New developments in CAPLAN ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Apr 11,24: Since an update from March 18, 2024 editing the object type of multiple points in the point directory failed. Only the object type of the first marked point has been changed. This error has been rectified. Drawing a road surface in a plan creates a polyline for each lane. The elevetaions of these polylines will now be computed correctly in any case. When loading both horizontal and vertical alignments from an ASCIIBAHN formatted file from CARD/1, now CAPLAN con- siders correctly whether the vertical curve is rounded at the TI points by a parabola or by a circle. If, in the Plan Window, two lines will be joined by an arc, now the center point of the arc can be changed multiple times by clicking in the detail window. In the dialog the focus remains on the coordinates of the center point. Apr 09,24: Drawing multiple cross sections (more than 200) has been accelerated considerably. Apr 08,24: Exporting building surveys for Bavaria once again has been amended in such a way that it corresponds to the ALKIS version 7.1. The dialog "Help / License..." has been adapted so that the list of modules will be shown in any case. Mar 28,24: In the Plan Window the task for joining two lines by an arc now shows the line direction arrows in the dialog preview. Mar 27,24: In the Plan Window, when drawing multiple georeferenced images, pressing the CTRL button while clicking into an image will toggle the check mark in the dialog. When editing a polyline in the Project Window, adding nearby points will be assisted by showing the search para- meters in the dialog preview. The task "Alignments / Railway line / By profiles..." computes alignment points out of points measured to a railway staff. Hitherto special point names had been necessary to identify all the points referring to a single profile requiring many typewriting. Now the profile points will be identified by their codes assigned for the posi- tionial point, the counter point ass well as for the center point. All the points referring to a single observed pro- file will automatically be identified by their geometry. Mar 26,24: In the Plan Window dimensioning a distance between two points additionally offers the inclination. Mar 22,24: When loading NAS formatted ALKIS data into the Plan Window now the line attributes will be transferred as well as the attribute names will always be set correctly. On the tab "Lines + Patterns" the check mark for the origin will be preserved for the next call of the task as well as the check mark for the zone numbers on the tab "Plan". Mar 20,24: In the Project Window, when creating a polyline by relative coordinates now the current point snap will be considered. Thus coordinates from the background data can be extracted here. Mar 18,24: In the Plan Window the character '~' can now be used cor- rectly inside of text elements. The point directory as well as the line directory and several tasks that contain a list of lines now show the description of the object type as an additional column. Mar 14,24: The dialog "Observations / Radial / Edit..." can now be resized. Mar 12,24: When saving a building survey to a NAS formatted file now the new version number 7.1 will be written instead of the old version number 6.0. Mar 04,24: The task "Observations / Radial / Identify points..." hitherto took all polar points of a station into account for computing further stations. With many polar points observed this caused VERY long computation times. Now the polar points can be added to the computation optionally by activating "Extend control points by polar points". If you don't activate this option only the existing points will be applied for computing all the stations. This is con- siderably faster. Feb 27,24: Since the update from Jan. 12, 2024 CAPLAN could crash immediately when loading areas from a DXF formatted file into the Plan Window or a crash could happen afterwards when editing the data. This error has been rectified. Feb 23,24: All the tasks for projecting points onto a spatial plane, a spatial line and a spatial cylinder now allow to write the computation results to the point attributes. In the Plan Window the dialog for editing a polyline re- stores its size correctly. Feb 22,24: The dialog for creating and editing a horizontal alignment now shows the clothoid parameter A for spirals in the lower region of the dialog. Feb 21,24: When saving a building survey to a NAS formatted file now only the lines that are prepared for export, will be checked geometrically. Since the update from Jan. 12, 2024 CAPLAN could crash when copying lines from a plan to the Project Window via the clipboard. This error has been rectified. Feb 09,24: Having a project with a defined coordinate system including a geoid an internal error could be shown e.g. when exe- cuting the task "Calculate / Bearing and Distance / Continuous". This error will no longer be shown. Feb 08,24: When dimensioning elevations in lines the creation of an auxiliary line failed since the update from Jan. 12, 2024. This error has been rectified. Jan 31,24: DTM point data from the land administrations may more often be provided as GeoTIFF data. Now such files can be loaded as points by applying the file type "DTM Points as Grid (TIFF)". Jan 23,24: Since the update from Jan. 12, 2024 in few cases CAPLAN crashed immediately when being invoked due to some user defined symbols. This error has been rectified. All the toolbars in both the project window as well as in the plan window can be dragged to a floating position. Now the toolbars remember their position and they will be restored when starting CAPLAN the next time. When loading ALKIS data from NAS formatted files now the value of the attribute "Datenerhebung" will be takes as "Herkunft", if "Herkunft" ist empty. This is the case in Baden-Wuerttemberg. Jan 19,24: When projecting points onto a facade, both object type and point attributes will now be transferred to the control plot. Thus this data can be labeled in the plan by "Draw / Symbol attributes...". When loading NAS formatted ALKIS data the sixth point attribute will now be named as "Vermarkungsart". Jan 18,24: The point snap in a plan shows the point name of a snapped symbol as an additional information. This point name will now always be displayed as a transparent text. Doing so the plan information will retain legible. Jan 17,24: In DXF files created from CAPLAN in few cases some nested symbols have been missing. This may have caused problems in AutoCAD resp. BricsCAD. This error has been rectified. Jan 16,24: For digital terrain models (DTM) with elevation differences only of centimeters resp. millimeters the plans of smoothed height bands could show holes. Now these holes no longer occur. Jan 12,24: Preparation and output for the building survey data in Bavaria has been adapted to the new version 7.1 of the GeoInfoDok. In the profile constructions a trench can now be created inside a horizon line as well and not only at both the left resp. right end. The line attributes assigned in the Project Window can now be processed in the Plan Window as well for lines and areas. The attributes will be stored in the M file in a similar way as for the symbol attributes. Jan 10,24: When drawing sections the additional labeling band allows to write the UTM coordinates of the profile points as an alternative (new value 6 for horizon parameter 46). Jan 09,24: When saving points to Leica GSI16 formatted files the coordinates can now be stored with 3 decimals as an alter- native. This setting is available on the tab "Coordinates". When loading levelling from Leica GSI formatted files a stakeout observation (word 334) will be treated the same way as an intersight observation (word 333) thus added to computing the elevations. If a project displays further open projects via "View / Overlay Projects..." the tooltip for the DTM elevation shows all DTM elevations from all visible projects. Dez 13,23: In the Plan Window the spot heights are aligned with the decimal point. Now the spot heights can be moved without changing the reference point. Additionally the spot heights will be displayed correctly with the background activated. Dez 11,23: A polyface mesh from a DXF formatted file can now be loaded either as points and lines or as a DTM or as a plan. When projecting points onto an alignment without applying a reference alignment, changing the alignment now causes the min/max stations to be adapted correctly. Dez 08,23: When loading tacheometry observations some points will automatically be renamed if errors occur. Now '$' will be added to the point name instead of '?'. When labeling contour lines in a plan all the trailing zeroes can be trimmed by setting the number of decimals to a negative value. Dez 06,23: When computing a vertical alignment based on a longitudinal section the calculated gradients will be shown in the dialog as well. Dez 05,23: The automatic pan caused by the mouse pointer moving near the border of the detail window, has been removed from both the Project and the Plan Window. The screen display in plans containing many text elements has been accelerated. Nov 30,23: The check of a road surface now works as well for single- sided road surfaces. Nov 29,23: Joining two lines by an arc in the Plan Window will now also work if both lines consist of arcs. Nov 28,23: In the Plan Window the selection of text elements via both rectangle and polygon failed with very small zoom factors. This error has been rectified. The dialogs for creating cross sections from a DTM as well as from points or from lines now always show the stations of the cross sections in the preview. When loading or saving GEOgraf projects an installation of GEOgraf is necessary on the current computer. Now CAPLAN finds the suitalbe library geografr.dll for the new GEOgraf version 10.2 as well. Nov 27,23: With printing from the Project Window the sheet format can now be reduced to the print extents, as already possible in the Plan window. Nov 23,23: In the Project Window, object descriptions will now be dis- played with small zoom factors as well. When entering points based on a reference line, now an option is provided for whether or not the name of a clicked point will be tranferred to the edit panel. Nov 21,23: Since a change made on Nov 6, panning in the Plan Window could hang if the mouse was moved beyond the Plan Window. Clicking in the Plan Window resolved this hanging pan operation. This error has been rectified. If a plan frame was created, the screen view could not be changed while the plan frame dialog was active. This error has been rectified. When creating an arc between two lines in the Plan Window, the radius can now be entered without any interruption. Nov 20,23: Editing a lane of a road surface allows the adding of points from an adjacent alignment. This failed in some cases. Now all alignment main points will be transferred correctly. Nov 15,23: When saving points from a project to a DXF formatted file the creation of POINT elements caused CAPLAN to crash. This error has been rectified. If a project containing background data with text elements was transformed, unfortunately the transformation failed This error has been rectified. When loading lines from KML formatted files from Google Earth several detail points were missing in locations with a high point density. This error has been rectified. Nov 14,23: When pasting point and lines from a plan into a project via the Clipboard, in a few cases CAPLAN crashed. This error has been rectified. Nov 10,23: When saving plans to a DXF formatted file in some cases for text elements both the reference line and the special effects were placed incorrectly. This error has been rectified. In the Project Window both tasks "Edit / Point Names / Identical..." and "Edit / Coordinates / Equal Position..." now additionally display the point attributes in the point list. Thus the point groups can be sorted by attribute values. The new context menu entry "Select first in groups" allows selection of only the first point in all groups. By clicking "OK", all the deselected points are removed from the project. Nov 08,23: When pasting points and lines from a plan via the Clip- board, in a few cases CAPLAN crashed. This error has been rectified. Nov 08,23: When saving plans to DXF formatted files, the reference line as well as the special effects (e.g. rectangle) for texts were placed wrongly in several cases. This error has been rectified. In the Project Window the tasks "Edit / Point Names / Identical..." as well as "Edit / Coordinates / Equal Position..." now show all the point attributes in the point list. Thus the groups can be sorted using the values in the attribute columns. The new context menu entry "Select first in groups" allows selection of only the first point in all groups. By clicking "OK", all the points that are not selected are deleted from the project. Nov 08,23: Displaying line direction arrows now considers high reso- lution screens as well. When loading and saving plans, CAPLAN now remembers the recently set file type permanently. When transforming alignments, in several cases the vertical transformation was not applied. This error has been recti- fied. ----------------------------------------------------------- Nov 07,23: Release and distribution of version 5.8 ----------------------------------------------------------- Nov 03,23: Now in the Plan Window multiple tasks that create new ele- ments offer a button for adopting the properties (e.g. layer, color, text size, etc.) of an already existing ele- ment. Oct 30,23: With several dialogs that offer a reduction, calling the coordinate system could cause CAPLAN to crash. This error has been rectified. Oct 28,23: Editing text elements in the Plan Window (e.g. editing a single text, shifting texts, rotating texts) recently did not show both the reference line and the special effects correctly. This error has been rectified. Oct 24,23: Since a change made in April 2023, some DTMs have been meshed incorrectly so that triangle sides have intersected each other. This error has been rectified. Oct 13,23: When loading DXF formatted data into a plan, since DXF version 2018 some texts may have been incorrectly placed at the coordinate origin. This error has been rectified. For the transformation from NETZ77 to ETRS89 and vice versa the state of North Rhine-Westphalia provides the NTv2 grid DHDN90_ETRS89_NW.gsb with an accuracy of approximately 5cm. The NTV2 grid file can be downloaded free of charge from https://www.bezreg-koeln.nrw.de/ geobasis-nrw/produkte-und-dienste/ geodaetische-fachprogramme/transformation/echtzeit Sep 29,23: When adjusting a free network by applying the partial minium norm, the page for applying the adjusted coordinates now allows the datum points to remain unchanged. Sep 28,23: When editing a line or an area in a plan, pressing the DEL key could inadvertently cause a vertex to be deleted from the list of vertices e.g. if the factor for the line type should be removed. This error has been rectified. Sep 27,23: The amendment made yesterday concerning the DXF export of text elements unfortunately caused an error in correctly placing the background data in a project. This error has been rectified. Sep 26,23: Since the beginning of September 2023, writing a plan to a DXF formatted file placed the text decoration (e.g. the surrounding rectangle or the reference line) completely wrongly. This error has been rectified. Sep 25,23: When computing the point stack with GNSS baselines avail- able the single point dialog checks/unchecks all the com- ponents of a baseline if one component of this base- line has been checked/unchecked. Sep 22,23: Deleting large amounts of points from a DTM (without undo) has been improved and accelerated. Sep 21,23: For loading OKSTRA data into a plan, the processing of trees has been adapted to the most recent OKSTRA data schema. Sep 19,23: A modification made on September 18 caused CAPLAN to fail in transferring a DTM to VIS-All for 3D visualization. This error has been rectified. Sep 18,23: Since March 2023, object types have no longer been created correctly when loading NAS formatted ALKIS data with a distinction by point attributes. This error has been recti- fied. Sep 12,23: Cross section plans that have been saved to and then loaded from an M file could until now not be used for profile constructions. Now such plans can be reconnected to the projects when drawing the profile plans again. Background data will therefore be preserved. Sep 07,23: When generating smoothed contour lines in the plan cre- ation, in a few cases some gaps occured. These gaps will no longer appear. Sep 06,23: When computing profiles or cross sections from a DTM, now all the DTMs from additionally opened projects will be preselected for computation. Sep 05,23: Some inconsistencies concerning the symbol size in the plan creation with points have been rectified. Sep 04,23: When loading DXF formatted files in the Plan Window now the dialog offers a priority setting for all layers. As a re- sult, the DXF data can immediately be shown as a background or foreground. Creating a plan from a project now shows whether all the points, only the visible points or only the selected points will be transferred to the plan. Sep 01,23: In the Plan Window, the exact text length will be de- termined for selecting and editing text elements. Aug 30,23: If points without a name are loaded into a project that already contains points, hitherto the new points were numbered from 1. To avoid point collisions, now the largest numeric point number will be determined and the new points will be numbered with one additional digit. E.g. if 15201 is the largest point number assigned, the new points will be numbered from 100000. Aug 29,23: When copying symbols from a plan to a project via the Clip- board, an object type will be queried for symbols if it does not have a name and object type. This is done simi- larly to copying polylines. When transferring data from CAPLAN to VIS-All (3D visuali- zation), CAPLAN will no longer crash if VIS-All has no valid license. Aug 28,23: When editing a vertical alignment, loading a new ver- tical alignment now removes all previous list entries. Aug 25,23: Selecting elements in a plan by both a rectangle or a polygon could not process hatch objects with more than 2000 hatch lines and was then cancelled. Thus it could happen that other subsequent elements could not be se- lected. Now this restriction has been removed. If, in the plan creation, contour lines were created with labels at a constant distance, in a few cases CAPLAN could crash. This error has been rectified. Copying lines from a plan into a project via the Clipboard allows cancellation of the selection dialog by clicking "x" if no corresponding object type exists for the related layer. In such cases a new object type will be created with the layer's name. This new object type will be correctly assiged to the lines. If XML formatted files contain umlauts in their filenames, such files can now be loaded correctly. Aug 08,23: When computing the elevation difference from points to a DTM, the inclination of the affected triangle is now reported. Due to this change, all the points that lie exactly on a triangle side will now be processed correctly. Aug 03,23: A program crash will now be avoided when loading a vertical alignment from a Verm.esn formatted file. The chainage alignment can now be assigned correctly. When adapting the standard deviations of observations in a network adjustment, the dialog now offers check marks on each line to specify whether the factor on the line is applied or not. When creating detail points based on a reference line, the dialog not only transfers the coordinates of a clicked point to the edit fields but additionally the point name as well. Aug 02,23: The task for defining the coordinate system could not remember the stripe system for a short while. This error has been rectified. The new task "Draw / Georeferenced Inmages..." allows the adding of multiple georeferenced images from a folder to the current plan. The task checks if the images fit with the coordinate range of the plan. CAPLAN is now able to extract the georeferencing infor- mation from GeoTIFF formatted files. The task for creating a mid-line from the vertices of two polylines now shows a list of vertices for each source line. In this lists the assignment of the points can be edited in a simple way. Jul 31,23: When loading a vertical alignment for an alignment via "Alignments / Vertical Curve / New..." the selection of a chainage alignment to which the vertical alignment refers is now offered. The chainage is then transformed to the current alignment. Jul 26,23: Since June 1, 2023 the German Bundesamt für Kartographie und Geodäsie (BKG) has offered the quasigeoid GCG 2016 free of charge. The data can be downloaded from https://gdz.bkg.bund.de/index.php/default/open-data/ quasigeoid-der-bundesrepublik-deutschland-quasigeoid.html. For CAPLAN the file GCG2016 in the subfolder "binäer" is suitable. Just copy this file to the DAT folder of the program installation. Jul 25,23: If, when projecting points onto an alignment, a chainage alignment has been assigned, the edit fields show the stations relating to the chainage alignment. Jul 21,23: When creating a difference model from two DTMs, the colors of the height bands are determined automatically based on the elevation range of the difference model. Now for some cases a smoother transition of the height band colors will be computed. Jul 20,23: Object types containing e.g. a leading or trailing '-' (minus) were automatically adapted by some program steps in such a way that the minus sign was removed. This will no longer happen. Jul 19,23: The task for dimensioning a distance now allows hyphens to be added to the dimension text. Jul 18,23: The task "Help / Feedback to CP..." now informs the user if files (especially a currently open CAPLAN project *.CP) are locked and cannot be added to the message. Either the message will be created without the locked files or the user can close the CAPLAN project and then add the files again. Jul 17,23: Loading tachometry observations from MaXML formatted files from Topcon now considers the observations taken for stationing. The angle units are now interpreted correctly. Jul 13,23: The license check for the setup with admin rights and for executing CAPLAN with user rights could give rise to different drive IDs. For installation in C:\Cremer this could be rectified by entering an access code. For an installation in C:\Program Files this was more complicated. Now the license check will compute an identical drive ID in all these cases, independent of the current rights. Jul 12,23: The task for checking a road surface offers an alternative computation for the elevation of points lying outside the surface. Besides the extension of a crossfall, a horizontal extension is also available. The list template for the report offers the offset to the previous lane as the additional parameter . Jul 05,23: When setting out a road surface, the alignment name can now be applied to the mask for the point names. Jul 03,23: When projecting points onto an alignment, a chainage alignment can now be selected, which is normally the case for rail tracks. For this, the pedal point from the center line is projected onto the chainage alignment. Jun 28,23: For the active point, the Project Window additionally shows the point elevation in the status line. In the Project Window, the point snap can now be activated without background data. In this case the points in the project will be snapped and the snapped point will be marked by both a symbol and its point name. Jun 25,23: When computing a volume based on profiles, the dialog page for the reference height had not been shown correctly for a while. This error has been rectified. Jun 14,23: If, after the vertical curve of an alignment has changed, the setting out of the corresponding road surface is re- peated with identical parameters (stations, name mask) and with unique point names activated, the point collision allows updating of the elevation of the already existing points. If the points are part of a DTM the DTM structure is retained. Jun 12,23: If points are removed from a DTMs invisible outer area the new triangle sides now remain invisible as well. May 31,23: When adding nearby points to a polyline, the selection by object types in the dialog has been replaced by optionally restricting the search to the previously selected points. The dialog for defining the coordinate system now offers a favorite list to save the current system stating a unique name and accessing this favorite again later on. The dialog for searching coordinate systems in the EPSG database has been revised and is now clearer. The point list in the Project Window now allows the quick saving and restoring of the current point selection via the context menu entries "Restore selection" and "Store selection". The profile construction dialogs offer the new entries "Restore selection" "Store selection" "Load selection..." "Save selection..." in the context menu of the station list, for saving the current station selection and restoring it later on. May 30,23: The various mouse pointers, especially the crosshairs, have been improved for display on high resolution screens. The Trimble File Flipper (available free of charge from https://go2.trimble.com/ Earthworks-FileFlipper-Download_BC-RegistrationLP.html allows the preparation of DTMs from LandXML or TTM for- matted files as well as DXF formatted files for Trimble machine control systems (GCS900 and Earthworks). May 26,23: Since a change at the end of February 2023 a special pro- file construction computed the inclination in the wrong way. This happened exactly when adding a point using a slope and intersecting it with a profile line. This error has been rectified. May 25,23: Creating a plan frame could cause an error if the frame was rotated against the coordinate grid and the interior title box (parameter R54) and the plan area (parameter R21) had exactly the same width. This error has been rectified. May 24,23: For the background scenes in the Plan Window all the properties of the layer BACKGROUND from the layer collection will be taken as a default. When loading plans from an M-formatted file, the background layers are identifed correctly. May 22,23: If, inadvertently, user-defined formats were damaged in- side INI files, it could be the case that not even the valid user-defined formats were shown in the format selection box. This error has been rectified. May 17,23: For surveying link lines using line numbers the option "Only link points with the same point code" is now avail- able too. May 03,23: When loading tacheometry observations from Trimble JobXML formatted files, now, besides the changes of the prism constant, additionally the beginning of a set of angles can be marked in the Z-file. ----------------------------------------------------------- May 02,23: Release and distribution of version 5.7 ----------------------------------------------------------- Apr 28,23: The programming interface TP3 from Topcon has been updated and no longer requires any components of Visual Studio 2008. The interface also supports both 32 bit and 64 bit. Apr 27,23: When printing a plan in DIN format (e.g. DIN A0) to the corresponding paper size of a PDF printer, no more extra pages will inadvertently be created. The unattended setup using a configuration file shows its progress in the command window and writes the report CP-Setup.log to the PUBLIC folder (e.g. C:\Users\Public). Apr 26,23: When loading rail track alignments from the formats Verm.esn, GND-Edit, CARD/1 ASCIIBAHN, ProVI and Toporail3, the superelevations will be transferred as a road surface and can therefore be included in computations. When drawing profiles, a very long band name will now be wrapped automatically in such a way that it does not exceed the area to the left of the profile data. In the status line of the Project Window, the decimal places of the coordinates will now be formatted according to the precision setting. If, when organizing the profile lines, the dialog for a new project name is cancelled, an empty project will no longer be created. When editing profile data in a project, deleting a tree entry could cause inconsistencies in counting the selected profiles. This error has been rectified. The sequence and naming of attributes from NAS formatted ALKIS data have been harmonized so that imported data can be utilized for exporting building surveys. Apr 24,23: When creating multiple cross section plans, the minimum and maximum reference height will be determined in a way that makes the values lie below the lowest profile. Thus all the profile plans will be shown correctly. Apr 20,23: If, on the outer border of a DTM, several points lie nearly exactly on a straight line, the triangulation in com- bination with adding the outer border could damage the DTM structure. This error has been rectified. Apr 18,23: In some cases (especially with difference models formed by two DTMs) the color gradient could not be created as a CAD plan. This was because the plan creation got stuck in an endless loop. This error has been rectified. Apr 17,23: To the greatest extent possible, the epoch comparison cent- ers the plans containing multiple vectors in the assigned plan frame. Apr 12,23: When loading lines from MAXML formatted files from Topcon, the coding of link lines can now be used. Additionally, polylines that hold the vertex coordinates directly rather than via a point reference will also now be loaded. Apr 05,23: Since a change made on March 16, computing polar points in both position and elevation could crash if the control point transformation should be shown. This error has been rectified. Mar 23,23: If, in the Project Window, a new polyline is created by immediately applying "Insert multiple points", the object type of the first point will now be set as the object type for the line in this case as well. Mar 20,23: When loading ALKIS data from NAS formatted files, besides the "Bestandsdatenauszug" the type "NutzerbezogeneBestandsdatenaktualisierung_NBA" can now be processed as well. In this case all the new objects will be loaded, but changed objects as well as deleted objects will be ignored. Mar 17,23: Dimensioning offsets now allows editing of the lateral off- set of the texts from the reference line. Mar 16,23: In some dialogs that show point lists, the sorting of the point names was not consistent with the sorting of the projects point list. Now the point names will be sorted in an identical way in all of these cases - Point directory - Neighboring points - DTM setup with neighboring points - Polar point calculations - Point stack - Elevation calculations Mar 15,23: The dialog for creating multiple cross section plans now also shows the minimum/maximum reference height over all profiles. This may be useful if you want to apply a fixed reference height to all profile plans. When loading NAS formatted ALKIS data into a plan the points were not loaded if when clicking on "OK" the functions of lines and areas had not yet been configured. This error has been rectified and the points will now be loaded in this case as well. Mar 14,23: When transforming point files (by datum or by parameters) the file types in the batch mode will now be recognized correctly again (after the amendment made on March 9, 2023). Mar 13,23: In the Project Window, the direction arrows for a polyline that was no longer active was often not removed until the next zooming. This error has been rectified. If, in a list template, user defined values were computed by applying a formula, an error was output if e.g. an elevation difference was computed from points with an in- valid height. Now an error will no longer be output and the place for the result will be filled with blanks. Mar 09,23: When loading NAS formatted ALKIS data, additional infor- mation from the land register will now be written to the owner data file. After introducing the new point format 'CADdy - 3-digit Code (*.KOR)', the transformation of point files incor- rectly assigned the previously used file types if the list of file types showed them behind the new format. From now on the file types will be assigned correctly. To ensure this you have to assign the correct file types manually once in the new version of CAPLAN. Mar 08,23: If, in the Project Window, a polyline was created as a 'closed horseshoe' (with an inner hole and an overlapping line leg from the inside outwards and vice versa), in the dialog the segment adjoining the overlap could not be rounded correctly. This error has been rectified. Mar 06,23: If a frame layout preserved the coordinate grid texts by applying an inner frame and if this frame layout was applied for profile plans, the title block was shifted to the left. This error has been rectified. Mar 03,23: The computation of height closures using "Observations / Radial / Height Closures..." now offers the orthometric reduction for leveled elevation differences. Mar 01,23: When creating DXF formatted files, the names of line types and symbols will now be converted in such a way that they conform to the DXF rules. When editing leveled elevation differences in a network, using "Network / Edit / All data...", changing observation values as well as standard deviations, or browsing the observations caused the values to be rounded to four decimals (1/10 mm). Now the fifth decimal place (1/100 mm) will be retained. Feb 27,23: In a few cases, the count of the individual height bands in the DTM increased to a value that meant CAPLAN took a very long time to process them, and therefore did not respond to other user input. Now the processing of the height bands has been adapted in such a way that an upper limit is defined and CAPLAN performs efficiently. Feb 24,23: When loading lines from MaXML formatted files from Topcon instruments the lines will now be given the object types of the assigned layers. Feb 23,23: In the profile constructions, adding a point inside a profile line now allows computation of an intersection with the origin profile line itself. Hitherto, when loading leveling observations, multiple observations with exactly identical observation values were loaded only once to avoid inadvertent duplicates. Now the tab 'Level differences' offers the option 'Take multiple identical observations', which results in all observations being loaded, even if some are the same. Feb 22,23: In some cases the volume computation using horizons could not determine all the cross section areas for a station if the left or the right border was U-shaped. This error has been rectified. Computing height differences from points to a DTM now additionally offers the inclination of the affected tri- angle in the report template. Feb 20,23: When loading points from CADdy-formatted files, leading zeroes in the 2-character code will be retained because the code is treated as alphanumeric. For transferring the entire 3-digit code from CADdy as an object type to CAPLAN the new filetype "CADdy - 3-digit Code (*.KOR)" has been introduced for points and lines. Loading tacheometry observations from CADdy formatted files offers the new option "Code with 3 chars" for transferring the full 3-digit code completely to CAPLAN as an object type. Feb 17,23: If multiple points are being added to a project (e.g. by loading a file or by adding pedal points) and the option for unique point names is enabled, since January 2023 the point collision was shown for every point even if the "All" button was clicked in the dialog. This error has been rectified. Feb 16,23: The setup now allows the online help for the installation to be called by pressing F1. Feb 15,23: Transforming alignments will no longer be restricted to the 2D position but now allows a transformation in height as well. Loading raw leveling data from Zeiss-formatted files allows the user to decide whether leading zeroes in point names are removed or retained. Feb 14,23: When computing station points based on an alignment, the setting for storing the station points has been made persistent. Feb 10,23: In the Project Window, the search for redundant lines (in the line directory as well as when joining lines) has been extended. Now not only all the polylines with identical vertices will be checked but it will be examined if two lines overlap geometrically (independent from identical vertices). Feb 07,23: The new task "Edit / Lines / Midline..." function allows the creation of a midline between two polylines, which is done vertex by vertex. This could be very useful for creating an alignment based on the edges of a road. Points and lines as well as observations can now be loaded from MaXML formatted files. MaXML is an XML format designed for the Topcon application Magnet. The plan creation allows contour lines to be labeled no longer only once but instead multiple times, at a constant interval. Feb 01,23: When transforming DXF formatted data the additional text information in the class ACDB_TEXTOBJECTCONTEXTDATA_CLASS will now be transformed as well. Thus all texts will be placed correctly after the transformation. The user-defined placeholders for plan frames now allow line feeds to be added to texts by inserting "\n". Jan 31,23: When inserting a WMS into a plan, changing the opacity caused CAPLAN to crash if the WMS data had not yet been loaded by clicking on "Update". This error has been rectified. Jan 30,23: When loading points with geographic coordinates (latitude and longitude), the user-defined format now allows inter- pretation of degrees in the format GGGdMMmSS.SSSs. Jan 25,23: The distance check proposes the computed distance between the clicked points as the measured distance. This will now be made clearer in the dialog by the description "Measured". Jan 23,23: In the evenness check it is now possible to select and unselect points in the point list. Jan 20,23: In the Plan Window not only contour lines can be dimen- sioned with their elevations. This is now additionally available for all other 3D polylines (with or without 0 elevations). The menu entry has been changed into "Dimension / Elebvation in Lines...". Jan 18,23: The report of the evenness check marked the comparison to the specified tolerance as being ambiguous in a few cases. This behavior has been rectified. After the previous amendment, the evenness check now com- putes and reports the position values correctly. Jan 16,23: As an alternative to the offset value, the evenness check now offers the elevation difference between the subsequent and the previous point as a criterion. Thus the local inclination state can be evaluated across the entire area. Jan 13,23: Since the release issued in August 2022, the evenness check sometimes computed incorrect values for the grid border points. These errors could be identified by the wrong distance in the list report. This error has been rectified. Jan 12,23: When reporting the neighboring points (without having com- puted the average) the point with the first point name in the sorting order will be taken as the first point of the group and thus will be the reference for the differences of the other points to this first point of the group. Jan 11,23: Displaying opaque images had slowed down since the intro- duction of the new image opacity. Now opaque images will be now be displayed as fast as before. Dec 21,22: If, in a project containing a DTM, points or lines are loaded and unique point names are required, the DTM struc- ture may be violated. Hence either the unique point names have to be deactivated or the DTM has to be removed. A message will be displayed prompting selection of one of these options. Dec 20,22: In the Plan Window the menu entries "Edit / Polylines / Remove all arcs" "Edit / Areas / Remove all arcs" "Edit / Selected elements / Remove all arcs" enable the removal of all arcs from the selected polylines and areas, and replace them with straight lines. When loading points from DA30 formatted files, leading zeroes were removed from the point names. This caused problems when loading DTMs from REB formatted files because for the point names from DA58 and DA49 the leading zeroes are retained. Now the point names from DA30 will re- tain their leading zeroes. Dec 19,22: When creating a polyline in the Project Window, subsequent points can now automatically be added to the end of a line. Dec 16,22: In the Project Window, the line directory offers the new task "Remove arcs". This allows all the arcs to be removed from the selected lines. Dec 14,22: When loading points from LandXML formatted files (extended by HexagonXML) the point quality in 2D as well as in height and in 3D will be offered as additional point attributes. Dec 13,22: In the Project Window, when intersecting two lines, a closed polyline will no longer be extended at both the beginning as well as the end. Dec 12,22: When loading ALKIS data from NAS fromatted files into the Plan Window, multiple XML files can now be selected at the same time. All the selected files will be loaded in one step. Dec 09,22: Since August 2022, DXF formatted files containing 3DFACE elements could no longer be loaded into a project. This error has been rectified. Now 3DFACE elements will be loaded into projects as closed polylines. Dec 08,22: Since the end of November, the datum transformation without a geoid defined unfortunately caused CAPLAN to crash. This error has been rectified. When loading ALKIS data from NAS formatted files into an existing plan, the coordinate range of the plan will be set as the default coordinate range for loading the data. As a result of this, only ALKIS objects located completely or partially inside the area of the existing plan will be loaded. Dec 07,22: In the new epoch comparison, the time-distance diagrams now set the height of the date area correctly if the dates consist of hour/minute/second. Displaying images with a better quality by applying a resampling algorithm unfortunately caused a performance drop especially regarding zooming and printing. Therefore the resampling of images has been removed and we will look for an efficient way to display images with better quality. Dec 02,22: If the background data for a project consists of slope objects, these objects will now be displayed correctly. Nov 29,22: When loading lines from ALKIS NAS formatted files for closed polylines, the first and last point will now be set to an identical point in all cases. The newly created line points will get their attributes from the corresponding polyline (especially for buildings). Nov 28,22: For entering points based on a reference line, the previ- ously activated line will be applied as the reference line if it consists of exactly two points. In such cases the reduction/correction will now be set correctly as a default. Nov 21,22: If a background scene contains slope objects, the hachure lines will now be displayed correctly. The new epoch comparison inadvertently offered a 3D plan for a comparison related only to plan coordinates. This error has been rectified. Nov 14,22: If a user-defined format is defined as a free format using a blank as the delimiter, the definition has been mis- interpreted since the update released in May 2022. This error has now been rectified. Alignments from files formatted using the new version 4.0 of the ASCIIBAHN format from CARD/1 can now be loaded into CAPLAN. Nov 04,22: If, in the Plan Window, a non white background is applied, the text opacity using the background color will now be printed correctly in white. When assigning a user-defined format, in the case of a free format the field numbers are shown with a green marked line. The assigned fields will also now be shown correctly if the field number is greater than 9. ----------------------------------------------------------- Nov 03,22: Release and distribution of version 5.6 ----------------------------------------------------------- Oct 28,22: When joining two lines using an arc, an error was rectified in determining the radius. Oct 25,22: If, when creating a plan frame, an outer format has rec- ently been applied, it will now be initialized correctly when calling the task again. When closing the point diretory, selected points were previously deleted inadvertently. Now only the points with invalid coordinates will be removed, after confirmation. Oct 20,22: The new epoch comparison task can now create plans with multiple vectors with alignment-related coordinates even if not all points have been selected. Oct 14,22: For data from WMS services the degree of opacity can now be assigned in a plan. This makes it possible to display images transparently. Oct 13,22: In the Project Window, when closing the point directory, not only the points without valid positions and heights were deleted but also (inadvertently) all the selected points. This has been corrected and the selected points will now be retained. Oct 12,22: For images in a plan the opacity can now be assigned. In doing so the images may be displayed transparently. Oct 11,22: When creating frames for profile plans, all the place- holders will now be processed correctly again. Oct 07,22: Loading plans containing more than 100 layers was very slow in some cases. Loading such plans has now been signific- antly accelerated. Oct 06,22: Since an update issued on July 2022, the design mode for creating a plan frame did not show the placeholders cor- rectly. This error has now been rectified. Oct 05,22: In the Plan Window, the point snap in some cases was not displayed and applied correctly since an update issued in July 2022. This error has been rectified. Images in both a plan as well as in the background of a project will