Unclos Tutorial B. Interface

Open a project

Open any project which has been provided for you by clicking “File > Open” on the pulldown menu and browsing to the location of the project. A window similar to the one below should appear. Next time you can open the project by using “File > Recent Projects”.

Get familiar with the project

Pressing the small + signs to the left of a folder will display the folder's contents. Datasets and folders are organized very similar to a file tree structure. A folder can contain other folders, or datasets.

Exercise: Explore the project folder structure Navigate through the folder structure, and notice how folders and datasets are organized.

Datasets and folders can be cut, copied, pasted, renamed and deleted. This is performed from the popup menu which appears when right-clicking a dataset. On folders, the Multiple > will allow multiple folders to be selected for cutting, copying or deleting. This right click popup menu also contains “command objects” which may be executed on the datasets. Notice the different icons of the different datasets. They correspond to the “schema” of the data set. The name of the schema is written in the second column.

Exercise: Display data Display the various datasets in the project.

1. Locate a grid dataset (structured points or seabed) e.g. "2. Seabed/Grids/atlantis"

2. Right click the dataset and try a display command e.g. "Display" (with the pencil), "Map", "Map Sea" or "Map Land”.

3. Right click the dataset again and select ”Scale Window to Data” This will make the display window center the graphics widow around the dataset.

4. Display some of the lines e.g. lines found under “1. Maritime Lines” by right-clicking and selecting the command ”Display”

5. Check, and uncheck the checkboxes to the left of the displayed items and observe that this toggles displayed objects on/off. You can also check and uncheck the folders containing displayed items.

Notice how the displayed items are shown and hidden from the display window. Notice that by checking and un-checking the first level folder “1. Maritime Lines”, or “2. Seabed” all datasets displayed under this folder are shown and hidden.

Navigating the display window

You may use the computer mouse to move around in the display window. You do this by pressing one of the mouse buttons in the display window, and moving the mouse while keeping the mouse button pressed.

• Left mouse button : Rotate

• Middle mouse button : Pan

• Right mouse button : Zoom

• Mouse wheel : Adjust Z - scale

You can use the mouse wheel to scale depth values of the dataset. The z values can also be scaled by clicking the scale button: in the toolbar and dragging the z slider.

Exercise: View the data from different angles Use the mouse, the navigator panel and the cameras.

1. Use the mouse in the display window to zoom, pan, and rotate the data view in the graphics window.
   Instead of using the mouse for navigation, you may also use the “Navigator”

2. Click this button in the main tool bar and the navigator panel should appear.

   
   The Navigator Panel

3. Play around with the buttons in the navigator

4. In order to set the focal point move your mouse cursor to somewhere in the display window pointing on a point on the seabed surface, and click the x key on the keyboard. The focal point is the center of your display, and is also the center of rotation.

Important Toolbar Buttons

Basic Concepts in Geocap

The entries in the top part of the menu which appear when you right click a dataset are called command objects. Which commands are displayed depend on the schema of the dataset. A “Base Line” will contain commands appropriate for a “Base Line”, while a “Bathymetric Profile” will contain different commands.

• Right click the different datasets in the project manager, and see how the right click menu changes from schema to schema.

The interface to the UNCLOS specific features in Geocap are through the use of schemas on data sets and command objects.

Schemas

Geocap uses schemas to classify a data set. The Shelf Module contains several schemas. Some of the schemas used in the Shelf Module are "coast line", "base line", "limit line", "seabed", "sediment thickness". You can define the schema of a dataset in the project manager by right clicking it, and selecting “set schema” in the pop-up menu. The choice of a dataset’s schema controls which command objects you see in the pop-up menu when you right click the data set.
You may create your own schemas as well as edit existing schemas by selecting “schemas” under edit in the main menu. You can also edit the command objects associated with the schemas.

Command objects

Command objects are operations which can be performed on a data set. Commands can for example be used to display a dataset in the display window, or to generate new datasets. You can even create your own scripted commands to cater to your specific needs. You execute a command by right clicking the dataset or folder you want to run it on, and then selecting the relevant command in the pop-up menu.
You can give different parameters to a command in the command editor. These parameters are stored with the command object and used during execution.

Command objects can be stored in three levels, which level controls how much data they will affect when executed:

Item Commands

A command object can be stored at the level of a dataset or a folder. This is called an item command. This command object is unique to this dataset or folder. You can see these commands in a sub menu when you right click a data set and select "Item commands". Most items in the project manager do not contain any item commands by default

Schema Commands

A command object stored at a schema level is called a schema command. This means that all datasets or folders using the same schema share these commands. The schema commands of a dataset are listed on the top of the right-click menu.

Shared Commands

Shared Commands are command objects which are shared with all datasets and folders. The shared commands are listed in the “Tool Box” under “Shared commands”. If you cannot see the Tool Box, it can be opened from “View” on the main menu.

The shelf plug-in contains schemas with commands which can be used for UNCLOS work. Editing these commands will affect all the datasets using this schema. If you only want to make changes to a command on one dataset or folder, you can create an item command on this data set.

In the next exercise you will customize a display command object to display a line in a certain way. All command objects have a command editor where you may change the properties, thus affecting the way it is executed. A similar procedure may be followed to customize other types of command objects.

Exercise: Create a new command object Create a new command object for custom display of limit lines.

1. Right click one of the datasets with the limit line schema, and select “edit schema commands”

2. Select the command called “Display”, and click the copy button :

3. Click the paste button: , and observe that a copy of the selected command called “Display-1” will appear in the command object list.

4. Select the new command in the command list, and click the rename button:

5. Name the command “Display Thick Yellow”

6. Click the edit command button: , and the command editor for the selected command will appear

7. In the command editor for the display command do the following settings:

   • Select Line width 6.

   • Check the User defined color box and click the Palette button

   • Select a yellow color

8. When the settings are done click “OK” to close the Display command editor

9. Click OK (not cancel) to close the schema command list.

10. Right click the same data set, and observe that our new command is on the right click menu.

11. Execute the command by right clicking the data set and selecting the new command. Observe that the line is displayed in yellow.

12. Right click a different dataset with the same schema (limit line) and observe that the new command is located on this right click menu as well.