Data Files.

Survey Data Files are used to hold the individual cave surveys. There can be thousands of surveys in a single Survey Data File. For this reason, most Compass users place all the survey data for small to medium sized caves in single file. With larger caves, individual sections of the cave are generally placed in different files. In Compass, survey files have the extension ".DAT". For example, "GROANING.DAT" might contain all the data for Groaning Cave.

Normally, you want to keep logical parts of the cave or cave system in separate files. This is because Compass can selectively highlight, color and plot the data in each file. For example, if you have a multi-cave system, you should keep each cave and each overland survey in a separate file. This way, you can view each cave and each surface survey in a different color. With larger caves, you will probably want to put each section of the cave in a separate file.