be refined by a resampling algorithm and will be shown with better quality. Sep 30,22: We had revised the exact processing and displaying of texts in a plan. Unfortunately, since August 25 this revision caused a very slow displaying of the texts. We have dis- carded this revision and will think create a new solution for this issue. Sep 29,22: With very large networks it was sometimes the case that CAPLAN provided too little memory for the normal equation matrix. CAPLAN now allocates enough memory for this situ- ation as well. Sep 26,22: If multiple plans are being saved but not all the plans have been selected, a query box asks the user if this is the intention. Saving all plans immediately can now be done directly from this query box. Outputting a bulding survey to an NAS formatted file allows the transfer of exclusion areas for building parts as well. Sep 20,22: Saving a plan with 10,000 or more text elements to the DXF format could suffer from time delays, and in certain cases caused CAPLAN to crash. These program crashes are now avoided. Sep 16,22: If a plan contains redundant lines, both the point snap modi "Projection" and "Intersection" computed incorrect snap points at those locations. This error has been rectified. Since the update issued on August 25, in few cases saving plans to a DXF formatted file could cause CAPLAN to crash. This error has been rectified. Sep 14,22: Since the update issued on August 25 the task "Frame / By Plan Areas..." applied incorrect parameters when cre- ating viewports. This error has been rectified. When loading railway alignments from GND-Edit formatted data of Deutsche Bahn, the stationing of the vertical alignments was computed incorrectly if the vertical align- ments started in front of the horizontal track alignments. Now the station values of the vertical alignments will be assigned correctly, related to the local stationing of the horizontal track alignments. Sep 09,22: When creating a frame for multiple profile plans with two or more rows of plans, the profile plans can be aligned by columns. The layout of the plans is thus made clearer al- though more space may be required. Sep 06,22: Mirroring a lane of a road surface in some cases caused CAPLAN to crash. This error has been rectified. When applying a small tolerance, the point stack sometimes automatically removed valid observations if the geometric configuration for a point was unfavorable. In such cases, the user was notified and the observations were marked in the report. Now the algorithm has been improved to ensure that valid observations are no longer inadvertently removed. The tasks "Edit / Point Names / By Lines..." "Edit / Lines / Subdivide..." "Edit / Lines / Approximate Arcs..." offer a point mask for naming the new points. The mask may consist of "*", representing the line name, and of "#", representing a sequential number. If the point mask consists of "*" and additional text, the additional text will be incremented for each point of a line. E.g. the mask "*_P1001" will be transformed into the point names "LINE1_P1001", "LINE1_P1002", "LINE1_P1003" etc. Sep 02,22: Since the update issued on August 29, all the projects that hold background data could not be displayed correctly. The coordinate range was so large that working with the data in such projects was impossible. This error has been rectified. Since the update issued on August 29, in the Plan Window the toolbar for computations and dimensioning was inad- vertently extended by one field so the commands were shifted in relation to the icons. This error has been rectified. The General Settings tabs 'LST File' and 'ERR File' offer an option to add the account name of the current user to the header lines. Sep 01,22: For the line link methods line number and line codes, a warning will be written if negative line numbers have been used or if a line has not been closed correctly. Aug 29,22: For the task "Profiles / Organize Profile Lines..." several improvements have been made: - Several profile lines can be transferred to other pro- jects one after another. - Profile lines can be transferred to new projects as well. - The original source project is shown in the dialog and it can be moved to the foreground with one click. - The alignments to which the profiles refer will be cre- ated in the target project in all cases. Aug 25,22: In the Plan Window, the new task "Calculate / Join two lines with arc..." allows two lines to be connected using an arc, as was already possible in the Project Window. When loading points and lines, a definition for unknown object types is requested. This dialog now allows the creation of a new layer. When loading points and lines from LandXML formatted files the points will automatically be selected if lines or areas are to be loaded. Finally we can now present our new epoch comparison. These are the highlights: - Computation of alignment-related coordinates - Plans with configurable frame layouts - Saving and loading of the complete configuration The old epoch comparison will still be available. Thus you can continue with your hitherto existing projects but you can also test the new features. We look forward to hearing any ideas and suggestions you may have. If, in dialog lists, an entry is wider than its column, the entry will be trimmed at the end. While briefly hovering the mouse over the entry the whole value will be displayed as a tooltip. Now the column header will be shown in the tooltip as well. In the Plan Window, the exact width of texts will now be taken into account for selecting an element as well as for the computation of the plan area. This is done in the same way as for displaying special effects as well as the text background. Aug 24,22: The NTv2 transformation for Saarland was updated from SeTa2009 to SeTa2016. Aug 12,22: If, after drawing cross section plans, you change the profile data in the source projects, updating the profile plans could cause CAPLAN to crash. This error has been rectified. Aug 04,22: When creating slope hatches in a plan, a minimum hatch distance can be entered for applying the dynamic hatch spacing. Hitherto a minimum distance of 2mm had been applied as a fixed value. Aug 03,22: When checking the evenness of a plane, missing points inside the grid now result in gaps when computing the offsets. Hitherto such gaps were closed by applying an extended basis for divergence computations. Jul 24,22: When loading lines from JobXML formatted files, the line code (as part of the point code) can now be processed correctly by applying the option "Take only last part of coding" in the "Lines" tab. Jul 23,22: When loading NAS data into a project, the line attributes "Datenerhebung" and "Funktion" will be transferred to the loaded lines. Jul 22,22: When loading Elling lines from DA54 formatted files, all the line parts will now be identified correctly. Jul 20,22: Since March 2022, when loading borders from NAS formatted files the border lines created additional duplicate points at the border points. This behavior has now been corrected. Jul 18,22: In the Plan Window, when rotating elements around a base point the point snap will be considered correctly in de- fining the base point. Jul 11,22: When loading a DTM from LandXML formatted files, multiple outer borders will now be processed correctly. Jul 07,22: Plan frames for profiles can now access frame layouts with an inside title block as well as with header and footer lines. If multiple rows of profiles are defined for a frame, all the profiles will be left-aligned in columns. Jul 05,22: When loading DXF formatted data, the point sequence of 3DFACE elements will now be implemented correctly. As is already the case in plans, these elements will be loaded as closed polylines into projects as well as into symbols. Jul 04,22: When opening multiple projects with unknown object types CAPLAN now asks only once for the unknown object types and no longer for every project, as was previously the case. Jun 30,22: When computing the sum of spatial areas from a DTM, the verbose report now also offers the slope distances bet- ween the triangle points as well as the slope distances between the triangle points and the opposite triangle legs. Jun 27,22: In the Plan Window, multiple background scenes can now be managed in a plan (as was already possible in a project). Therefore a unique layer will be provided for each back- ground scene. Jun 24,22: An incorrect plan size was computed for a plan frame if a FRM file was assigned and the outer sheet size was stated. This error has now been rectified. When entering new points based on a reference line, the type of the height determination (e.g. on or above refer- ence line) will be stored persistently. Jun 22,22: For the drawing of profile plans, the automatic divergence of vertical lines has been improved so that that no stat- ions or elevations are hidden anymore. This may reduce the speed a little bit when drawing complex profiles. Jun 21,22: If you cancel the line directory dialog in the Project Window you will be prompted about your changes in the dialog. Jun 20,22: Rotating points in a project by exactly 100 or 300 gons was not possible. The points will be now rotated correctly. When importing data into a list, it was sometimes the case that entries had been truncated if they had leading blanks e.g. when entering points via a table. Now all blanks will automatically be removed during import. Jun 14,22: The changes implemented on May 10, 2022 resulted in some data collections e.g. layers, line types or object types, being inadvertently deleted after editing in CAPLAN. This error has now been rectified. Jun 10,22: The dialog for editing radial observations now shows the type of the station: "T" - tacheometric targets only "L" - leveled targets only "-" - both tacheometric and leveled targets Jun 09,22: Road surface data formatted as DA22 (crossfall) and DA23 (lane width) can be loaded in CAPLAN. If you had installed CAPLAN on a network drive with no domain controller present, the new version 5.5 (from May 2022) added information from the local computer to the license file. Thus the programs could only be run from this local computer. From now on, we take an information from the network drive in such a way that the programs can be run from multiple workstations, as was previously the case. To achieve this, you have to download an update of the software from our website and then request the access code for the CP module (via the "Extend..." dialog). Jun 08,22: If a frame plan contained empty viewports, CAPLAN could crash if such an empty viewport was activated as well as when saving the frame plan to a DXF formatted file. This error has now been rectified. Jun 07,22: Computing a section could lead to an incorrect result if the angle at the first point had been entered before the name of the second point. This error has now been rectified. Jun 02,22: For an installation on a network drive, the license was not correctly identified from client to client if a Primary Domain Controller was not present in the network. This error has now been rectified. If, when matching control points, no scale value was entered, a scale value of 1.0 will be applied automatically. Jun 01,22: If an EPSG code was selected for defining the coordinate system, in a few cases this code could not be removed from the project correctly. This error has been rectified. May 30,22: After extending lines in the Plan Window, some irregular behavior sometimes happened (even a program crash in the worst case). This error has now been rectified. May 25,22: When saving slope objects to a DXF formatted file, the groups of slope lines will now be built correctly. Thus e.g. BricsCAD loads these groups as it should. May 23,22: At the end of the task, the setup procedure now shows the NEW files correctly and no longer crashes at this moment. May 20,22: The computation of 2D areas now additionally offers the rising height (sagitta) of arcs for the report (variable in list template [Line.CalculateArea4]). When exchanging points using KF formatted files from Verm.esn, the attribute 'VArt' (marking type) will now be transferred correctly in both directions. May 17,22: The adjustment of a spatial network now reports the scale of the slope distances correctly. May 10,22: If installed on a network drive, CAPLAN consumed dispro- portionally much network resources due to making unneces- sary file access operations. The file access has now been optimized and CAPLAN runs significantly faster. When entering coordinates based on a reference line in a Project Window containing background data, and if both point snap and element selection were activated, the snapped coordinates were not transferred to the dialog. This error has now been rectified. May 09,22: If, when loading tacheometry observations, target points are inadvertently given the same name as the station, these target points will now automatically be renamed (by adding a '?' at the end). May 06,22: When saving a plan to a DXF formatted file with polylines saved as 3D polylines, all the arcs will be approximated by intermediate points with the elevation being interpolated. Hitherto the interpolated elevation of the intermediate points was a little too small. This error has been recti- fied and the elevations of the intermediate points will now be interpolated in the right way. ----------------------------------------------------------- May 02,22: Release and distribution of version 5.5 ----------------------------------------------------------- With the epoch comparison, the tolerance for checking elevation overlaps has been raised. Apr 29,22: A new user defined format based on fixed columns will now be saved correctly so that files formatted using this definition will be loaded correctly. Apr 27,22: When saving data to a LandXML formatted file, the attribute 'time' of the tag will now be formatted correctly as 'HH:MM:SS'. Apr 26,22: Since summer 2021, defining a coordinate system in a new project caused the automatic backup to be switched off inadvertently. This error has been rectified. Apr 22,22: As an alternative, a coordinate system can now be defined by selecting an EPSG code. The current EPSG database re- sides in the DAT folder as the file EPSG.mdb. The additional tab "State" allows the adding of additional information for horizontal and vertical coordinates. This information can be added to the report by applying the var- iables <$HZINFO> and <$VTINFO>. Editing profiles in the Project Window now offers check boxes for multiple selection in the profile tree. The con- text menu offers additional selection tasks. All profiles from this multiple selection can be reported or deleted. Within the network forecast, the report for the network points now provides a count of observations per point in 1D, 2D and 3D. When saving a DTM to DXF formatted files, in addition to exporting the triangles as 3DFACE, the outer borders as well as the holes and ridge lines will be exported as 3D polylines. Apr 08,22: Since summer 2021, when loading observation from Trimble JobXML formatted files the primary observations from distance offsets as well as from dual prisms could no longer be loaded. This error has been rectified. Apr 07,22: When computing surfaces or volumes from Elling lines, the position list in each profile as well as the result overview will be created by applying the position colors assigned to the object types. Apr 06,22: When saving a plan to a DXF formatted file, the visible lines of slope objects will be grouped together (one group for each slope object). Thus each slope can be treated as a unit in AutoCAD. This is valid for DXF version 2004 and higher. When managing layers, the data locations will now be up- dated after copying a layer to another location. A temporary layer can not be deleted because it could be referenced in a plan. Apr 04,22: The dialog for selecting a color now remembers the user defined colors across all tasks. Mar 30,22: When loading DTMs from LandXML formatted files, outer as well as inner boundaries will now be considered. Improving the task "Calculate / Join two lines with arc..." unfortunately caused a change for the worse in the task "Edit / Lines / Subdivide...". There some new points were added to the lines at the wrong places. This error has been rectified. Mar 28,22: Since the update from March 14, 2022 the task "Observations / Radial / Identify points..." caused CAPLAN to crash if less than 10 stations had been marked for the task. This error has been rectified. Mar 25,22: If, when loading ALKIS data from NAS formatted files, points have coordinates in several coordinate systems (e.g. UTM32 and GK zone 3), points from the incorrect coordinate system were sometimes assigned to polylines. This error has been rectified. Mar 23,22: In the Project Window, the task for connecting two lines using an arc has been improved. After selecting the second line, a solution will be offered immediately. Changing the center point also shows a preview of the adjusted arc instantly. Mar 18,22: If, within a free network adjustment, several points have been selected for a partial minimum norm, these datum points will be marked with a '*' in the report. This is similar to marking the control points with the standard deviation for a dynamic adjustment. For a free level network, the partial minimum norm has to be applied for at least two points. Otherwise the set of linear equations cannot be solved. Mar 17,22: The task for creating line accompanying symbols in a plan offers the new method 'Middle of line legs' to set the symbols on the middle of every line leg. Mar 16,22: Displaying point attributes in a project shows gaps for empty attribute values if only the attribute values shall be displayed. This means that identifying the attributes is still possible. If attribute names are also displayed, these gaps can be closed optionally. These options can be set in the view layers for points and lines. When projecting points onto an alignment, the elevation difference between alignment and point can be transferred to a point attribute. Now the reverse elevation difference between point and alignment is available for a point attribute as well. The list template "Axis.OffsetPoints1" allows changing of the sign of the elevation difference by applying instead of only . HDIFF is always computed as the elevation difference between alignment and point. Mar 15,22: In the Plan Window, a symbol inside a plan of the type 'Drawing' shows the annotations 'easting' and 'northing' for the coordinates when F3 is pressed. In the Plan Window, a symbol now shows the real drawing layer of the symbol and no longer the layer of the assigned object type. In a free network adjustment, network points can be selected for a partial minimum norm. This selection can now be applied correctly for the point's object type. Mar 14,22: Writing a bulding survey to a NAS formatted file for the Bavarian cadastral administration omits writing the attrib- ute 'datumDerLetztenUeberpruefung' for the object 'AX_BesondereGebaeudelinie' because it is not defined in ALKIS. In the Project Window, the task "Observations / Radial / Identify Points..." now shows a progress bar for extensive searches. Mar 04,22: When checking the evenness of a plane, the control project can be created with only points that are above the tolerance. In the control project, a DTM can immediately be created using the colors stated in the dialog for the height bands. Mar 02,22: If the point directory of a project contains points with an invalid position as well as no elevation, these points can be removed when closing the point directory. If these points are used as vertices for polylines, only one message will now be displayed (no longer a message for each point). Feb 28,22: When creating a new project based on a spatial plane, an error arose if only the selected points and all the lines were to be transferred to the new project, and not all the line vertices were part of the point selection. This error has been rectified. Feb 25,22: If the coordinate unit in a DXF file is set to millimeters, the factor 0.001 has to be entered when loading such a DXF file as a plan. This factor will now be applied correctly in all cases e.g. no INSERT entities will be inadvertently exploded. The text sequence '^M' from MTEXT entities will now be interpreted as part of a line feed. In the Project Window, pixel images that are part of the background data can be displayed in their original color. This information will now be correctly stored to as well as loaded from CP files. When editing control points in a network, the lists of point names and coordinates will be synchonized automatically. Synchronization will now also be retained if using right mouse clicks in one of the lists. Feb 22,22: When entering points based on a reference line, the sign of the crossfall value will now be interpreted correctly. Feb 10,22: All texts in profile plans will now be created with a transparent background. In the Project Window, in a few cases the point names and elevations have been visible only after intense zooming. Now these texts will be shown at smaller zoom levels as well. All error messages caused by loading NTv2 transformations will no longer be shown as single queries but will now be written to the ERR file. Feb 07,22: Splitting a line in the Plan Window could cause CAPLAN to crash if a point far from the line was clicked. This error has been rectified. Feb 04,22: The assignment of the background color when loading back- ground data is now processed in the right way. Feb 03,22: If, with the volume computation based on cross sections (according to REB 21.013), the positions have been defined with AUTOVERTICAL as left and/or right border, detecting the cross section areas failed in a few cases because addi- tional intersection points had been computed in the ex- tension of the horizons, despite AUTOVERTICAL having been assigned. This error has been rectified. When editing a horizontal alignment, the list of elements now also shows the initial station of each alignment ele- ment. Feb 01,22: Points from a KML formatted file could not be loaded if the HTML tag contained the attribute 'id' with a non-blank value. The points can now always be loaded. Resetting the layers of a viewport now works for the active viewport as well. When printing a plan, the selected elements (which are drawn on top of all the other elements) are not output. They cannot thus hide the drawing elements inadvertently. The dimensioning of offsets now writes the texts for very small values with the unit "Millimeters" as well. Jan 31,22: A new lane in a road surface can be defined as a shoulder. The lower and upper points are derived from the crossfall of the previous lane. All the stations from the previous lane are transferred to the shoulder lane. Jan 21,22: In the Project Window, when intersecting two lines the report showed wrong lengths from the starting point of the second line to the intersection point as well as from the intersection point to the endpoint of the second line. This error has been rectified. In the Project Window, images as well as WMS from the back- ground scenes can be shown in their original colors. Jan 20,22: In the Project Window, background images as well as WMS will be displayed at the bottom of the drawing sequence. All other background elements (symbols, lines, texts) will be drawn above the areas covered by the DTM and geoid. Thus no data will be inadvertently hidden. Jan 18,22: In the Plan Window, a polyline can be split multiple times, going from the end, as is already possible in the Project Window. Several tasks without a dialog can now also be canceled by clicking the right mouse button (as an alternative to ESC): - Project: Split line - Project: Join line with... - Project: Round line - Plan: Split line - Plan: Join line - Plan: Round line - Plan: Shift selection Jan 14,22: The elevations of laterally offset points related to a reference line can now be computed by taking a crossfall value into account as well. Jan 12,22: In the Project Window, if identical points with additional attributes are loaded, the additional attributes from the loaded points will now always be added to the existing points. Dec 22,21: In the Project Window, if the point directory task is canceled, the previously activated point will be activated again. In the Project Window the active element (point, line, alignment, profile, 3D object) can be duplicated using the new task "Edit / Active Element / Duplicate..." or "Duplicate..." from the context menu of the active element. A prompt asking for the name of the duplicate will appear. If, when adding a DTM, the outer borders lie partly on top of each other, the new outer border will now be de- termined correctly. Dec 13,21: The datum transformation for North Rhine-Westphalia, called KoordTrans, now considers the new CSV format of Bezirks- regierung Köln. The NRWTrans.ini file has to contain the entry CSV=A.csv. Such a CSV file holds coordinates in both the source and target systems for each point. Dec 07,21: When editing the title box of a plan frame while in frame design mode, the title box data was inadvertently saved multiple times to the FRM file. This error has been rectified. The Help menu has the new entry "Remote Maintenance..." for directly downloading the FastViewer client to enable our remote support. Dec 06,21: In the Project Window, intersecting a line or an alignment using multiple lines and alignments could cause CAPLAN to crash. This error has been rectified. Dec 02,21: For positive point elevations, the plan creation can force the sign '+' to be added. Outputting a bulding survey to an NAS formatted file ex- ports special building points only once, even if they are used in several building lines. Dec 01,21: Dimensioning a distance in a plan can now omit the offset lines on both sides of the dimension line. Nov 26,21: Since last February, in a few cases when loading DXF for- matted data as a plan the blocks were not recognized cor- rectly so no symbols were created. This error has been rectified. Nov 23,21: Outputting a bulding survey to an NAS formatted file omits the attribute 'art' of 'AX_Besonderer_Gebaeudepunkt' if it is empty. Nov 22,21: When computing station points, identifying the station in the point mask has been improved. Nov 19,21: For an alignment, a vertical alignment can now be loaded from an A formatted file (CAPLAN internal alignment format). Nov 17,21: Due to the changes made on Nov 11, 21 loading a DTM from REB data type 58 files could fail. This error has been rectified. Nov 16,21: When editing projects and plans in a network, starting CAPLAN could take unusually long in a few cases. This delay should now no longer occur. Nov 15,21: The plan creation stopped in a few cases when drawing align ments and showed the message "Out of memory". This could occur with very flat S curves resulting from creating a spline. This error has been rectified. Nov 11,21: When loading points from the REB data formats DA001, DA30 and DA45, vertices from DA49 and DTMs from DA58, all the point names will be used unmodified. Leading zeroes will be retained. The NTv2 transformation OSTN15 from Ordnance Survey Great Britain is now available in CAPLAN with the grid file OSTN15_NTv2_OSGBtoETRS.gsb, available from https://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/business-government/ tools-support/os-net/format The grid file has to be copied to the DAT folder in the CAPLAN installation. Nov 10,21: The new file icons for CAPLAN projects and CAPLAN plans have been redesigned to make them more distinct. Nov 09,21: When performing a task in a Project (e.g. "Bearing and Distance" or "Project a single point") the current viewport could not be moved beyond the recently clicked point while the object selection was activated. This error has been rectified. Correcting the inadvertent slight shift of elements in the Plan Window (from Oct 26, 21) caused the multiple insertion to quit after the first insert. This error has been recti- fied. If you want to shift elements directly, it may be the case that the elements will not be shifted if the mouse button is released faster than a double click takes. If the speed of the double click is increased in the mouse settings for Windows, this behaviour will appear less frequently. Nov 07,21: In the Plan Window, changing the properties of multiple elements recently caused some inconsistencies. This error has been rectified. When creating or editing an area in a plan, negative values for the line factor as well as for the pattern factor will be corrected automatically. The dimensioning of offsets in a plan now writes all the offsets correctly when the "With hyphens" option is set. Oct 25,21: When deleting more than 4,000 points from the point list in a project by applying the "Don't add to Undo" option, the point list will now be updated correctly in all cases. Oct 22,21: In the Plan Window, the geometric verification of polylines as well as of areas now considers arcs correctly. The point file type "DTM Points Bavaria (*.TXT) allows the loading of point files with x, y and z per line. In addition to blanks, the format supports commas as well as semicolons as delimiters. The file extension *.XYZ has been added as an alternative. From now on, the format will be named "DTM Points as Grid (*.XYZ;*.TXT)". Displaying line direction arrows for lines in the Project Window as well as for lines, areas and slopes in the Plan Window can be restricted to the activated line or the selected plan elements. ----------------------------------------------------------- Oct 21,21: Release and distribution of version 5.4 ----------------------------------------------------------- Oct 21,21: Selecting and editing multiple text objects in the Plan Window now offers the background colour as an additional text property. When rotating objects around a point in the Plan Window, the mouse clicks will now be used immediately and not in conjunction with the second click only, as was pre- viously the case. The plan frame parameters now offer header and footer lines as an alternative to the title box. The contents of headers and footers can be edited in the frame design. The example layout "STD_A3hf.FRM" will automatically be installed by our setup. With regard to 3D objects, a new project can be created based on a spatial plane. Now only the selected points and lines can also be used in this task. The task for checking evenness now allows creation of the control project based on the original coordinates. Additionally, a plan can be crated containing the grid geometry of the evenness control. This plan can be combined with existing base data. Oct 12,21: In the DTM, the tasks for constructing an excavation, a heap, a terrace as well as a slope show inclination arrows in the dialog preview to allow evaluation of the inclination. Oct 11,21: The computation of polar points offers a dynamic extension of the control points with two alternative modes: - "In case of no conn.": If too few control points for a station are found, all already computed polar points will be included in the computation (as hitherto). - "In all cases": For each station, the control points as well as all already computed polar points will be in- cluded in the computation. Oct 07,21: The adjustment of a spatial cirlce additionally shows the offset of the points to the internally computed spatial plane in the dialog. Thus points lying far from the plane can easily be identified. Writing DXF formatted files from points out of a project as well as data from plans creates a hyperlink for the point objects if the point attributes contain hyperlinks. In the case of multiple hyperlinks for a single object, only the first one will be written because DXF is re- stricted to a single hyperlink per object. Oct 06,21: In the Plan Window, when double clicking an element this element was sometimes immediately shifted slightly before the edit dialog was opened. This small shift no longer occurs. When saving points and lines to a KML formatted file, all the point attributes (and not only 8) will now be written to the point description. Oct 05,21: As in the Project Window, in the Plan Window geometrical checks will be carried out when creating a polyline or an area. Any erroneous line legs will be marked in the vertex list as well as in the detail window. Sep 30,21: When loading tacheometry observations, the setting "Rename target to avoid a change of zero" adds '?' to the point name if the directions of identical points differ by more than the given tolerance. If multiple sets with long point names are observed, this could cause CAPLAN to crash. This error has been rectified. Sep 29,21: When creating a polyline in the Project Window, some checks will be run. The new polyline will be checked for reversed legs, for doubled legs and for intersection of legs. Any erroneous line legs will now be marked in the point list of the line dialog as well as in the detail view. Thus the search for errors will be facilitated. With the DTM, when adding a break line, an outer border or a hole, geometry checks will be examined as well and any erroneous line legs will be marked in the point list of the dialog as well as in the detail view. Sep 24,21: When creating a polyline in the Plan Window, the switch "Interpolate missing elevations" allows the computing of elevations for intermediate points from the neighbor points. This switch will now be interpreted correctly again. Loading DXF formatted files into the Plan Window addition- ally offers the current view as a coordinate range (be- sides all elements and DXF extents), to allow a useful import for files containing entities a long way from the others. The new task "Calculate / Intersect / Line with Lines/Alignments..." allows the computing of all the intersection points of a single polyline with multiple polylines and alignments at once. Sep 15,21: The new task "Edit / Point Names / By Station..." allows the renumbering of points according to their station value, referring to a polyline or an alignment. The initial values for a best fit cylinder will always be set to useful positive values. Sep 13,21: When editing a polyline in the Plan Window, the pen display additionally shows the name of the assigned line type. This makes it possible to distinguish whether the line type is taken from the layer or if it is assigned directly to the the polyline. Sep 08,21: If in both tasks "Edit / Point Names / Identical..." and "Edit / Coordinates / Equal Position..." no average points are to be established, but only a report is to be created, the report additionally shows the sequential number of the points inside their group. Sep 07,21: If a project contains polylines, the current view could not be printed. This error has been rectified. Sep 02,21: The "Create Hyperlink" setting in the "Names / Attributes" tab of the general settings was not applied correctly in some cases. This error has been rectified. Aug 31,21: The DTM triangulation was incorrect in a few cases if the eastings of the first four points were nearly identical. This error has been rectified. Aug 20,21: When editing the control points of a network the flickering of the lists is suppressed. Loading and saving the selection and accuracy inside every list is now possible again. Tacheometry observations can now be imported from BEO formatted files originating from the software BETAN/NEPTAN. Aug 19,21: When adding a DTM, in few cases the new outer border has been initialized in the wrong way. This error has been rectified. When editing a point in the Project Window, the point name now gets the initial focus, which hitherto was set to the easting value. Aug 18,21: If, in the Project Window, points or lines have been se- lected, saving these objects prompts an option to save all of them or only the selected ones. When transferring DTM lines to VIS-All, unplausible line fragments occured due to very sharp bends in lines. Thus the initial view in VIS-All was determined incorrectly. These unplausible line fragments no longer occur. Aug 16,21: The volume computation based on cross sections (according to REB 21.013) can now draw all the cross section in a mirrored state. Aug 13,21: Adding polylines to a DTM both as borders as well as holes has been accelerated considerably. Aug 04,21: If rail tracks have station gaps, our import into CAPLAN will split them into several parts and name each part sub- sequently. This naming will now also take place for alignment names longer than 14 characters. Aug 03,21: The epoch comparison creates time-distance diagrams. Now these diagrams are furnished with a legend for the time scale. The vertical scale will be extended so that at least one value is be drawn. Since July 15, a project that was started in the Windows Explorer by double-clicking could no longer be opened in a running CAPLAN session. This error has been rectified. Aug 02,21: In the Plan Window, the polyline/area dialog allows special handling of the elevation column. The context menu for this column allows e.g. the interpolation of elevations for intermediate points. As a prerequisite, their elevations have to be empty. For an exisiting polyline/area, the elev- ation will be preset to 0.0. The new task 'Remove elevation=0' allows the removal of all zero elev- ations, to enable immediate interpolation. When projecting points onto an alignment, the reference alignment can be changed by clicking in the detail window. The corridor in the detail window will now be updated immediately. If a DTM consisted of multiple parts and the outer borders triangles were to be excluded automatically, all the tri- angles were made invisible. This error has been rectified so that all triangles inside the new borders are visible. In the Plan Window, the red border of a selected image will no longer be printed. Jul 28,21: When computing station points related to an alignment, an incrementable point name could be entered for the new points. This incrementation failed if the point name con- sisted of one of the characters 'S', 's' or '.' because in this case a station mask was wrongly identified. The identifying of a station mask has now been improved. Jul 27,21: Projecting points onto a cylinder allows the creation of a new project with the shell of the cylinder unrolled and containing all projected points. The point of view for the new project may be counterclockwise, causing mirrored data. An overlap region can be defined at the beginning and at the end of the unrolled cylinder shell. And the distances from the points to the cylinder surface can be defined as positive for points going outwards or alternatively for points going inwards. Hitherto, a correction / reduction was always set as default if a coordinate system had been defined. Now the definition of a coordinate system offers the the new option 'Preset reduction / correction in dialogs' in the 'Reduction' tab, which defines whether the correct- ion / reduction should automatically be set for all the tasks. If, in the view controller for DTM lines, the ridge lines, border lines or exclusion areas had been disabled they were displayed as other lines instead. This error has been rectified. The directory for 3D objects allows transferring of the main points (e.g. starting and end points of a spatial line) into the project as points. Therefore the new button "Points..." has been introduced. 