pos file in 3d

[Raymond Duffy]

In the past it has been possible to generate a position file from the 3d file by choosing from a drop down menu. Although the menu is still there it appears not to be connected to a program to generate the information. This was a really useful function for surface survey data as it gave a cave location. Can we have survex produce this again please?

[Olly Betts]

I assume you're talking about the right-click menu in the microsoft windows file manager?

That's still meant to work (it was broken in 1.2.35 and 1.2.36 but should work aside from those two).

Is this an old install that's been upgraded to 1.2.44, or a fresh install of 1.2.44?

If it's old, do you have a rough idea when it was originally installed?

I'll try to find a machine to debug on, but as a workaround you can export .pos from Aven - load the 3d file into Aven, then File->Export as..., set "Export format" to "Survex pos", select what type of stations to include, and click "Export...". Then you can choose the filename (which defaults to the same as the .3d file but with a .pos extension, just like you'd get from the file manager menu).

(If you're just after a list of cave locations you may actually find exporting from Aven a better approach as you can select to only include "Entrances" in the exported .pos file.)

[Raymond Duffy]

Hi Olly I've got it working now so that I can view the Position information, guess I need a revamp of my Survex knowledge, it was always pretty poor but things have moved on. Thanks for the help.

[Olly Betts]

Actually, I mis-spoke above when I said this was still meant to work - I now see this was actually deliberately removed in 1.2.35 - from the NEWS file:

Microsoft Windows version): Drop two options from explorer bindings. "Convert to DXF" and "Convert for hand plotting" have both been supported via aven for a while, and that's a more useful way to access them as you can control what gets exported.

I think this change makes sense - the old "Convert for hand plotting" option was really a crude hack for allowing access to the command-line 3dtopos program without having to resort to using the command line, and now that we support exporting from aven that's provides a much more versatile solution.

I gather from your reply that you're OK with this, so closing.