source: git/doc/3dformat.htm @ 0b06327

RELEASE/1.0RELEASE/1.2debug-cidebug-ci-sanitisersfaster-cavernloglog-selectstereostereo-2025walls-datawalls-data-hanging-as-warningwarn-only-for-hanging-survey
Last change on this file since 0b06327 was 760a6550, checked in by Olly Betts <olly@…>, 23 years ago

Added rationale for variable length encoding for station/survey name
length.

git-svn-id: file:///home/survex-svn/survex/trunk@1787 4b37db11-9a0c-4f06-9ece-9ab7cdaee568

  • Property mode set to 100644
File size: 4.9 KB
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[2d82f2a]1<HTML><HEAD>
2<TITLE>Survex 3d Format Specification</TITLE>
3<STYLE type="text/css"><!--
4BODY, TD, CENTER, UL, OL {font-family: sans-serif;}
5-->
6</STYLE>
7</HEAD><BODY BGCOLOR=white TEXT=black>
8<H1>Warning - Very Provisional</H1>
9
[a6907d1]10This is an <b>early draft</b> of this specification, and I've had to reverse
[2d82f2a]11engineer it from the code.  It may be incorrect in places, and I certain
12there's a lot of knowledge this document assumes, especially if you aren't
13familiar with Survex.
14
15<H1>Survex 3d Format Specification</H1>
16
17<P>If you're writing in C or C++ it's <b>strongly</b> recommended that you use
18the img routine provided with Survex to read and write 3d files.  Doing so
19means that you can take advantage of any revisions to the 3d format by simply
20rebuilding your software with the updated img routines, rather than having to
21update your own code.  It also allows you to read a sub-set of the data in
22the file, restricted by Survey prefix.</P>
23
24<P>This document only describes the most recent revision of the 3d format
25(version 3), which is produced by Survex versions 0.97 and later.</P>
26
27<H2>File Header</H2>
28
29<P>This consists of:
30
31<ul>
32<li> File ID: the string "Survex 3D Image File" followed by a linefeed (decimal 10, hex x0a)
33<li> File format version: "v3" followed by a linefeed.  Valid values for
34older format versions are ("v0.01", "Bv0.01", "bv0.01", "v2").  Newer versions
35will be "v4", "v5", ..., "v10", "v11", etc.
36<li> Survey title: A string followed by a linefeed.  There's no length limit on this string.
[429121e]37<li> Timestamp: A string followed by a linefeed.  This is intended to be the
38time the file was generated, rather than the time the survey data was
39collected.  The easiest way to generate this is with the strftime() format
40"%a,%Y.%m.%d %H:%M:%S %Z" if you have access to strftime().  An example
41timestamp is "Sun,2002.03.17 14:01:07 GMT".
[2d82f2a]42</ul>
43
44<H2>Items</H2>
45
46<P>Following the header are a number of items.  The last item must be a 0x00
47byte when the current label is empty, which marks the end of the data.  The
[a0b43a6]48first byte of an item identifies what it is:
[2d82f2a]49
50<ul>
51<li> 0x00 : if the current label is empty, signifies the end of the data
52in the 3d file; if the current label isn't empty, make it empty.
53<li> 0x01-0x0e : trim the last 17 characters of the current label, then
54trim back N-1 (i.e. 0-13) dots ("."), removing "." and everything after
55it.  It's incorrect if the label ends up empty, or you attempt to trim more
56label than there is.
57<li> 0x0f &lt;x coord&gt; &lt;y coord&gt; &lt;z coord&gt; : set current
58position to the coordinates given.  Coordinates are 4 bytes little-endian
59signed integers representing values in centimetres (0.01 metres).
60<li> 0x10-0x1f : remove N-15 (i.e. 1-16) characters from the current label.
61It's incorrect if the label ends up empty, or you attempt to trim more
62label than there is.
[67d60f3]63<li> 0x20-0x3f : Reserved
64<li> 0x40-0x7f &lt;length&gt; &lt;label&gt; &lt;x coord&gt; &lt;y coord&gt;
[e77d6de]65&lt;z coord&gt; : station flags are (N &amp; 0x1f):
66<ul>
67<li> 0x01 : Station is on an above ground leg
68<li> 0x02 : Station is on an underground leg (both may be true at an entrance)
69<li> 0x04 : Station is marked as an entrance (with *entrance)
70<li> 0x08 : Station is exported (i.e. may be used as a connection point to
71other surveys)
72<li> 0x10 : Station is a fixed point (control point)
73<li> 0x20 : Reserved
74</ul>
75
[a6907d1]76Append label to the current label buffer.  The length of label is given by
77length, which is encoded as follows:
78<ul>
79<li> 0-253 - byte 0x00-0xfd
80<li> 254-65789 - byte 0xfe 2 byte little-endian unsigned integer len-254
810x0000-0xffff
82<li> 65790 and greater - byte 0xff 4 byte little-endian unsigned integer len
830x000100fd-0xffffffff
84</ul>
85
[760a6550]86The rationale for this encoding is that station and survey names are usually
87much less than 253 characters.  However, the Survex philosophy is not to impose
88arbitrary limits.  By using a variable length encoding, we get the
89compactness benefits of encoding the length in a single byte, but avoid the
90need to impose a hard limit of the length of station and survey names.<P>
91
92Return station at the coordinates given, and update current position to
93coordinates given (FIXME: check this).  The updated contents of the label
94buffer give the survey stations full name.
[e77d6de]95
96<li> 0x80-0xbf &lt;length&gt; &lt;label&gt; &lt;x coord&gt; &lt;y coord&gt;
[2d82f2a]97&lt;z coord&gt; : leg flags are (N &amp; 0x1f):
98<ul>
99<li> 0x01 : Leg is above ground
100<li> 0x02 : Leg duplicates data in another leg (e.g. resurvey along a passage to tie into a known station)
101<li> 0x04 : Leg is a splay shot in a chamber (radial shots from a central point)
102<li> 0x08 : Reserved
103<li> 0x10 : Reserved
[e77d6de]104<li> 0x20 : Reserved
[2d82f2a]105</ul>
[a6907d1]106Append label to the current label buffer.  The length of the label is encoded
107as for a station label above.  Return leg from current position to coordinates
108given, and update current position to coordinates given.  The updated contents
109of the label buffer give the survey that the leg is in.
[e77d6de]110<li> 0xc0-0xff : Reserved
[2d82f2a]111</ul>
112
[67d60f3]113<P>Olly Betts 2002-03-17, 2002-03-21</P>
[2d82f2a]114</BODY></HTML>
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