Loading and Saving
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Reading from Directories
Tunnel reads and writes entire directories rather than files. This makes it easy to associate different sorts of data such as survey notes, scanned images of drawings, sets of symbols, and sketches, without having to build them into a single composite form. When you tell Tunnel to load everything from a directory, it loads the subdirectories as well, so there is no need for a special structure file to say what other files need to be included.
Tunnel automatically loads from the directory called "symbols" and creates a little folder called "gsymbols" when it starts up. These are the simple symbols from which all other symbols are made.
This first window of Tunnel is called the MainBox. It works like the Windows file explorer; the directories are in the left hand partition, and the contents of the directories are on the right hand side. You can expand the tree on the left, and double-click on "files" on the right to open them in other windows.
To load the example cave, click File on the menu bar and select Open XML dir... in the drop-down menu. (This will be abbreviated to File | Open XML dir... in future.)
Now use the File Dialog box to find the directory inlet7, which should be in the tunnelx directory. Note that you can only see the directories. Once you have selected inlet7, click on the Open button.
By expanding and selecting the folders on the left you can get your MainBox of Tunnel to look like the image below. The list on the right shows the files that you would find in the inlet7-2 subdirectory of inlet7.
The files are shown with absolute paths on your hard disk so there is no ambiguity about where they are. Files in green are previously saved files which have been loaded, files in red are previously saved filed which have been edited, and files on a white background have not been loaded. They will load automatically as soon as you open them. Care: if you close Tunnel you will lose any changes that you have made to the red files - and you will not be prompted to save any changes.
Try double-clicking on the first line on the right hand side, the one that starts with 'SVX:'. You should get a window showing the survey data. This is for preview purposes only. You cannot edit raw survey data in Tunnel because it should all be completed and processible by Survex by the time you get here; you are now in the drawing phase.
The 'LEGS:' are XML representations of the centreline data and connections (exports) derived from the svx file.
The 'SKETCH:' files are the Tunnel drawings, which are also in an XML format.
You can read more about Tunnel's data structures and future directions in File Formats.
Reading Survex centreline data
Tunnel has its own Survex reader which works for most Survex files, using the command File | Open svx from the menubar. It is intended to read as much of the standard as possible. If there is a failure, please check the Tunnel Survex reader for further details and leave a comment in Problems with the Tunnel Survex reader if it doesn't answer it.
After the centreline data has loaded, you need to set the directory where it will save the sketches and other associated data, using File | Set XMLDIR. This tells you where the files are going to be placed (the full path names are in the right hand panel of the MainBox), but it doesn't save them. Now use File | Save XMLDIR to create the directories and save everything.
Tunnel will fail if you try to use Sketch | New Empty Sketch right after loading Survex data, and before setting the XMLDIR, because it doesn't know where to create the sketch file on the disk. Instructions on how to start a cave survey fresh from Survex data come later in this tutorial, after you have seen the very basics of drawing and using the mouse. Trying to learn how to draw from scratch is too much like going in at the deep end. Please go back and Download the inlet7 example cave and go on from there.
The directories reflect the structure of the named *begin / *end blocks in the Survex files, and the generated svx files in each directory will be different from your originals but should still should work if you to ran Survex from them.
If you make changes to your original Survex centreline data, you can load in the new version, set the directories, and overwrite all the previous LEG and SVX files, whilst leaving your SKETCH files intact. (This won't work if your Survex data has been radically rearranged, unfortunately.)
Tunnel has worked over other survey data formats in the past, and could do in the future if there is enough demand for it.
See also Problems with the Tunnel Survex reader.
Loop closures
Tunnel does not implement any loop closure algorithm to distribute the errors across the survey. However, for ultimate compatibility, it can read in the data that is calculated by Survex once it has been processed out by the 3dtopos Survex utility.
Copy the new POS file into the top directory of the top directory representing the top level Survex block, and when you start up Tunnel and use File | Open XML dir... on this directory, the POS file will be listed on the Right Hand panel of the Main Box.
Now when you use Tunnel | New Empty Sketch and then do Import | Import Centreline on the sketch window, expect to see the message printed in the DOS box: Applying PosFILELEGS [number_of_stations]. If there is a failure, expect to see the message: No match on [name_of_station]. This can happen if the POS file is out of date and there are new survey stations in the Survex files.
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