John S]

This reply maybe a bit long, but I hope it will answer some questions but will undoubtedly create many more. Then think about it. I will hopefully have a chat with a few people this weekend to get some veiws, and maybe some help.

In 2000 we set out a document for the Rolex Award and part of this was to create the survey and 3d models. Another part was to disseminate this information in a GIS package by disc or the net. Soon after this the survey was mothballed.

What is the survey now? It consists of 750 pages of survey notes from 248 survey trips by 81 people. This produces over 9000 legs (one database says over 10000) and a drawn survey with some 45,000 objects. Then there is the photo collection, descriptions, and other relevent data. But there is a bit of a hole. I moved house during the survey and so some 15-20 trips weren't drawn up. When I started drawing again, we needed the latest stuff drawn up as we were discovering lots of passage and needed this for the following weekend. This hole was reduced but still stands at about 13 trips worth of data. This means it is not just sitting on a machine waiting to be scaled, framed and printed.
Since the mothballing, the PC, OS and packages have been updated. Survex no longer compiles the files and I hoped it would be a simple find and replace to update them. No, the whole 10000 lines need to be checked Fortunately the drawing package does take the old files and the centreline that was saved will do. (don't add anymore passage or it will take ages to add on). Some hardware is now not compatible with XP, thanks Bill, and no driver to make it work so far (Genius 1812, not the new one 1812hr)
Why do I want to produce the survey? The reason now, is that I owe the 80 other cavers that helped. Otherwise it may well have vanished totally like the other OFD and Aggy surveys 

The method of production is something that is not fixed, but I think the first step must be a paper copy, with something more elaborate later. Computing and packages have come a long way since 1994 and the GIS functions that I would have used, are probably now on other easy to access packages (google earth etc, I liked the link earlier).

Firstly, precisely how many copies of the original printings of the survey were actually sold?
Secondly, roughly how many copies of a new edition would you expect to sell?

To Nigs first question, No idea I never got a penny, but the masters were destroyed by repeated use in the copier at the printers. In those days the print shop I used did not have a computer big enough to hold the print file (They were used to building drawings, not something with 20000+ objects). So the master was a cut and paste job. You can see the joins if you look at one of the old ones.
The second, maybe 100, 80 to the helpers and 19 to auction on eBay and one for myself this time.

 

[NigR]

Why do I want to produce the survey? The reason now, is that I owe the 80 other cavers that helped.

This is good to hear. My only question would be roughly how long you expect this to take and I fully understand that you are probably not in a position to answer this at present.

Thanks for replying to my earlier questions.

 

[graham]

... Survex no longer compiles the files...

John, I am certain that if you asked the Survex mailing list about this that someone would be prepared to look at your files and see where the problem lies. Survex should still compile files that earlier versions did successfully.