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SurView Tutorial

Miscellaneous features

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Measuring distance

measuring distance with left mouse button

In SurView, the right mouse button is used for Picking features. The left mouse button is used to measure distances. Click the left mouse button, hold it down and drag the mouse and the distance (m) will be displayed in SurView's caption area.

The line measuring the distance between the two yellow features in this image has been enhanced for clarity.

This method of measuring distance can also be used in the stacked profile window, except that movement of the cursor is restricted to the horizontal direction, parallel to the flight line.


Smart cursor

smart cursor menu

SurView's 'smart cursor' can display the location of the cursor on the map in a variety of modes. Activate the smart cursor with the View | Smart (E,N) cursor menu item. You can move the small window around and place it anywhere convenient on the screen. The default display is (easting, northing) metres. Click the cursor window's system menu on the left to bring up a menu of display options:

Smart cursor display modes
Display mode Example
(easting, northing) metres smart cursor
(longitude, latitude) signed degrees smart cursor
(longitude, latitude) NEWS degrees smart cursor
(longitude, latitude) NEWS (d,m,s) smart cursor
NTS sheet number smart cursor
UTM zone smart cursor
Grid (col,row) & grid value smart cursor
(E,N) metres & grid value smart cursor


Special keys

A variety of special keys can be pressed to activate several different features.

Menu accelerator keys

These are normal Windows menu accelerator keys that are attached to various menu items. They are valid for both the map and stacked profile windows. For example, ^P is associated with the File | Print menu option. All of the menu accelerator keys are indicated in the menus.

Arrow keys, numeric keypad 1-9 & Insert/Delete keys

These keys are used to Zoom & Pan.

Esc key

If you have selected several files to display (perhaps from a prepared FDL file), it may take a while to draw the complete set of files. You don't have to wait for SurView to draw the entire picture - just use the Esc key to stop drawing the current file (layer). SurView will then move on to draw the next file in the File Display List. A series of Esc keystrokes, one for each layer in the File Display List can be used to suppress drawing of the entire map.

Tab key

This key has no effect if only 1 copy of SurView is running. However, if multiple copies of SurView are running, the Tab key displays a menu of the titles of the other copies of SurView and allows you to choose another SurView. The selected copy will rise to the top of the windows (or restored to normal size if minimized).

The popup menu identifies the copies of SurView as follows:

Flag Interpretation
  the current copy of SurView is disabled
[-] denotes a minimized copy of SurView
[+] denotes a maximized copy of SurView

This feature was designed to be similar to the Windows ALT-TAB feature used to cycle between windows/applications, and concerns itself solely with other copies of SurView (not other applications).

Other keys: 0-9, A-Z, F1-F12

A 1-10 character identifier can be assigned to each copy of SurView with the -id=identifier command-line option (it can also appear in FDL files). The identifier is displayed in SurView's 'system' menu (extreme upper left corner). At the moment (version 1.73), only single character (0-9, A-Z) identifiers and F1-F12 identifiers are useful. This allows a single keystroke to be used to activate and raise the corresponding copy of SurView to the top (even if minimized). For example:

Id To activate...
-id=3 press '3'
-id=X press 'X' (case is ignored)
-id=F6 press function key F6

For example, you might have several copies of SurView running, one of which is displaying an index map. If that copy has been identified with "id=X", then it can be brought forward with a single "X" keystroke, entered into any other copy of SurView.


Resizing windows

sizing dialog box

Any window can be resized manually by dragging the corners or sides. The View | Resize window(s)... menu item also provides a way to size the current SurView window and the windows of other copies of SurView.

Each of the dimensions (width & height) of the current window can be adjusted independently to the smallest or largest SurView window of all of the running copies. Either dimension can be set to an explicit size (pixels).

Finally, the new window size can be broadcast to all other running copies of SurView to adjust their windows to the same size. Coupled with the ability to Zoom/Pan all of these copies of SurView together, this provides a very powerful feature to synchronize several windows viewing different sets of data for the same area.


Copy to clipboard

Windows provides the PrintScreen key to copy the current screen (all windows) to the clipboard. Alt-PrintScreen is used to copy the current window to the clipboard, including the frame, caption and menus.

zoom/pan cursor in zoom mode
zoom/pan cursor in copy mode
If you want to exclude the frame, caption and menu areas, or if you want to copy a selected area of the window to the clipboard (as an image), you can use SurView's Edit | Copy to clipboard feature. This launches the Zoom/Pan cursor in a slightly different mode than for the usual Zoom/Pan operations. In addition to the usual keystrokes and mouse motion & clicks, you can press the Tab key to switch to a mode that allows the aspect ratio of the window to be changed (normally it matches the current map window). In addition, the dimensions (pixels) of the selection rectangle are shown on the screen. This allows a specific size of image to be selected.

Note that SurView only copies an image to the clipboard (as of version 1.73). A future version will allow the picture to be copied to the clipboard as a Windows metafile.


Command prompt

You can use the File | (DOS) Prompt to launch a console window for quick access to the shell (usually command.com or cmd.exe). The working directory of the shell matches that of SurView. This is identical to the often-used but incorrect and dopey phrase "Exit to DOS".


Launch a new copy of SurView

You can launch a new copy of SurView at any time by using the File | Launch a new copy of SurView menu item. SurView uses very little memory and it's not unreasonable to have 10 copies of it running at any given time on a normal system.


Selecting alternate language

ASX files can be configured with two sets of file titles, window captions & legend descriptions/titles. Options | Use alternate language where available can be used to switch between these two sets (usually english and français). You may find this option already active after loading an FDL or ASX file, since the initial setting can be specified by the developer who prepared the files. If Use alternate language... is enabled, and the files do not have titles or data in 'another language', the primary language will be used instead.


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