New Features in AutoChart 2010.00.03

Last week we released the latest version of AutoChart (2010.00.03). Although it's not been a particularly long interval since the previous release, the 2010.00.03 version sees a number of modifications, in particular to the functionality of Custom Format ini files.

When you define a Custom Format ini file to read in your ASCII data, you can now add a line to the ini Header to define the number of rows at the start of the data file to ignore. This means that you don't need to strip off Header lines from the data, you can simply set up the Custom Format ini file to skip the appropriate number of lines before the command starts to read the actual data by adding a #HeaderLines entry to the start of the ini file definition:

#AutoChartName,ColumnPosition
#Valid AutoChartName values are Easting, Northing, Kp, Description. Easting and Northing must be present.
#To use tab delimiter you can use a tab character or for the avoidance of doubt when perusing this file "\t"
#Delimeter,"\t"
#HeaderLines,2
Kp,5
Easting,6
Northing,7
Description,1

So, in the above example, the first two lines of the data file would be ignored when the data is imported. If the #HeaderLines variable is omitted from the ini file then the import function will start reading from the first line in the data file.

Another option that can be added to the ini file is that you can now specify the units of numerical fields or an actual multiplier value so that unit conversion can be undertaken automatically as the data is imported. This option is activated by adding the unit value after the column number for the field:

#AutoChartName,ColumnPosition

#Valid AutoChartName values are Easting, Northing, Kp, Description. Easting and Northing must be present.
#To use tab delimiter you can use a tab character or for the avoidance of doubt when perusing this file "\t"
#Delimeter,","
#HeaderLines,3
Kp,1,Meter
Easting,2
Northing,3

Alternatively, an explicit multiplier value can be specified rather than the field units:
#AutoChartName,ColumnPosition
#Valid AutoChartName values are Easting, Northing, Kp, Description. Easting and Northing must be present.
#To use tab delimiter you can use a tab character or for the avoidance of doubt when perusing this file "\t"
#Delimeter,","
#HeaderLines,3
Kp,1,0.001
Easting,2
Northing,3

In both of the examples above, the values in the Kp column of the data will be divided by 1000, so converting the input units in meters to Kp in Kilometers. If no units or multiplier is specified then the values in the file will be imported directly. Similarly, if the coordinate values are set to the same units as those used by the coordinate system, no unit multiplication will be performed.

e.g. If the Easting and Northing fields are set to have a unit value of USFoot and the data is imported into a drawing that has a coordinate system with units of S Survey Feet, then the E/N values will be imported as they appear in the file. However, if the data is imported into a meter coordinate system, the E/N values will be multiplied by (12/39.37).

The following units can be specified:

USFoot

IntFoot

Meter

USKiloFoot

IntKiloFoot

USMile

IntMile

Kilometer

Continuing with the Custom Format theme, it is now possible to define and use a Custom Format ini file for Sub-Bottom Profiler (SBP) file types. The SBP Custom ini files must be stored in the \SubBottom sub-folder of the AutoChart Formats support folder (e.g. C:\AutoChart\Formats\SubBottom) and follow the following conventions:

• Positions must be stored in fields named Easting and Northing
• Horizon depths must be relative to the seabed and be stored in a field named Depth
• Nodes and Tag names must be defined in a field named Node and a field named TagName respectively. Node values should be S (for start of horizon), I (for intermediate points on the horizon) and E (for end of horizon). Point values can be denoted by use of an S or E node value, or by any other value (e.g. P) outside of a normal linear horizon definition.
• Optionally a Description field can be used in the ini file and then the values contained in this field will be added to the points and horizon vertices.

As noted above, header lines can be skipped and unit conversion can be performed by setting these options in the ini file definition.
#AutoChartName,ColumnPosition
#Valid AutoChartName values are Easting, Northing, Depth, TagName, Node, Description.
#Easting, Northing, Depth, TagName and Node must be present.
#To use tab delimiter you can use a tab character or for the avoidance of doubt when perusing this file "\t"
#Delimeter,";"
#HeaderLines,3
TagName,1
Node,2
Easting,3
Northing,4
Depth,5
Description,6
In my next post I'll finish my roundup about the changes in the latest 2010.00.03 version of AutoChart by discussing the modifications we've made to allow creation of panels and charts along multiple routes.
As always you can check out the details of all of the recent changes on our website or in the AutoChart Help documentation.