New release of Cave Converter

[Footleg]

A New Year, and a new version of my Cave Converter tool. It converts between various cave survey file formats. Primarily to enable users of DistoX devices to get their existing data into PocketTopo, and their new survey data out of PocketTopo and into Survex format. Help and download link on the new home page. Source code now available too under GNU GPLv3 license.

http://wscc.darkgem.com/caveconverter/

Some minor bug fixes in this release:
- PocketTopo trip comments are now supported.
- Survex files can now contain more than 26 splays per station without containing invalid characters.
- When run on Windows, output files will now have Windows style line endings.

Bug reports and requests to support other formats always welcomed.

Enjoy!

[Footleg]

A new version of my Cave Converter tool is now available. It converts between various cave survey file formats. Primarily to enable users of DistoX devices to get their existing data into PocketTopo, and their new survey data out of PocketTopo and into Survex format. Help and download link on the home page. Source code available under GNU GPLv3 license.

http://wscc.darkgem.com/caveconverter/

A summary of the changes in this release:
- Added support for nested series in the data model. Survex reader and writer no longer flatten
the survey series hierarchy when series are inside other series.
- Fixed issue where Survex output files put data inside duplicated begin/end blocks.
- Improved series naming in PocketTopo converted data. Series now have the series number as
their name rather than the full cave name and series number, so the name is not duplicated
in the outer series name and inner series names. The outer series name is now the full name
from the input file (previously any numbers on the end of the name were removed).
- PocketTopo converted data links to series not included in the PocketTopo file now use the
correct series number and station number for the linked external series instead of dummy data.
- Toporobot format generation is much faster, and handles more complex cave surveys which
could crash the converter in previous versions.
- Fixed crash in Toporobot writer when converting directly from PocketTopo format.

Bug reports and requests to support other formats always welcomed.

Enjoy!

Footleg

[Footleg]

Only ten days since I released an update to my Cave Converter program, but I just put out another update. Just one bug fix in this one, but it finally fixes the last niggling issues in converting survey data into Toporobot format (at least as far as I am aware) so I put it straight out. My most complex caves now all convert properly for import into PocketTopo for taking underground on a PDA for surveying trips. The change log entry is as follows:

16 Mar. 2013
- Fixed bug in Toporobot writer which left survey series unlinked when two series crossed over
each other in the middle of each series (i.e. Not joined at the start or end of either series).

Same place as usual for the download:
http://wscc.darkgem.com/caveconverter/

[Footleg]

A new version (20140412) of my Cave Converter tool is now available. It converts between various cave survey file formats. Enables users of DistoX devices to get their existing data into PocketTopo, and their new survey data out of PocketTopo and into Survex format. Plus enables migrating survey data from one program to another.

Help and the download link can be found on the Cave Converter home page. Source code is available under a GNU GPLv3 license.
http://wscc.darkgem.com/caveconverter/

A summary of the changes in this release:
- Adopted JScience.org libraries for handling measurements, and implemented length measurements
as unitised lengths rather than plain decimal values.
- Added support for reading Compass format survey data files.
- Added substitution of illegal characters in series and station names to Survex format output.
Compass files allow various punctuation characters in series and station names, which are not
allowed in Survex format data files. These will be substituted by an underscore character followed
by a two letter code indicating the character which was substituted (e.g. '!' becomes '_ex').
- Added additional command line options:
- : splays/nosplays: Survex writer and Toporobot writer now have option to not output splays.
- : lrud: Option to generate LRUD data from splays (can be used on any conversion).
- Added rounding of LRUD values to 2 decimal places in the Survex file writer.
- Changed LRUD generation to better select the best splay for each dimension, and to calculate
the distance for the LRUD dimensions based on the angle of the splay to the passage direction
instead of using the total length of the splay. The splay selected when there is a choice is now
the splay giving the biggest dimension in the direction of the LRUD measurement rather than using
the splay closest to the compass bearing of the passage dimension measurement direction. Passage
direction is now calculated from the average bearing of the forward leg and the previous leg
arriving at the station. When more than two legs join at a station then the previous leg will be
the one with the closest bearing to the bearing of the onward leg.
- Splays fired as back shots are now excluded from LRUD generation.
- Splays are no longer removed from the output when used to generate LRUD dimensions.
- The Survex writer now groups passage data from LRUD dimensions into blocks of readings corresponding
to the survey legs in the file (previously one block of passage data was output per series with all
stations listed with no respect for their connectivity).
- Added duplicate and surface flags to leg class, and added reading of flags to Survex parser and writing
them to Survex writer.
- Made the logging output less verbose, and fixed the survey summary details log output to include inner series.

Bugs fixed:
- Fixed case sensitivity bug in Toborobot file generation which left series unlinked if series or
station names did not have identical case.
- Fixed bug in PocketTopo parser which repeated the station name given to the 'to' station for a splay
leg when the splays were not all located together in the survey.
- Fixed bug where compass calibration was used instead of declination calibration in PocketTopo parser,
Survex parser and Survex writer.
- Added date reading to Survex parser.
- Fixed bug in utility function to calculate the average of a set of compass bearings (thanks to Peter Kellaway
for pointing me to a much more robust and elegant solution). This bug does not affect the use of the function
in previous versions (where it was only used to convert PocketTopo triple leg readings into one average leg)
but it did show up in the new LRUD generation code when calculating the average bearing of two legs either
side of a station when the passage went round a sharp bend.
- Fixed bug in Toporobot Writer which caused passage dimensions data to be output on the wrong station
(LRUD values for the 'from' station of each leg were being put on the 'to' station of each leg).
- PocketTopo file reader no longer reorders the splay legs for each station (something which used to happen
due to the old code which sorted splays into groups for L,R,U,D measurements in this reader).

Bug reports and requests to support other formats always welcomed.

Enjoy!

Footleg