Here is some example Survex data (a very small cave numbered 1623/163):
2 1 26.60 222 17.5 2 3 10.85 014 7 2 4 7.89 254 -11 4 5 2.98 - DOWN 5 6 9.29 271 -28.5 |
You can vary the data ordering. The default is:
from-station to-station tape compass clino
This data demonstrates a number of useful features of Survex:
Legs can be measured either way round, which allows the use of techniques like "leap-frogging" (which is where legs alternate forwards and backwards).
Also notice that there is a spur in the survey (2 to 3). You do not need to specify this specially.
Survex places few restrictions on station naming (see "Survey Station Names" in the previous section), so you can number the stations as they were in the original survey notes. Although not apparent from this example, there is no requirement for each leg to connect to an existing station. Survex can accept data in any order, and will check for connectedness once all the data has been read in.
Each survey is also likely to have other information associated with it, such as instrument calibrations, etc. This has been omitted from this example to keep things simple.
Most caves will take more than just one survey trip to map. Commonly the numbering in each survey will begin at 1, so we need to be able to tell apart stations with the same number in different surveys.
To accomplish this, Survex has a very flexible system of hierarchical prefixes. All you need do is give each survey a unique name or number, and enter the data like so:
*begin 163 *export 1 2 1 26.60 222 17.5 2 3 10.85 014 7 2 4 7.89 254 -11 4 5 2.98 - DOWN 5 6 9.29 271 -28.5 *end 163 |
Survex will name the stations by attaching the current prefix. In this case, the stations will be named 163.1, 163.2, etc.
We have a convention with the CUCC Austria data that the entrance survey station of a cave is named P<cave number>, P163 in this case. We can accomplish this like so:
*equate P163 163.1 *entrance P163 *begin 163 *export 1 2 1 26.60 222 17.5 2 3 10.85 014 7 2 4 7.89 254 -11 4 5 2.98 - DOWN 5 6 9.29 271 -28.5 *end 163 |
Say you have 2 underground surveys and 2 surface ones with 2 fixed reference points. You want to mark the surface surveys so that their length isn't included in length statistics, and so that Aven knows to display them differently. To do this you mark surface data with the "surface" flag - this is set with "*flags surface" like so:
; fixed reference points
*fix fix_a 12345 56789 1234
*fix fix_b 23456 67890 1111
; surface data (enclosed in *begin ... *end to stop the *flags command
; from "leaking" out)
*begin
*flags surface
*include surface1
*include surface2
*end
; underground data
*include cave1
*include cave2 |
You might also have a survey which starts on the surface and heads into a cave. This can be easily handled too - here's an example which goes in one entrance, through the cave, and out of another entrance:
*begin BtoC *title "161b to 161c" *date 1990.08.06 ; trip 1990-161c-3 in 1990 logbook *begin *flags surface 02 01 3.09 249 -08.5 02 03 4.13 252.5 -26 *end 04 03 6.00 020 +37 04 05 3.07 329 -31 06 05 2.67 203 -40.5 06 07 2.20 014 +04 07 08 2.98 032 +04 08 09 2.73 063.5 +21 09 10 12.35 059 +15 *begin *flags surface 11 10 4.20 221.5 -11.5 11 12 5.05 215 +03.5 11 13 6.14 205 +12.5 13 14 15.40 221 -14 *end *end BtoC |
Note that to avoid needless complication, Survex regards each leg as being either "surface" or "not surface" - if a leg spans the boundary you'll have to call it one or the other. It's good surveying practice to