Creating, renaming and deleting surfaces

• Detect a surface
• Create a surface from a line
• Create a virtual surface
• Rename a surface
• Resample a surface
• Delete a surface

Surface from line

You can create surface objects from any line (including sounder-detected lines) on a single beam echogram. The surface may be created from the whole line or part of a line. 

To create a surface object using an entire line:

1. On the Echogram menu, point to Create 3D object, and then click Surface from Line....
2. On the Create 3D Surface from Line dialog box, enter a name for the 3D object, choose the line on which it is based and enter other settings as required.
3. Click Create.

To create a 'Surface from Line' object using a selection of a line:

1. Make a selection using the Vertical band tool .
2. On the Shortcut menu (right-click), point to Create 3D object, and then click Surface From Line.
3. On the Create 3D Surface from Line dialog box, enter a name for the object, choose the line on which it is based and enter other settings as required.
4. Click Create.

Notes:

• There are a number of ways to view the surface.
• The geographic position of the line from which the surface is created are the latitude and longitude of the GPS antenna at the time the pings were transmitted and have not been corrected for transducer geometry. As a result, the surface properties and position in the scene will not represent real world coordinates unless the transducer was located at the same point on the platform as the GPS antenna and was pointing straight down.

Virtual surface

Line and Surface tool

The Line and Surface tool is context sensitive and offers options to create a New Surface or a New Virtual Surface for multibeam echograms.

To create a virtual surface on a multibeam echogram:

1. Display a multibeam echogram.
2. Click the Line and Surface tool arrow .
3. Select New Virtual Surface. Note, New Surface is intended to detect a surface.
4. On the New Virtual Surface dialog box specify a surface operator.
5. Click OK.
6. On the Surface Properties dialog box specify an operand and settings.
7. Click OK.
8. A surface object appears on the Dataflow window.

Dataflow window

To create a virtual surface:

1. On the Dataflow window right-click and on the Shortcut menu, select New, Create new object via Dataflow Toolbox.
2. On the Dataflow Toolbox, under Lines and Surfaces, select a Surface operator, drag and drop it onto the Dataflow window. A surface object appears on the Dataflow window.
3. Right-click the new surface object and on the Shortcut menu select Surface Properties.
4. Specify the surface properties.
5. Click OK.

Notes:

• Step 1 may be omitted.
• You can click and drag node arrows between surfaces in the Dataflow window to update a virtual surface’s input operand.

Rename a surface

1. On the Dataflow window Objects List click a surface object.
2. On the Shortcut menu, select Rename.
3. - OR -

1. On the Dataflow window click a surface object.
2. On the Shortcut menu, select Surface Properties.
3. Click OK.
4. - OR -
1. On a Scene, use the Shortcut menu and click Scene Properties.
2. On the Objects page, click a surface object.
3. Click the Properties button.
4. Change the Name of the object.
5. Click OK.

Notes:

1. Detected surface and Surface from line objects display Name under the General page.
2. Virtual surface objects display Name under the Notes page.

Delete a surface

On the Dataflow window, click a surface object and press Delete. Note, surfaces that are displayed in scenes are not deleted by this method. You must clear the surface object from the scene display to allow the surface to be deleted.

See also

About Surfaces
About Undo and Redo