3D objects can be derived from each other (e.g. a plane from a spatial circle). Therefore the new button "From Object..." has been introduced to all dialogs for editing 3D objects. When processing GNSS baselines, the point stack can now consider the selected geoid if required. The license details derived the Drive ID from the volume serial number, which was changed by some Windows 10 updates. Thus the license got lost and had to be restored e.g. by entering an access code. Now the serial number of the hard disk drive will be utilized as the Drive ID. And it will be retained regardless of any windows updates. The task for projecting points onto an alignment allows saving of the pedal points to the project. Applying the name mask '*' transfers the original point names to the pedal points. If unique point names are required, the resulting point collision can be solved for all points at once. When drawing cross sections by applying the standard layout, the CS station inside the upper left box will be placed as a centered text element. The task "Plan / Legend..." allows the transfer of a coordinate list from the current project into the Plan Window. Now the list border will be created as a single closed polyline. The attributes of points and lines may contain hyperlinks. For these elements, a special symbol will now be displayed to directly access and show the hyperlinks via double- clicking this symbol. The visibility of the hyperlink symbol can be set via "View / Options..." for the Project and the Plan separately. The "Point names / Attributes" tab of the general settings allows the definition of whether hyperlinks will generally be allowed or not. A new check also defines whether the hyperlinks added by Drag&Drop will be processed with their absolute path or with the relative path. Jul 19,21: In the Plan Window, viewports may have own layer settings (on/off and color) that differ from the general layer management. The viewports also do not apply changes from the general layer controller. With the new task "Frame / Viewport / Reset Layers" the layer state of the current viewport can be reset to the state of the general layer manager. Jul 16,21: In few cases, creating a parallel alignment (including the vertical alignment) caused an error. This error has been rectified. Drawing a section of a polyline, an alignment or a profile via the context menu shows the Plan Window with its original position and size. Jul 15,21: When executing CAPLAN from within the Cremer Commander, all the currently selected CAPLAN projects files will be opened. Jul 14,21: WMS services with a URL containing additional parameters like 'PkgID' or 'SERVICE_NAME' can now be loaded. Jul 13,21: If CAPLAN is called from ProVI (as a survey computation module) the tasks for DTM, alignments and profiles are not available. These entries will be removed from the CAPLAN menu in such cases. When selecting points in a project by date/time, only the named attributes of type "free" have previously been offered. Now all named attributes will be offered regard- less of their type. Jul 09,21: Background data in a project can be managed using "File / Load / Background..." and "View / Background Scene...". This task additionally offers both changing the colour of the background scenes as well as reloading it from the source file by clicking the "Update" button. When creating a plan with cotes the elevations were for- matted incorrectly if zero decimals were set. This error has been rectified. Jul 08,21: With the road surface, the reports both for setting out all lanes as well as for setting out a single lane now additi- onally offer the point names of the setting out points. For images with georeferencing information, the GeoTIFF file format is widely used, which holds the georeferencing inside the TIFF file. However CAPLAN relies on the exist- ence of a world file and cannot access the georeferencing information inside the GeoTIFF files. As a tool for con- verting world files to GeoTIFF and vice versa we recommend using QGIS (www.qgis.org), an open source GIS that is free of charge. Jul 02,21: If the station resulting from a computation (e.g. project- ing onto an alignment or line) is transferred to the point point attributes, until now trailing zeroes were omitted e.g. 1+874.0. Now three decimals e.g. 1+874.000 will always be written. Jun 30,21: Saving points to SDR formatted files from Sokkia assigns the derivation code 'KI' (for Keyed In) to all points. Hitherto 'NM' (for Not Measured) was assigned. Jun 29,21: Since late May, some tasks were executed significantly slower (e.g. deleting points from a project). The previous execution speed has now been restored. Jun 23,21: When loading DXF formatted files, umlauts in the filenames could not be interpreted correctly in some cases and these files could not be opened. Now umlauts will be recognized correctly and the files can be loaded. Jun 21,21: Pasting points from the clipboard into a project sometimes could not be undone. Now undo is always possible, except when points are pasted into a new project. Jun 11,21: In the Plan Window, the elevation for a symbol can be taken from an existing text element. To do this, the edit symbol dialog can be opened and the cursor positioned in the edit field for the elevation by clicking. Afterwards, a text element can be selected in the detail window. The text may consist of non numeric characters but any numbers will be extracted from the text. Jun 08,21: When loading a DXF formatted file into the Plan Window, the DXF limits will now also be checked for the existence of a useful coordinate range. Blocks with their insertion point outside the plan area (e.g. at 0/0) will automatically be exploded into their constituent parts. Jun 07,21: In few cases, contour lines from a difference model could not be completely transferred to a plan. This alogorithm has been improved. May 26,21: With some tasks (e.g. saving points from the Project Window to a DXF formatted file), CAPLAN crashed due to an ir- reproducible error. This error has been rectified. May 25,21: When creating a plan for several polylines, the area layer was assigned inadvertently. This error has been rectified. May 20,21: The GNSS fieldbook report based on Trimble JobXML formatted files additionally lists the geoid file as well as the information from the HTML tag . May 19,21: Loading points from a Trimble JobXML formatted file offers additional attributes for GNSS observed points e.g. DOP values and precision. May 14,21: If, when computing a longitudinal section from a DTM, the alignment is to be extended, all the sections with DTM lines will now be computed in the extension ranges as well. In the Project Window, the dialogs for moving as well as for rotating points remember the status of the check mark for creating the report. If all the points of a DTM have been shifted in elevation at the same time, the elevation range will now be adapted immediately. May 12,21: Computing a single area in the Project Window now corrects the area to site level if a datum has been defined. May 11,21: In a few cases, the point stack could not compute all the points at once although the geometric configuration would have allowed the computation. This error has been recti- fied. May 06,21: When loading leveling data, the sight length differences are checked for all leveling runs. Now the sight length differences will be checked for total leveling lines as well. Loading points and lines from LandXML formatted files in- advertently removed the description from already existing codes. Now the description in the object type table will be retained in all cases. May 05,21: When computing coordinates or building a plan or a spatial network, the definition of a local coordinate system offers (as a minimum) the reduction of observations based on the elevation. ----------------------------------------------------------- May 03,20: Release and distribution of version 5.3 ----------------------------------------------------------- Apr 30,21: For the past year, in a project with a local coordinate system defined GNSS baselines could not be loaded. This is possible again now. Apr 29,21: Writing a bulding survey from the Project Window to a NAS formatted file now considers inner courtyards correctly. Editing a point in the Project Window now remembers the setting for writing a report. Apr 28,21: The new editing of control point in a network remembers the recently applied coupling and standard deviation. A program crash resulting from the selection by object type via the lists context menu was rectified. Apr 27,21: The new task in the Project Window "Edit / Coordinates / Round..." allows the rounding of the eastings and northings as well as the elevation of the points. Apr 26,21: Since March 2021, calling the file search from the file dialog regularly caused CAPLAN to crash. This error has been rectified. Apr 20,21: Loading alignments from ASCIIBAHN format files from CARD/1 caused CAPLAN to crash in a few cases. This error has been rectified. Apr 14,21: Changing the attribute count of points and lines in the "Point names / Attributes" tab inside the general settings could in a few cases cause CAPLAN to crash. This error has been rectified. Apr 08,21: Pasting many points from the clipboard into a project has been accelerated considerably. When editing a vertical alignment, the arcs can be defined by their radius or alternatively by their tangent length. When switching the list from tangent length to radius, some radii with small inclination differences at TI points got lost. This error has been rectified. Additionally all values in the list will now be displayed with four deci- mals, to reduce rounding inaccuracies in computations. Apr 06,21: Loading alignments from the GND database of Deutsche Bahn AG has been improved. Track alignments now always start with station 0.0 to avoid inference with the station values from the KM line. The report lists the point addresses of all the main points as well. Mar 31,21: The point snap now locates the correct snap points for lines that run exactly horizontally or vertically. When loading tacheometry observations, in some cases points were renamed with '?' because a new circle zero was inadvertently identified. This error has been rectified again. With the network adjustment, applying the adjusted coordi- nates is reported to the list file. The dynamic control points will now be marked in this report as well. Mar 29,21: Exchanging points from the Project Window via the clipboard caused empty point attributes to be assigned the character '§', which remained upon pasting. Empty attributes will now remain empty in such cases. When creating a polyline in the Project Window, the rela- tive coordinates were oriented to the last line leg in the wrong way if the list of vertex point displayed the point elevations. This error has been rectified. Mar 25,21: The epoch comparison as well as the pipe displacements allow setting of the date and time of all the projects involved, to the exact second. Mar 24,21: When saving a building survey to the NAS format, the special building points that serve as vertex points for building lines at the same time will be written to the NAS file as well. The adjustment of a plan or spatial network could cause CAPLAN to crash when creating the adjustment report. This only happened after creating a new project, then loading the control points from an L-file and immediately executing all computations up to the network adjustment. This error has been rectified. Mar 23,21: The task for editing control points in the network adjust- ment has been reworked and shows all the coordinate components at a glance. Mar 22,21: When loading alignments from GND-Edit format data issued by Deutsche Bahn AG, in a few cases alignments without geo- metry were created. This caused subsequent error messages. Now such alignments will be ignored during the import. Mar 15,21: If, inside a calculation task, a reduction is available, the dialog for the settings of the coordinate system shows the geoid as well if a geoid has been set previously. The section task showed the computed elevation in the dialog with only one decimal. All the decimals will now be shown. Mar 12,21: When loading OKSTRA data into the Plan Window, in a few cases CAPLAN could crash. Now the data is loaded correctly in such cases as well. Mar 03,21: When loading NAS format ALKIS data into the Plan Window, the "Texts" tab offers a switch to define whether the background of all texts shall be transparent or opaque. Mar 02,21: When creating a polyline in the Project Window, the active point or last point of the active line can automatically be set as the starting point. This option can be set in the polyline dialog. Feb 26,21: When loading point and lines from a GEOgraf project file, the position and/or the elevation may be declared as in- valid. Now the user will be reminded of the affected points. CAPLAN now no longer has to be closed and restarted to re- cognize license changes after entering an access code. Feb 25,21: When loading alignments from the GND-Edit database of Deutsche Bahn AG, the dialog for selecting the coordinate system will be displayed anyway, even if all the alignments refer to the very same coordinate system. When loading alignments from the GND-Edit database of Deutsche Bahn AG, station discontinuities were processed in the wrong way for horizontal and vertical alignments. Thus alignment elements were erroneous. Now the station discon- tinuities will only be considered with the stationing alignment. For all other horizontal and vertical alignments a continuous stationing is set. An alignment containing station discontinuities will be split by CAPLAN into multiple alignments. Alle the result- ing parts will now be named consecutively. Feb 24,21: When transforming tacheometry observations to a Z-format file, implausible instrument or target heights will be replaced by the values 99990 or -9999. A corresponding error message will be written to the ERR file. Feb 22,21: The export of data to DXF format files now sets the length unit to meters (with 3 decimals) and the angle unit to degrees (with 4 decimals). Thus the CAD viewers from Auto- desk and Bentley show useful values straight away. Feb 16,21: In the Plan Window, the point snap was extended by the add- itional modes "intersection" and "projection". When selecting station ranges, additional stations can be added, depending on the curvature of the horizontal and the vertical alignment. Thus the stations will be densified for both spirals and arcs as well as for arcs from the vertical alignment. In the Project Window, the new task "Profiles / Organize Profile Lines..." allows the splitting up the profile lines into multiple projects in a very fast way. This is useful especially after importing profile data, to structure the data to your specific needs. Feb 15,20: The file dialog refreshes the file list after a new folder or a new file have been created via the context menu. Feb 11,20: When loading DXF format files into the Plan Window, the 3D faces (e.g. from a CAPLAN DTM) will be created as poly- lines and no longer as symbols from the corner points only. Usually, unnamed blocks from DXF are not loaded as points. But if they have block attributes these blocks will be loaded as points into the Project and as symbols into the Plan. When saving a DTM to DXF format files, the initial view- port that is shown in AutoCAD will be set to the DTM extents. If, when loading a plan (e.g. from DXF), all the layers of the data are switched off, a wrong view was set that unfor- tunately could not be adapted. Now the screen view fits to the loaded data in all cases. Feb 09,20: During the export of building surveys to NAS format data, the sequence order of all the object attributes has been corrected. Feb 05,21: When saving data to DXF, the color of layer "0" was set to "black". This was disadvantageous with a black background set in AutoCAD. Now the AutoCAD color 7 (white) will be set for layer "0". Feb 04,21: When loading tacheometry observations, in some cases points were renamed with '?' because a new circle zero was identified inadvertently. This error has been rectified. Feb 03,21: The deformation analysis of two networks allows checking of the distance scale of the networks. If this option was se- lected, a message is written to the LST file if the dist- ance check was not possible. If a task adds new points to a project, the point list was refilled and scrolled to the top. Now the most recently active point in the list (with blue or grey background) will remain visible in the point list. Jan 15,21: Dimensioning coordinates in a plan slowed down massively if several hundred symbols were preselected. The task has been accelerated considerably. Jan 13,21: Loading alignments from Toporail 3 format files from the SBB (swiss railway) now renumbers alignments with identical names in an ascendig order to avoid multiple alignments with identical names. Jan 08,21: The epoch comparison and the pipe displacements create single plans for each point showing the displacement vect- ors. These plans will now be furnished with a mm grid to facilitate interpreting the dimension of the displacements. Jan 07,21: Adjusting a 3D cylinder in some cases could not determine a solution although enough points have been selected for the computation. Now the algorithm has been improved in such a way that almost all the cases are solved. Dec 22,20: Regarding the export of building surveys to NAS format data, some inconsistencies have been rectified. Dec 21,20: If, after loading tacheometry observations, leveling obser- vations were loaded, multiple stations from tachometry were inadvertently merged. Now all multiple stations will be preserved. Dec 17,20: When creating an excavation, a deposit or a terrace from a DTM, the clicked points or vertices of a loaded line were replaced with DTM points even if their horizontal positions were closer than 1 cm. For such cases, the original points will now always be retained. Dec 16,20: When loading a REB format file according to VB 21.013 (volumes from horizons) the DA68 contents will now be inter- preted correctly in all cases. Dec 15,20: The fore-backsight comparison of observations no longer mixes up observations from tacheometry and from leveling. Due to the selection in the dialog only tacheometry or only leveling observations will be compared. The datum transformation for North Rhine-Westphalia using the KOORDTRANS.dll file caused CAPLAN to crash if one of the control point files contained empty lines. Empty lines will now be processed correctly. Dec 07,20: In both a vertical and a spatial network, for elevation differences the distance from starting to end point can additionally be listed in the report (variable DIST) if both points have valid horizontal coordinates. When loading lines from a LandXML format file, errors occured while processing the line codes. These errors have been rectified. Dec 04,20: In the Project Window, the offset of a parallel line can be defined by clicking on a point. Now, if the point lies in a blind corner of the polyline, the user will be notified of this. Nov 30,20: Loading points from LandXML formatted files additionally offers the "OnBoardImages" from the HeXML section as a point attribute. All images of a point will be transferred into the selected attribute as hyperlinks. Nov 27,20: The adjustment of a spatial network marks the dynamically fixed points correctly in the list report as well. Loading a DXF file with cadastral data from North Rhine- Westphalia could cause CAPLAN to crash because the group codes partially contained trailing blanks. Now these DXF files will be loaded correctly. Nov 23,20: With the new update, when loading points with supposed hyperlinks in attributes e.g. "No.23" the path of the pro- ject was previously added in front of the attribute e.g. "D:\Data\No.23". Now the path will only be added if the attribute starts with ".\" or "..\". Nov 13,20: In the Plan Window, the algorithm for automatically com- puting a circumference from lines has been improved signifi- cantly. Nov 12,20: The road surface computes the arc roundings of crossfalls and widths correctly. The arcs will be drawn in both the crossfall band and the width band of the vertical curve plan. ----------------------------------------------------------- Nov 06,20: Release and distribution of version 5.2 ----------------------------------------------------------- Nov 04,20: When loading leveling data, the residuals will also be reported for lines which have connection elevations computed based on the data that has just been loaded. Nov 03,20: The datum transformation from GK to ETRS in the German state of Saarland is computed using the grid file SeTa2016.gsa, which has been valid since January 18, 2018. In CAPLAN we have replaced SeTa2009 with SeTa2016. The NTv2 grid file is available from "https://www.saarland.de/ lvgl/DE/themen-aufgaben/themen/grundlagen/lagehoeheschwere/ transformation/transformation_node.html" Loading levelling observation in few cases did not reco- gnize change points with number '0'. This error has been rectified. The task "Match Control Points" allows sorting of the list of matched points. Oct 30,20: In the Project Window, the profile lines can be transferred to other projects by applying the task "Profiles / Organize Profile Lines...". can may be very helpful e.g. after loading profiles from DA 66 formatted files. Oct 30,20: For points in both the Project and the Plan and for poly- lines in the Project, the attributes may consist of hyper- links, i.e. file names, web adresses or email adresses. These hyperlinks can be filled in the attribute list using drag and drop. Additionally, the attribute lists offer a comfortable way to edit hyperlinks via their context menus. Oct 26,20: In Bavaria, buildings can be measured for land registration by private surveying companies. After having introduced ALKIS, the data interface changed to NAS with a fixed data structure. CAPLAN enables you to transfer your data to the land registry office via this interface. Oct 22,20: In a few cases, a dongle secured version of CAPLAN did not recognize the dongle. Our installation/update DVD and our website provide the most recent version 8.13 of the HASP dongle driver. Since September 30, when editing a polyline in the Project Window the clicked line leg was no longer activated in the dialog list. This error has been rectified. When projecting single points onto a polyline / alignment the inclination to the points on the left side will now be written to the status line with the correct sign. Oct 07,20: The adjustment of a dynamic network will mark the dynami- cally fixed points with a '*' in the report. When editing control points in a network, the context menu of the point list allows a configuration to be loaded from an LDX file. In such cases, the configuration is trans- ferred correctly to the coupled lists. Sep 30,20: When creating and editing polylines in the Project Window, the elevation of the vertex points can be shown in the list. When exploding polylines into lines and arcs in the Project Window, the new lines will be named incrementally. When loading a DXF file into the Plan Window and exploding the blocks, the correct color will be assigned to the block parts. Sep 22,20: With the new slope object in the Plan Window, the elevation of the vertices of the upper and lower edges were lost after saving them to and then loading them from an M-file. This error has been rectified. Sep 21,20: If, with a datum transformation, a geoid has been defined for the target system, the geoid area will be set correctly with coordinates belonging to the target system. Sep 18,20: Creating parallel lines in the Project Window could lead to multiple point names at inner corners. This error has been rectified. Sep 16,20: When loading tacheometry observations, the option "Rename target to avoid a change of zero" in the "Directions" tab caused incorrect processsing of observations to a hidden point rod. This error has been rectified. Aug 28,20: If a road surface consists of more than nine lanes on one side of the alignment, these lanes were not loaded and saved correctly with two digit numbers. This error has been rectified. Aug 25,20: Since August 20, lines could no longer be extended or intersected on an extension. This error has been rectified. Aug 21,20: The standard instrument allows amendment of the standard refraction index for meteorological correction to suit the observed distances. In the Plan Window, a slope can be created as a single object (containing an upper and lower edge) that generates the slope hatches automatically. The following tasks are available: - Create slope (as hitherto, with additionals options) - Edit slope - Extract slope lines The slope object is primarily intended for data exchange with OKSTRA. Aug 17,20: It was sometimes the case that the equidistance for the DTM color gradient was too small. Now the equidistance will automatically be set to a suitable value. Aug 14,20: In the Project Window, in a few cases the 'Undo' task undid too many actions at once when working with polylines and with DTM borders and breaklines. Now the undo mechanism works correctly in these cases as well. In the Project Window, the task for interpolating point elevations in lines selects the previously activated line only. In no line is activated, all the lines are select- ed in the list. Aug 13,20: When loading points and lines from DXF formatted files into the Project Window, new points can be assigned to already existing points by applying a tolerance. The "Point Name" tab now offers the option to restrict this check to points with identical point codes. Thus points with identical po- sitions but different codes are loaded as separate points. Aug 12,20: DXF files saved from the Plan Window no longer display the borders of images. Aug 11,20: With the task "Frame / By Plan Areas..." multiple plan frames can be created from existing plan areas. Now the placeholder <#PANAME> will be resolved correctly for each new plan frame. Aug 05,20: When computing a single point inside the point stack, it was sometimes the case that, with a small position toler- ance, two solutions for the rough point coordinates were offered. But this had no effect on the final adjusted point coordinates. Now the tolerance for averaging the rough po- sitions will be set to 0.3m regardless of the tolerance entered in the dialog. Thus multiple solutions will be of- fered in significantly fewer cases. When projecting points onto a facade with the option "Correction" activated, the offset to the facade was always positive even if the point was located behind the facade. Now the offset will be computed correctly in these cases as well. Jul 31,20: If, when planning a network, the angle unit is set to degree the standard deviations of the angles were not pro- cessed correctly. This error has been rectified. Jul 27,20: Loading DXF data into the Plan Window previously set the background color of opaque MTEXT elements with a background color from the drawing view to 'black'. Now 'white' will be assigned as the background color for these texts. Jul 23,20: Since June, loading ALKIS NAS data into the Plan Window has ignored all the texts if the model type was not actively selected in the "Plan" tab. The table in the "Texts" tab was therefore empty. Texts with the preset model type will now be loaded correctly. Jul 16,20: Loading DXF data into the Plan Window previously set the background color of transparent MTEXT elements to 'black'. These were then made visible by changing their transparency in CAPLAN. Now 'white' will be assigned as background color for these texts. Removing a valid position and elevation from a point (e.g. in a 3D network adjustment) recently caused the point list to display incorrect point names. This error has been rect- ified. Jul 14,20: When projecting points onto a facade, the offset to the facade was always positive when applying a correction. This error has been rectified. Jul 10,20: The task for line accompanying symbols in the Plan Window now determines all symbol elevations correctly with all possible dialog options. When loading leveling observations, the conversion of the point names using a PKU file will now be correctly taken into account when generating the leveling lines. Jun 30,20: The following computations will ignore points with an in- valid position and lines with vertices with an invalid position: - Reference line - Project a point onto a line - Project multiple points onto a line - Compute a single area - Compute a sum of areas - Intersect two lines - Intersect line with circle - Alignments from lines - Best fit line - Best fit circle - Spline - Tangential polyline - Project a single point - Project multiple points - Intersect alignment with polylines Jun 29,20: Hitherto, when setting up a DTM, points without a valid position were included in the DTM. Now, however, DTMs will be built using only completely 3D points. When checking points with equal position at the end of the task, a test will be performed to check if multiple point names have been created. Jun 22,20: With some networks, problems arose when accessing folders and files from the file dialog or with Cremer Commander. This caused the application to freeze. These problems should no longer arise. Jun 19,20: M-files contain relative paths to inserted images if the image files are stored on the same drive as the M-file. These relative paths will be resolved correctly on loading the M-file. Jun 08,20: When loading NAS data into a project, in some cases new points are created to serve as vertex points for lines. The object type from the line will now be applied to these new points. Jun 02,20: Both the comparison of epochs and of pipes have always stated the scale of displacements in mm. This could some- times be wrong for scales smaller than 1. The correct unit will now be written on plans. May 15,20: For printing a plan, the align options "center left" and "center right" have been added. E.g. for a plan with A4 portrait format the alignment "center right" leaves a hole punching margin on the left-hand side. When loading GeoGraf jobs, in some cases the program library GEOGRAFR.DLL could not be found with GeoGraf 9 or 10. This error has been rectified. When loading point sequences from a file, any missing points will be written to the ERR file. May 13,20: If, when loading a DXF file into the Plan Window, the DXF coordinates are scaled by a factor, the text size was scaled incorrectly. This error has been rectified. Measuring a distance in the Plan Window via "Bearing and Distance" showed the wrong unit "cm" if no reduction was applied to the distance. Now the correct unit "m" will be displayed. May 12,20: Pasting elements multiple times in the Plan Window no longer blocks the object selection button permanently. May 11,20: Changing our development environment to Visual Studio 2019 caused CAPLAN to crash if an OKSTRA interface was called. This error has been rectified. In the Plan Window, the text background for texts based on CAPLAN's own fonts will now be displayed with the correct size. When projecting points to an alignment that lie before the starting point of the alignment, and if reduction / correction has been activated, the stations for these points were incorrect. This error has now been rectified. May 07,20: When transforming DXF files using parameters, the height transformation is now carried out correctly. May 06,20: Alignments that are black in the Project Window will now be displayed in white if the Project Window has a black background. The task for editing an alignment in the Project Window now displays the controls in the line containing the element type correctly, based on the current dialog size. May 05,20: The tasks "Alignments / Project Points..." and "Calculate / Project / To Line..." sometimes caused CAPLAN to crash during computation of the projection values if a coordinate system was set in the project and if the check mark for "Reduction / Correction" had been removed. This error has been rectified. ----------------------------------------------------------- Apr 30,20: Release and distribution of version 5.1 ----------------------------------------------------------- Apr 21,20: In the Project Window, the tasks for trimming and extending lines have been reworked to match the identical tasks in the Plan Window. Thus several lines will be trimmed/extend- ed by/to a cutting edge that has been selected previously. In the Plan Window, the background for texts now takes its shape and size from the text accessory (e.g. rectangle or circle). Additionally, the color of the text background can be assigned individually. This background color is available as an additional proper- ty when selecting elements by properties. In the Project Window, the point list's context menu offers the new entries "Copy" and "Paste". "Copy" allows the copy- ing of selected points to the clipboard. "Paste" inserts the points from the clipboard into the current project. The task "Transformation / Coordinate System..." can only be called if no other task is already active. This ensures that inconsistencies will be avoided e.g. for "Calculate / Bearing and Distance / Radial...". With computing spatial surfaces using a DTM, the surround- ing polygon will now be reported as well. With editing an alignment, it can be automatically updated in other projects that contain the same alignment, if all these projects are open in the same CAPLAN session. Apr,20 20: The report for a road surface now shows the lateral offsets of the lanes from the horizontal alignment. Apr,15 20: When loading alignments from GND-Edit formatted files (from Deutsche Bahn AG) all the alignment elements (horizontal, vertical and superelevation) will be reported. Apr,14 20: A spatial plane that is defined as being horizontal (zenith angle of the normal vector = 0.0) can be rotated by chang- ing the Hz bearing of the plane. The u-axis and v-axis are rotated as well. If the Hz bearing is 200.0 gons (i.e. 180 degrees), the u-axis points to the east and the v-axis to the north. Apr,08 20: If, when creating a plan, contour lines, height bands or slope shading are generated from a DTM, the switch "Apply break lines" in the "Parameters" tab will be set automatically if the DTM contains break lines. Apr,07 20: Alignments from an A-file (standard CAPLAN format) will now be loaded even if the A-file has a lot of empty lines. Apr,02 20: In the Project Window, it had not been possible to execute the "Plan / Diagrams / Single Pipe Displacements..." task for quite some time. This error has been rectified. Creating a new viewport in a plan sets the initial scale of the new viewport to that of the referenced plan. The referenced plan is centered inside the viewport. In the Plan Window, the dialogs for creating and editing a viewport show the plans in the combo box with the same sort order as in the plan list. Mar,26 20: The task "Settings / List Template..." retains the most recently opened tree entry and the marked list template, and restores this view for subsequent calls. When pasting plan elements into the Project Window the symbols will be processed first, then the lines/areas will be added. Thus all symbols that serve as line vertices will be added correctly. The names of the new points '#.Plan' will be formatted with leading zeroes, based on the point count (2 digits between 10 and 99, 3 digits between 100 and 999, and so on). This ensures that the sort order is always correct. Mar,23 20: The task "List / Compare / Structures..." allows the re- porting of settlement observations at structures, as has already been done for several years by the Autobahn- direktion Nordbayern. Mar 18,20: When rounding the border of an area in the Plan Window, the fill pattern was previously reset to STANDARD. The fill pattern will now be preserved. When intersecting an alignment with other alignments and polylines the wrong report was shown if the intersection points had not been added to the project. This error has been rectified. Generally, the computation report will only be added to CAPLAN.LST if the intersection points have al- ready been added to the project The view properties dialog for alignments allows the mark- ing of multiple lines in the list by holding CTRL or SHIFT and clicking the left mouse button. Editing these marked alignments is only possible via the right mouse button and not via the dialog elements below the list. These dialog elements will now therefore be disabled in such cases. The volume computation based on horizons allows the writing of all the section areas of the positions as a table in each profile plan. Hitherto, for positions based on multip- le section areas, an entry for each area part was added to the table. Now the table will only consist of one entry per position, which shows the sum of all the area parts. Mar 16,20: The conversion of point names during data import by apply- ing a PKU file now removes leading zeroes from the string that is used, if the parameter '?' is used. New project properties were added: 'Operator', 'Air Temperature' and 'Concrete Temperature'. Mar 10,20: When creating a plan with alignments, the station labels were drawn without lines towards the alignment if the station's "Distance to alignment" parameter was set to 0.0. This had been happening since the version released in December 2019. This error has been rectified. Mar 03,20: In the Plan Window, the reference point of texts will be changed together with the text position if both positions are identical. The dialog for editing a single text offers the button "Reset Pos." to reset the reference point to the text position. The text reference line will only be shown if the reference point differs from the text position. Mar 02,20: In the Plan Window, some tasks inadvertently allowed the editing of drawing items on locked layers. These tasks have now been reworked. Elements on locked layers can now neither be edited nor deleted. Feb 26,20: In some cases, the file dialog caused CAPLAN to crash when accessing network folders and files. This error should now have been rectified. Feb 17,20: When creating a plan with alignments, the station labels on the left-hand side were drawn without lines towards the alignment. This had been happening since the version rel- eased in December 2019. This error has been rectified. Feb 12,20: When loading leveling data, a notification will now be shown if messages were written while adding the obser- vations to the observation database. For a short time, when loading leveling data problems occured in terms of interpreting turning points correctly. This error has been rectified. Feb 05,20: In some cases, computing a longitudinal section from a DTM while also applying an offset from the alignment failed to compute intersections with the DTM lines. This error has been rectified. The recognition of hyperlinks in lists (e.g. with point attributes) has been further improved. Jan 29,20: When applying '-' in point names, loading a project could cause some inconsistencies if the '-' sign was exactly at the ninth position of the right-aligned point name. The check for the old (point names with 8 chars) or new format (point names with 16 chars) has therefore been improved. Jan 21,20: When loading ALKIS data from NAS formatted files into a plan, all the texts with the selected 'Modellart' and all the texts without a 'Modellart' will be imported and disp- layed. Jan 20,20: When entering new points on a reference line, the current point is set to the center of the new reference line every time the reference line is changed. Jan 17,20: When computing station points for an alignment, editing the name mask now allows a new computation as well. When deriving volumes from cross sections, the width of the position table on the left-hand side will be derived from the horizontal space to the left of the profile zone (para- meter R29). On the right-hand side the length of the po- sition names will be responsible for the table width. NAS data can contain the line function 'artDerFlurstuecksgrenze' multiple times. Hitherto, the last entry was applied by the NAS import functions. Now all the entries will be combined into a long string. Jan 15,20: When reversing an alignment, the stations of the vertical curve were computed in the wrong way if the start and end points of the vertical curve didn't coincide with the start and end points of the horizontal alignment. This error has been rectified. Jan 10,20: Since summer 2019, mirroring profiles caused incorrect profile plans. This error has been rectified. Jan 09,20: In the Plan Window, the NAS formatted files that consist only of text elements will now be loaded correctly. Jan 07,20: The paths to the images in an M-file will be stored as relative paths if the M-file and images are stored on the same drive. Jan 02,20: In the Plan Window, the task "Bearing and Distance" takes the plan coordinates view (cm) into account. The tasks for entering relative coordinates with polylines now initially start with the input mode active rather than the mouse mode. Thus values can be entered immediately. Dec 20,19: Loading points from Verm.esn formatted files (.KF files) sometimes misinterpreted the key file .SC. This error has been rectified. Dec 13,19: Whenn adding points to a polyline, in some cases an exist- ing arc was incorrectly transferred to the interim points. This error has been rectified. In the profile constructions, the task for adding points to a profile line sometimes lost the previously active profile line when called again. The task "Alignments / Detail Points..." could cause CAPLAN to crash if more than eight point attributes were defined in the general settings. This also happened for the pipe control task. This error has been rectified. Dec 09,19: Displaying the vertical alignment in the Project Window additionally shows the apex points. When creating plans with alignments, the apex points will aditionally be created when showing a vertical alignment in a ground plan. Dec 06,19: Since summer 2019, loading OKSTRA formatted data into a plan caused CAPLAN to crash if points without symbols were defined. These points will be loaded correctly now. Dec 05,19: Since summer 2019, it has not been possible to disable the labels from the Elling lines when drawing profiles. Dis- abling is now possible again. The volume computation from profiles can draw a list of positions at every cross section plan. This list will now be drawn by applying correct vertical line spacing for scales other than 1:100 as well. Joining two lines with an arc in the Project Window caused CAPLAN to crash if a coordinate system was not defined in the project. This error has been rectified. Dec 04,19: The dialog for displaying and editing the licenses now shows all licenses clearly arranged in a list. When loading alignments from GND-Edit formatted data used by Deutsche Bahn AG, CAPLAN could hang if 0.0 was assigned to the stations of all the alignment points. Now these alignments will be ignored and a message will be written to the ERR file. All track points with RIKZ = 5 will be skipped. Saving a plan to an OKSTRA formatted file now includes not only symbols, with their origin from a CAPLAN project, but also symbols that were created in the Plan Window directly or that were loaded e.g. from DXF. Trees from OKSTRA version 2.017 formatted data can now be loaded correctly. Loading points from Verm.esn formatted files (.KF files) used by Deutsche Bahn AG additionally offers the coordinate system ID from the .SC file as a point attribute. Dec 02,19: When creating parallel lines, multiple islands may arise in a few cases. Now all these islands will be generated as polylines. Nov 20,19: When loading points from DA 30 formatted files the point code was not loaded correctly. This error has been recti- fied. In the datum transformations, changing only the zone could have set the wrong target system. Now the source system will always be set as the target system. ----------------------------------------------------------- Nov 04,19: Release and distribution of version 5.0 ----------------------------------------------------------- Oct 28,19: When rotating selected elements in the Plan Window, a reference direction can be entered as initial direction of the rotation. The reduction/correction of lengths based on the current projection is now available in site plans inside the Plan Window as well, especially when executing constructions and dimensions. Loading NAS formatted files in a project or a plan allows to process all the attributes 'Herkunft', 'Vermarkungsart' and 'Genauigkeitsklasse' for detailed display. An edited alignment can be updated in multiple projects at once. Oct 09,19: Since the update from the end of September the file dialog for "Save As" did no longer activate the file name initi- ally but the file list. Now the file name will initially be activated again and can be overwritten immediately. Oct 08,19: When computing a volume out of DTMs, very small triangles have been ignored in the intersection computation. This sometimes causes errors with the verbose report applied. To avoid these errors the threshold for ignoring small triangles was reduced significantly. Oct 04,19: When projecting points onto a polyline or an alignment a a solution in the extensions was preferred if its lateral offset was smaller. Now a solution inside the polyline resp. alignment will always be preferred. When saving points to a Leica GSI formatted file the settings for the point attributes will now be stored per- sistently. Thus they will be restored on subsequent calls. Sep 30,19: When saving a plan to a DXF formatted file it could occur that a TrueType font was displayed correctly in CAPLAN but it was not transferred to the DXF file. This error has been rectified. When loading plan data from a DXF formatted file CAPLAN could hang due to special hatch parameter. This error has been rectified. Sep 25,19: The task for renumbering points (by start and increment or by point mask) now checks if the new point names consist of forbidden characters (e.g. '?' or '*'). When entering points by geographical coordinates, applying the points could cause CAPLAN to crash if a point name consisted of forbidden characters. This error has been rectified. Computing a parallel out of a polyline consisting of more than 1000 points is very time consuming. Thus a progress bar will be displayed. Sep 24,19: When adjusting a spatial plane with predefined point off- sets inacurracies could result if the plane was nearly vertical. This error has been rectified. In the file dialog the file list will be activated imme- diatly so that in the list the direct navigation via the keyboard is possible. The coordinate reference system POSGAR 2007 for Argentina was added to the list of reference systems. Sep 23,19: When loading levelling data from LandXML/HeXML formatted files the informations survey name and creator, date and time as well as the pair of staves will be transferred to the Z file. Sep 18,19: When computing volumes and areas according to Elling (REB 21.003 and 21.033) the list of the positions drawn in each profile plan will be placed on the layers that are assigned to the Elling positions in the object type table. Sep 16,19: Text elements from an OKSTRA formatted file with version 1.015 and higher could not be loaded. This error has been rectified. If, in the Plan Window, the element selection was activated while shifting elements via "Edit / Selected Elements / Shift" and if multiple elements existed at the target point then CAPLAN could crash. This error was rectified. Sep 13,19: Since the update issued at the end of July it was no longer possible to work with Elling lines. Even the profiles could not be displayed. This error has been rectified. Sep 12,19: For predefined plan areas (with layout assigned) the new task "Frame / From Plan Areas..." allows to create multiple frame plans for a site plan at once. Sep 11,19: For the state of Bavaria, the SAPOS datum transformation from GK to ERTS based on NTv2 has now been integrated into CAPLAN. The NTv2 grid file 'NTv2 BY-SAPOS.gsa' resp. '.gsb' (available free of charge from 'www.ldbv.bayern.de/ produkte/dienste/sapos/transformationen.html') has to be copied to the DAT folder of the CAPLAN installation. When transferring computation results to the point attri- butes (e.g. with "Alignments / Project points...") the point attributes will benamend automatically if they are not named already. Hitherto this assignment was not stored permanently. This error has been rectified. In the dialog for creating a new drawing layer the focus can easily be switched between "Name" and "Search" by the keys TAB and Shift-TAB. Aug 22,19: In the Plan Window the task "Edit / Selection / Clear in all Plans" allows to clear the element selection in all plans at once. Aug 21,19: The new automatic reduction of profile labels applying a tolerance in some cases showed unfavourable results and was improved considerably. The prior option "Skip text label at points" is now avail- able again as an alternative to the automatic reduction applying a tolerance. Aug 20,19: The new task "Edit / Lines / Explode..." allows to explode the polylines of a project into single segments (lines and arcs. Aug 16,19: In the Project Window entering polyline vertices via rela- tive polar coordinates went wrong if the angle unit was set to degrees. This error has been rectified. Changing to laboratory precision in the general settings tab 'Precision' now suggests to copy the list template file CAPLAN.PRC immediately to the project folder (or vice versa to delete it from there). At the same time CAPLAN provides the new list template immediately for all subsequent tasks. Aug 14,19: With the profile constructions a trench can now be added to a profile line consisting of one point only. Aug 13,19: Since the update from August, 01 only the empty object type was assigned to all profile points. All HZ resp EP codes got lost in such a way that all profile points from a single project werde connected to one profile line. This error has been rectified. Aug 12,19: If a new CAPLAN project should be saved the current project title will be suggested as project name. Since changing the title of a modified project by '*' the name of the first project in the working directory was suggested. Aug 07,19: For the plan creation the project area was in some cases extended with a very wide border. Now the border has a reasonable dimension. Aug 06,19: In the plan creation the polylines with vertices without elevation were assigned the z value 10000000 inadvertently. Now the z value 0.0 will be assigned in such cases. The dimensioning tasks now correctly set the plan center as test point to the tab "Test" of the coordinate system dialog. Aug 05,19: The selection of points inside a corridor was accelerated considerably. A progress bar in the dialog shows the state of the computation. Jul 31,19: Since the introduction of multiple outer borders loading a DTM took very long time because the check of the outer borders was very time consuming for DTMs with more than 50 000 points. Now the check was reworked and the speed was improved significantly. Jul 25,19: In the Project Window the search for redundant lines in the line directory wasn't successfull if a projects holds more than 1000 polylines. In the Plan Window the visible plan (in the detail window) was in few cases not activated (blue/grey background) in the plan list. This caused problems in saving and printing plans. Now the visible plan will always be activated in the plan list. The new task "Edit / Lines / Reduce..." allows to remove points from polylines (and as well to de- lete them completely) that are, within a tolerance, not relevant for the geometrical shape of the polylines. The new task "Edit / Lines / Add intermediate points..." allows to add points to the point sequence of polylines that lie nearby resp. on these polylines (e.g. pedal points from "Calculate / Project / To line..."). With drawing profiles the text labels of the profile lines can automatically be reduced by applying a