Cavechat.org

For years I used "On Station" to generate line plots from my surveys and enjoyed its simplicity and ability to handle simple and complex systems. Then life intervened and for a while I was not caving or surveying. Recently I have got involved again and thought I would get an update of "On Station". To my surprise it does not appear to be available on the net. There are numerous references to it but all the sites are either dead ends or selling houses instead! If anyone has an active source for this program I would be interested in hearing of it.

Assuming that the program has in fact gone then what has replaced it? I know all about Compass and Walls but I want something simpler as most of the caves I am mapping at present are quite small and hardly justify the power of these big guys. A simple program that will output line plots is what I want.

Erik

The last version of OnStation was ver. 3.1 from 2000. Taco announced that he was dropping work on it and releasing the code. His web site stayed around for a couple years with v.3.1 files on it. I do not have a copy of his release text, but I have the installable EXE and the C++ source code.

It was on Taco's new website for awhile but I don't see it there now. I'll ask him and get back to you.

Ian, maybe we should host the On Station file on the ASS website?

I have the OnStation 3.1 zipfile. PM me if you want a copy. It runs about 1.8mb. I just ran it on XP Pro and all still seems to function.

Cheers,

Aaron

If you feel like branching out some, you might give CAPS a try. I have not used it personally, but I have heard that it is pretty straightforward, as far as cave survey software goes.

You might also consider Survex which is also pretty easy to use.

robcountess wrote:Ian, maybe we should host the On Station file on the ASS website?

Nice idea. Taco's own domain expired, so it is not available to download anywhere else, AFAIK.

OK erikhalbert, try http://shatterthefog.googlepages.com/onstation

Rob, I'll link the ASS site to it in a couple of days, and so will Cancaver.

Ian,
thanks for that. I think that having this available is good. Good news also that Taco may get back to doing some more work on the program in the future, though I know how difficult this can be. I have found that On Station is pretty good for most of my work at present. I can get line plots out easily by doing a print pdf and importing that into Xara for detail.
Erik

Does any one know if there is a linux version of OnStation ? specifically ubuntu

I've personally have never used OnStation, but CaveWhere is what I use. CaveWhere a cave mapping software that can be found at https://cavewhere.com. It's pretty simple to use compared to Compass or Walls. You can view a 3D line plot or even create a cave map from your survey scans.

Here's a simple how to video on entering data and visualizing the sketchs:


@BullSnook, it even runs on linux, if you build it from source.