The Viewer.

The Viewer reads plot files (.PLT and.PLF) and displays an image of the cave. The Viewer is a very powerful and specialized program for viewing and printing images of the cave data.

Line Plots. The basic image that the Viewer displays is called a "line plot." A line plot is a drawing that shows the line that the survey tape took through the cave. It is like a stick figure drawing. The Viewer also can simulate passage walls using a variety of realistic techniques.

Manipulating The Cave. The Viewer allows you examine every part of the cave in detail. It can view the cave in a variety of ways that help you understand different aspects of the cave. It can pan, zoom and clip, which allows to you pick out small parts of the cave for detailed inspection. You can view the cave from above or from the side and you can rotate the cave around two axes. This enables you to view the cave from any direction in space.

Tools. The Viewer also allows you to display and highlight a variety of additional information. It will show survey stations, station elevations, color by date, color by survey, and measure distances. Finally, the Viewer supports several desktop publishing and multimedia features.

Separate Program. The Viewer is a separate program from the Project Manager. Although it could be incorporated into the Project Manager, the Viewer has so many features that combining all the menus and toolbars would make the user interface complex and confusing.