tolerance so that the important labels will remain. The tolerance is entered by clicking the button "Further Details..." in the dialog page "Layout". In the project window the tasks "Intersect two lines", "Intersect line with circle", "Intersect two circles", "Define circle", "Trim / Extend line", "Join two lines with arc", "Best fit line", "Best fit circle" und "Intersect alignment with alignments/polylines" offer the reduction of entered distances from site level to coordinate plan and the correction of computed distances from coordinate plan to site level. Jul 24,19: Loading and saving of OKSTRA formatted data in the Plan Window considers size and rotation of point symbols. Jul 23,19: The profile transformation reports only those points, that really were transformed. With the DTM the automatic exclusion of border triangles will be successfull if the borders were removed previously. Jul 22,19: For computing station points the processing of the name mask was improved if applying 'SSSS.sss'. Jul 18,19: Projecting points onto a line allows to transfer the com- putation results to the point attributes. The corridor entered in the fields 'Left' and 'Right' will be applied to the reference line as well. Jul 17,19: The dialog for creating a new layer in the Plan Window holds a new text entry field for searching a layer. This field has the focus on initializing the dialog. Jul 16,19: Alignments from VESTRA S40 formatted files do no longer require linies with data type 141. Creating alignments from lines now applies the line color to the alignments. Creating a plan frame by applying a plan area file now shows a note if none of the plan areas in the file fit to the current plan scale. Jul 15,19: The reference lines of the texts generated by distance dimensioning now point to the center of the dimensioning line. Jul 10,19: Loading NAS formatted ALSKIS data into a project only the first out of multiple coordinate systems could be applied. Now the selection of the coordinate system will be pro- cessed correctly. Jul 09,19: Since a program change from June 14, 2019 the task "Calculate / Area" in the Project Window did no longer allow to click multiple polylines subsequently for area calculation. Now multiple polylines can be clicked again. Jul 08,19: Computing elevations via "Calcualte / Elevations..." could take a long time with many points and observations loaded, especially in searching height traverses. Now the search for height traverses will be disabled for such data amounts and the single point calculation will be applied. The task "Alignments / From Polylines..." computed the ele- vations for the vertical alignments in a wrong way, if a horizontal alignment should be rounded in the vertex points of the polyline. Now the elevations will be calculated correctly in this case. Processing leveling data computed wrong staff corrections for reading that exceeded the defined staff range. Now the staff corrections will be computed correctly in any case. Jul 01,19: Entering points by geographical coordinates (longitude and latitude) in the local reference system (defined with geoid) computes the elevation above the geoid for the first point correctly. With loading tacheometry observations from LandXML for- matted files CAPLAN could crash if the XML file was struct- ured in a wrong way. When saving points and lines to a GEOGraf PAR formatted file the radius of an arc was inadvertently applied to the subsequent straight line segments. Now the radii will only be transferred to the arc segments. Jun 27,19: The height computation of a traverse offers the new vari- able in the list section [Geo.Traverse8] for report- ing the height correction in units of 1/10 millimeters. Loading points or lines from DXF formatted files allows to set all codes to the layer names via the context menu of the layer list inside the tab "General / Layers". Jun 26,19: The DTM constructions (excavation, heap, terrace and slope) did sometimes fail in DTMs having great elevation differ- ences. Now the constructions are successful in these cases. Jun 25,19: With loading and saving a project the project properties (title and date/time) can be written to the report. When assigning computation results to point attributes the attribute indices can be edited directly by a double-click. In the Plan Window a NAS formatted file can be loaded into an existing plan. Loading NAS formatted data into the Plan window now offers the attribute 'modellart' to distinguish the text elements with regard to different scales. This setting is available in the 'Plan' tab. Loading NAS formatted data can be restricted to an arbi- trary coordinate range. Loading NAS formatted data into the Plan window now re- members the recently entered plan scale. Loading NAS formatted data into the plan window allows to write the cadastral area as text inside the lot. Loading points into a project now offers the NAS format in the file typ list. Thus only points will be loaded. The recognition of hyperlinks in lists, e.g. the point directory, was improved significantly. Displaying a transparent image applying a color gradient or as a background in the project window was improved. The volume computation from cross sections between horizons resp. from Elling lines can show the section areas of the volume positions as a table in each single profile. This is available also for computing surfaces out of cross sections. Dimensioning gradients/DH may write the elevation differ- ence. With section plans this means the real elevation difference of the points (i.e. dY in the section plan). The projection of facade points offers the reduction of entered distances from site level to coordinate plan and the correction of computed distances from coordinate plan to site level. Jun 24,19: When loading horizontal and vertical alignments from Topo- rail3 formatted files the vertical alignment could differ in a few millimeters from the original wher great changes of inclination occure. Now, in these cases, the differ- ences are below 1 millimeter. Jun 19,19: Applying '%' as part of project names or point names could, in some cases, cause CAPLAN to crash. This error has been rectified. For modified projects an '*' is displayed in the window title (as done in CREDIT). The background data of a project nevers shows the line dir- ection arrows although this option may be activated for the project. Jun 17,19: The tasks "Alignments / Project Points..." and "Profiles / Road Surface / Check... offer additional variables in the list template to report minimum and maximum values. The detailed description is available in the list sections [Axis.Offset1], [Axis.Offset3] and [Surface.Check]. Jun 14,19: In the Project Window the selection of lines, center lines and 3D objects did, in few cases, not work via CTRL-mouse click in the detail window. Now every dialog recognizes CTRL+mouse click. Jun 07,19: When loading a WMS in the Plan Window CAPLAN could crash. This error has been rectifed. May 21,19: When loading tacheometric observations from LandXML for- matted files CAPLAN could crash. This error has been recti- fied. May 17,19: With the new sorting capabilities of the plan list CAPLAN could crash when deleting plans. This error has been recti- fied. When loading DXF formatted data into the Plan Window or as background into a project, the texts elements will be dis- played with transparency i.e. without opaque background. May 16,19: Projecting points onto an alignment resulted in a message that the variable '$REDUCED' was not provided by CAPLAN. This error has been rectified. May 13,19: If, in the Plan Window, the task "Profile / Layout (PRM).." was canceled, CAPLAN could crash. This error has been rectified. May 09,19: Loading DTM data from OKSTRA formatted files was improved for OKSTRA version 1.014 in such a way that DTMs from prior versions can be loaded if they were converted to version 1.014 by applying the OKSTRA-Werkzeug. ----------------------------------------------------------- Apr 30,19: Release and distribution of version 4.9 ----------------------------------------------------------- Apr 29,19: The task for computing polar points now reports the stan- dard deviations of the residuals after the tie points, by applying the new list template section "Geo.CalcPolarPoint4a". Apr 24,19: When loading points or observations from LandXML or JobXML formatted files, leading and trailing '-' are only removed from the point code if one of the line link methods "Link forward negative point code" or "Link backward negative point code" is selected. The network adjustment in 2D and 3D marked points with a "low confidence level for the horizontal position" if very short distances (< 1m) were observed between these points, although this classification is not correct. Now the check has been reworked and doesn't mark such points any more. If the scale of a plan is amended later (e.g. using "File / Properties..."), the positions of all the text elements with a valid reference point (e.g. to a symbol) are also amended. Apr 17,19: When editing a text in the Plan Window, the object selection is available for adopting properties from other elements. Apr 16,19: In addition to the favorites list, the file dialog offers a combo box with the directories in which the most recently used files were opened or saved. Both lists now only show local directories that actually exist. Directories from network drives will not be checked in advance. The task "Calculate / Traverse / Right Angle Traverse..." also offers the reduction of entered distances from the site level to the coordinate plane and the correction of computed distances from the coordinate plane to the site level. Interpolating longitudinal or cross sections from a DTM can now compute the sections from multiple DTMs at the same time. All desired projects can therefore be opened in a time. CAPLAN session. The alignment from the current pro- ject is transferred to all the participating projects. The interpolated sections are stored in the corresponding projects. For transferring polylines from a plan to a project via the Clipboard, the selection of the object types was reworked and now remembers the most recent assignments between layer/linetype and object type. Further calculation tasks now offer the reduction of entered distances from the site level to coordinate plane and the correction of computed distances from the coordi- nate plane to the site level: - "Calculate / Project / Single Point" - "Calculate / Project / To Line..." - "Calculate / Project / To Alignment..." The plan creation allows the labeling of polylines with their name. The line name is placed along the longest line leg. In the case that a closed polyline is filled as an area, the line name is placed at the centroid of the area. Exporting river profiles as PRF formatted files now also processes longitudinal sections. Longitudinal sections can be created if no river alignment exists or if the profile lines should not be perpendicular to the alignment. Cross sections can be exported for loading into the soft- ware system BPO ASPHALT, which allows the planning and con- trolling of the asphalting of roads. The list of plans in the Plan Window can now be sorted according to the plan names. The sequence of the individual plans can be changed using drag&drop. The resulting se- quence of plans in the plan list will be used when printing and also saving multiple plans. Apr 15,19: When building an excavation, a heap or a terrace, the object types of the points in the new project will now be displayed correctly and will be shown in the view layers. The entered object type will be retained for subsequent calls of the tasks. Apr 10,19: When loading tacheometry observations from a JobXML for- matted file the point information (descriptions, offsets) were ignored if the target points had no computed position Now the point information will be processed in all cases. If, when loading tacheometry observations from JobXML or LandXML formatted files, the dialog was canceled and the task was called again CAPLAN crashed. This error has been rectified. Apr 08,19: If, in a project, the background holds data that lies far from the points, the reduction of observed distances for new points was incorrect in some cases because the center point of the whole project area was used to compute the reduction. Now only the area containing the existing points will be used for the reduction. In the point list of a project it is possible to jump to a point by typing the point name. Because of performance reasons this was only allowed for a maximum set of 5,000 points. This threshold has now been increased to 50,000 points. Apr 05,19: When managing layers and object types, the sort order of the list will be retained if an entry is deleted. Apr 01,19: When dimensioning areas, the text position can be shifted by stating an offset. Thus an overlap with the line name from the plan creation can be avoided. Mar 27,19: If, in a project, a polyline is edited and an arc computed using the last three points by means of the task "Circle / Arc", the "Tangetial Arc" task will be cancelled because otherwise the last arc point would inadvertently be duplicated in the polyline. Mar 25,19: When transferring polylines from a plan to a project via the clipbord, a new object type with the layer of the poly- line will be created if needed. Hitherto the layer was not correctly transferred to the object type, thus causing a new query regarding the next polyline in the same layer. This error has been rectified. If, in a frame plan, an element in a viewport is deleted and then restored using Ctrl+Z, the screen view was moved moved to another place. The same screen view will now be retained. If a WMS cannot be loaded in a plan, the error messages will now show more details. Mar 22,19: When renaming points by starting number and increment, it will be checked if the new point names collide with existing ones. This check will be executed only if the option "Unique Point Names" (in the general settings) is activated. Mar 18,19: In the Plan Window, the length of the text embellishments (underline, frame or circle) were computed in the wrong way. This error has been rectified. In the Project Window, the size of the displacement vectors is linked to the size of the network display if a network had been adjusted. The visibility of the displacement vectors is independent from the network and can be turned on and off. Mar 15,19: Since the update issued on February 4, 2019, calling a datum transformation (in a project, in a plan, for DXF files, for point files) could cause CAPLAN to crash in a few cases. This error has been rectified. The target system determines the test point correctly now. The'Reduction' tab in the definition of a coordinate system remembers the most recently entered test distance. When editing a polyline or an area in the Plan Window, using properties from another element in the detail window could cause CAPLAN to crash. This error has been rectified. Mar 13,19: The plan frames for situation plans and for profile plans provides the new placeholder <#NAME>, which represents the plan name entered in the frame dialog. Mar 12,19: When dimensioning distances with orthogonal dimensioning, the distance at the starting point is only written if the initial reading differs from 0.0. Mar 11,19: Saving points or a plan to a DXF formatted file with point attributes being transferred caused CAPLAN to crash in some cases. This error has been rectified. Mar 08,19: When loading observations from tacheometry or leveling, multiple stations with identical targets and observations will only be transferred to the observation database once. A corresponding message will be written to the ERR file. Exporting data to VIS-All (with a full license) can now also include points, lines and buildings even if there is no DTM in the project. If the layer settings inside a viewport differed from the layer settings of the original plan and if the plan view was directly changed in this active viewport to the original plan via the plan list, the layer settings were wrong in some cases. This error has been rectified. Mar 07,19: Since the update issued on Dec 19, 2018, moving a rectangle with the mouse (in the case of plan creation, point se- lection inside a rectangle and creation of a plan frame) shifted the rectangle relative to the mouse cursor. Now the lower left point of the rectangle will be shifted to the mouse position again, if this point is not visible on screen. When creating a plan frame applying a prepared plan area, the name of the plan area will be set as the name of the frame plan. Mar 06,19: Since an update issued on Feb 25, 2019 that changed the plan creation for points, the point elevations had no longer been transferred to the plan. This error has been rectified. Mar 04,19: In the context menu of a polyline in the Project Window, the 'Draw Section View' item has been moved downwards and separated using a horizontal line. Reporting alignments from the alignment directory considers the recently edited alignment names and descriptions. When reporting a vertical alignment, an error concerning the computation of stations and elevations for the start and end points of curves has been rectified. A best fit cylinder could only be computed if a project contained at least seven spatial points, although six spatial points would be sufficient. Now the computation is available for six spatial points as well. Mar 01,19: Reporting a vertical alignment now also offers stations and elevations for the start of a curve (,) as well as for the end of a curve (,). To do this, the template section [Axis.List2] can be editied. Feb 28,19: Editing contour lines inside the plan creation could cause CAPLAN to crash if, with an empty equidistance, the '!' button was clicked. This error has been rectified. When creating a parallel polyline in the Plan Window in a lan with different X and Y scales, the information box will no longer be shown. In such cases, a clicked point for identifying the offset will be ignored. Feb 27,19: When creating a new drawing layer in the Plan Window, the default layer name will be selected and can be overwritten immediately. An edited layer name will not be changed as a result of selecting a layer from the layer list. Only the layer properties will be adjusted. Feb 26,19: Since a program update issued in Decmber 2018, when drawing a vertical alignment the additional bands for curvatures, widths and crossfalls were not completely drawn. This error has been rectified. Feb 25,19: With the plan creation the points symbols were, in some cases, scaled too small by a factor of 100 or were com- pletely missing. This error has been rectified. Feb 19,19: The task for projecting points onto an alignment allows the transfer of some computation results to the point attri- butes. In this context, a missing vertical alignment will now be considered correctly. Feb 15,19: The named point attributes will be written to DXF formatted files. The symbols will therefore be created multiple times with _. Feb 11,19: The dialog for loading profile data from data type DA 66 can now be resized. Dimensioning offsets to a line in the Plan Window allows individual text heights for the distance and offset values. A text height of 0.0 results in the station or offset texts not being created. Not only the named symbols but all symbols will now be kept free from the dimension lines. Feb 08,19: The definition of a coordinate system now allows a minimum strip width of 1° instead of 2°. Exporting trees to OKSTRA formatted files in version 1.014 and lower did not work. Trees will now be exported cor- rectly. Feb 07,19: For the datum transformation GK -> UTM in Bavaria, the LDBV offers NTv2 grid files for the whole of Bavaria and for each district as well, at www.ldbv.bayern.de/vermessung/utm_umstellung/ trans_geofach.html, free of charge. CAPLAN offers all these transformations if the grid files *.gsb have been copied to the DAT folder. Note: Hitherto CAPLAN required the grid file "BY_KanU_Bayern.gsb" for the whole of Bavaria and the grid files from the LDBV had to be renamed to this file name. Now CAPLAN requires the identical file names as offered for download by the LDBV. Renaming is thus no longer required. Feb 06,19: When transferring an alignment from one project to another via the clipboard (Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V), the alignment descrip- tion was not included. The alignment description will now be transferred as well. Applying the control point coordinates directly after exe- cuting a control point transformation unfortunately could not be undone in a single step but required an extra undo for each control point. Now all changes concerning the control points are merged together into one single step. Feb 04,19: With the profile constructions, the task for adding a point allows the adding of multiple points without closing the dialog. Exporting data using DXF formatted files now applies the color BYBLOCK to all parts of the CAPLAN symbols written to the block definitions. The dialog for adding a DTM now shows a text line that in- forms the user whether the task will be successful or not. The task "DTM / Lines / Create Polylines..." sometimes made CAPLAN crash if no border or breaklines were defined in the DTM. This error has been rectified. Elevating lines to a DTM surface sometimes altered border lines or breaklines if these lines contained DTM points as vertices and if the old lines were to be deleted. This error has been rectified. The datum transformation now retains the information about the target system and the transformation method persis- tently. The view layers dialog in a project now supports saving and loading of the current view configuration via the context menu of the list. The corresponding menu entries are: 'Load list data...' and 'Save list data...'. For the standard instrument, the standard deviations of distance and direction can be edited. These values will be saved to the project folder. If a cross section template is to be inserted into a cross section and if it uses a reference point, an offset from this reference point can be entered (for distance and elevation). The DTM allows the definition of multiple outer border lines in such a way that multiple islands are created. Jan 31,19: The dialog for entering a user-defined format inadvertently overwrote the X factor with the value for the Y factor. This error has been rectified. Jan 30,19: When loading a WMS, all the various coordinate systems de- fined in every single layer will be offered in the dialog. Jan 23,19: With the transformation of DXF formatted files, empty lines in the DXF file were filled with a blank. In some cases this caused AutoCAD to reject the DXF file. Now the empty lines are left unchanged. Jan 22,19: The task "DTM / Model / List..." offers the following values in the report section for points [Dtm.ListDtm1]: Minimum elevation of all DTM points Maximum elevation of all DTM points Average elevation of all DTM points Minimum elevation of visible DTM points Maximum elevation of visible DTM points Average elevation of visible DTM points In addition to the characters ',' ';' '?' and '*', the vertical bar '|' is also not allowed in point names. Jan 18,19: With the 32 bit version of CAPLAN, NTv2 transformations with a grid file size greater than 500 Megabytes will not be performed because of insufficient main memory. The tasks relating to a reference line now show the dir- ection of the reference line in the preview. Jan 11,19: If a project is transformed, the background data can now also be transformed if required. Jan 09,19: Loading points and lines from CADdy formatted files (*.KOR) now processes up to eight point attributes. The datum transformation offers only those NTv2 transfor- mations for which the grid file exists. When calculating point offsets to a line, a fixed name for the pedal points was interpreted incorrectly if it con- tained 'S'. This error has been rectified. Jan 04,19: With dimensioning offsets, it is possible again to take a single leg of the polyline as a reference line for the offsets. Jan 03,19: Saving lines from the Project Window to OKSTRA formatted files representing the version 2.016 resulted in an incom- plete XML file if polylines consisted of arcs. This error has been rectified. Dec 27,18: If, in the Project Window, the task "Calcualte / Bearing and Distance / Radial" was closed using ESC after clicking the first point and before clicking further points, CAPLAN froze. This error has been rectified. Dec 21,18: The 32 bit version of CAPLAN sometimes crashed if the task "Edit / Coordinates / Shift..." was applied to selected points only. This error has been rectified. Dec 20,18: Loading leveling observations from LandXML formatted files (from Leica LS10/15) unfortunately ignored all sideshots. Now the sideshots will be processed correctly and written to the Z-file. The task for trimming cross sections in the Project Window offered alignments in the selection box for which no cross sections existed. Now the selection box is reduced only to the alignments with existing cross sections. Dec 19,18: Moving a rectangle with the mouse (for plan creation, point selection inside a rectangle and creation of a plan frame) shifted the lower left point of the rectangle to the mouse position. Now the relative position to the mouse cursor will be retained. Dec 17,18: When loading tacheometry observations from original data, multiple files can be imported together. In the case of LandXML formatted files the first file was loaded cor- rectly. With the subsequent files errors sometimes occured. This error has been rectified. Dec 13,18: The unattended installation applying an INI file failed when processing passwords that contained the '=' char. This error has been rectified. Dec 12,18: Dimensioning polylines with lengths or inclinations now sets the reference points for the text directly on the polyline. A transformed background scene inside a project unfortu- nately was not permanently saved back to the background file. Thus, when reopening the project, the background scene remained in the old position. This error has been rectified. Dec 06,18: When drawing a vertical alignment, the entered station range was not applied exactly. This error has been recti- fied. Dec 05,18: The dialog for defining a coordinate system shows the current mapping scale in the "Reductions" tab. The task "Observations / Radial / Reduce..." also reports the average mapping scale of the current project. Dec 03,18: In the Plan Window, polylines and areas can be exploded to create individual lines and arcs. This results in the area pattern being removed. This task can be called via the context menu in the Plan Window (for a single element) or via "Edit / Polylines (or Areas) / Explode" (for multiple elements). Nov 29,18: The reference line for spot heights (where the decimal point serves as the text anchor point) was inadvertently drawn twice. This error has been rectified. Nov 28,18: For levelling data, the comparison of fore and back sights shows all single measured lines at the end of the report. Unfortunately, this addendum was only reported if the ratio of single measured lines in relation to all measured lines was above 0.5%. Now the single measured lines will be re- ported in all cases. Nov 27,18: The computation of a single area in the Project Window now shows the computed area using a filling. Thus the result is more clear. Nov 23,18: In the line directory, the verbose report now outputs a summary as well (as is the case with the short report). Nov 21,18: If the plan creation was executed only with selected points and if, with the subsequent calls of the plan creation, the point selection was empty, no points were transferred to the plan. In such cases, all the points will now be dis- played in the plan. Nov 21,18: Hitherto, when saving a plan with a plan frame to a DXF formatted file, the plan frame was written to the layout in centimeter units in all cases. Now the first page of the dialog offers the choice to apply the millimeter unit for the layout as well. Nov 20,18: Dimensioning a distance retains the linestyle "By Layer" persistently as well. The dialog preview shows the entered linestyle immediately. Nov 19,18: When mirroring a lane of a road surface, the names of the mirrored lanes will be given the corresponding notation for the lane side i.e. "L" or "R". Nov 16,18: The tasks "Edit / Point Names / Identical..." and "Edit / Coordinates / Equal Position..." allow the averaged point not only to be assigned the mean elevation but alternatively the smallest or the largest elevation. Nov 13,18: The task "DTM / Build / Slope..." creates meaningful names for the newly created lines and remembers the selected ob- ject type for both the new intersection points and lines. In the Project window, error ellipses and displacement vectors that result from a network adjustment or from a deformation analysis will be scaled identically via the "+"/"-" buttons. Thus the size ratios are maintained. Nov 12,18: The "DTM / Interpolate / Sections..." task writes the des- cription from the project properties into the created section plans. The sub-dialog "Profile pts..." automatically activates all the DTM section points that are available in all the open DTMs. When reading and writing XML files with UTF8 encoding, some inconsistencies occured when processing special characters like umlauts. Now UTF8 will be read and written correctly. Nov 09,18: The creation of triangles using a regular point grid caused irregular triangles to be created when applying the "Highest Triangle Quality" option. In contrast, the "Shortest Diagonal" option resulted in a regular triangle structure. Both options will now generate a regular tri- angle structure. A regular point grid will have triangles generated using an optimized algorithm. Hitherto, the point grid was not recognized if the leftmost column contained only a single point. This error has been rectified. The tasks "Alignments / Single Alignment / Best Fit Line..." "Alignments / Single alignment / Best Fit Circle..." "3D-Objects / Spatial Line / Best Fit..." "3D-Objects / Plane / Best Fit..." "3D-Objects / Circle / Best Fit..." "3D-Objects / Cylinder / Best Fit..." "3D-Objects / Sphere / Best Fit..." provide two new variables and in the list temp- lates. These show the largest offsets (to the left/right - inwards/outwards - downwards/upwards) from the adjusted object to the points. When loading a WMS into a plan, the WMS adress could not be typed into the edit control. This error has been rectified. Dimensioning the inclination of polylines now shifts the inclination arrow in the same direction like the incli- nation text. When loading cross sections from DA66 formatted files, the file extension *.66 will now be taken into account as well. ----------------------------------------------------------- Oct 31,18: Release and distribution of version 4.8 ----------------------------------------------------------- Oct 11,18: The task "Alignments / Intersect / With alignment/polyline" makes all polylines and alignments available for computing the intersection with the active alignment. Transforming a project by datum, by control points or by parameters now transforms the background data as well. The view options for profiles did not show changes of the check box "Show stations" if the color was set to the entry "By alignment". This error has been rectified. Oct 10,18: Creating a plan with alignments did not show tangent inter- section points from vertical alignments if they were locat- ed exactly where the horizontal alignment had a kink. This error has been rectified. Oct 08,18: DXF files containing a DTM consisting of 3DFACE elements created by the application 3DReshaper could not be loaded as a DTM. This error has been rectified. Sep 28,18: When projecting points onto an alignment, with sorting of the points in the report by stations, the sort order was incorrect if multiple points with an identical station were projected. This error has been rectified. Sep 27,18: In the Plan Window, selected areas with the SOLID pattern are displayed using the STANDARD pattern. Now the pattern factor will be adapted to the area size. Sep 26,18: Importing tacheometry observations from LandXML format files now adds the vertical offset to the prism height using the correct sign. Sep 25,18: When exporting alignments to OKSTRA format files, the end points of the horizontal elements were written in an in- correct way so that some applications e.g. the OKSTRA Tool- kit, could not load the alignments correctly. This error has been rectified. Sep 13,18: The task "Edit / Lines / Interpolate Elevations..." did not allow the selection or deselection of lines by holding the Ctrl key and clicking a line in the detail window. This task now works as intended. Sep 06,18: If, in a plan, multiple elements were selected and all these elements were located on locked layers, the task "Edit..." from the context menu caused CAPLAN to crash. This error has been rectified. Sep 04,18: In the Plan Window, the task "Calculate / Bearing and Distance" now computes the reduced distance (referring to the site level) if a coordinate system has been defined. This re- duction is marked by an additional "(r)" in the status line. Aug 31,18: In the Project Window both tasks "Calculate / Bearing and Distance / Radial" and "Calculate / Bearing and Distance / Continuous" now compute the reduced distances (referring to the site level) if a coordinate system has been defined. This re- duction is marked by an additional "(r)" in the status line. Aug 29,18: Since the transition to UNICODE in fall 2016, loading points from Verm.esn format files failed to read the key file *.SC correctly. Thus the point names did not have their individual number. This error has been rectified. Aug 28,18: Dimensioning offsets in the Plan Window now considers arcs in polylines as well. The abscissa resp. station now always refers to the beginning of the polyline. Aug 23,18: When loading lines by line number, a line can be ended by entering the negative line number at the last point. Thus the line number will be available again for a new line. Existing arcs in polylines can now be removed as well by applying the task "Round". This is valid for both the Project and the Plan Window. For the datum transformations RD/83 -> UTM and S42/83->UTM for Mecklenburg-Vorpommern the free grid files MVTR2010.gsb and MVTRS4283.gsb are provided by DVZ M-V via http://www.kvwmap.de/index.php/ Verbesserte_towgs84-Parameter_für_epsg_und_spatial_ref_sysd The direction of polylines can be made visible in the Pro- ject as well as in the Plan Window by applying the task "View / Options...". When creating a rectangle in the Plan Window, the defi- nition of the reference point will be preserved in the drawing element so that it can be restored when editing the rectangle afterwards. Alignments can now be written to the OKSTRA format. The computation of polar points now shows the azimuth and distance to the control points in the control point dialogs within the dialogs for horizontal ans also horizontal and vertical computation. Thus the point distribution can be assessed in an easier way. The task for adding a DTM to the current DTM has been re- worked and now creates better meshes in the transition area. Aug 22,18: In the Plan Window, the task "Dimension / Polylines..." now allows writing of the radii of the line arcs. The reference point for the reference line of the dimension texts is placed exactly on the line leg. Aug 20,18: When writing DXF format files, on a few systems it could be the case that the DXF file was incomplete. This caused a crash in AutoCAD when loading such a DXF file. This error has been rectified. Aug 10,18: When loading leveling data from Leica GSI format files that were observed applying the method aBF (alternate back- and foresight), in some cases the last observations were processed incorrectly. This error has been rectified. Aug 08,18: When loading tacheometry observations, the intense check for the target points will always be executed. In some cases this check produced too many messages in the ERR file, e.g. target points were assumed to be identical if just the slope distances were almost equal. Now fewer messages will be produced and points will only be assumed to be identical if all three values i.e. slope distance, direction and zenith angle are almost equal considering the applied tolerances. Aug 07,18: The CAPLAN Help will be shown again in the case of a net- work installation. Therefore the help files will be copied to the TEMP folder of the local computer and will then be called from this local folder. Both the 2D and 3D network adjustments now show the current coordinate system in the report about the adjustment. Aug 02,18: When loading tacheometry observations, CAPLAN now notices whether target points have been observed multiple times or observed only once. Jul 30,18: In the Plan Windows the layer controller#s context menu has the new entries 'Store' and 'Restore' for fast access to saving the current layer configuration and restoring it later. Jul 26,18: The dialogs for editing a DTM border, a DTM ridge or a DTM hole select the activated DTM line in the point list imme- diately. Hitherto, the first point in the point list was always selected. With the profile constructions, the task for selecting a new horizon / Elling position now remembers its dialog size for the next call. Several menu identifiers for fast menu access via the ALT key have been revised and are now unique. Jul 24,18: Checking the evenness of a plan now allows the creation of a new project that contains the maximum offset values from rows and columns. Jul 23,18: Since June 04, 2018, selecting points inside a rectangle has allowed the deselection of points. Unfortunately, the points inside the rectangle were not deselected but se- lected. This error has been rectified. Now the points in- side the rectangle will be deselected correctly. Jul 19,18: Loading tacheometry observations caused some error messages if a point was observed multiple times and the first ob- servation was stored without a distance. These error mes- sages were not relevant and will no longer be written. Jul 10,18: Alignments from Toporail3 format files could not be loaded if the vertical alignment consisted of an arc only or if the vertical alignment contained two consecutive arcs. This error has been rectified. Jun 21,18: When saving points from a project, a question will be shown asking if points with no valid position should be saved. Jun 20,18: When creating an excavation, a heap, a terrace or a slope from the DTM, it is sometimes the case that neighboring slope segments overlap each other, so points are removed from the baseline automatically. Since the update released in February 2018, in such cases an endless loop could arise. This error has been rectified. The atmospheric correction of slope distances from LandXML format files will only be applied if the data originates directly from the controller (Smartworx Viva resp. Captivate). Our previous comparison of slope distance and reduced horizontal distance may fail for data originating from LGO or Infinity if coordinates have been computed. In such cases, the horizontal distance will be computed using coordinates. When saving plans, the security question asking whether all plans should be saved will arise only if saving to an M-format file. Jun 18,18: When loading NAS format ALKIS data, the attribute "artDerFlurstuecksgrenze" will also be evaluated, as a function of lines and areas. All attributes that should be processed as functions can be entered to the file NASFunctions.DAT in the DAT folder. Jun 15,18: Computing a network forecast failed if fixed points were defined in the network. Now the network forecast will be computed in such cases as well. Jun 14,18: When subsequently dividing a polyline in a project, the re- sulting parts were created multiple times. This error has been rectified and each part will be created only once. With the profile constructions, a single profile line in a single station can be created or edited. Entering relative coordinates in this dialog was possible, but did not add points to the point list. This error has been rectified. Jun 13,18: When creating parallel lines containing arcs, in some cases problems occured. Now the paralles will be created cor- rectly in such cases as well. Jun 07,18: When saving leveling data for the NXO-Net application of the Deutsche Bahn AG, the levelling distances (in km) will now be written as well (in accordance with Ril883.2000A01 from 03/01/2018). While saving a DTM to data types 45 and 58, it is possible to also save the outer border and the breaklines as data type 49. CAPLAN supports the standard data type 49 in accordance with GAEB and an alternative for STRATIS. When loading data from Trimble DC formatted files, in a few cases no data could be loaded or CAPLAN could even crash. This error has been rectified. Jun 05,18: When computing polar points, in a few cases the coordinates of the control points were marked in the wrong way, with '<' or '<='. This error has been rectified. Loading LandXML formatted files could cause CAPLAN to crash if the LandXML tag was missing. Now these files will be loaded correctly as well. Loading a DTM from LandXML formatted data could cause problems with points lying very close to each other. Now the DTM will be loaded correctly in such cases as well. Jun 04,18: The task "Report / Compare / Points..." allows the report to be reduced to just the matching points. Additionally, the list template "Geo.ComparePoints" offers the new vari- able <$CODEID> to identify whether matching points have an identical object type. The report for points with equal position can easily have the object type and attributes of all the involved points added by amending the list template. All dialogs concerning polylines (in both the Project and the Plan Window) now show the rubber band as a drawing aid. The option "Show insert arrow" has been removed. When interpolating sections through a DTM, the names of the newly created alignments will be shown immediately in the project. For leveling staves, the corrections of marking lines can be arbitrarily large. Thus, leveling along a tunnel's crest by using the staves only in the upright direction can be processed in CAPLAN. When dividing a line in the Project Window, the task re- mains active and the remaining (first) part of the line can immedately be divided again. In the Project Window, the selection inside a polyline has been enhanced. In a dialog, multiple lines can be checked for selection and the identified points can be deselected as well. In the Project Window, the selection by rectangle now al- lows deselection of the identified points as well. In the Project Window, the selection using a corridor now allows multiple lines and alignments to be used to define corridors. The user defined format offers individual factors and con- stants for each easting, northing and elevation. When projecting points onto an alignment, several com- putation results can be transfered to the point attributes by applying the button "To attributes...". This is also available with the tasks "Alignments / Railway line / By Profiles..." "Profiles / Road Surface / Check..." "Profiles / Road Surface / Interpolate...". Jun 01,18: Loading an alignment from a Toporail3 formatted file failed if the last element of the vertical alignment was an arc. This error has been rectified. May 30,18: All the reports that output the alignment name now provide the alignment description as well. May 24,18: For the state of Bavaria, the datum transformation for the cadastre from GK to ERTS based on NTv2 has now been integrated into CAPLAN. The NTv2 grid file 'BY_KanU_Bayern.gsb' (as a pre-release available from 'https://www.ldbv.bayern.de/vermessung/utm_umstellung/ trans_geofach.html') has to be copied to the DAT folder of the CAPLAN installation. May 23,18: When loading a DTM from an external format, it may be the case that some DTM points cannot be linked with a line. Hitherto, each such case showed a single message on the screen, which had to be confirmed. Now all these messages will be written to the ERR file and can be checked after the import has finished. May 18,18: Hitherto, points from OKSTRA without the property "DGM_proprietaer" have been ignored. Now these points will be loaded correctly. Dimensoning offsets in the Plan Window provides an option to keep the clicked symbols free from the dimensioning lines. May 09,18: When loading leveling data from Z format files, multiple elevation differences will be merged to one station, re- taining the observation sequence. ----------------------------------------------------------- Apr 30,18: Release and distribution of version 4.7 ----------------------------------------------------------- Apr 20,18: When interpolation cross sections from polylines, some cross section points were wrong if they lie nearer to another segment of the alignment than in the cross section. This may happen if the cross section lies in a significant curve. This error has been rectified. The Plan Window draws all the selected elements in red, on top of all the other elements. Hence areas with a SOLID hatch pattern obscured any elements under them. To avoid this effect, selected areas with the SOLID hatch pattern will be filled with the STANDARD hatch pattern when being displayed in the foreground. Apr 17,18: Loading polylines into a DTM checks whether the selected lines consist of points without elevations and whether they are rounded with arcs. In both cases, the import can be canceled if required. Apr 16,18: The task "Dimensioning a distance" now creates a continuous dimension line