Cave Viewer and Lechuguilla Cave

This image is from the Windows COMPASS Viewer. It is a display of Lechuguilla Cave in New Mexico USA. This image shows several important features of the Viewer. First, the image displays a profile view of the cave, tilted slightly toward you. We are also using the passage modeling feature, to show the walls of the cave. Here the walls are colored according to the passage depth.

The image also shows some of the special features of COMPASS. Along the top is a tool bar. This enables you to manipulate the cave with single mouse button clicks. The status bar along the bottom of the screen, shows numerical values for the pans, zooming and rotations.

Finally, you will notice the "measure" dialog box on the screen. This feature allows you to place cursors on the screen which can be used to measure distances, and angles within the cave. The yellow line on the left side of the screen is the interval we are measuring. The results of the measurements appear in the dialog box. You will notice that the measurements include the position of the Starting and Ending Cursor, the angles of the line connecting the two points, and the distance between the points. This image shows a measurement between the entrance and one of the low points in the cave. Since the cave is a three-dimensional object, the Measurement Tools allows you to measure in both 3D and 2D. To facilitate measuring distances between survey stations, the Measurement Tools have a feature that moves the cursor to the nearest station. This also positions the cursor in 3D and facilitates complex measurements.

The Tool Bar and Status Bar can be converted into floating boxes that can be positioned anywhere on the screen. They can also be removed individually. This enables you to configure the Viewer to take maximum advantage of screen space and makes it possible to display caves using a full window.