Footleg wrote:What is also made me realise is just how much more sophisticated the error correction/sketch distorting capabilities of my preferred cave drawing program are (Tunnel:
http://www.freesteel.co.uk/wiki/index.php/Tunnel ). The fundamental difference of the approach in Walls vs Tunnel is that Walls associates the sketch to the survey centerline by proximity on the sketch (as far as I understand it), where as in Tunnel you actually attach the cave passage to the centerline in the drawing. What this means is that when one passage overlaying another is moved in Tunnel, it only takes that passage with it, and leaves other passages alone. So the minimum amount of fixing is required after loop closures or error correction even in complex multi-level caves.
I agree that the primary shortcoming of the Walls roundtripping workflow is its
complete inability to understand passage on different levels. While I'm not looking to switch, and use Walls specifically for sake of data-management compliance with several projects, I would be somewhat tempted to make a change to another program as my primary data reduction software if a "competing" product has cleared this hurdle before Walls.
However, I also believe the technique Tunnel uses is relatively incompatible with the MSS/CRF technique of showing lots of detail in the plan view. I am speaking from a second-hand description of the program, so I may be off-base, but am I correct in my understanding that, in Tunnel, you connect not only the relevant walls but the plan view details to the centerline as well? With, say, a 0pt line in Illustrator or whatever drawing program is being used? It seems to me that in a modern, detailed cave map this would require quite a few lines, it would be very easy to miss lines, and this might end up being a significant amount of extra work.
For instance, here is one of the examples I used in the roundtripping article linked above (with all cross-sections, place names, and underlying passage removed for sake of simplifying the example; this passage is approximately 40 feet wide). How would Tunnel address this style of drafting? Are we talking about hundreds and hundreds of reference lines? I wouldn't be able to utilize it on this project, anyway, but am of course interested.