for the "with slashes" layout as well. Apr 13,18: Since the update issued on March 20, it was sometimes the case that closing a project did not write all the project settings to the CP file (e.g. visibility of view layers, colors of alignments). This error has been rectified. The tasks "Edit / Coordinates / Equal Position..." "Report / Equal Positions..." allow the point comparison to be restricted to points with identical object type. The task "Edit / Coordinates / Equal Position..." selects all the averaged points after closing the dialog. The network adjustments shows the borders of the Chi² test directly in the dialog, in addition to the global error factor. The Project Window provides the new task "Edit / Object Types / Apply to Vertex Points..." for applying the object type of a polyline to its vertex points. This task allows you to structure your project data in an easy way. The network preanalysis determines the reliability of the points based on the reliability rectangles. When creating a parallel alignment, the distance can be clicked directly in the detail window. Apr 12,18: Loading an alignment from the SBB Toporail2 format now informs the user if the first point of the vertical align- ment starts before the horizontal alignment. In this case, the station shift for the vertical alignment has to be computed and applied manually. Rounding arcs in polylines (in the Project Window as well as in the Plan Window) allows the replacement of existing arcs. Apr 11,18: Projecting points onto a survey line now provides additi- onal variables in the list template [Geo.OffsetPoints1d]: HEIGHTL - Elevation of offset base point on survey line DELTAH - Elevation difference between offset base point and point Apr 09,18: Since the update issued on April 3, deleting selected elements in the Plan Window caused some inconsistencies. This error has been rectified. Apr 06,18: With WMS images in the Plan Window, the authentification information will be retained after saving the plan and re-loaded from M files. If a WMS image cannot be created in the Plan Window, a more detailed message will be shown, describing the reasons (e.g. wrong image format). Apr 05,18: When computing a free station via "Calculate / Single Point / Free Station..." the accuracies of the observations could be entered but were not used for the "Adjust" option. These accuracies will now be applied to the adjustment. Apr 03,18: Projecting points onto a spatial line now provides additi- onal variables in the list template [Geo.SpatialLine4]: STATHZ - Horizontal length of the plan point projection HDIFF - Vertical elevation difference to the spatial line (similar to the conventional projection onto an alignment). Mar 29,18: In some cases, the loading of DXF formatted files into the Plan Window could not resolve all levels of nested blocks. Now all nested blocks will be loaded correctly. Computing the intersections of two lines in the Project Window did not always find all theh intersection points if the polylines consisted of arc segments. This error has been rectified. When projecting points on a polyline (in the Project Win- dow), the 'Calcualte' button was not activated when ex- changing the polyline. This error has been rectified. If elements were deselected in the Plan Window by applying "Edit / Select / By Properties..." and at the same time some plans were selected with no element selection active, CAPLAN sometimes crashed. This error has been rectified. Mar 28,18: Applying the task "Transformation / With Parameters / Spatial..." to selected points could cause a message that not all selected points could be transformed. This message was incorrect and will no longer be displayed in these cases. If, when intersecting two lines in the Project Window, the check mark 'Interpolate elevation' was set and e.g. the entry 'Average level' was selected, activating an inter- section point in the list caused the selection for ele- vation interpolation to be reset inadvertently to 'Level of Line 1'. This will no longer happen. Mar 27,18: When building a DTM or a difference model using two DTMs, some very long 'wrong' triangles could occur if many points with almost the same easting value had to be meshed. This error has been rectified. Mar 26,18: If a WMS image was loaded as a project background via an M file and the project was saved, reopening the project caused CAPLAN to crash. This error has been rectified. Mar 23,18: Building a network disables the check for polar points on its first page if the point list does not contain any polar points. Mar 23,18: Since the update issued on March 7, the task "Calculate / Project / Single Point" caused CAPLAN to crash. This error has been rectified. The status line now also shows the inclination to the reference line. Mar 16,18: Loading lines by applying the line coding method 1-2-3 sometimes created multiple copies of a polyline if the option "Only link points with the same point code" was set and if, additionally, end of line codes appeared without a corresponding start of line code. This error has been rectified. The epoch comparison for elevations only did not offer a vector plan for height differences if at least one project contained only one point that was involved in the compa- rison. Now the vector plan for height differences will be offered in such cases as well. If a viewport was activated while saving a frame plan to DXF format, the frame was sometimes not visible in the lay- out tab in AutoCAD because the layer FRAME was switched off inadvertently. Now the frame is visible in AutoCAD in exactly the same way as in CAPLAN. Mar 15,18: Loading erroneous JobXML files could cause CAPLAN to crash. Now CAPLAN won't crash and the ERR file shows suggestions for identifying the errors in the XML file. The dialog for loading polylines into the DTM shows a new '3D' column for displaying if all the vertices of a polyline have a valid elevation. When loading tacheometry observations, the intense data check will now always be executed. The corresponding radio buttons have been removed from the dialog. Mar 14,18: Renaming points using a starting number and negative incre- ment now allows leading zeroes to be added to the number if it falls below the thresholds 1000, 100 or 10. Since the update issued on March 1, it was no longer pos- sible to scale or rotate selected symbols in the Plan Window. This error has been rectified. Mar 12,18: The point stack did not recognize target points correctly if they were valid only in 2D or in elevation. Addition- ally, a report was not created if the computing of a local system failed. Both these errors have been rectified. Mar 08,18: In the Project Window, the tangent intersection points from vertical alignments will be drawn as circles along the alignment and can be labeled with their station (as align- ment main points). The report from the alignment directory now also provides description of the alignment. Mar 07,18: The task for computing bearing and distance using two points now also shows the inclination (in %) in the status bar. Mar 05,18: Unfortunately, the task "Calculate / Elevations..." took into account elevation differences that were not observed (e.g. due to prism height 99999). Now only all valid ele- vation differences will be applied to the calculation. When drawing a WMS, the pixel size will be adapted auto- matically if it is too small. Mar 01,18: When creating a polyline in the Plan Window, the 'Import Polyline' sub-dialog allows points to be fetched from an existing polyline or the automatic determining of the near- est closed path around a clicked point. If you click into a void region and no elements are selected at the same time, a closed path would be determined by examining all ele- ments. In such cases, the program asks if the user really wants to determine such a closed path, which would take a long time. All list template section now offer all Windows environment variables applying the syntax <$$name>. Due to the second '$' CAPLAN will be caused to replace the environment variable 'name'. Feb 28,18: When loading DXF files from AutoCAD version 2018 (AC1032), the umlauts e.g. in layer names were misinterpreted. The umlauts will now be translated correctly. Since the update released at the end of January 2018, DXF format files produced by CAPLAN could, in a few cases, not be loaded into AutoCAD. This error has been rectified. Feb 26,18: When saving multiple plans from the Plan Window, it may be the case that, inadvertently, only the current plan is saved to an M file instead of all the plans. To prevent the user from possible loss of data, CAPLAN now reminds the user to save all the plans, if desired. Feb 20,18: Since the update issued on February 14, deleting a point in the project window by pressing the DEL key failed. This error has been rectified. Since the update issued on February 01, CAPLAN crashed when loading tacheometry data from Trimble DC format files. This error has been rectified. Feb 14,18: When including points in the plan creation, the text sizes for point name, elevation and code will now be preserved when changing the list layout by clicking either 'Distinct object types' or 'Use layer mask'. The sizes will also be preserved when calling the plan creation further times in the same project folder. Resetting the sizes to the project defaults is also possible. Since the update issued on February 1, loading a DXF file as a plan or as a background could cause CAPLAN to crash if the option 'Explode blocks into their components' was set. This error has been rectified. With the profile constructions, entering an 'A' as a range in the point mask caused CAPLAN to crash if the profile did not contain a point on the alignment. This error has been rectified. Feb 12,18: The task "Alignments / Single alignment / Parallel..." caused CAPLAN to crash if the project contained multiple alignments and none of them were activated. This error has been rectified. Feb 09,18: Importing a XML format file did not succeed if texts con- tained the chars '<' or '>'. This error has been rectified. Feb 08,18: When loading points and lines from a Topcon TP3 format file, the layer will be used as the object type in CAPLAN. With points, the point description has precedence. Hitherto, computing spatial areas based on a DTM did not allow the definition of exclusion areas by drawing the sur- rounding polyline from one point of the outer border to the interior ring, then drawing around the exclusion area in the opposite direction and, finally, closing the polyline to the outer point. This is now possible, as was already the case when computing 2D areas. Feb 06,18: Adding multiple points to a DTM in one go may cause errors, which will now generate only one notification to the user and which are reported to the ERR file. Feb 06,18: Zeiss format leveling data from Trimble instruments work- ing with the Spanish localization will now be recognized correctly by CAPLAN. Feb 01,18: The data collections (e.g. symbols, object types, etc.) have been revised, which provides a considerable acceler- ation, especially with more than 1000 data sets. When defining a reference line, the start and end point can easily be swapped with one click in the dialog. Loading lines from the OKSTRA format now considers splines. In doing so, the vertices of a spline will be loaded as a polyline, thus with straight connections. In some cases, the volume computation based on horizons could not compute the cross section areas correctly. The algorithm has been improved in such a way that a compu- tation will now be successful in these cases as well. Jan 26,18: Loading points or observations from a Trimble JobXML for- mat file failed with the 32 bit version of CAPLAN if the file contained points without coordinates. This error has been rectified. When building a network (vertical, 2D or 3D) the network points can now be selected by object type. This selection is available via the point list's context menu. The plan creation could sometimes cause a program crash if the symbol sizes were derived from a point attribute. This error has been rectified. Jan 24,18: If the baseline of an excavation, a deposit, a terrace or a slope contained steep line legs and the inclination as- signed to these line legs was flatter, the computation of the construction failed. Now a message will be shown and the inclinations of these line legs will automatically be adapted in such a way that the computation will be success- ful. Jan 23,18: Since the update issued on December 20, 2017, editing the parameters of a profile layout was nearly impossible be- cause the dialog lost its input focus on every keystroke or every mouse click. The editing of parameters is now pos- sible again. Jan 22,18: Plan areas with a free scale assigned to them could not be used in the creation of a plan frame. These plan areas are now processed correctly. Jan 19,18: The station from a vertical alignment plan now can be for- matted as kilometer or hectometer with '+' (e.g. '1+324.098' or '13+24.098'). Jan 17,18: Loading an alignment from Verm.esn format files now takes all the station gaps in the vertical alignment into account correctly. Jan 15,18: If, in a cross section plan, only the profile line is se- lected for the profile constructions, this profile line can also be edited directly by pressing the F4 key (regardless of the element selection in other plans). For a few NAS files, assigning the coordinate reference system to points sometimes went wrong. With elements containing multiple polylines, the interior lines sometimes could not be found, thus causing the import to fail. Both errors have been rectified. Jan 10,18: The file dialog now also offers the entry "View..." in the context menu to adapt the display of the file list (symbols/list without grid/list with grid). The volume computation using two DTMs reported incorrect point coordinates and elevations, which were only noticed if you added these values to the report. This error has been rectified Jan 08,18: The geo-referencing of a WMS image in the Plan Window can be saved to a world file by applying the task "Edit / Web Map Service / Write World File...". Thus the WMS image, including its geo-referencing, can be loaded to third- party applications. The task "Observations / Radial / Identify Points..." now accesses the recently identified points for matching the current station, which increases flexibility significantly. The epoch comparison assures a minimum height for both the line diagrams and the time-distance diagrams, in order to ensure the Y axis (i.e. the differences) is labeled. Dec 20,17: The task "Report / Compare / Points..." now provides the sum of the elevations of both points for building the ele- vation of the new project. The dialog for entering/editing text in a plan is now re- sizeable. The layer masks available in the plan creation or when labeling symbol attributes were hitherto restricted to '*' for accessing the whole layer name. Now, parts of the layer name can be accessed by using "". For example, "" returns the first three characters of the layer name. These placeholders can be combined with arbitrary text e.g. the layer name "SURVEY" will be transformed to "SUR_LI_VEY" by applying the mask "_LI_". In a Project, the symbol size will initially be derived from the object types and can be adapted subsequently. The adapted sizes will be stored in the view layers of a Pro- ject. Hitherto, the symbol size from the view layers had always been applied for the plan creation. Now the symbol size can also be fetched from the original object types. For both options, an additional factor can be applied. When creating parallel lines in both the Project and the Plan Window, it may be the case that a few parallel cannot be computed. The points where the computation errors occur will now be highlighted to facilitate error analysis. When dimensioning a distance, the start point can be swap- ped with the endpoint by applying "Reverse". Thus the direction of the dimension texts will be reversed. For the layout "arrows outwards", the baseline will be drawn continuously from start to end. Dec 18,17: When transferring alignments from a project to a plan, hitherto the gradient indicators could not be created if the vertical alignment consisted of only two tangent intersection points. Now the gradient indicators will be created in this case as well. Dec 15,17: When loading points from a Trimble JobXML file, the point attributes were only partially loaded (up to the first space character). Now the point attributes will be loaded in their entirety. Dec 12,17: Hitherto, the epoch comparison checked if all the subse- quent projects overlap with the first one. In a few cases, this caused the epoch comparison to fail even though all the input data was correct. Now the project with the great- est extents will be used as a base for checking the over- laps. The access to the NTv2 grid BWTA2017 was not properly de- fined in CAPLAN. The transformed coordinates were thus wrong. Now the transformation is correct. Dec 12,17: The changes from December 8th caused the selection to be processed in the wrong way in several tasks. Now the se- lection will be processed correctly again. From a URL for a WMS, all the parameters (all text after '?') will be automatically stripped off, because CAPLAN as- sembles the necessary parameters internally. Dec 08,17: If, in the Plan Window, the selection by properties should be removed by applying the option "Deselect", CAPLAN crashed in a few cases. This error has been rectified. Dec 07,17: In the tasks for creating an excavation, a terrace or a heap, an error occured in Verson 4.6 in such a way that the computation failed if the base line was entered in a clock- wise direction. This error has been rectified. The datum transformations now provide the transformation from GK to UTM for Baden-Wuerttemberg applying the NTv2 grid BWTA2017. The grid file (ASCII or binary) is available at no charge from the 'Landesamt für Geoinformation und Landentwicklung' at www.lgl-bw.de. The grid file has to be copied to the DAT folder of the CAPLAN setup. Dec 05,17: The descriptions of the layer masks for alignments in the plan creation had been incorrect since September 2017. This error has been rectified. Dec 01,17: Since September 2017, when changing the properties of mul- tiple plan elements the assignment of the line width was incorrect. This error has been rectified. Nov 28,17: Since August 2017, the plan creation for contour lines and height bands slowed down considerably. The former speed has now been restored. Nov 21,17: The access to WMS services now also offers authentification with username and password. Nov 10,17: When dimensioning coordinates in the Plan Window the northing was labeled instead of the elevation. This error has been rectified. Nov 09,17: In the Project Window, calculating an intersection point based on arcs caused incorrect results in a few cases. For the computation, the arcs were approximated by polygons and this approximation was sometimes not sufficient. Now the computtation is based on the arcs directly. Nov 07,17: The task "Calcualte / Bearing and Distance / Continuous" now outputs the total 3D length for the report. ----------------------------------------------------------- Oct 30,17: Release and distribution of version 4.6 ----------------------------------------------------------- Oct 30,17: When creating parallel lines in the Plan Window, the paral- lel offset can be defined using delta H and inclination. In this case the user has to decide whether the parallel line should be created to the left or to the right of the origi- nal line. Oct 20,17: Building the line directory has been considerably accele- rated in projects containing more than 1000 lines. Oct 19,17: Planning a network has been improved in such a way that a station can only consist of directions which refer to one observation group. Ambiguities that may hitherto have oc- cured are thus resolved. Oct 18,17: Since May 2017, loading polylines from user defined formats applying line codes 1-2-3 did not work after introducing the user defined line codes. Now the polylines will be loaded correctly again. In a few cases, the plan creation could not create the point symbols. This error was rectified. Oct 13,17: When saving a plan to the OKSTRA format, arcs had not been transferred correctly, which resulted in the radius being wrong. This error has been rectified. If the first part of a polyline is represented by an arc, a short line segment will automatically be added in front for OKSTRA version 2.016. For OKSTRA version 1.015 and lower this additional line segment is not necessary. When creating a slope hatch, the element selection was au- tomatically enabled for the selection of the lower slope line. Now the element selection can be activated if re- quired. Oct 09,17: The "Alignments / Single Alignments / Parallel..." task allows the creation of a parallel alignment. The result can be either a quasi-parallel, because for spirals no exact parallel exists, or it can be an exact parallel with the spirals being split and approximated. Oct 06,17: Since the update issued on September 19, the profile con- structions no longer recognized point ranges (e.g. 'L2-L6'). This error has been rectified. When projecting points on a spatial line, the report had not been generated since mid July 2017. Now the report will be generated again. Oct 05,17: When loading a DXF file and taking the point elevation from a block attribute, the elevation was only correct if the dot sign '.' was used as a decimal separator. Now the comma sign ',' will be interpreted as a decimal separator as well. Oct 02,17: Generating profiles from points or lines and generating single cross sections can be restricted to using only the visible points or lines. The plan area management distorted the directions in the plan areas when loading a PA file. This error has been rectified. Sep 21,17: A plan can be loaded from the OKSTRA data format. This can include points, lines, areas, texts and tree objects. The "Observations / GNSS / Fieldbook report..." task cre- ates an observation report from Trimble JobXML files, and this can include stakeout information as well. Sep 20,17: Checking the evenness of a plane could only be executed in projects containing fewer than 2000 points or if the points had been pre-selected before starting the task. This limit has now been increased to 5000 points, and the task can be executed with more than 5000 points as well. Sep 19,17: When loading alignments from Toporail format files (version 2 and 3), the parameters of the vertical alignment were computed imprecisely in the case of large inclinations or large changes in inclination. The algorithm has been im- proved in such a way that the results will now be correct in the cases mentioned above as well. The task "Join two Lines with Arc..." in the Project Win- dow allows interpolation of the elevations of the arc points along the original lines. Since the update issued on August 25, 2017, creating long- itudinal and cross section plans omitted the minus sign for negative stations or alignment offsets. The minus sign is now added correctly. Sep 14,17: The plan creation can fill closed polylines and thus cre- ate area elements in the plan. The area border can now be created as a dedicated polyline. The layers of lines and areas can be distinguished by applying layer masks. Sep 08,17: The "Profiles / Generate / Single Cross Section..." task remembers the prefix of the alignment name, even if the station has been edited. When creating parallel lines in the project, the parallel offset can be defined using delta H and inclination. In this case the user has to decide whether the parallel line should be created to the left or to the right of the origi- nal line. Sep 05,17: Exporting lines and areas to LandXML format files allows the line geometry to be specified using just reference points or also with coordinates. Some WMS services could not yet be loaded. These errors have been rectified. Aug 31,17: Observations from tacheometry and from leveling can direct- ly be saved from the Z-file format to files formatted for the NXO-Net application of the Deutsche Bahn AG using "Observations / Tacheometry / Save for NXO-Net..." and "Observations / Leveling / Save for NXO-Net...". The "Pipe Control" task now offers the option to derive terrain elevations for computing the coverage of a pipe from a DTM. The extents for a Web Map Service (WMS) can now be entered directly in the dialog. When creating parallel lines in the project, the point name can be entered as a fixed text e.g. 'PAR_0001' that will be incremented by one for every new point. Aug 25,17: The plan creation caused a program crash if a road surface was drawn for which there was no alignment. This error has been rectified. If, when drawing profiles with an inclination text, the unit permille was selected the permille sign was not shown. This error has been rectified. Aug 24,17: When lifting lines into a DTM, the names of new points and lines will be incremented, starting at the stated value, if no '*' and '#' placeholders are provided. Aug 23,17: Since the update issued on Aug 8, 2017 a project background from an X-file could no longer be loaded. Now the X-file will be loaded correctly as background again. Some WMS services could not be loaded by CAPLAN. This error has been rectified. Aug 21,17: When opening a file on the desktop with a file filter ap- plied, now only the files that match the filter will be displayed straight away. Computing excavations, deposits, terraces and slopes from a DTM now allows DTM points to be part of the reference line. Aug 17,17: Since the last update, issued on Aug 11 2017, a project containing profile data could no longer be saved. This error has now been rectified. Aug 11,17: If some data was incorrect when loading a project, the entire project was not loaded. Now the user will be in- formed about the defective data and all the other data will be loaded. Aug 08,17: A plan can be saved to the OKSTRA data format. This in- cludes points, lines, areas, texts and tree objects. From the Plan Window, data from a Web Map Service (WMS) can be accessed and used as background data. Aug 04,17: Trimming cross sections in the project window sometimes failed due to rounding imprecisions if an already trimmed cross section was used as a cutting edge. Now all cutting edges will always be extended internally. Hitherto, the computation of the automatic height band was based on the elevations of both the visible and the in- visible DTM points. Now only the elevations of points that are visible in the DTM will be used. The plan creation with alignments still failed sometimes when approximating transition curves using small arc seg- ments. The approximation is now correct. Aug 02,17: The Lambert projection with two latitude parallels now of- fers the latitude of the origin as an additional parameter in the dialog. Thus the difference to the mean latitude must no longer be added to the false northing. Aug 01,17: The plan creation with alignments failed sometimes when approximating transition curves using small arc segments. When restricting an alignment to a station range and when portraying a long alignment only inside a small plan area, the alignment was not completely created. All these errors have now been rectified. Jul 31,17: When transforming a plan, the transformation scale can now be applied to both the symbol sizes and the text heights. The rotation can now be applied to the symbols and texts, which are aligned with the plan border. Jul 26,17: For a short period when loading leveling data, the fore/back comparison no longer showed the distances. The distances will now be reported correctly. When creating a plan and using the 'Points' dialog, the field 'Max. length' for point names was not activated if, with 'Use layer mask' activated', a 'P' line was checked in the list. This error has now been rectified. Jul 25,17: If errors occurred in the border of an excavation, a heap or a terrace, the point names listed in the error message were incorrect in a few cases. The correct point names are now shown. Jul 24,17: When editing a profile layout, in some cases the profile parameters in the dialog could not be edited. Editing the layout parameters is now possible without any restrictions. In the DTM difference model, the outer border and the bor- ders of exclusion areas were wrong in a few cases. These errors have been rectified. When loading tacheometry observations from the Sokkia SDR33 file format, the prism constant is added to the observed distance and changes to the prism constant are marked in the Z-file. Jul 18,17: When creating a plan, the elevation range for contour lines will be automatically rounded to fit the current interval. Thus reducing the interval may result in some contour le- vels being lost. The new "!" button to the right of the interval recalculates the elevation range based on the current interval. Jul 14,17: Tacheometric observations in the Topcon FC6 format are also sometimes called GTS7. The file filter has now been expanded to "*.DAT;*.GT7", so that GTS7 files no longer have to be renamed to *.DAT. When loading a DXF file to the Plan Window, the rotation of symbols (blocks) was wrongly interpreted if their extrusion vector differed from 0/0/1. The rotation will now be com- puted correctly. Jul 13,17: When loading observations from JobXML format files, any observations that have been deleted on the instrument will now be ignored. When creating a plan with contour lines, the elevation range from the DTM can be adapted to the current interval by clicking the '!' button to the right of the interval field. Jul 11,17: The combo box for the symbol names in the symbol editor is widened to the left side if long symbol names are used. The symbol content is therefore no longer hidden. The "Observations / Radial / Fore-/Back-Sight..." task now remembers the most recent settings. Jul 10,17: If, when adjusting a network, the external reliability was determined as indefinite for some points, no useful CAD plan could be generated from the network. This error has been rectified. Jul 03,17: Cross sections from lines could only be computed on the left-hand side of the alignment. Now the computation is correct on both sides of the alignment. Jun 28,17: Lifting a polyline into a DTM failed in some cases if the bend at some vertices was too sharp. Such polylines are now also lifted correctly. Jun 23,17: When saving a DTM to the DXF file format, the triangles will no longer be assigned to the layer 0 but to the layer DTM_TRIANGLES. After editing the Reference Systems, the task "Transfor- mation / Coordinate System" caused CAPLAN to crash. This error has been rectified. Jun 16,17: Loading alignments from the OKSTRA format inadvertently created clothoids from straight lines that had a starting or end radius with a value not equal to 0.0m. This error has now been rectified. Jun 14,17: The user decides whether observed check points from Trimble DC and JobXML raw files (marked with '4' or 'Check') are to be loaded only as Hz control or as full observations. In the Project Window, parallel lines can now be created from multiple polylines simultaneously. Furthermore, the parallel offset can be defined using an elevation dif- ference and inclination. Renaming points using a starting number and negative incre- ment now adds leading zeroes to the number if it falls below the thresholds 1000, 100 or 10. Link line surveying with the 1-2-3 method now allows the assignment of user defined codes to the CAPLAN codes. The official datum transformation for Schleswig-Holstein from DHDN90 to ETRS89 (SHTrans) is now available in CAPLAN, if the software SHTrans is already installed on your com- puter. The dialog for the datum transformation took a long time to build the list of transformation methods because all exist- ing NTv2 grids were loaded and checked. Now the list will immediately be built and only the NTv2 grid of the select- ed method will be checked when "OK" is pressed. Hitherto, the plan creation for alignments approximated transition curves and 3D arcs using short straight lines. Now in both cases small arcs will be applied for approxi- mation, to enhance the accuracy of the approximated poly- line. Jun 13,17: The profile layout for longitudinal and line sections pro- vides the new placeholders <#STATSTART> and <#STATEND> for showing the start and end station of the section inside any text element. When loading a DTM from LandXML formatted files, CAPLAN could crash if the DTM contained 2D breaklines. This error has now been rectified. Jun 12,17: If, with the transformation of profile points (via "Pro- files / Transform..."), the mask for the new names of the profile points could not be properly filled, the points were hitherto not added to the project. Now the points will be created anyway and corresponding messages written to the ERR file. For example, if the mask is "" (station formatted with three digits) and the station value exceeds the value 1000m. Jun 09,17: In the case of alignments with sharp bends (which is often the case for river alignments), it has been unclear how the position of a cross section is defined at such a bend point. Hitherto, a perpendicular to the end tangent of the previous alignment element was used as the reference direction for the cross section. The bisecting line will now be applied as the reference direction. Jun 07,17: For georeferencing TIFF files, besides the TFW files, now the so called ECK files (standard of the BKG, German Fede- ral Agency for Cartography and Geodesy) will be applied as well. Jun 06,17: The task "Profiles / Generate / From Lines..." now allows the generation of longitudinal and cross sections at exten- sions of the alignment, i.e. before the start and after the end station. Jun 02,17: A DTM can be prepared as a TTM file for Trimble machine control systems. In addition, polylines can be exported directly to Trimble machine control systems. For this, the polylines are transferred to a plan and then saved from there as a DXF file (Format R12). The file name of the DXF file is derived from the TTM file but with the exten- sion '.bg.dxf'. Jun 01,17: Since December 2016, it has not been possible to save a profile layout that has been edited in the Plan Window using "Profiles / Layout (PRM)...". Saving an edited layout using "Profiles / Save..." is now available again. May 29,17: When evaluating an epoch comparison or a pipe comparison, time-distance diagrams can be generated for each point and for multiple points as well. If the velocity is selected for comparison, the time-distance diagrams will always use the previous epoch to compute the velocity, in contrast to the case with the shift, which always references the first epoch. May 26,17: When loading observations (tacheometry or leveling) from a Z-file, the PKU assignment will now be processed. May 19,17: Each section of the list template now offers the current username (under the name $USERNAME). When dimensioning coordinates in a plan, the elevation label can now be created for all clicked positions (e.g. vertices of polylines). May 18,17: The 64bit Version of CAPLAN could not access the interface for GEOgraf jobs with GEOgraf version 9 installed because GEOgraf 9 is only 32bit. The 64bit version of CAPLAN can now also access the interface. May 15,17: Replacing text in a plan (via "Edit / Texts / Replace...") did not take into account special code entries <#Nr> when conducting the "Search and Write Text" task. Special codes e.g. line feeds can now be inserted using <#Nr>. Hitherto, when labeling symbols with attributes in a plan, only symbols with a point name assigned to them were taken into account. These symbols are generally created by the plan creation task. Symbols without a name are now labeled as well. In the Project Window, polylines that are exactly vertical will now be included in the object selection. May 12,17: When installing the 64bit version, the setup program auto- matically installs the runtime libraries from Visual Studio 2008 as a prerequisite for the Topcon TP3.dll file. As an alternative, these runtime libraries can be down- loaded from www.cremer.software/download_en.htm and in- stalled at any time. May 10,17: When loading a DXF file as a background scene in the pro- ject window, images were inadvertently colored in black. Now the images will be displayed using the assigned back- ground color. ----------------------------------------------------------- Apr 27,17: Release and distribution of version 4.5 ----------------------------------------------------------- Apr 24,17: If a vertical alignment with a lateral offset referenced to a lane of the road surface was created, the elevations in the cross sections were not computed correctly if only lefthand lanes were defined. This error has been rectified. Apr 21,17: For long line legs (> 5km) the tasks "Bearing and Distance / Of Line..." and "Bearing and Distance / Of Lines..." sometimes computed the reduction to the terrain level incorrectly. This error has been rectified. Printing rotated images (e.g. aerial images or scanned plans) can cause 'steps' at the image border when creating PDF files and 'stripes' when outputting directly to a plotter. These effects can be suppressed by activating the option 'Transparency for white pixels' for each of the images. Apr 20,17: Besides the task "Insert" (Ctrl+W) for inserting elements multiple times in a plan, the new task "Insert with base" (Ctrl+Alt+W) now allows the exact definition of a base point for the element shift. All inserted elements will be combined in one action, which can be undone in one go. Apr 18,17: Alignments defined in the "VMT TUnIS" format from VMT GmbH can be loaded as long as the alignments do not contain any so called "Russian clothoids". The cubical parabola was implemented as a new transition curve (in addition to the special cubical parabola used by the Rail Infrastructure Corporation (RIC) in Australia). The task for creating a polyline in the project window now allows the creation of an arc using the current point and the two preceding points. Hitherto, the polyline had to consist of just three points in order to allow creation of an arc. Apr 12,17: When lifting lines up to a DTM surface, the elevations of the vertex points were left unchanged although all the ver- tices in fact should be lifted to the DTM surface as well. Now the elevations of the vertices will be derived from the DTM surface correctly. Entering points on a reference line incremented the point name inadvertently compared to the most recent call. Now the point name sequence will be created without any breaks. Apr 10,17: When editing a lane of a road surface, the highlighted list entry will be displayed in the detail view. In the opposite direction, a mouse click in the detail window will result in the nearest lane point being highlighted in the list. When changing the color of an image in the plan window, it was sometimes the case that the changed color was not imm- ediately applied to the image for display. The image will now immediately be displayed with the new color. The dialog for extending a user license now offers a direct hyperlink to our website after selecting the new 'CP' mod- ule. Apr 06,17: If a surface lane with the curb type was edited more than once, elevations were not correctly transferred to the dia- log. This error has been rectified. Apr 05,17: Since the update issued on March 30, no profile construc- tions have been available in the cross section plans. This error has been rectified. If a 2D network plan was created directly after completion of the adjustment or prediction of a vertical network, and the list of section plans was empty, CAPLAN crashed. The 2D network plan will now be created correctly. Apr 03,17: The task "Edit / Lines / Merge..." in the project window has been speeded up considerably. Mar 31,17: With high resolution displays, the "Attributes" tab inside the "View layers" now shows the light bulbs correctly. Mar 28,17: Pressing the shortcut Ctrl+I (load points) in the point list of the project window inadvertently opened a new pro- ject for loading the points. Now the points will be loaded into the current project. Mar 27,17: The tasks for object selection in the project and the plan plan windows now remember their dialog size and the column widths in the list. When carrying out transformations by parameters in the pro- ject window, the list of the transformed points will now be ordered by point name. Mar 16,17: When loading data from NAS format files, arcs that are de- fined by three points were loaded incorrectly if their apex angle was greater than 180 degrees. In such cases, arcs with the identical radius but with an apex angle smaller than 180 degrees were created. Now these arcs will be loaded correctly to both the project and the plan window. When entering a surface, the width of a curb lane was in some cases not set to 0.001 m. This error has been recti- fied. Mar 15,17: The point snap in the plan window is also active when only moving the mouse pointer but without a task currently running. Hitherto, the point snap was restricted to sym- bols only when in this mode. The snap has now been extended to include line vertices and mid-points of line legs. The centers of circles and arcs will still only be snapped to if a task is running. Mar 13,17: The dialog for viewing the alignments now sorts the list according to the alignment names, and the alignment des- cription is also shown. Mar 10,17: When checking the evenness of a plane, all the points that do not fit to the defined grid will automatically be dese- lected (if desired) on clicking "OK". Mar 09,17: In the case of lines that change direction with an acute angle, the parallel line was created incorrectly in some cases. This error has been rectified. In some dialogs, pressing the F1 key did not show the cor- rect help page. This error has been rectified. Transforming selected elements in a plan now shows a rub- berband when clicking the target points. Mar 08,17: When loading tacheometry observations from Leica GSI for- mat files, the instrument and target heights from the words 87 and 88 will be assumed to be in millimeters if no unit is specified. Dimensioning a distance in a plan computed the reduced dis- stance in the wrong way if DX or DY were negative. This error has been rectified. Mar 01,17: In the plan creation, the sub-dialog for points now pro- vides the setting for decimal places if elevations have been sellected in the list. Feb 22,17: The "Measure distance" task now remembers the pen settings from the dialog. Feb 20,17: Creating alignment parallels using the plan creation only drew certain parts of the parallels. This error has been rectified and the parallels will now be created completely. In the plan creation, the sub-dialog for setting profile properties is now resizeable. Feb 17,17: In a few cases, the adjustment of a horizontal circle com- puted the results imprecisely. This error has been recti- fied. Feb 13,17: The task for identifying control points now checks whether points really have to be renamed. Feb 09,17: When applying a scale factor to the DXF import to transform the DXF coordinates to meters, the factor was not applied to the hatch elements. The hatch elements will now be scaled correctly. When loading NAS data, the list entries on the pages "Points" and "Lines" vanished if the coordinate system on the first page was changed. This error has been rectified. When loading NAS data, the "Vermarkungsart" information will now be transferred as a fifth point attribute. Feb 03,17: In the plan window, editing multiple selected elements using the task "Edit..." from the context menu did not work. The "Edit properties" dialog will now be invoked correctly. When creating a polyline or an area in the plan window, the sub-dialog for inserting a polyline or a closed loop did not show all the controls correctly in a few cases. This error has been corrected. If multiple elements are selected in a plan, they can now be edited via the "Edit" item in the context menu again. Feb 02,17: The dialog for creating a new plan now remembers its last position and is opened there when called again. Feb 01,17: TP3 is a file format used in Topcon machine control systems and the Topcon 3D-Office software. Point and lines, as well as DTMs, can be saved to TP3 files. Loading this data from TP3 formatted files is possible as well. The point snap feature for both the plan window and the project window can now be configured with "Settings / Point Snap...", in order to define the type of point to which it is possible to snap. The settings are applied to both the plan window and the project window. Geographic coordinates (longitude and latitude) from Land- XML format files can be loaded using "Transformation / Import Points". When saving points and lines to the Google Earth KML format, the point label can contain the point name or the point elevation or both. Processed GNSS baselines in LandXML format (e.g. created by Leica Infinity) can now be loaded. Jan 31,17: The tasks Point Stack, Polar Points, Traverse and Reference Line report the current datum in the case of reduction of the observations. Undoing point renaming operations in some cases did not re- fresh the point list with the new sort order. The point list could be manually refreshed by pressing Ctrl+R. The point list will now be automatically refreshed. Jan 27,17: Observed control points from Trimble DC and JobXML raw files (marked with '4' or 'Check') will now be loaded as full observations and no longer only as Hz control. Jan 26,17: When executing alignment tasks that use the stations dialog and create new points in the project, the point list was not refreshed in some