Using the drawing tools in TritonMap

The following is an addition to the TritonMap manual, and should be read in conjunction with the manual, which explains the basic procedures.

Projects and working folders.

When a side-scan mosaic is first created, or a layer is initially inserted into TritonMap the project name defaults to New Project.DMP. The default working folder for this project is decided by the TEMP or TMP windows variable, usually C:\Documents and Settings\<user_name>\Local Settings\Temp. This not an ideal location and many people have difficulty locating it.

It is important that a sensible working folder is assigned and that a project name is given and saved, before proceeding.

The Digit Layer

It appears at first that only one digit layer can exist in any project. However the truth is that only one active, editable digit layer can exist, you can have any number of Vector layers but only one can be the “Digit” layer at a time.

Ending a line.

The most commonly asked question was “how do I finish a line?” how you do this is not obvious and depends on the type of line. If it’s a simple open polyline then the <ESC> key will do it. However if you construct a closed polygon then you must right click, and “Save”. (in this case, hitting the escape key will delete the object!)

Labels.

Everything ends up being “Clay” because it’s the default label. To avoid this problem you must first choose your drawing tool you want to use, then the label you want to apply, then draw the object. You can also type in your own label, but be careful, the <DEL> and <BACKSPACE> keys don’t work in this box! Don’t change the drawing tool after selecting the name, otherwise the label will revert to “Clay”.

Multiple Digit Layers.

Creating multiple digit layers. When you first click the drawing button a dialog box opens where you can give the layer a name, so for example call it “Debris” (confusingly it appears as “Digit” but refers to a DDS_VOB file called Debris.DDS_VOB), and draw all your debris objects. When you are done, right click on the Digit layer in the Project window and remove it. Now click the drawing tools button again, this time call the layer “piplines”, go ahead and draw all the pipelines, when you are done remove the digit layer and create another called “platforms” and so on. You can display any, or all, of these layers, but only the one called “digit” will be editable. And more importantly you can export each of these layers to a separate .DXF file.

Selecting layers for editing.

This becomes much easier once you understand the previous paragraph. You must first make the layer containing the object you want to edit the “Digit” layer. This is always possible, but can be tedious. Lets say you have the Digit layer assigned to a file Piplines.DDS_VOB and you want to edit an existing layer called “Platforms”. You must first remove both the “Digit” and “Platforms” layer, then click the drawing button and when asked select the “Platforms.DDS_VOB” as the digit layer, you will now be able to edit the objects in that layer. If you need to display the “Pipelines” layer at the same time you may do so by simply inserting that layer into the project.

Editing methods.

Right clicking on the “Digit” layer allows you access to the properties of the objects in that layer, you can select line type, color and size of label, you can also select different fill types for closed polygons. Left clicking on an object in the main window that is part of the active Digit layer should make it editable, at this point it will turn green. Note that if there are different classes (Point, Box, Line, Area) in the layer you must select the tool with which the object was drawn to edit it. Polylines and areas (created with the growing tool) can have their individual points dragged, also, right clicking on either of these types will open a dropdown box where the name and individual points can be edited. Boxes and single points can only be deleted.