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SurView Tutorial

Introduction

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About SurView

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SurView (SURvey VIEWer) is a graphics application designed for Microsoft Windows 3.x. It also runs on Microsoft Windows '95 and NT or equivalent emulation on other platforms (if available). It was originally created to view multivariable airborne skyvan gamma ray spectrometry survey data (flight lines, profile maps, stacked profiles, and grid files) for the Airborne Geophysics Section. As the application evolved, generalized support for polygons, text, and symbols was added to make it more complete, thus providing facilities for displaying lakes, rivers, geology, and point data (for geochemistry). SurView was never designed as an alternative to consumer GIS packages like ArcView or MapInfo.

Despite the proliferation of features, SurView remains primarily an application for viewing geophysical, geological, and geochemical data files interactively and is not intended to be used as a map composition tool for the creation of 'finished' high quality maps suitable for publication. However, SurView can print very nice maps on any of the hundreds of printers supported by Microsoft Windows. As a Microsoft Windows application, SurView enjoys most of the features and benefits of all Windows applications. Complete SurView documentation is provided in a .HLP file driven by the Windows WinHelp help engine.


Limited & full versions

The Geological Survey of Canada provides a limited version of SurView on some CDs of digital data, at the discretion of the CD author. This free viewer is provided for the convenience of those who are not familiar with GIS software and/or who do not have such software. In the limited version of SurView, all of the import & export tools have been disabled.

The full-featured version of SurView is available separately, as:

Geological Survey of Canada Open File 2661
It can be ordered directly from the Geological Survey of Canada Bookstore for a very reasonable price:
Geological Survey of Canada Bookstore
601 Booth St.
Ottawa, Ontario, K1A 0E8

Voice: (613) 995-4342
FAX: (613) 943-0646
e-mail: gsc_bookstore@gsc.nrcan.gc.ca

This information also appears in the Help | About SurView dialog box.


Licence

All versions of SurView are accompanied by the following Licence Agreement:

The SurView application supplied is under Crown copyright. It is supplied on the understanding that it is for the SOLE USE of the purchaser and is NOT to be DISTRIBUTED in any form to third parties. In acknowledging receipt of SurView, the purchaser undertakes to abide by the foregoing legal requirements implicit in the purchase.


Requirements

SurView requires a PC with at least an 80386 processor running Microsoft Windows 3.x, Windows NT or Windows '95 (or equivalent emulation). A math co-processor is not required, but is highly recommended (math co-processors are embedded in all 80486 and up processors). SurView uses relatively little memory and has no specific memory requirements: it should run on most systems.


Features, capabilities & limitations

SurView was originally written specifically for viewing multivariable airborne survey data as:

From the map view of the flight lines (or a profile map of a selected variable), a flight line can be selected with the mouse or from a table of flight line numbers. A new window is created to display the multivariable stacked profile section for that line. Both the map and the stacked profile views can be printed on any printer supported by Windows.

Although SurView was not designed or written as a general purpose GIS, it can also display point, polyline, polygon and image data, allowing the airborne survey data to be displayed and interpreted in the context of underlying layers of geology, drainage and images.

SurView IS:

SurView is NOT:


Contact the author

Comments and questions regarding SurView may be directed to the author. Feel free to discuss the use of SurView with me at any time (questions? bugs?) via telephone or e-mail. I'm usually at the office in the evenings.

John A. Grant
Geological Survey of Canada
Mineral Resources Division
Airborne Geophysics Section (http://gamma.gsc.nrcan.gc.ca/)
601 Booth St., Room 591
Ottawa, Ontario, K1A 0E8

Voice: (613) 992-1082
FAX: (613) 996-3726
e-mail: jagrant@gsc.nrcan.gc.ca


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