cases. The point list could be ref- reshed using Ctrl+R. Now the point list will always be re- freshed automatically after executing these alignment tasks. Jan 23,17: When opening a CAPLAN project with a double click, a dialog will be shown which allows the project to be opened inside a currently runnig CAPLAN session. Unfortunately this func- tion had not been working properly since November 2016 up- date. This error has been rectified. The update issued on December 8, 2016 caused the modeling of a network to call "Calculate Elevations" for every type of network, which is obviously not correct. Now the point stack will be called again when modeling 2D and 3D networks. Jan 20,17: In the plan window, a click on a symbol that was part of the current selection could cause an inadvertent shift of the selected elements if the point snap was active. This behaviour has been corrected. When creating a network, the selection of the control points by object types now only offers the object types of the points that are actually in the list. Jan 17,17: In cross section plans, the selection of profile points and lines has been improved. In the case of multiple points close to each other, the nearest profile point will now always be selected. When loading a DTM from OKSTRA formatted files, the points will be created with their real point name and their fea- ture code as the object type. Jan 13,17: Loading line files into the project has been accelerated considerably. This will be noticeable with files containing more than 100000 points. Jan 12,17: Since the update issued on December 28, 2016, if a in- visible task (e.g. "Calculate / Bearing and Distance / Radial") was invoked, another task could not be started un- less the first task was closed in a regular way (via ESC or right mouse click). Also, since this update, the "Calculate / Circle / Define..." task could no longer be closed in a regular way. Both these two errors have been rectified. Hitherto, loading points from Verm.esn formatted KF files was restricted to files with version 7. Now versions 5 and 6 are supported as well. Jan 10,17: Since the update issued on December 14, 2016 entering 3D objects using the task "New..." caused a program crash. This error has been rectified. Jan 09,17: When creating a parallel polyline in the project window, one point of two neighboring points with a distance between them of < 1mm was not transferred to the parallel polyline. Now both points are preserved. Jan 04,17: When saving spot heights from the plan window to a DXF file, the spot height labels can be split in such a way that the decimal point is replaced by the symbol defined as 99. Hitherto applying the option "Only used symbols" did not write the symbol definition. Thus the points were not vi- sible in AutoCAD. Now the definition of symbol 99 will al- ways be written if the spot height labels are split. Jan 03,17: In the project window, the information about an activated DTM line can be displayed by pressing the F3 key. Dec 28,16: Renaming points in grid squares unfortunately caused CAPLAN to crash. This error has been rectified. Dec 23,16: When removing multiple points from a DTM using the fast method with the option "Don't add to Undo" the computation in some cases caused an endless loop and thus a crash of CAPLAN. Now the data will be checked more thoroughly and the points will be removed using the slow method if neces- sary. The Bundesamt für Geodäsie und Kartographie (BKG - German Federal Agency for Geodesy and Cartography) has refined the quasigeoid defined in 2011 (called GCG2011). The new and recently released quasigeoid is called GCG2016 and CAPLAN has been extended so that the binary file GCG2016 can be used as a geoid file for CAPLAN. Dec 20,16: Copying list contents (e.g. from the point directory) to the clipboard caused CAPLAN to crash. This error has been rectified. Dec 19,16: In the plan window, the task for transforming selected ele- ments now allows the scale of the transformation to be fixed. Dec 15,16: Since the update issued on November 2, the import of DXF files in the plan window failed for nested blocks. All the nested blocks were replaced by symbol 99. Now all nested blocks will be imported correctly again. Dec 14,16: After executing some tasks in the project window (e.g. Sta- tion Points), the point list at the left side of the pro- ject window was not updated although the point directory ject the newly created points. Pressing the shortcut Ctrl+R forced the update of the point list. Now the point list will be updated immediately. Observations from Leica tacheometers formatted as LandXML sometimes contain the raw slope distance without atmospher- ic correction (from Smartworx and Captivate) and sometimes contain the slope distance including the atmospheric cor- rection. Now an internal check will be performed for each slope distance regarding whether the slope distance in- cludes the atmospheric correction. If it does not, the cor- rection will be applied by CAPLAN. If the correction is not applied the list report shows an empty entry in the ppm column. Dec 08,16: The current version no longer supports Windows XP When drawing cross sections, the reference for the point offsets can be set to a point with a particular object type (via "Further Details" on the dialog page "Layout"). If the plan window holds several plans and elements have been selected in various plans, editing behaves as follows: The active element in a plan will be edited by - Double click - Context menu (right mouse button) - "Edit" - "Edit / Active Element..." All selected elements over all plans will be edited using - F4 - "Edit / Selected Elements / Edit Properties..." Entering relative coordinates when editing polylines now considers the end tangent at the end of an arc segment. The point stack checks whether the entered tolerances are greater than 0.0, in order to ensure a reasonable compu- tation. In both the project and the plan window, the shortcut Ctrl+S caused the line dialog to close the line and to exit the dialog. If the detail view had the input focus, Ctrl+S caused the detail view to invoke the function "Save" as well. This unintended behavior will not arise any more. Matching control points via "Transformation / With Control Points / Match Control Points..." also makes it possible to take point elevations into account now. The identification of point names from tacheometry data via "Observations / Radial / Identify Points..." has been en- hanced and allows point elevations to be taken into account as well. The computation of an adjusted spatial circle now offers the name of the new center point in the list template sec- tion 'Geo.SpatialCircle3' using the variable <$CPNAME>. If some elevations are unknown when creating a level net- work, the task "Calcualte Elevations" will now be invoked instead of "Point Stack". Dimensioning a distance offers greater flexibility in plac- ing the dimension labels. Horizontally, they can be placed at the start (outside / inside), at the end (outside / in- side) or at the center of the dimension line. Vertically the placement can be above, below or centered to the dimension line. When loading observations from Trimble JobXML files, the original observations to offset points can be transferred to the Z-file. ----------------------------------------------------------- Dec 07,16: Last version to support Windows XP ----------------------------------------------------------- Dec 07,16: When editing a lane of a road surface, lane points can be taken from a polyline / alignment. This button was avail- able only if the current project contained at least one polyline. Now the button is available if at least one poly- polyline or alignment exists. Dec 05,16: With some dialog lists, the column widths were not computed correctly. Thus all the columns could appear very small or not all the columns would be displayed completely in the visible part of the list and the column widths may have in- creased from call to call. This error has been rectified. Dec 01,16: Since the update issued on October 28, the loading of tach- eometry observations has processed negative target heights incorrectly, as the minus sign was omitted. This error has been amended. Nov 29,16: When editing a closed polyline via F4, with the cross hair cursor located far from the polyline, the displayed area was sometimes shifted to the lower left of the project area. This behavior has been rectified. Nov 28,16: When creating a DXF formatted file containing the point in- formation as block attributes, the assignment of layer "0" to the attributes caused the DXF file to break the DXF rules, which caused a crash when loading the DXF file into AutoCAD. DXF files will now comply with the DXF rules. Since the update issued on November 13, text elements in- side user defined symbols have been padded with many blanks so that, in particular, non left adjusted text was shifted. This error has been rectified. Please check whether your SYMBOL.DAT files were furnished with these trailing blanks. If so, you can easily correct the files in CREDIT using the "Lines / Truncate..." function and the operation "Remove unnecessary blanks from end of line". Nov 25,16: Adding a point in the profile constructions that combined an inclination of 0.0 with an elevation difference resulted in a program crash. This error has been rectified. If the display of windows was scaled e.g. to 125% the list of the polyline dialog in the project window increased from call to call. This error was rectified. Nov 23,16: An epoch comparison can now use projects containing only one point. Nov 21,16: If an object type had more named attributes defined than allowed in the general settings, CAPLAN crashed when load- ing the object types. This error has been rectified. Nov 13,16: In the plan window, trailing blanks from text elements were automatically been removed when saving a plan to M file. Now all the trailing blanks are preserved. The point stack distinguishes between leveled and other (e.g. from tacheometry) delta Hs. The weighting of the delta Hs depends on their origin. Nov 10,16: Unfortunately, the task "Edit / Point Names / Shift..." caused CAPLAN to crash. This error has been rectified. If the angle unit in a LandXML formatted file was stated in degrees, the directions from tacheometry were not cor- rectly transferred to the Z file. This error has been rect- ified. Nov 08,16: When loading RW5 data, the field keys 'TN' and 'TV' from the data lines 'AT' will automatically be removed. An un- derscore '_' will automatically be interpreted as an empty attribute. Nov 03,16: Due to our conversion to UNICODE, user-defined formats could not be used correctly. This error has been rectified. When adding images (e.g. a company logo) to a plan frame these images were sometimes not stored correctly to an M file. This error has been rectified. The dimensioning of offsets no longer displayed the point names of the clicked symbols in the dialog list. The point names are now displayed again. All three dimensioning tasks "Distance", "Offsets" and "Co- ordinates" automatically activated the point snap. Now the point snap can be switched off during these tasks as well. ----------------------------------------------------------- Nov 02,16: Release and distribution of version 4.4 ----------------------------------------------------------- Oct 17,16: The point snap in the plan window has been extended. Now the center point of an arc will be snapped to if the cross- hair hovers over the arc. Each type of point snap will be displayed differently (sym- bol, line vertex, middle of a line leg, center of an arc). When loading alignments from the Toporail format version 2 or 3, arcs at the end of the vertical alignment were not transferred correctly. This error has been rectified. Oct 07,16: When editing a lane of a road surface, points from a poly- line/alignment can be included. Stations referenced to the polyline/alignment can now also be defined for inclusion as intermediate points. Oct 06,16: Loading data from RW5 formatted files now reads point at- tributes from the records starting with 'AT,'. Oct 04,16: The volume computation between two DTMs now also reports areas (plan and spatial). These areas only refer to the regions of cut or fill. If both DTMs are identical in some regions, the area reported by the volume computation does not correspond to the total area in which the two DTMs overlap each other. Sep 30,16: When planning a network, the Hz directions from a station can be divided into several groups. The observations were previously not correctly transferred to the network in such cases. This error has been amended. The most recently entered group for a target point remains for the next target point. The preanalysis of a network now reports the confidence range for the elevation, which corresponds to the condfi- dence ellipse of the position. Sep 28,16: The computation of an adjusted 2D circle now offers the name of the new center point in the list template section 'Axis.CreateCircle' using the variable <$CNAME>. In network environments, the following message could arise when saving files: 'Cannot access file !CpTest!.TMP' This was caused by time delays in the network OS when sav- ing files. This message should now no longer arise. Sep 26,16: CAPLAN can now handle UNICODE files. Sep 23,16: When editing a polyline in the project or in the plan, a tangential arc to the clicked point can now be created. Sep 20,16: The dimensioning tasks 'Distance', 'Offsets' and 'Polylines' allow the reduction of the computed lengths to the project level if a coordinate system has been defined in the plan. Sep 19,16: Loading alignments from LandXML formatted files now fills the alignment description as well. Processing station gaps additionally checks if a station gap is defined exactly at the beginning of an alignment. In this case the alignment will not be split but the stations will be shifted. When applying line link surveying, the method 'Link to named point' interprets the entry '-' (minus) as a link to the previously observed point. The entry '0' (zero) can now also be entered as an alternative to '-', in order to make entry on the instrument keypad easier. In the Plan Window, parallels to multiple selected poly- lines can now be created in one step. If new cross sections have been created in the Plan Window or intermediate profiles were interpolated, all these pro- files will now also be exported when closing the plan window. Sep 15,16: The point selection based on significance now also offers the point categories derived from observation data (e.g. station, tie point, polar point). If an attempt was made to create a network with negative redundancy, the network was hitherto not created. Now the network will be built in any case and the redundancy can be turned to a positive value by adding additional conditions to the adjustment. Aug 31,16: When editing layer settings in the Plan Window via "Settings / Layer...", CAPLAN crashed in some cases after the changes were applied by clicking the 'OK' button. This error has been rectified. Aug 30,16: If errors or warnings are generated when loading raw tache- ometry observations, the ERR file will now immediately be shown. Loading tacheometry observations from LandXML files now offers the new attributes target height and prism constant. Hitherto, slope distances which were not referenced to a meteorological correction were written to the Z-file as '#########'. Now the original distance will be transferred to the Z-file and a warning written to the ERR file. In the ERR file, separator lines are created between groups of messages. These lines now include the date and time. Thus the messages resulting from the recently executed task can easily be identified. Additionally, these separator lines can be designated as bookmarks to allow fast navi- gation (like in the LST file). Aug 29,16: For paving work, the new 'TRILOC' area pattern is available. The new file PATTERN.DAT is part of the zipped CAPLAN excer- cise book and can be downloaded from www.cpentw.de/capdoc_e.zip. Aug 26,16: Various improvements have been made regarding road surfaces: - A new lane type 'Curb lane' has been introduced, for which only the curb height is specified. All list templates and the plan creation take this new lane type into account. - When editing a surface, a single lane can be edited or created directly by double-clicking it. - A new lane can be inserted before an existing one. - When editing a lane, points from another alignment can be imported. - When importing a polyline/alignment, the vertices of the polyline or the main points of the alignment (horizontal and vertical) can be used. Alternatively, stations (refer- ring to the road surface) at which the polyline/alignment will be intersected can be entered, and the intersection points will be used. Aug 25,16: The list templates now allow placeholders for texts '>>' and '<<' to consist of only one character. Reversing an alignment via "Alignments / Single Alignment / Reverse' now updates the alignment labels immediately. Aug 19,16: The prism constants from GSI files will be shown in the list file and in the Z file when loading tacheometry obser- vations. Hitherto, the mm unit was assumed for the prism constants. Now the mm/10 unit will be considered as well. Aug 12,16: With the recent update, released on August 11, printing from CREDIT or from the report file view in CAPLAN applied a much smaller text font than usual. This error has been rectified. The KOO file format created by the company MTS (Maschinen- technik Schrode) is now available for exchanging points. Aug 11,16: When loading DXF files into the Plan Window, the names of hatch patterns may exceed 40 characters. This caused a pro- gram crash when saving the data to our M format. This error has been rectified. Aug 08,16: In the detail window, distinguishing points with an invalid horizontal position from points with a valid horizontal po- sition was somewhat complicated. Now the invalid horizontal position of a point (e.g. a level control point) will be marked by underlining the point name using a dotted line. Aug 04,16: With high resolution displays offering more than 2000 x 1000 pixels, CAPLAN now adapts its display so that the user interface is optimized for the resolution and clearly legible. Loading points to a project can now be restricted to the elevation range of an existing polyline. The relevant option is available in the lower left corner of the 'Load Points' dialog. Selecting all points in the point list using CTRL+A doesn't consider the point visibility in the detail window. When pressing CTRL+A in the detail window only the visible points are selected. For clarification, the status line now shows the number of selected points and the total point count as well. Aug 03,16: Applyling the 2D Helmert transformation with compensation of residuals using the method "Trinagulation" could lead to a program crash if the control points did not completely cover the transfromation region. This error has been recti- fied. The geoid now adapts itself to the new bounding box of a project if new points are loaded. Aug 01,16: When loading alignments from ASCIIBAHN (CARD/1) formatted files, all negative radii were assumed to be one meter smal- ler than given. This error has been amended. The DBB format serves as the ASCII version of the GND-Edit database of Deutsche Bahn AG. Now points from this DBB format can be loaded by applying the file type "GND-Edit / DB AG (*.mdb;*.DBB)". Jul 26,16: When drawing a polyline or an area in the plan window, the vertex points of an existing polyline/area can be fetched from the detail window. This function now offers the possi- bility to set a mouse click anywhere in the detail window and the nearest closed boundary will be determined. If there are previously selected polylines and areas, the boundary search will automatically be restricted to these elements. The line directory in the Project Window now also shows the line direction (clockwise or counter-clockwise) for closed polylines (in the column 'CW'). Some lists e.g. in the point directory, now remember and restore the individual column widths. Jul 25,16: Profiles in the project can exist without a corresponding alignment. In this case the task "Profiles / Edit..." and the plan creation could cause a program crash. This error has been rectified. Jul 22,16: The new OKSTRA interface is available for loading and sav- ing DTMs. The list of filetypes therefore offers the new entry "OKSTRA (*.XML)". Alignments and their vertical curves can be loaded from the OKSTRA format. The list of filetypes therefore offers the new entry "OKSTRA (*.XML)". Besides a name, alignments now offer a description with up to 90 characters. The description of each alignment is marked with the id 00 in columns 18 and 19 of the A-file. The dialog for editing alignments and the alignment direct- ory now also include this description. All further dialogs will be adapted subsequently. Jul 21,16: Loading alignments from ProVI formatted files now considers the new horizontal element 'Offset'. Jul 20,16: All dialog settings for loading tacheometry data (both coor- dinates and observations), as well as leveling data will be stored persistently in the project folder. Jul 19,16: The datum transformation for Austria from MGI to ETRS is available as an NTv2 gid file. The file AT_GIS_GRID.GSB can be downloaded from www.bev.gv.at. Transformation accuracy is stated to be better than 15 cm. Jul 18,16: Since June 2016, scanned plans can be displayed with their white pixels as transparent. Unfortunately this trans- parency caused a drawback in display speed. The display has now been accelerated again. Jul 15,16: If points were observed via a spatial intersection without distances, the point stack succeeded only if the horizontal position and elevation were computed at the same time. Since the last update, released in May 2016, the separate computation of the position and then of the elevation was no longer possible. This error has been rectified. Jul 13,16: Creating an excavation, terrace or heap could, in few cases, cause a program crash if very steep slopes were ap- plied. This caused the base points of the slope and the intersection points with the DTM to have almost identical positions. Now the new project will be checked for points with identical positons and, if these exist, the triangu- lation will be canceled. Jul 11,16: When loading leveling observation data, the point eleva- tions can be computed immediately. Hitherto, all existing points with an invalid position were placed on a grid. Now the positions of all the existing points will be preserved. Jul 08,16: The volume computation from cross sections offers various types of report. Hitherto the creation of each type of re- port required a new volume computation. Now all the reports can be created by executing only one volume computation. The volume computation from cross sections now also offers the dialog pages "Width" and "Height" for creating the profile plans. For loading raw leveling data, the identification of turn- ing points has been extended. The option ">= 99000000" al- lows the entering of the minimum number directly e.g. "1000000". As a new alternative, a point mask e.g. "CP*" can be entered for identifying the names of the turning points. Jul 07,16: The folding marks of plan frames for profiles will now also be created pursuant to DIN 824. Generally with formats larger than DIN A4, an additional folding mark will be created on the upper border, with which the upper left corner can be folded back in order to keep the hole punching margin clear. Jul 05,16: The folding marks of plan frames will now be created purs- uant to DIN 824, so that each paper format can be folded correctly with the title box always visible on the top. Jul 04,16: When loading tacheometry observations from raw formats, the setting "Write report" will now be stored persistently and therefore restored in subsequent calls. Adding a DTM caused errors in some cases, if the current DTM was completely inside the DTM to be added. Such errors will now no longer arise. A new project resulting from the building of an excavation, heap or terrace displayed all the points as being identical in the point list and the point directory, although the graphical display was correct. This error has been recti- fied. Jun 30,16: In a few cases, alignments in the LandXML format that had been created by AutoCAD Civil3D could not be completely loaded - as only the first checked alingment was loaded. This error has been rectified. Jun 28,16: Since the update released on June 3, the editing of a pro- file layout did not allow changing of the layout parameters. This error has been rectified. With almost horizontal planes, the adjustment of a best fit plane failed in some cases. The algorithm has been improved for such cases. Jun 27,16: Alignments in the LandXML format are allowed to own multip- le vertical curves. The import dialog now allows selection of the alignment and the desired vertical curve for import directly. With Windows 8 and higher the epoch comparison resulted in a program crash when creating alignment related drawings. This error has been rectified. Jun 09,16: In some cases, the difference model between two DTMs could not be built correctly and did not have a valid outer bor- der. This error has been rectified. The volume computation using two DTMs sometimes ignored very flat-angled triangles. The volumes for these tri- angles will now be computed correctly. Jun 03,16: When shifting coordinates in the project or in the plan, parameters that deviate from 1.0 or 0.0 respectively will be colored in red. Altered parameters are thus visible at a glance. When loading points and polylines from LandXML formatted files, the attributes of the first vertex point of a poly- line will now also be transferred to the polyline if no attributes have been assigned directly to the polyline. Scanned plans, which can be inserted in the plan window as images, have numerous white aeras. This white background can now be made transparent by editing the image and then selecting the option "Transparency for white pixels". When loading observations from Trimble JobXML files, the changes in the prism constant between targets can be marked in the Z-file. Partial observations are in some cases recorded as '-1.#NAN' in the JobXML format (e.g. zenith angles and distances), which resulted in a crash when loading this data into CAPLAN. These values are now processed correctly. The print options dialog allows the setting of the line ends of thick lines to round or flat mode. This setting has visible effects for line weights > 0.5 mm. When loading observations from Sokkia SDR formatted files, the observations resulting from resections are now proces- sed correctly. For profile plans that were created directly from the pro- jects, the plan properties (context menu from the plan list) allow subsequent amendment of the profile layout. Jun 02,16: The network adjustment allows the computing of external re- liability. The error probabilities Alpha (error of the first kind) and Beta (error of the second kind) can now be entered directly in the dialog. May 31,16: The dialog for entering a new text element in a plan now remembers the settings for transparency, accessory and text font. Since the update released on April 29, some user-created NTv2 files could no longer be recognized by CAPLAN because the header lines were expected to have a minimum length of 16 characters. This condition will no longer be checked. May 27,16: Observations from Leica tacheometers formatted as LandXML contain the raw slope distance without atmospheric cor- rection. This correction will now be applied during import and will be shown in the report. May 24,16: In the Plan Window, editing a polyline or an area which consists of arcs gave rise to an error and some elements of the edit dialog were missing. This error has been corrected. May 23,16: When clicking on "Apply" in the function "Calculate / Ele- vations..." the 32Bit version of CAPLAN crashed. This error was rectified today. May 20,16: Line type names sometimes contain trailing blanks in CAPLAN. When creating DXF files, these blanks were written to the DXF file, which caused AutoCAD to reject the DXF file. Now all trailing blanks are removed from line type names prior to DXF export. May 19,16: When specifying the target system in the datum transforma- tion, the latitude of the reference point e.g. for the Soldner projection, was wrong. This error has been recti- fied. Since February 2016, all plans resulting from epoch compari- sons, deformation analysis and pipe comparisons have been created without margins and with extended plan width. Thus printing to A4 format was sometimes not possible. The plan width is now reduced to the prior value. May 13,16: If you have installed the 32Bit version of CAPLAN, clicking an area element in the plan window may have caused a pro- gram crash. This error has been rectified today. May 09,16: Writing points or symbols to the DXF format now addition- ally offers block attributes for easting and northing. ----------------------------------------------------------- Apr 26,16: Release and distribution of version 4.3 ----------------------------------------------------------- Apr 25,16: The plan creation now offers an option to add the alignment name to the layer name of profile lines so that the pro- files from different alignments can be distinguished from each other. The function "Insert point" was removed from the profile constructions. As an alternative, the function "Add point" now offers the new options "Distance to axis" and "Dis- tance to point" as well as "Elevation above vertical curve", "Elevation above point" and "Elevation above horizon". When intersecting two profile lines, the second profile line can be replaced by a straight line defined by a refer- ence point and an inclination e.g. when intersecting with a a slope only defined by the upper edge and an inclination. When shifting or covering a profile line, the option "Copy" allows the creation of a new profile line from the parallel line. If the new profile line already exists, it can be ex- tended by the new points or the range of the parallel line can be completely replaced. Apr 22,16: In the plan window, the symbols 33 and 34 could not be ro- tated. This error has been rectified. Besides underlining and framing, a text element in a plan can be furnished with a circumscribed circle. Apr 19,16: The point stack computation has been accelerated substanti- ally so that even big data sets can be computed in less than one minute. Apr 18,16: Hithero, CAPLAN only accessed the ASCII format of NTv2 grid files, which in some cases were very large. Now the compact binary format of the correspondening NTv2 grid file can be used by placing it in CAPLAN's DAT folder. The file type of the binary file has to be '.GSB'. The GSB file will be ac- cessed if the ASCII format file does not exist in the DAT folder. Apr 14,16: For the city of Berlin, the datum transformation from Netz88 (Soldner) to ERTS based on NTv2 has now been inte- grated into CAPLAN. The NTv2 grid file 'ntv2berlin20130508.gsa' (available from 'http://www. stadtentwicklung.berlin.de/geoinformation/bezugssysteme/ software.shtml') has to be copied to the DAT folder of the CAPLAN installation. Apr 13,16: After starting one of the functions "Calculate / Bearing and Distance / Radial" or "Calculate / Bearing and Distance / Continuous" and can- celing it immediately after clicking the first point, no further reports could be created by all subsequently called functions. All the reports will now be written correctly again. Apr 12,16: The dialog for changing the standard deviations of the net- work observations now provides the factors from the most recently performed adjustment. Apr 08,16: Both the horizontal and vertical scale of a profile plan can be changed during profile construction via plan proper- ties (context menu in plan list). The profile plan will thus be regenerated based on the profile layout. Apr 07,16: The improvements to the dialog for changing the standard deviations of the network observations, applied on March 18, did not factor the standard deviations of directions and distances. This has been rectified. Loading points and lines from OKSTRA caused a crash in CAPLAN if the feature code list that was used did not exist in the OKSTRA folder of CAPLAN. A notification will now be shown in such cases and the function canceled. Apr 04,16: Since summer 2015, saving points to the old CARD/1 format assembled the data incorrectly and the point number was missing. This error has been rectified. Loading tacheometry observations from the Trimble DC format inadvertently transferred a 'null' target height to the Z- file as 0.0. In such cases, 99999 is now set as the target height in the Z-file, which avoids elevation computations being carried out on them. Mar 24,16: Dimensioning line offsets now creates right angle signs that are aligned with the start of the reference line. Mar 23,16: When computing point offsets related to an alignment, the list template section [Axis.OffsetPoints1] now also offers the index of the recent main point, as , and the station difference to this main point, as . The list template can be adapted via "Settings / List template". late...". Mar 22,16: Dimensioning a distance between two points by applying the 'Slashes at the end' layout now generates a line between the slashes. Tacheometry observations will now be displayed correctly in the project window in conjunction with GNSS baselines even if only the reference points of the GNSS baselines are pre- sent and no further coordinates have been computed. Mar 21,16: Entering relative coordinates when creating a polyline in the project window now interprets the angle in a geodetic manner as clockwise and with zero pointing to north. Mar 18,16: When aligning symbols and text elements in the plan window, the angle entered will now be applied in subsequent calls to these functions. Elevating lines to a DTM surface caused an error if the lines were connected via identical vertex points and the old lines and points should be deleted. This error has been rectified. In the network adjustment, the dialog for changing the standard deviations of the observations now offers all three components of GNSS baselines. The dialog is sizeable and remembers the modt recently entered factors. Mar 16,16: The OKSTRA feature definition lists referring for federal states in Germany have been updated: - Niedersachsen (Lower Saxony) Version 2.3 - Sachsen-Anhalt (Saxony-Anhalt) Version 2.6 (Available via www.cpentw.de/OKSTRA_DAT.zip) Mar 15,16: Entering relative coordinates when creating a polyline in the project window now offers various options for assigning an elevation (fixed value, elevation difference to previous point, extend gradient of previous line segment, apply in- clination). Mar 14,16: Reformatting leveling data from Leica GSI format to Z-for- mat now transfers the leveling start '410014+?......1' as a leveling line name to the Z-file. Thus the leveling lines are processed exactly as they were observed. Mar 11,16: With the point projection on a reference line, the ele- vation of the pedal points was not correct. The elevation will now be interpolated correctly. When switching between profile plans in the profile con- struction, the zoom area will be retained. Mar 04,16: Shifting the elevation or transforming the elevation using parameters previously ignored shift values smaller than 1/10mm. Shift values of 1/100mm are now possible. Adapting the line type factors for DXF output was errone- ous. The factors will now be computed correctly. When computing a right angle traverse, the longitudinal and lateral errors were not applied as corrections to the tra- verse points. The resulting corrections will now be applied to the computed coordinates. When deleting the last (empty) line in the polyline dialog, multiple or even all the points were accidently deleted from the list. This error has now been rectified Mar 02,16: Unfortunately, the task "Report / Identical names" lead to a program crash. This error has now been rectified. Feb 26,16: The fieldbook from Leica Sprinter may contain ':' at the end of the units string. This will now be treated correctly. Both the fieldbook report and the setting out protocol for tacheometry data as well as the observation report for lev- eling data offer up to 50 entries for selection in the com- bo boxes in the tabs "Project", "Team" and "Survey". Feb 19,16: The computation of GNNS loops from baselines now can report the data based on the defined coordinate system. Feb 18,16: When saving a plan to the DXF format, the global LT factor for the DXF file can now be entered directly. The individu- al line factors will be adapted accordingly and will con- sider the plan scale as well. Feb 17,16: All plans resulting from epoch comparisons, deformation analysis and pipe comparisons will now be created without margins to allow direct printing. Feb 16,16: When scaling symbols in the plan window, it is now possible to reset the symbol size to the values from the object type table. When adjusting plan and spatial networks, the adjustment may iterate if the provisional coordinates lie far from the the exact solution. Thus the provisional coordinates will be improved so that the linearization of the functional mo- del of the adjustment is justified. These iterations are now reported to the list file. Feb 15,16: The point projection on a reference line now allows com- puting of the elevation from the reference line for all pedal points. The pipe control function no longer computes the spatial distance between only the joint points but now also between all the selected pipe points. Selecting polylines in the line directory based on fully selected points failed if a polyline contained arc defini- tions. This error has been rectified. Feb 08,16: When entering a new profile line in a single cross section plan, all the already entered points were lost if the line was reversed (by clicking on the column header 'Name'). This error has been rectified. The dialog for entering new points based on a reference line now allows direct use of the current point after changing the reference line. Now it is possible to compute a volume based on cross sect- ions if only one normal cross section and a zero profile are defined. Feb 04,16: When adding a profile point by extending a horizon and intersecting a second horizon, the intersection point with the second horizon was not always comupted correctly. This has now been rectified. Feb 01,16: The shortcuts F7 and Shift+F7 can be used in the point list of the project to move to the next or to the previous se- lected point. When drawing a horizon line in a cross section plan, over- hangs and vertical segments can be corrected automatically when closing the dialog. Jan 28,16: Since the update issued on January 07 2016, vertical align- ments from Verm.esn format could no longer be loaded indi- vidually. The loading is now available again. Also since the update issued on January 07 2016, dividing a line in the plan window lead to inconsistencies so that some drawing elements could no longer be deleted. This error has been rectified. Since the update issued on January 21 2016, the loading of numerous points was significantly slower. The previous speed has now been restored. Jan 25,16: When computing excavations, deposits, terraces or slopes, not all intersections with the DTM were computed correctly. This error has been rectified. The deformation analysis of large networks with redundan- cies > 1000 could not be computed because of an internal infinite loop. The computation now runs correctly. In some cases, showing the observations graphically on the screen was very time consuming and slowed down zooming si- gnificantly. Displaying of the observations has now been optimized. Jan 20,16: Since the update released on January 07 2016, the entry for creating a user-defined format was no longer available in the list of file types when loading points or lines, or when importing geographic coordinates. This entry is now available again. Jan 13,16: In version 4.2, alignments from the Toporail 3 format could no longer be loaded. This error has been rectified. When using environment variables in the path names from CREMER.INI the paths have been misinterpreted in some cases. These restrictions have been rectified. Since 12/23/2015, loading column-related data via a user defined format didn't work if a field was defined with only blanks until the end of the line. Such data will now be loaded correctly. Jan 07,16: The data type 49 (point connections) created in CARD/1 might not contain a line count in column 11 if a polyline spans several data lines. This case will now be interpreted correctly. Jan 05,16: Some hatch patterns with a small pattern factor are very time-consuming in screen display, which sometimes resulted in long waiting times (e.g. pattern DOTS with factor 0.01). The display generation will now be canceled after a short time with the area only partly filled, in order to allow the settings to be changed. When creating a parallel line in the project window, the dialog now remembers the most recent settings and activates the new line after exiting. Loading tacheometric observations from Leica GSI files now allows the point information to be entered in free codes 41, 42 etc. after recording the observation data. The file formats for loading and saving DTMs and alignments can be preset using the "Load" and "Save" pages of the ge- neral settings dialog. The new point format "DTM Points Bavaria (*.TXT)" allows the loading of point files containing the DTM data of the Bavarian Survey Administration. A lane of a road surface can now be extended by a polyline with vertices that may lie outside the current lane. When exporting points to the ProVI PT format, the prefix for the ProVI symbol will only be added if the symbol is shorter than the SSSS placeholders in the format descrip- tion. The profile construction is now easier to use because when clicking an element the profile points and lines are preferred to all other elements. Dec 23,15: The dialog for specifying a user-defined format now trans- fers the recently entered settings to the new scope when e.g. changing from '3D' to 'X,Y only'. When loading points from the GND-Edit database from Deutsche Bahn AG, more than eight attributes can now be assigned for import. The dialog can also be resized. Dec 22,15: If the upper edge of a slope consists of only two points, the hatching for slopes in the plan window did not create the first few hachure lines. These hachures will now be drawn as well. Dec 16,15: When loading points from the GND-Edit database from Deutsche Bahn AG, the additional attributes 'Hz accuracy' and 'Vt accuracy' are now available for assignment. A DTM loaded from data types 45 and 58 was not complete if the data type 45 contained two points per line. This error has been rectified. Dec 10,15: When creating an alignment as a spline, the computation did not converge if more than 1000 points were involved. This limitation has been corrected. Dec 09,15: Leveling data from Leica Sprinter instruments is formatted differently depending on the language used on the instru- ment. CAPLAN now considers the English and German language settings when loading the data. Dec 03,15: After using the line dialogs of the DTM, the undo mechanism no longer worked correctly. This error has been rectified. Nov 25,15: Version 2.016 of OKSTRA data cannot be loaded or saved. The interface will be extended to include this by the spring 2016 update. When saving a plan to the DXF format with the option "3D Polylines" set, hitherto all polylines that had ident- ical elevations for all their vertices (e.g. contour lines) were saved as 2D polylines with an elevation. These poly- lines will now also be saved as 3D polylines. Hitherto, when saving a plan for handover and including all visible datasets from the data collections, the symbols and line types were empty. This error has been rectified. Nov 18,15: In some cases, exclusion areas inside a DTM were not built correctly. This error has been corrected. When creating polylines from a DTM, the DTM line that is clicked on in the dialog list will now be shown in the de- tail view. Nov 16,15: Searching for a point in the project window was not suc- cessful. This error has been rectified. When creating a slope intersecting a DTM, not all the in- tersection points were computed correctly. This error has been rectified. Nov 10,15: When loading a CAPLAN project that contains a DTM with in- dividually defined height bands, the lowest band definition was ignored. The lowest band will now be loaded correctly. In some LandXML files, the raw obervations do not have a reference to the station. This reference will now be set automatically during data import. Nov 06,15: Hitherto, the point code from the Trimble JobXML format was assumed to contain no blanks. Blanks are now allowed. When trimming a polyline in the plan window, not only the cutting edge was extended but the trimmed line as well. In a few cases the trimming was wrong or the polyline was de leted. This error has been rectified. When saving OKSTRA data, the feature code list version number was misinterpreted (e.g. 2.3 instead of 2.4). This error has been rectified. The identification of turning points in leveling data has been refined. The method "< Point number" generally ignores alphanumeric point names. ----------------------------------------------------------- Oct 30,15: Release and distribution of version 4.2 ----------------------------------------------------------- Oct 26,15: When loading leveling