Merging and Morphing (Round Tripping) Tutorial

I. Overview. After you have exported an SVG map and edited with a drawing program such as Inkscape or Adobe Illustrator, making changes can be quite difficult. For example, if you want to reposition passages on the paper, you may have to move thousand of individual lines to a new location, which can very tedious.

The Compass SVG Exporter has special tools that allow you to manipulate a finished SVG map to accommodate new data, adjust the map's position and size on the page and warp the map when shots change position when you correct errors. These three steps are called Merging, Adjusting and Morphing. Here is an explanation of each step:

A. Merging. Merging allows you to add newly surveyed passages into your existing maps. As you survey more passages in your cave, the program will add the shots, LRUDs and Passage outlines to your finished map. The LRUD's and Passage Outlines are saved on their own individual layers so they can be enabled when you want to draw the passage outlines and floor details. In this way, you can keep your finished map up to date with the latest surveys. Instead of having to start over every time you get new data, you can now add the latest surveys

B. Adjusting. When you add new surveys to a map, you often have to make room for the new surveys by repositioning the cave on the paper. You may needs change the scale or even rotate the cave so it fits on the paper properly. Normally this would require hours of manual adjustment. The Adjustment step allows you to reposition, scale or rotate all the hand-drawn aspects of your finished map in just a few minutes. You can also change paper size, margins and certain colors automatically.

SVG Exporter displays a picture of what the cave will look like on the map. You can move, scale and rotate cave so you can see exactly what it will look like when it is finished. You can also see the margins, grids, backgrounds and paper size. All these options allow you to get the exact layout you want of the cave on the paper.

C. Morphing. If you correct a survey error or close a loop, the position of the cave passages relative to one and another may change dramatically. The length of passage may change, the angle between passage may change, and the overall arraignment of passages may be different. To fix these problems, the program "warps" the passage to track the changes. For example, if a passage has gotten longer, the program will stretch all the passage walls so they still match the shot line. Likewise, if the passage has rotated, the program will stretch the walls so they follow the rotation. The program can follow very complex changes in length, position and rotation of passages. It can even handle adjacent passages that change in different ways. For example, if the angle changes between two passages, the program can fix the passage wall associated with the passages by warping the drawing.

How the drawing is warped depends on what layer it is on. Click here for for a complete explanation of layers and how they are handled.

II. Step-By-Step Instructions. The following is a step-by-step tutorial for using the Merge, Adjust and Morphing tools in the SVG Exporter.