data from raw instrument formats, a new method for the identification of turning points is pro- vided. With this method you can assign a maximum point num- ber for all turning points. When loading leveling data from a Z file, the creation of the leveling lines previously depended on the existing points in the project. A known point was always used as the start or end point of a line, even if the measurement in the field assigned it as an intermediate point of a line. This division of a line now only takes place if elevations are to be computed immediately. Otherwise the line struc- ture of the field data is preserved. The plans created from network adjustments now assign the color, width and line style properties from the layer to to all the drawing elements, to the extent that this is reasonable. Oct 23,15: When loading points or observations from the Trimble JobXML format, the automatically registerd timestamp can be loaded as a date and time in the point attributes. Oct 19,15: The creation of polylines in the project window is now fa- cilitated by the ability to enter relative coordinates, as has been possible for some time in the plan window. Addit- ional information, such as point name, object type and elevations has to be defined, as new points will be auto- matically created in the project. Several CAPLAN projects can be combined to form a so called project collection. Such a CPM file allows all the constit- uent CAPLAN projects to be loaded at once. A project col- lection can be accessed via the menu entries "File / Open / Project collection..." and "File / Save / Project collection...". Project collections can be useful e.g. for processing cross sections or for the epoch comparison. When loading NAS data to the project or the plan window, the so called "functions" can now be differentiated. The swiss federal railways (SBB CFF FFS) have created the new Toporail 3 format (XTR file), which contains railway alignments and single points. Both of these can be loaded in CAPLAN. The file dialogs "File / Load / Points..." and "File / Load / Alignments..." offer the new file type "Toporail 3 (*.XTR)" for this purpose. Oct 16,15: When exporting OKSTRA data, closed polylines can now also be written as line objects. Oct 15,15: In some cases, the outer border of a difference model show- ed inexplicable indentations. We have improved the algo- rithm for defining the outer border in such a way that the outer border should now be correct. If the color of elements in the plan window is identical to the backgrund color, the elements are usually displayed using the complementary color, in order to ensure good vis- ibility. However, with, for example, a white background co- lor it was not previously possible to display white texts on top of a colored area. The dialog "View / Options..." now offers a check box to deactivate the applying of the background contrast color. Oct 13,15: A code change made on 09/28/15 lead to errors when editing or deleting selected objects in the plan window. This change has been removed. Oct 12,15: When intersecting two alignments, or an alignment and a polyline, both objects can be extended tangetially. Inter- section points that lie on the extended parts will now thus also be computed. Oct 08,15: Hitherto when loading points from a user-defined format, any leading zeroes were removed from the point code. Now a new option enables the user to define if the leading zeroes are to be removed or not. This also applies to the loading of geocentric or geographic coordinates. Oct 07,15: Profile plans may have different scales in the x and y directions. In such cases, the vertical exaggeration was previously not taken into account when creating parallels. The parallel line will now be computed by applying world coordinates. AS a consequence, the parallel line will not be displayed as truly parallel, due to the exaggeration. When loading points or lines from the Trimble JobXML for- mat, CAPLAN could crash if the point coordinates were not complete e.g. there was no elevation. This error has been rectified. Oct 05,15: In rare cases, the control point transformation with 7 pa- rameters did not show the control points on initialisation. This error has been rectified. Oct 02,15: When loading raw observations from the LandXML format, the changes in the prism constant can be marked in the Z file and documented in the LST file. Oct 01,15: When loading DXF files into the plan window, conflicts may occurr regarding the block names from the DXF file and the names of the internal CAPLAN symbols. To avoid such con- flicts a prefix can be specified for the DXF block names. Often DXF files contain multiple elements, e.g. survey data, that are combined as blocks. However, the individual parts of the blocks could previously not be accessed in CAPLAN. The new "Explode blocks to its components" option allows you to load all the block components (even from nested blocks) as native CAD entities, which then can be accessed directly in CAPLAN. Sep 30,15: Copying a polyline or an alignment was no longer possible from a project. This error has been rectified. Sep 29,15: When editing a lane of a road surface, the values for width and crossfall can be derived from a polyline. Hitherto, all polyline vertices were assumed to have a valid elevation. Now, however, vertices without an elevation will be assign- ed a crossfall value of 0.0. Sep 25,15: The volume computation using horizons (REB 21.013) was in some cases wrong if a lot of profile stations in a position were deselected. This error has been rectified. Sep 23,15: Previously, when drawing a polyline in the plan window a new vertex could not be clicked near an existing leg of the current polyline because an arc would have been dragged. Clicking with the active point snap and entering relative coordinates now overrides this. Sep 18,15: In addition to the name of an active point orline, the ob- ject type is also displayed in the status line of the pro- ject window. Sep 08,15: In some cases, the computation of an adjusted spatial cir- cle failed to compute the standard deviation. This error has been rectified. Sep 03,15: When editing a polyline in the project or the plan window, multiple lines in the point list can be marked (in blue). Changes e.g. editing the radius, can then be made to all the marked lines via the context menu, or all the marked lines can be deleted. Sep 01,15: User-defined formats were previously restricted to a line length of 256 characters. This restriction has been removed. Aug 28,15: If only the symbols currently in use are included in a DXF data export, some of the internal symbols 1-99 were in- complete. All the symbols in use are now written correctly to DXF. Aug 26,15: When loading tacheometry observations, the Earth's radius can now also be reported, in addition to the refraction co- efficient, using the variable in the list temp- late sections [Raw.ListRefraction1] and [Raw.ListRefraction2]. Aug 21,15: In the plan window, the elevation for a symbol can be taken from an existing text element. To do this, the edit symbol dialog can be opened and the cursor positioned in the edit field for the elevation by clicking. Afterwards, a text element can be selected in the detail window. Assigning an elevation from a text element is very useful after loading data from DXF files, which are often created without z co- ordinates but contain the elevations as annotations. Aug 20,15: When constructing an excavation, a heap or a terrace, the processing can be restricted to only the visible DTM area. Rotated plan frames widened to an exact folding were placed incorrectly in relation to the base plan. The placement is now correct. The key for an INI section in CpUser.INI was hitherto re- stricted to 32 characters, which was not sufficient for some OKSTRA feature tables. The key max is now 100 char- acters. Aug 19,15: Points, lines and areas from a project window can be saved using the OKSTRA format. The assignment between CAPLAN ob- ject types and OKSTRA feature codes is done in the dialog. When dimensioning an area in the plan window, the area can now be split into triangles and the triangle sides will be dimensioned as well. This allows checking of the area comp- utation. When loading ALKIS data into the project window, an additi- onal CSV file containing owner data can also be created. The settings for points and lines were restructured using using tabs in order to improve clarity. Aug 18,15: Building a difference model from two DTMs now preserves the break line information of the original DTMs. Aug 17,15: Changing the display of longitude or latitude in a proj- ects point edit dialog set the coordinate to 0.0. This error has been rectified. Aug 14,15: When loading points and lines via the CSV interface, points with coordinates of 0.000 were ignored previously. These points will now also be loaded. In some rare cases, the difference model used the elevation 0.0 instead of the real difference. This error has been rectified. Aug 12,15: When creating a DXF file from the project or the plan win- dow, the DXF block table can be restricted to the currently used CAPLAN symbols. The point and line interface to LandXML handles all closed polylines as so called 'Parcels'. A code can thus be as- signed to closed polylines as well. Aug 05,15: When trimming polylines in the plan window, the cutting edge will be extended on both ends. When copying and pasting text elements in the plan window, the reference line will now be transferred correctly. Jul 24,15: The "Insert point" profile construction is no longer only referenced to the alignment but now allows the new profile point to be referenced to any existing profile point. Jul 14,15: DXF files from CAPLAN with DXF version 2004 and higher now immediately show the assigned line weights in AutoCAD. Text elements and block attributes take their line weight from their layer. Jul 10,15: If a best fit cylinder was nearly orthogonal to the x-y plane, the result was in some cases not correct. These cases now also lead to a correct result. Jul 09,15: The point snap in the plan window now takes account of the middle point of line segments as well. Jul 06,15: The intersections of an excavation, a deposit, a terrace, or a slope with a DTM were in some cases incorrect if in- tersection points with DTM triangle sides were very close to each other. This error has been rectified. The transformation of a DXF file ignored the DXF element MULTILEADER, which remained in its old position. This ele- ment will now be transformed correctly. Jul 02,15: When loading tacheometry observation data, the renaming of target points based on a change in horizontal direction was sometimes applied too often when changing face. This error has been rectified. Jul 01,15: The data interface to GEOgraf was extended to include PARX project files, which are created by GEOgraf 8.1. Jun 30,15: Computing cross sections from large DTMs (containing more than 100,000 points) has been considerably accelerated. Jun 29,15: Saving polylines to file now provides a choice to save the selected points. Identifying symbols located close to others in the plan window often resulted in one only finding the biggest sym- bol. The differentiation of symbols has now been refined. Accessing stored transformation parameters did not always work for some transformation types. This error has been rectified. Jun 25,15: Dimensioning gradients in a profile plan computed the in- correct value 0.0 for the total value although the polyline had an inclination. This error has been rectified. In the profile construction, if you wanted to deleted mul- tiple points from a profile line identified by a point range, but if there were no points located in the range, the first of last point of the profile line was deleted anyway. This error has been corrected. Building a difference model from DTMs now transfers all points with a zero elevation difference to the new differ- ence model. Thus a difference model whose cut and fill re- gions are not connected will be displayed correctly. When saving points to the CSV format, points with invalid positions were ignored. This error has been rectified. Jun 24,15: The unattended setup via INI file now creates a log file CP-Setup.log in the TEMP folder, which documents the setup process. Jun 23,15: Slope hachure lines can be made to always start from the slope edge with the higher elevation, which is very useful when continuous slope edges alternate between cuttings and embankments When loading ALKIS data from the NAS format into the plan window, an additional CSV file containing owner data can now be created. Leveling data from Leica Sprinter instruments can be saved to a CSV file as fieldbook data. This kind of data can now be processed in CAPLAN via the menu entry "Observations / Leveling / Load..." When hatching a slope in the plan window, the upper edge can be reversed by setting a check mark. This may provide better results in some cases. The dialogs for drawing sections, for computing volumes out of cross sections and for network setup are now resizeable. The line directory in the project window offers additional selection functions in the line list's context menu. The new functions are based on the point selection. All lines can be selected that have at least one vertex point that is already selected or that have all vertex points already selected. When loading points and lines or observations from the LandXML format with the HexagonXML extension (from Leica), the point attributes can now also be used for the line generation in the "Lines" dialog tab. The labeling of alignments with stations in the plan cre- ation now offers the stations dialog, with which arbitrary station labels can be defined. Dimensioning lines with gradients now allows the definition of angle units for the gradient values. As in the project window, the "Round line" function is a- vailable in the plan window. By clicking a polyline vertex this function computes an arc using the clicked point and and its two neighboring points, and assigns the arc to the adjacent polyline legs. Jun 22,15: The creation of an excavation / heap / terrace did not re- store the break lines of the original DTM that were inter- sected by the new construction. This error has been recti- fied. Jun 19,15: In recent releases, the display of a DTM's slope shading was always forced to the display type 'Shading' when a new project was created. The recently used display type will now be applied to new projects. Jun 15,15: IMPORTANT In some cases the CAPLAN version 4.1 from May 13, !!!!!!!!! 2015 did not completely save all points and lines !!!!!!!!! in a project, which may have caused data loss. !!!!!!!!! If you are using this version please download the !!!!!!!!! current version immediately from !!!!!!!!! www.cpentw.de/download.htm. When saving points to file from a CAPLAN project containing polylines, in some cases not all points were written to file. This error has been rectified. The creation of an excavation / heap / terrace did not cre- ate all the intersection points with the original DTM if the intersection line was parallel to the coordinate sys- tem. All intersection points will now be created correctly. Jun 09,15: The REB datatypes DA48 and DA49 represent polylines using their vertex names. Both datatypes can now be loaded and saved by CAPLAN as vertices using "File / Load / Vertices..." and "File / Save / Vertices...". Jun 05,15: The volume computation between two DTM surfaces now offers additional variables in the list report for writing the spatial area of the participating triangles (in the the list template sections "Dtm.CalcVolume1", "Dtm.CalcVolume2", "Dtm.CalcVolume4" and "Dtm.CalcVolume5"). The report can thereby be adapted to project requirements in this respect. Jun 01,15: The reporting of the point stack computation (section "Geo. CalcPointStack2") now offers the additional variables and for listing a station's orientation and the orientation accuracy. May 29,15: When adding a point to a profile line in the profile con- struction by defining the position using a mouse click, the position was offset by 1cm if the horizon line consisted only of one point. This error has been rectified. Deleting numerous points from the project without using the undo repository in some cases lead to a crash in subsequent tasks (e.g. creating a plan). This error has been rectified. When creating plans from alignments, the connection of two alignment elements was often transferred to the polyline as two identical points. The creation of such duplicate points is now prevented. May 27,15: When loading points from the *.KF Verm.esn format, the point numbers are compiled by using the *.SC key file. When naming points based on a grid, the names for UTM co- ordinates now allow 6 digit sequential numbers. May 22,15: The PAR file interface works with GEOgraf Version 8.1 as of today. May 20,15: Saving a line file from the project window also inadvert- ently stored the vertex points of polylines as single points i.e. all the vertex points occured twice in the line file. This error has been rectified. When selecting points inside an existing polyline, the arc segments of the polyline were not considered and the vertex points were connected using straight lines. The arc seg- ments will be processed correctly. May 18,15: The "connection of horizons" profile construction now al- lows definition of the lower or the upper horizon as a preference in the area in which both horizons overlap. May 15,15: When loading image files that are georeferenced using a world file, the image scales sometimes differ in the x and y directions. Such georeferencing was hitherto ignored. The georeferencing can now be forced to apply the x direction scale to the y direction as well. May 12,15: If the file dialog for saving plans appeared when closing the plan window, it was sometomes the case that the plan window did not close properly. This error has been recti- fied. After renaming points in the point directory dialog, the point list was in some cases not updated. The point list will now always be updated correctly. ----------------------------------------------------------- Apr 30,15: Release and distribution of version 4.1 ----------------------------------------------------------- Apr 23,15: Points and lines can be loaded from OKSTRA XML, a German data model for road design and maintenance. The general geometry objects point, line and area will be read in. The The interface provides an option to allocate the OKSTRA feature codes to CAPLAN object types. Saving lines and line vertices from a project to a file can now be restricted to only those lines that were previously selected in the line directory. When dimensioning the distance between two points, the ele- vation difference can be dimensioned as well. The new dis- play option "Slashes at the ends" has also been added. The DTM line dialogs have been made resizeable in order to be able to meet user requirements. Points coming from laser scanning (e.g. from Leica PTS for- mat) store their scan color and intensity in the point at- tributes. The new entry "RGB-Colors" in the view controller shows the points using the scanned color. All other layers related to point information will automatically be switched off. The tasks "Edit / Coordinates / Equal Positions..." and "Report / Equal Positions..." can now be applied to the current point selection as well. The settings for the display of DTM triangle sides will now be stored in the CP file and will be loaded when a CAPLAN project is opened. Apr 22,15: The count of available point attributes can now be adapted via "Settings / General..." and the "Names/Attributes" tab. The setting can be changed there. The count of attributes is allowed to lie between 8 and 50 and is supported by all internal functions of CAPLAN. All the data exchange formates will be reworked accordingly in due course. The following formats already support the variable count of point attributes: - User defined format - CSV - DXF - LandXML (Points/lines and observations) - RW5 (Points/lines and observations) - Trimble JobXML (Points/lines and observations) - Verm.esn KF Apr 15,15: Computing point offsets related to a spatial line now of- fers the directional vector of the spatial line for each individual point in the report (section [Geo.SpatialLine4]). When computing a best fit 3D circle, the report section [Geo.SpatialCircle3] now offers the normal vector of the adjusted spatial plane. Apr 14,15: The list report concerning an adjusted cylinder now offers the adjusted radius as a variable for each parti- cipating point (section [O3D.BestFitCylinder2]). Apr 13,15: When reporting points from the point directory, the name of the coordinate system is now available via the vari- able <$REFSYS> (as is the case with the point lists). In some cases, the angle unit used in the computations in the list report was wrong. This error has been rectified. Apr 01,15: The dialog for selecting a horizon or an Elling ID in the the profile constructions now also displays the ID desc- ription in the tree as well. Mar 27,15: The 2 point transformation (via "Transformation / With Con- trol Points / 2-Point...") now enters the local line coordinates from point 1 to point 2 immediately after en- tering the point names. The profile layout offers the new value 4 in parameter 46 of the label band for writing the station difference to the previous profile point. The text will be placed in the middle between the two stations. Removing multiple points from a DTM was previously very slow. This task has now been speeded up significantly if you do not add the task to the undo memory. The report for the network adjustment now contains infor- mation about whether the coordinates of dynamic control points were ultimately applied to the project. The dialogs for creating plan frames and for managing plan areas now expect angles in degree in the mathematical sys- tem, like all other dialogs in the plan window. Mar 26,15: The dialog for entering chainage values now offers an op- tion to restrict the special stations to the station range entered on the left hand side of the dialog. Mar 24,15: When loading lines from LandXML files now all methods of line coding in the field are offered in a new tab "Lines". Mar 23,15: When loading points from Caddy KOR formatted files, the point code has been ignored for a while. This error has been corrected. Mar 20,15: When creating a plan frame, the angle of the plan region is now entered in degrees. Loading tacheometry observations from a LandXML file which came from a Leica Flexline instrument caused an error. This behaviour has been corrected. Mar 19,15: The toolbar containing the buttons for loading and saving a project now also offers the new button "Save as...". Mar 16,15: Multiple lines copied from a project window now can be pasted into a plan in the plan window. Editing fieldbook data via "Observations / Tacheometry / Filedbook..." caused an error when editing a station. If the last observation line was deleted all the other list lines were deleted inadvertently. This error has been rec- tified. Mar 06,15: The setting for the point snap in the plan window has now been made persistent. When writing to the DXF format, the properties of the sym- bol layer will now be transferred to the derived attribute layers. Mar 05,15: Hitherto when adding background scenes to the project win- dow, the name of the original file was added to the back- ground data as a text element. Now, as multiple background scenes are managed including their plan names, the original file name will be added to the plan name. Mar 04,15: At the end of the adjustment of a leveled network, plans can be created representing the levelling lines. Now the length of the lines will be displayed in the list as well. When creating a polyline in the project window, the button "Insert multiple points" allows the previously selected points to be added to the polyline. Now the points are always added in the sequence represented by the sorting parameters. Mar 03,15: A road surface can be created from cross section data using the new command "Profiles / Road Surface / Derive from Cross Section....". It is recommended that the cross section horizons should be homogenous across all stations. An already existing road surface can be extended with stations from the cross sec- tions or it can be replaced completely. Mathematical expressions have been introduced to the list template in order to allow computation of new values for the report using the available variables. A mathematical expression has to be put in curly braces e.g. ,,{sqrt(* + *)} With this example the distance will be computed from the coordinate differences DX and DY and the result will be written to the third placeholder in the line. Feb 27,15: All intersection dialogs in the project window now allow manual entry of the elevation of the intersection points. If working with road surfaces, the dialog for defining sta- tions now allows the minimum and maximum station from the road surface to be specified, in order to define a station range. The loading of tacheometry observations from LandXML format now also reads all the point attributes which are stored in the Hexagon extension of the LandXML format. Feb 20,15: When undoing movements of texts with associated reference lines, the reference point was changed by mistake. This error has now been rectified. When loading points and lines from LandXML files, the code was automatically changed by removing leading and trailing '-' characters. The code now remains unchanged. Editing a polyline resp. an area in the plan window did in some cases not recognize the point at the vertex coordi- nates and thus used a wrong point name for the vertex. This error was amended. Feb 16,15: Intersecting two lines in the project window was included in the basic CAPLAN module up to version 3.9. It was subse- quently only included in the GPUNKT module. Now it is in- cluded in both licenses. Computing levelling data now offers additional information for the distance checks of foresight and backsight, both in the report and in the ERR file. The network adjustment now allows the object type of points to be added to the point lists. Feb 10,15: Datum transformations based on NTv2 grid files have been accelerated considerably, especially when very big grid files are involved. Jan 30,15: Checking the evenness of a plane now offers independent tolerances for longitudinal and lateral directions. Jan 29,15: When creating a polyline in the symbol editor, the dis- played coordinates did not correspond exactly to the sym- bol's coordinates. This error has been rectified. Jan 28,15: During creation of a difference model, the determination of the outer border has been improved because in a few cases the outer border was previously not correct. When interpolating elevations from a DTM for 2D points, it will now be checked if an elevation can be computed for all the points. Additionally, the report will also shows all the points for which an elevation could not be computed. Jan 21,15: The alignment names will no longer be padded with trailing blanks. All relevant functions take this change into ac- count. Jan 16,15: The line directory in the project now shows the areas of closed polylines and reports these to the LST file. Jan 13,15: In some cases, building a difference model failed if mul- tiple points were in line with each other. Now the differ- ence model will be built correctly in such cases as well. Jan 09,15: When loading raw observation data from tacheometry or level- ling measurements to our internal Z format, the invalid characters ',', ';', '*' and '?' in point names are re- placed by blanks. Jan 08,15: Drawing cross sections and computing volumes from cross sections has been considerably accelerated, especially when processing large amounts of cross section data. Intersecting two lines or a line with a circle in the pro- ject window now offers additional report variables , resp. , which represent the length from the intersection point to the end point of the line. Jan 05,15: The manual definition of heigth bands for a DTM has been enhanced and now correctly considers elevation ranges that exceed the current DTM extents. If parts of the DTM are not convered by the manual definition, those DTM parts will not be displayed. The computation of a circle in the project window now auto- matically increases the center point name when adding it to the project. The project background data now allows multiple plans to be loaded and managed separately. The color and visibility of each plan can be defined separately for screen display. The drawing order can also be specified. When computing a single polar point using a slope distance and zenith angle, the input of i-t can be replaced by en- tering the instrument and target heights separately. Interpolating a contour line from a DTM did not succeed in cases where the elevation of the DTM point was exactly identical with the elevation entered in the dialog. Now the contour line will be interpolated correctly. When opening or saving files in CAPLAN, the file dialog previously offered the entry "All files (*.*)" in the list of file types. For reasons of clarity, this entry has been removed. The process for raising polylines to a DTM surface previ- ously limited the computation of point elevations to the visible DTM region. Now the user can make this decision in the dialog by herself. If the old polylines are to be re- moved, all the corresponding points will now be removed as well. In the project window, the selection of points by proper- ties offers a new Validity property for selection. The code (object type) can also now be selected more easily using a drop-down list. Hitherto, when opening a CAPLAN project by e.g. double- clicking, it always started a new CAPLAN session regardless of if an active CAPLAN session was already running. Some tasks, such as the volume computation using DTMs, profile constructions or control point transformations, require multiple projects open in one CAPLAN session. Hence it will now be checked if there is an active CAPLAN session running and you can select the CAPLAN session in which you want to open the project. The current view of a project was in some cases not saved to the CP file and therefore could not be restored when re- opening the project. This error has been rectified. Direct link line surveying using the method "Line Code 1-2-3" offers the new option "Only link points with the same point code", which makes it possible to open and continue multiple lines at the same time. You can thus survey at right angles across lines more efficiently now. Dec 21,14: Volume computations using cross sections now list the corr- ection factors based on curvature for the previous and the subsequent curvature at stations where the curvature chan- ges. This means that the computation is depicted exactly as performed. When executing the volume computation using cross sections, only those cross sections plans selected for computation will be generated. Alignment data exchange via the GEDO file format did not previously consider the header lines properly. Now the GEDO format will be loaded and saved in the proper way. Dec 17,14: Intersecting a spatial line with a DTM produced an incor- rect result in the case that the inclination of the spatial line was large and the intersection point did not lie near the starting point of the spatial line. This error has been rectified. In the case that a CAPLAN project contains a network and it is to be rebuilt, the network setup fetches all the infor- mation about the involved network points and about the fixed points and proposes this configuration for the new network. This makes it easy to preserve the network confi- guration. Dec 16,14: The computation of volumes and surfaces using cross sec- tions, in accordance with the REB procedures 21.003, 21.013 and 21.033, takes into account correction factors based on curvature. In the case that a cross section station coin- cides with a curvature change (e.g. from a left side arc to a right side arc) the correction factors for both the pre- vious and the subsequent curvature are listed and both are included in the computation. Dec 09,14: In the profile constructions, clicking a reference point was not successful if the point snap was active. Now a re- ference point can be clicked while the point snap is active. Dec 04,14: When saving a DTM to the REB formats DA45/30/58/49, long point names were truncated to the allowed length of seven characters. But this made the REB data corrupt. Now the length of the point names will be checked in a previous step. Printing color gradients to a printer or to PDF sometimes caused a Moiré effect because the area border was invisible and therefore was not printed. Now the color gradient areas will be created with their border visible. When using the internal text fonts (e.g. Isonorm or DIN16/17) the reference lines in some cases did not point to the correct text border. This error has been rectified. Loading observations from RW5 formatted files now considers all the observations from resections as well as the back- sight observations. Dec 03,14: The datum transformation GK -> ETRS89 for the German state of Saarland is now available in CAPLAN as NTv2 transfor- mation when the grid file SeTa2009.gsa (freely available at http://www.saarland.de/74918.htm) is copied to the DAT folder. Nov 28,14: Some DXF files in version R12 format were only partially transformed by the task "Transformation / By Datum / DXF Files..." This error was rectified today. Nov 21,14: All the dimensioning dialogs now offer a new option "Text background transparent" that can be used to set the text transparency of the dimensionig texts. Nov 20,14: When adding dimension labels for offsets to a reference line, the right angle signs will now be created in such a way that they are parallel to the line direction, regard- less of whether they refer to the line directly or to its extension. Nov 18,14: Loading an M file into the plan window hitherto caused the layer definitions from the M file to be set in the layer controller in every case, to ensure that the plans were displayed in the same way as when saved. The properties of existing layers were overwritten to take account of the definitions from the M file. Now the properties of an existing layer will not be changed if an identical layer is loaded from an M file but will in- stead be preserved. Nov 17,14: The computation of a rail alignment from observations using a special railway staff now checks if the elevation of the tie point is actually greater than the elevation of the counter point. The elevations will be switched where ne- cessary. Nov 12,14: When loading observations from LandXML, the entered offset values for a target point will now be considered. Nov 04,14: When loading points or observations from GSI files, the tab "Attributes" offers an option to state whether the regis- tered point information will be reset every time the point code changes or if the point information is valid for all subsequent points. ----------------------------------------------------------- Oct 25,14: Release and distribution of version 4.0 ----------------------------------------------------------- Oct 22,14: Lines from DXF were transformed incorrectly if their extru- sion vector was not equal to 0/0/1. Now the lines will be transformed correctly. When creating a new profile line in the profile construct- ions, the position related to a reference point was previ- ously incorrect in some profile stations. Now the new pro- file point will be computed correctly. Oct 16,14: The setting out reports for tacheometry and GNSS data now provide additional data for line-related staking out. Tacheometry observation data in the RW5 format generated by SurvCE (Carlson Software) can now be loaded. This takes into account all the point attributes as well as the coded lines. Oct 15,14: Various improvements and amendments have been implemented: - When saving polylines to LandXML format, the line verti- ces include not only their reference point names (as be- fore) but also their coordinates. Thus a direct import to e.g. Leica instruments is possible. - After closing the line directory in a project, the re- sults of all the subsequent tasks were previously no lon- ger reported to the LST file. This has been corrected. - Creating a slope from a DTM was not successful in some cases. This has been corrected. - A difference model could sometimes not be created if one of the involved DTMs was based on a point grid. This has been corrected. - The preview of profile constructions was not updated cor- rectly when changing to another cross section plan if the original profile line did not exist in that plan. This has been corrected. - When creating line accompanying symbols, the new symbols had the wrong size. This has been corrected. - The reference point for displaying a text reference line will now be transformed similarly to text anchor points when applying the following tasks: - "Edit / Selected Elements / Shift" - "Edit / Selected Elements / Shift Coordinates..." - "Edit / Selected Elements / Transform..." - "Edit / Selected Elements / Rotate..." - The character '^' will automatically be furnished with a subsequent blank when saving to DXF. Otherwise it may lead to problems when loading the DXF file to AutoCAD. Oct 01,14: Creating a slope based on a DTM failed to compute all the slope points if a leg of the slope line intersected the DTM surface multiple times. Such cases are now handled correct- ly and the slope is computed properly and completely. Sep 30,14: When loading a DTM from DA58, the triangles may intersect each other - this causes the triangle structure to be in- correct. Now all the triangles will be checked for inter- sections in a first step. Sep 29,14: The line directory allows copying of multiple polylines to the clipboard. The alignment directory allows copying of multiple align- ments to the clipboard. Sep 19,14: Text elements in the plan window can be associated to a re- ference point (e.g. a symbol) by automatically creating a reference line. The reference line will be drawn from the reference point to the nearest point of the text outline rectangle. If a symbol is located at the reference point, it can be ensured that the reference line does not obscure the symbol in the display. When creating a plan, drawing symbol attributes or dimensioning coordinates, the coordi- nates of the respective symbol are included as a reference point in the text element. Please note: M files created with previous versions of CAPLAN do not contain reference lines. The displaying of text with a transparent or opaque back- ground is no longer a global setting defined for the whole plan, but is instead defined for each individual text. The Options dialog in the plan creation also has a check box that can be used to apply the transparency setting to all the text elements. Further improvements were implemented for profile construc- tion: - When adding a point to a horizon, the slope +-1:0 is now interpreted as a vertical line with a horizontal shift of 1mm at the end of the slope. - When adding a point to a profile line, the new option "Along Polyline" causes the new point to be interpolated directly on the profile line. - The first point of a new profile line can be referenced not only to the horizontal/vertical alignment but also to a reference point from another profile line. - When intersecting two profile lines, the second profile line can be extended at both ends. The second profile li- ne can also be restricted by entering a point range. - The dialogs for moving and covering a profile line have been combined to form a new dialog which offers horizon- tal movement as well. - Interpolating intermediate profiles now considers Elling lines as well. The use of several points for an interpo- lation is possible by defining a point range e.g. L1-2A. Sep 18,14: Renaming points in the project window using a name mask now checks if unique point names are required. NAS files from the German state of Lower Saxony have small differences to the specifications that were previously im- plemented in CAPLAN. The program now takes these differen- ces into account when loading NAS data into a project or into a plan. Sep 03,14: When loading a background scene into a project, the new file type "Background (*.X)" allows the loading of back- ground data associated with another CAPLAN project. The decimal places of elevations in the project window have in some cases been displayed incorrectly, especially if the decimal places change for different object types. The deci- mal places will now be displayed correctly. The CP setup creates the two REG files - CREDITtoContextMenu.reg - CCtoContextMenu.reg which generate the context menu entries for CREDIT and CC on local PCs if the CP software has been provided as a net- work installation. Sep 01,14: If situation plans or section plans were created after loading a GEOgraf PAR file (with GEOgraf 8), in some cases an unintelligible message appeared when the plan window was closed. This conflict with GEOgraf data has now been re- solved. Aug 29,14: Since the last update was released on July, 15, the shift- ing of vertical lines when drawing section plans had been erroneous in some cases. This error has now been corrected. Aug 28,14: When loading alignments from DA40/DA21, the vertical align- ment can be forced to use circular arcs for computing the rounding curves. Aug 27,14: The MDD format now offers the additional line codes 4 (arc point) and 9 (close line). The sort order of point names in the project window always positioned numerical point names at the top of the point list. The "Alphanumeric" option on the "Names" page in the general settings now makes it possible to have a correct alphanumeric comparison of point names. Aug 14,14: The dialog for editing object types did not immediately show the symbol that was currently highlighted in the drop- down box. Several other dialogs also had the same issue. This error has been corrected. Aug 13,14: Saving an alignment to the GEDO format assigned the wrong sign when creating the transition radius in the *.HDT ver- tical alignment file. This error has now been rectified. CAPLAN 64bit can now interact with the GEOgraf 8.0 program in order to read and write GEOgraf jobs (PAR files). This was previously only possible with CAPLAN 32bit. Aug 12,14: The new point format "Leica Point clouds *.PTS;*.XYZ" al- lows PTS and XYZ files from Leica laser scanners to be loaded into a CAPLAN project. The intensity and the RGB co- lor components are transferred to the point attributes. Saving a PTS file is also possible. Aug 01,14: The new illustrative DTM display that uses a combination of a color gradient and relief shading can be switched on and off directly in the color gradient dialog. Alignment data originating from GEDO Office (*.TDT and *.HDT) can now be loaded and saved by CAPLAN. The station dialog now offers an option to define the deci- mal places that should be considered when editing stations. Hitherto the decimal places were fixed to mm, now 1/10 mm are possible as well. Loading ALKIS data from NAS files now allows the allocation of different colors to parcel points and reference points according to their accuracy level. Within a project, additional object types with the assigned color (e.g. AX_GRENZPUNKT_2100 for a parcel point with the accuracy level 2100) will be created. In a plan, the color will be directly assigned to the point symbol. When editing a single point in the project window, the amended coordinates are colored red. When saving a cross section template, a point range can be defined for each horizon or Elling line so that it is pos- sible to save a specific part of a profile line to the cross section template. The selected profile lines will be shown as a preview in the detail window. All selected profile lines can thus be visually checked. The transformation of profile points offers several new features: - For each profile line, a polyline can be created in the project. - Polylines based on the cross section points can be gener- ated along a center line. - The transformed points can be referenced to their nominal station, therby allowing them to be located exactly on the profile line. - The names of the transformed points can now be created using a very flexible name mask. Jul 31,14: The computation of the orthometric correction of leveled elevation differences using gravity values has been re- vised. The correction value k2 is now computed correctly. We thank Mr. Kleine from LVG Thuringia for his assistance with this. Applying zero profiles in the volume computation based on Elling lines gave rise to incorrectly drawn profile plans. This error has been rectified. In some rare cases, the triangulation of a DTM based on raster points caused the DTM to be created with an invalid state. These rare cases will now also be handled correctly. Jul 28,14: Frame layouts with a title box located inside the frame could not previously be used correctly for creating profile frames. The title box will now always automatically be placed to the right outside the frame. Jul 25,14: The tasks for computing bearing/distance and point project- ions in the project as well as computing bearing/distance in the plan window have again been refined. The values com- puted for a point that is clicked upon now remain on dis- play until the right mouse button is pressed. Then the con- tinuously updated computation using the current mouse posi- tion is displayed in the status bar again. Jul 18,14: The computation of polar points could not previously be in- terrupted as soon as the transformation dialog for a single station was displayed. Now the computation will stop imme- diately if the transformation dialog is canceled by the user. Jul 16,14: The task for computing a bearing and a distance in the pro- ject window continuously displays the results for the cur- rent mouse position. If a point is clicked, the computed values now stay unchanged if the mouse pointer remains near the point. In the plan window, the task for computing a bearing and a distance also continuously displays the results for the current mouse position. If the point snap mode is active the result remains unchanged while the point is snapped. Jul 15,14: When drawing both a longitudinal section and a vertical align ment together in one profile plan, the spreading of vertical lines was previously not included. The vertical lines will now be spread correctly. Jul 11,14: The dialog for generating profiles from lines now provides a new tolerance that can be used to avoid multiple points being added to the profiles. These can occur if polyline legs are almost identical. Jul 10,14: When loading tacheometry observations, each circle displace- ment recognised by CAPLAN will be reported to the ERR file. Saving a vertical alignment to the Sinning file format cre- ated the wrong sign for the transition radius. The correct sign for the radius will now be output. Projects containing multiple dots in the project name e.g. Project_03.06.2014.CP, gave rise to several problems when applying profile constructions. This error has now been rectified. Jul 09,14: After the last update was issued on July 7th, a message started appearing when overwriting a CAPLAN project or an M-file, which stated that the file could not be checked properly. This message was incorrect and no longer appears. Jul 03,14: When printing a plan containing a high resolution image, the image was in some cases not scaled completely correctly athough it was properly displayed on the screen. This er- ror has been rectified today. Jul 02,14: The process for loading points and lines from LandXML files now recognises the extended data tag. In such cases the point attributes are taken from the XML section. Lines that have not had an object type assigned using their description (XML attribute "desc") will be allocated an ob- ject type from the first vertex point of the line. The exchange of diagonals in a DTM is now only permitted for simple DTM lines. This ensures that the triangle struc- ture is retained in a consistent state. Jul 01,14: In the project window, the point snap allows snapping to elements in the background data. The point snap can be used e.g. when creating and editing points, alignments and 3D objects as well as during plan creation when defining the plan area. The point snap only takes the plan coordinates of points into account. The task for dimensioning gradients in the plan window now offers a new option via which it is possible to add dimen- sion labels for elevation differences along a polyline. In addition, it is possible to add a dimension label for the total value between the start and end point of a polyline. Besides the Bouguer anomaly, the observed gravity value can now be used for computing the ortometric correction of lev- eled elevation differences. When creating polylines and areas in the plan window, the relative coordinates may now also be stated relative to the direction of the last leg of the line. The point lists that are created for a plan legend are now furnished with column titles. The menu entries in the DTM menu relating to exchanges of DTM lines and polylines in the project have now been re- named in order to allow them to be better understood. When computing an alignment point using observations made to a railway staff, the elevation for the alignment point can be computed using one of the options "lower rail" / "upper rail" / "average of both rails". Jun 24,14: Writing points to the CSV format now omits invalid plan co- ordinates and invalid elevations. The CAPLAN report view allows cut operations to be made on lines, and this sometimes caused an error message. It was then not always clear whether or not the text really had been removed. This error was rectified today. Jun 02,14: When shifting or covering a profile line in the profile construction, the point range will now be applied to mixed horizons as well. May 27,14: During profile construction in the plan window, the object selection will now be considered correctly. May 26,14: Building a DTM from grid points sometimes failed to con- sider holes in the grid correctly. This error has been cor- rected today. When editing the outer border of a DTM, in some cases an unneccessary error message appeared. This message no long- er appears. During profile construction, the profile line description, such as HZ25 or EP10, can now be entered and edited manu- ally as well. The plan window now allows the drawing of a polyline or an area from point A to point B and back to point A again. This is especially useful when working with arcs. May 21,14: Outputting text in DXF format with the color BYLAYER failed to assign the correct color if the text background was ac- tivated. Now the text color is transferred correctly. If, during profile contruction, a new Elling line was cre- ated at a single station, a program crash may previously have occured if the Elling position was not assigned di- rectly. This error has been rectified. May 20,14: When loading NAS data as a plan, the line type and line weight were assigned with invalid values in some cases. This caused some problems when exporting to DXF. This error has been rectified. May 19,14: In some cases the volume calculation from horizons failed to determine the area border in a cross section. This error has been rectified. When inserting a polyline containing arcs into a DTM the resulting arcs were wrong in some cases. This behaviour has now been corrected. When using negative coordinates in a project, the centroid of an area was not positioned correctly. This error has been rectified. May 15,14: Intersecting two alignments or an alignment with a polyline sometimes failed when applying the intersection points. This behaviour has been corrected. When loading a DXF file as a project background, the draw- ing data was positioned incorrectly. This error has been rectified. When exporting DTM lines as polylines to the project, CAPLAN sometimes crashed. This error has been corrected. The texts and symbols created by loading NAS data into the plan window were previously too small. The text and symbol sizes are now correct. May 05,14: The displaying of object types and point attributes in the project window was previously incorrect is some cases. This error has now been rectified. ----------------------------------------------------------- Apr 30,14: Release and distribution of version 3.91 ----------------------------------------------------------- Apr 28,14: With Windows 7 and 8, the list template CAPLAN.TPL is co- pied to the temporary folder TEMP, which is located in the user profile. Previously, if a user name exceeded 8 charac- ters, the temporary folder was not correctly identified by CAPLAN, which could in the worst case lead to a program crash. This error has now been rectified. In some cases, the creation of a new project within an empty folder unfortunately resulted in CAPLAN crashing. This error has now been rectified. Apr 22,14: The profile construction applied to multiple stations can now also use Elling lines. As a result of this integration, some function calls have been merged: - "Add left"/"Add right" has become "Add point" - "Add arc to left"/"Add arc to right" has become "Add arc" - The specific functions for Elling lines ("New", "Edit", "Delete") have been removed, as these are now available via the common functions for profile lines. All the functions use the term "Profile line", which en- compasses both horizons and Elling lines. As a special feature for Elling lines, the name of a refe- rence point is identified using S and E (-th point compared to the start or end of the Elling line). The definition of a reference point on a profile line has been simplified by making this possible with a mouse click on the the relevant profile point. The drop down lists in the dialogs then show all the possible identifiers avail- able for the point that has been clicked upon. Observation data from the LandXML format can now be loaded if the LandXML files were created with Leica instruments using the extension HexagonXML. Hitherto only data with the standard LandXML 1.2 format was loaded correctly. Loading points or lines from the RW5 format now allows ad- ditional point information such as date, time and manually entered attributes to be read and assigned as point attri- butes. The "Weight for direction transition" parameter for cre- ating slope hatching has been removed from the dialog as the best available hatching is computed automatically. When computing the intersection of two alignments, it is now possible to directly select a polyline from the project as an alternative to the second alignment. An elevation will also be computed for the intersection points if height information is available. Saving data to DXF files now also offers the R2012 format in addition to R12 and 2004). The 2012 format enables us to transfer the text background. This especially benefits the "File / Save..." function in the Plan Window. The rounding type for decimal numbers in reports can be set via the "LST File" tab in the CAPLAN General Settings. Apr 22,14: Besides the selection of a layer from the dropdown box, the dialog for editing the object type table now offers a but- ton to create a new layer for the current object type. Apr 11,14: When loading a DTM from LandXML files, exclusion areas were identified incorrectly in some cases if several points had identical coordinates. This error has now been rectified. When dimensioning the distance of two points in the plan window an error occured if the difference in easting was dimensioned although both easting values were identical. The very same applied to the difference in northing if both northing values were identical. has now been rectified. The computation of polar points now allows to assign the station point sequence as internal sequence for the com- putation. When saving a road surface to Wirth format now the file header will be written completely so that the machine con- trol system can read the file directly. Apr 02,14: If, during profile construction, a new horizon was placed in a project that did not yet include the reference align- ment, the construction was lost. This error has now been rectified. Mar 28,14: When loading and saving from/to LandXML format, the DTM now takes into account the breakline information stored directly with each triangle mesh. In the plan creation process, the alignments are now cre- ated as continuous polylines. Hitherto each axis element had been drawn as a single polyline. The intersection of two lines in the Project Window now carries out interpolation of the elevation for all inter- section points at the same time (similar to the Plan Win- dow). The required dialog interaction has thus been simpli- fied. The dialogs for trimming and extending polylines in the Plan Window have been reworked. Now the active polyline will be used as the cutting line. In the dialog, all the polylines that should be trimmed or extended are clicked one after another. A fence mode can now be used to select multiple polylines. This is activated by clicking in free space. Mar 22,14: Loading a DXF file as a background scene now allows the co- ordinate range to be specified explicitly - with this being checked during the import of each drawing element. Mar 21,14: In a few cases, the 7-parameter transformation using con- trol points could not compute a solution. The internal al- gorithm has now been improved so that a solution can be computed in all cases. Loading alignments from DA40 was previously erroneous. This error has now been rectified. Mar 17,14: The stakeout report for GNSS observations from a JobXML file now offers additional information for linear stakeouts and about point precisions. Mar 13,14: When loading points into a project, the dialog "Point Col- lision" will be displayed again if the option "Unique point names" is activated. This was not the case in recent ver- sions. The parameter R61 "Allow overlapping texts (Yes/No)?" has been added to the profile layout. This parameter can be used to define whether all stations and elevations are to be displayed even if they overlap each other or whether some texts are to be moved to the "INVISIBLE" layer in or- der to enhance the legibility of the remaining texts. If the space for inserting the texts without overlapping is insufficient in the profile plan, you can set the profile width (on the "Width" page) to an appropriate value. Mar 12,14: In some cases the hatches inside symbols from a DXF file were detected incorrectly. This has now been rectified. Mar 11,14: The reporting of the network adjustments has been enhanced by the addition of the mode of the adjustment (free/dynamic/ fixed), which is shown in the header of the listing. Mar 10,14: The interpolation of cross sections from points sometimes lead to a program crash. This error has now been rectified. When selecting points by properties, the definition in the tabular mode now allows eastings and northings to be de- fined using a mouse click in the detail window. All the eastings and northings are shown in the dialog preview in order to provide the user with a good overview. Mar 04,14: Intersecting two lines in the project window resulted in an incorrect point elevation if the intersection point was in front of the starting point of the line. This error has now been rectified. Mar 03,14: In the Plan Window, the preview in the polyline dialog when inserting now shows only the path of the lines between the selected points when inserting another polyline. Feb 28,14: The volume computations from horizons and from Elling lines as well as the computation of surfaces from Elling lines now provide the name of the reference alignment <$AXNAME> for the header of the list report. Feb 17,14: When identifying a regular point grid for creating a DTM, the first point was not correctly taken into account if it war the only point in the first column. This error has now been rectified. Feb 14,14: If points have been selected prior to creating a DTM, the "selected points" option will be preset in the "Create new DTM" dialog. Feb 07,14: The MDD data format (from Pfalzwerke Netz AG) is now also available when loading and saving points. Feb 05,14: When loading tacheometry observations from the Leica GSI format, the point code and all point attributes will be re- set if a new station is encountered. Furthermore, all at- tributes will be reset if the point code changes. Feb 03,14: When loading levelling data in the 64bit version of CAPLAN, the staff numbers of assigned staff pairs were not inter- preted correctly. This has now been rectified. When loading tacheometry observations, the option "Rename target to avoid a change of zero" in the "Directions" tab) caused erroneous renamings of point names if multiple sets with two faces were observed. This failure has now been corrected. The projection of points onto a polyline now reports a re- mark 'Bl' if a point lies within a blind corner of a poly- line bend. Jan 31,14: As plans now knows their coordinate systems, this inform- tion can be added to the plan frame using the following new placeholders: <#COORSYS> Reference system - Projection - Central meridian <#COORSYSR> Reference system <#COORSYSP> Projection <#COORSYSM> Central meridian Jan 30,14: The direct computation of elevations when loading leveling data did not always provide improved height corrections if the end points of a leveling line were computed as part of a previously loaded line. The elevations are now correct. Transforming lines to alignments lead to an incorrect elev- ation at the last point of the vertical alignment if a line contained arcs. A side effect of this was incorrect eleva- tions in "Profiles / Generate / From Lines...", as for computation purposes the lines are internally converted to alignments. This error has now been rectified. Jan 27,14: The observations to polar points (side shots) can be exclu- ded when viewing the observations. The dialog for viewing observations provides the appropriate option. The point stack provides the option "Select polar points" for selecting and deselecting all polar points (side shots) in the list in a very efficient way. The comparison of foresights and backsights incorrectly also listed single measured distances. This error has now been rectified. Jan 14,14: The importing of points from Verm/Pro files had been in- correct since the last update was issued in November 2013. This error has now been rectified. If a GND database from Deutsche Bahn does not contain point elevations, no data (points or alignments) could previously be loaded. This situation is now handled correctly. Jan 08,14: The "Identical Names" and "Equal Positions..." reports, as well as the "Edit / Point Names / Identical..." and "Edit / Coordinates / Equal Position..." functions provide the co- ordinate differences to the mean point and also the coord- inate differences to the first point of the point group (Variables ,,, in Section "NameDlg.ListPoints4"). Dec 19,13: Observations can be loaded from the LandXML format created by Leica Viva controllers. However, please do NOT use the Hexagon XML (HeXML) extension when exporting such data. A video instruction is provided on our download page, in the "CAPLAN: External files" section. Dec 16,13: Since the last update issued on December 11th, the plotting of plan frames was incorrect, as areas were shifted or were completly missing. This error has now been rectified. Dec 13,13: When exporting points from the Project Window to DXF format as AutoCAD point elements, the text height and the option "Distinct element layers S/P" were not interpreted cor- rectly. This error has now been rectified. Dec 10,13: When creating excavations, terraces, mounds and slopes using a DTM, varying slope gradients were wrongly assigned using subsequent point. This error has now been rectified. Dec 06,13: The profile construction "Add Point to Left" misinterpreted the slope extension or the specified inclinations. This error has now been rectified. For some tasks in the Plan Window (e.g. slope hatching), the undo mechanism failed. This error has now been recti- fied. Nov 30,13: The line directory has been revised and now provides sever- al new functions that can be applied to the selected lines: - Rename lines - Reverse lines - Close lines The previously available and new functions can be accessed via a selection box. The selection of redundant lines has been transferred to the context menu of the line list. The Project Window now allows displaying of the point at- tributes in the detail window. A new entry for "Attributes" has been added to the view controller for this. The "View Layer Settings" dialog provides a new page for setting the visibility of the the attributes and the screen display of the attribute names. When loading leveling data, the new "Project", "Team" and "Survey" tabs allow additional entries to be added to the [Niv.StartEvaluation] report section, which are identical to the entries used in the fieldbook report. The line directory has a new button "Rename..." for re- naming all the currently selected lines. Unique line names can thus be provided if needed. The button "Reverse" reverses the direction of all selected polylines. In the function "Calculate / Project / To Line...", the projection to a polyline offers edit fields for entering the maximum distance to left and right. Only points which lie inside this corridor will be projected. Possible pre- vious ambiguities can thus be resolved. The dialog lists that offer check marks for selecting lines now provide a new "Highlight selection" entry in the con- text menu for highlighting all the selected lines in blue. The marked (blue) lines can then be edited in one single step. This may be especially useful when editing point at- tributes in the point directory. A plan can now be tranformed to an arbitrary coordinate system using "Calculate / Transformation". Transformations can be applied there using datums or parameters. A trans- formation with control points can be carried out in the Project Window and saved as a set of transformation para- meters. These parameters can then be subsequently accessed in order to transform plans. The command "Edit / Point Names / By Lines..." renumbers all points which serve as line vertices based on the point sequence of the polylines. When creating excavations, mounds etc. using a DTM, the na- mes for the newly created points can be stated in the dia- logs. Nov 29,13: Pressing F1 within a dialog to call the context help lead to a crash of the 64bit version of CAPLAN running on Win- dows 8. This error has now been corrected. Nov 28,13: When loading data from Trimble's JobXML format, point num- bers containing blanks were not interpreted correctly. This error has now been corrected. Difference models out of a DTM volume calculation could not be meshed in every case. Now the meshing of difference mo- dels is correct. Nov 18,13: When creating a plan from a DTM using the 64bit version, some of the isolines were missing their elevation annota- tion. This error has now been corrected. Nov 15,13: The volume calculations using horizons (REB 21.013) and using Elling lines (REB 21.003) now save only the selected positions to the check data recordsets. When inserting cross section templates into a profile plan, the description of the horizons and Elling lines are also displayed, in addition to their visibility in the current profile plan. Loading points from the PKT format from GEOgraf now corr- ectly identifies missing elevations as invalid elevations. When copying a polyline from one project to another via the clipboard, all the attributes of the polyline are now trans- ferred properly. The double underlining of texts in the Plan Window computes the distance of the lines based on the text size. The dist- ance has now been increased slightly. Changing the properties of multiple text elements at once sometimes caused incorrect text fonts and underlining. This error has been amended. ----------------------------------------------------------- Oct 29,13: Release and distribution of version 3.9 ----------------------------------------------------------- Oct 29,13: Cremer Commander, CREDIT and CAPLAN are now available as 64 bit versions. Our setup program recommends the version which corresponds to the current operating system. When installing the 64 bit version of CAPLAN, the 3D viewer VIS-All is unfortunately not yet available. As soon as VIS-All provides a 64 bit version we will add it to our CD. Oct 21,13: Loading DTM files (*.G) and CAPLAN projects containing DTMs has been considerably accelerated, which is particularly noticeable when loading more than 50 000 points. If a great many points should be meshed within a DTM and all the points create a regular grid which is aligned with the coordinate axes then the DTM is constructed in only a few seconds, compared to several minutes previously. Oct 16,13: The computation of railway alignment points using a railway staff (via "Alignments / Railway line / By Profiles...") can be carried out without measuring the alignment point directly. In such cases the alignment point is now not com- puted as the mean of the first and the second point but will be determined as a polar point originating from the first point and with a distance equating to half the length of the railway staff. Loading an alignment from the Verm.esn format now reports all alignment data in detail. Thus the superelevations can be verified. Oct 15,13: When exchanging data via RWE's KOO and KSD formats, the as- signment of the line codes is no longer required. The line codes are directly assigned to the created polylines as ob- ject types. Thus the line codes are no longer restricted to the values 1,2 and 4, but any numerical line codes may be assigned. Oct 02,13: The loading of leveling data has been speeded up consider- ably, especially with regard to large files containig 1000 lines or more. Loading identical leveling data twice resul- ted in duplicate observation data being loaded. Now an in- ternal check prevents CAPLAN from loading such duplicate data. MS Access databases are opened via ODBC. CAPLAN now sear- ches for the appropriate driver. You will find current dri- vers (32bit and 64bit) on out setup disk in the directory EXTERNAL\MSACCESS. The geoid CHGEO04 of Switzerland is now available in CAPLAN. The binary file CHGEO04_ETRF_B.GRD (based on latitude and logitude related to ETRS) can be purchased from swisstopo and has to be copied to the the DAT folder of the CAPLAN installation. The "Turkey ITRF96" reference system was added to CAPLAN. The coordinate system is based on a Gauss-Kruger projection with 3° strip widths not using zone numbers. Recently, a selection of elements in the plan window could not be edited using "Edit" from the context menu. Now this function is available again. Editing by pressing F4 was un- affected. The new 3D object 'sphere' was introduced. It can be compu- ted from a set of points using a best-fit algorithm. The function "Best fit Cylinder" from the 3D objects menu also allows offsets for lateral points to be specified, which will then be considered in the adjustment. This off- set can be stored in a point attribute using the type "Off- set" and can then be used in other computations. The function "Calculate / Single Point / Free Station..." can be carried out as a single point adjustment or alterna- tively as a Helmert transformation. The report for the Hel- mert transformation now lists the residuals of the point coordinates as well. Both functions "Best fit Line" and "Best fit Circle" from the alignment menu now allow specification of offsets for lateral points which will then be considered in the adjust- ment. Such offsets can be stored in a point attribute using the "Offset" type and can then be used in other computa- tions. The 3D objects Plane and Circle also allow lateral points as to have offsets specified and stored in a point attribute with the type "Offset". The meaning of the offset signs (+ or -) is described in detail in the online help. The function "3D Objects / Cylinder / Project Points..." offers the new button "Project..." to unroll a cylinder. This results in a new project being created which contains a plane representing the cylinders surface and all the pro- jected points with cylinder-related coordinates. The height of the points represents the distance to the cylinder bar- rel. These distances can be visualized e.g. by creating a DTM surface. When loading DXF files into the plan window, the edit fields containing the coordinate extents can be unlocked and edi- ted. Thus the import can be confined to an arbitrary coor- dinate extent. The function "List / Points..." now offers the new variable $REFSYS to output the name of the current coordinate system. You can modify the desired list template section via "Set- tings / List Template...". The display of profile lines and surfaces in the project window can now use the color of the corresponding alignment to visually emphasize the link between alignment, profiles and surface. If several projects are opened simlutaneously in one CAPLAN session, you can now save all the projects at once without any further query on exiting CAPLAN. Besides the menu entry "File / Save All..." a new button "Save all" was added to the toolbar just to the right of the "Save" button. By Clicking this new button all open projects will be saved immediately. The screen display was improved considerably. By using dou- ble-buffering the flickering was removed and the speed was improved by 20% to 30%. The functions for creating excavations, heaps, terraces and slopes from a DTM now have improved checks of slope gradi- ents and remove points from the baseline if their slope planes intersect before reaching the DTM surface. Thus only the important slope planes will be intersected with the DTM surface and will create a clear intersection line. Additionally, the dialog preview shows the exact intersec- tion lines with the DTM surface in order to provide a very realistic impression of the construction. As already possible in the plan window, when drawing a po- lyline in the project window specific vertices of an exist- ing polyline can be added to the current vertices. The re- sult is immediately shown in the preview. An important task has been added to the profile construc- tions. Now cross section templates, consisting of horizon and Elling lines, can be inserted into existing cross sec- tions. The horizon lines are available for subsequent con- structions like intersections or extensions. Afterwards the horizons and the Elling lines can be directly used for vol- ume computations. Existing cross sections can easily be added to the collec- tion of cross section templates for later use. Sep 12,13: The new 3D object 'sphere' was introduced. It can be compu- ted out of points using a best-fit algorithm. The functions "Best fit Cylinder" from the 3D objects menu as well allows to specify offsets for lateral points which will then be considered in the adjustment. This offset can be stored in a point attribute of type "Offset" and can then be used in further computations. Sep 11,13: In few cases levelling data from Zeiss format was reco- gnised incorrectly considering the language version of the Zeiss file. The language check was improved today. Sep 10,13: Importing polylines into the DTM was enhanced. Now at first all polylines were checked whether the vertex points are not yet part of the DTM but can be added to the DTM. Vertex points without elevation which lie outside the DTM region will be ignored when importing the polylines. The function "Calculate / Single Point / Free Station..." can be carried out as a single point adjustment or alterna- tively as a Helmert transformation. The report for the Hel- mert transformation now lists the residuals of the point coordinates as well. Sep 09,13: Both functions "Best fit Line" and "Best fit Circle" from the alignment menu allow to specify offsets for lateral points which will then be considered in the adjustment. This offset can be stored in a point attribute of type "Offset" and can then be used in further computations. The 3D objects Plane and Circle allow lateral points as well specifying an offset which likewise can be stored in a point attribute of type "Offset". The meaning of the off- sets sign is described in detail in the online help. The function "3D Objects / Cylinder / Project Points..." offers the new button "Project..." to wind up the cylinder. To do this, a new project is created which contains a plane representing the cylinders surface and all projected points in cylinder related coordinates. The height of the points represents the distance to the cylinder barrel. These dis- tances can be visualized e.g. by building a DTM surface. Sep 03,13: When loading DXF files into the plan window the edit fields containing the coordinate extents can be unlocked and edi- ted. Thus the import can be confined to an arbitrary coor- dinate extent. The function "List / Points..." now offers the new variable $REFSYS to output the name of the current coordinate system. You can modify the desired list template section via "Set- tings / List Template...". The display of profile lines and surfaces in the project window can now use the color of the corresponding alignment to visually emphasize the cohesion of alignment, profiles and surface. If several projects are opened simlutaneously in one CAPLAN session, now you can save all projects at once without any further query on exiting CAPLAN. Besides the menu entry "File / Save All..." a new button "Save all" was added to the toolbar just right to the but- ton "Save". By Clicking this new button all open projects will be saved immediately. The screen display was vitally improved. By using double- buffering the flickering was removed and the speed was im- roved by 20% to 30%. Sep 02,13: Building an excavation, a heap, a terrace or a slope out of a DTM now improves the checks of the slope planes and re- moves points from the base line if their slope planes inter- sect before reaching the DTM surface. Thus only the impor- tant slope planes will be intersected with the DTM surface an will create a clear intersection line. Additionally the dialog preview shows the exact intersec- tion lines with the DTM surface to provide a close to re- ality impression of the construction . Aug 16,13: Since the last update the project window placed background data wrong which was read from DXF. This error was amended today. Loading observations from tacheometry now show '???' for multiple measured elevation differences if the standard de- viation exceeds the specified limit. Aug 12,13: As already possible in the plan window, when drawing a po- lyline in the project window specific vertices of an exist- ing polyline can be added to the current vertices. The re- sult is immediately shown in the preview. An important task was added to the profile constructions. Now cross section templates, consisting of horizon and El- ling lines, can be inserted into existing cross sections. The horizon lines are available for subsequent construc- tions like intersections or extensions. Afterwards the ho- horizons and the Elling lines can be directly used for vol- ume computations. Existing cross sections can easily be added to the collec- tion of cross section templates for later use. Besides the old reference system CH1903 (LV03) now the new reference system LV95 is available in CAPLAN. To transform between these reference systems the Federal Office of Topo- graphy swisstopo offers the software FINELTRA. As well they provide the NTv2 grid CHENYX06a to their customers. After copying the file CHENYX06a.asc (ASCII) to the DAT folder of the CP installation CAPLAN recognizes the grid and offers it for transformations between LV03 and LV95. Aug 06,13: When loading points from the GND-Edit database of Deutsche Bahn AG unfortunately the first point was ignored. This er- ror was amended today. The function "List / Compare / Points..." in the project window reports all points from the second project as if they would not exist in the first project. This error was was corrected today. Aug 06,13: In rare cases creating slope hatches unfortunately fails to create all desired hatch lines. Changing the new parameter "Weight for direction transition" (default value 0.5) can lead to success in these special cases. Aug 05,13: The evaluation of levelling observations was improved in several issues: - The report of a levelling line offers separate sums of sight lengths for backsights and foresights (, in sections [Niv.EvaluateLine5/6]). - The observation report offers and as well in in sections [Niv.ListLine5/6]. Additionally a total sum of all sight lengths over alls lines can be re- ported in the section [Niv.ListEnd] using (over all), (backsights) and (foresights). - Determine single-way levelling lines was amended and re- ports the lines to the ERR file as well. - The dialog "Calcualte / Elevations..." now offers the button "Tolerance" to edit the elevation error tolerance. - The orthometric height reduction (via "Observations / Radial / Orthometric..." resp. in building a network) will only be carried out if both points of a line have valid plan coordinates. Otherwise no correction will be computed and a warning will be reported to the ERR file. Aug 02,13: When creating sections through a DTM while multiple pro- jects are open at the same time an error occured which was amended today. Displaying the profile station in the project window unfor- tunately did not consider the selected profile color. Now the stations will correctly be shown using the selected profile color. Because of the update of our zip software 7zip to a new version for some weeks projects and plans could not be saved for handover if their names containes umlauts. This error was amended today. Jul 26,13: The company Pfalzwerke Netz AG exchange their survey data using the MDD data format. Now CAPLAN can load MDD files and store them again after editing the data. Jul 25,13: The SurvCE resp. SurfPC software by Carlson is often used by instrument manufacturers to control the instruments. Now CAPLAN can extract points and lines from Carlsons original RW5 format. Jul 22,13: Hitherto, when entering points via "Edit / Point Entry / Table..." using point names with invalid characters , ; ? * the transfer to the project was interrupted reaching the first invalid point name. Now first of all the point names are checked for validity and can be corrected. The transfer of the points will not be started until all point names are valid. Jul 19,13: In the plan window the dialog for importing a polyline now shows an improved preview with direction signs at every ver- tex and with the catenations to the original polyline. Jul 15,13: The GNSS stakeout report for Trimble JobXML data now re- ports the real point names and codes of the staked out points. The plan area management now offers an overlap region when duplicating a plan area. Thus the transition between two plan areas is shown in both of them. The width of the plan area can be widened for exact folding with one click, just as is possible when creating plan frames. As in the project window, the symbols in the plan window have a point name. With "Edit / Symbols / Rename" these point names can be renamed similarly to in the project win- dow. Jul 12,13: An important function was added to the point selection in the project window. Via "Edit / Select / By Properties..." you can use all point properties (like name, coordinates, object type, attributes) as criteria for logical queries. For the first time this offers a flexible selection using the point attributes. Jul 11,13: Zooming operations involving the definition of a zoom win- dow can now be accelerated by holding down the ALT or SHIFT key while clicking the corners of the window defining the zoom area. Jul 05,13: When editing a road surface, the current lane can now also be selected by clicking with the mouse in the detail win- dow. It will then be shown in the preview. When editing a single lane, the list of stations, widths and crossfalls is always shown in ascending order based on the stations. Jun 26,13: When shifting coordinates by dialog the coordinate differ- ences can be computed from a newly clicked point to the pre- vious point every time when the focus is set to one of the shift entry fields or the new coordinates fields. This works both in the project as well as in the plan window. Don't forget to switch on the point snap in the plan window. The shift vector will be displayed via the dialog preview. Jun 24,13: In few cases the volume computation out of horizons used a wrong factor based on the alignments curvature if the cross section area was very small. This error was amended today. Jun 21,13: In the plan window the scope of the point snap and of the element selection were revised. Hitherto each dialog remem- bered the last state of these two options by itself and re- stored it on the next call. Now both these settings are in effect until they are changed by the user. Some dialogs as the selection of elements within a polygon or the hatching of slopes assume a certain state of the options. These dia- logs force the appropriate setting and lock the buttons. Afterwards the original settings will be restored. The point snap shows the red square without a function be- ing started and thus supports selecting single elements. >>>>>>> .merge-right.r1289 Jun 26,13: The dialogs for shifting coordinates now allow coordinate differences to be computed from a newly clicked point to the previous point and entered in the shift fields. This is possible when the focus is set to one of the shift entry fields or the new coordinates fields. This works in the project as well as in the plan window. The point snap should be activated for this in the plan window. The shift vector will be displayed in the dialog's preview. Jun 24,13: In a few cases, the volume computation using horizons used an incorrect factor based on the alignment's curvature if the cross section area was very small. This error was rec- tified today. Jun 21,13: In the plan window, the scope of the point snap and of the element selection have been revised. Hitherto each dialog remembered the last state of these two options by itself and restored these on the next call. Now both these set- tings remain in effect until they are actively changed by the user. Some dialogs, such as the selection of elements within a polygon or the hatching of slopes, require the option to have a specific state. These dialogs therefore automatically change the appropriate setting and lock the buttons. Afterwards, the original settings are restored. The point snap displays a red square if no dialog is active and thus assists with the selecting of individual elements. Staking out one or all lanes of a road surface now remem- bers the object type of the newly created points until the next call of the dialog. Jun 14,13: The dialog "DTM / Interpolate / Sections..." allows you to reverse a section line with one click. Furthermore, the list of section lines offers a context menu and the DEL key to remove section lines from the list. The "Layout" button offers an option to assign a fixed re- ference height for all sections. Saving points to files in CSV format now writes all point attributes as well. Jun 10,13: The format file TPS1200_Z.FRT is used for Leica instruments in order to transfer observations to Z files. This previ- ously used the units set in the instrument for the transfer. As a result, angles were sometimes written to Z-files in degrees although CAPLAN was expecting gons. The FRT file has been reworked so that the distance unit is fixed as me- ters and the angle unit is fixed as gons. The updated file TPS_1200_Z.FRT will be distributed on our CDs and is avail- able for download at www.cpentw.de/download_en.htm under the heading "CAPLAN: External Files". The calculation of surfaces from profiles and the volume computation according to Elling now report the length and the area of each individual Elling line when the verbose list mode is selected. Jun 06,13: GNSS baselines which were computed using the WA1 software from WaSoft (Prof. Wanninger, Dresden) can now be loaded into CAPLAN. The necessary EXT files are created with WA1 using the command line option *E+NS1,NS2,CX1,CX2,BCX,BSX,BXX,AH1,AH2,AMB,TSG,TEG Jun 05,13: Hitherto, the DAO programming interface was used to handle Microsoft Access databases. DAO is not supported by 64bit Windows. Hence the programming interface ODBC will now be used for accessing databases. Some program errors were rectified: - Exporting a surface to LandXML wrote empty lanes. Now it notifies the user if the vertical alignment is shorther than the surface. - Deleting a profile horizon in the project window was in- correct. - The stations in DA68 (volumes from cross sections) were not rounded correctly. - The point origin from NAS data was partly read from the wrong XML tag. - The dialog for administrating leveling rods sometimes gave rise to CAPLAN crashing. Jun 04,13: In addition to the manual assignment of properties, the function "Edit / Selected Elements / Properties..." in the plan window has a new tab for transfering properties of a specific element to all the selected elements. Depending on the type of the selected elements, the layer, color and/ or pen weight can be transferred or, in the case of identi- cal element types, all the element properties can be as- signed to the selected elements. In the project window, a parallel line will now always be created as a new polyline. The corresponding changes have been made to all relevant functions. May 16,13: The transformation of DXF files in some cases handled poly- lines with extrusions incorrectly. This has been rectified. The transformation of very shallow arcs has been amended as well. May 15,13: The file dialog now interprets a file filter e.g. *.K cor- rectly again and shows a list of all filtered files. When entering a file name with a full path in the edit field of the file dialog e.g. D:\Data\Test.DAT, the full filename will now be interpreted correctly even if a different path is set in the file list. May 08,13: The display of cross sections in the project window was ex- tended by adding the profile stations. Navigation in the project window is thereby enhanced. May 06,13: Exporting a DTM to DXF format creates a file in DXF version R12 format. Unfortunately a programming error resulted in incorrect values for the DXF variable EXTMIN and EXTMAX. Thus the DXF file was corrupted. This error was amended today. May 02,13: The dialog to hatch a slope in the plan window shows a sketch to emphasize that the lower boundary of the slope has to be clicked first. The lower boundary can be changed while in the dialog by clicking on another polyline. Sometimes the adjusted coordinates from a network adjust- ment were inadvertently not added to the project. An excla- mation mark therefore now highlights the option to add the adjusted coordinates. The dialog "Help / About CAPLAN..." now also shows if the program has been compiled for the 32 bit or 64 bit Windows environment. ----------------------------------------------------------- Apr 30,13: Release and distribution of version 3.5 ----------------------------------------------------------- Apr 26,13: When drawing a polyline/area in the plan window the element selection will be considered if you want to import a line. Additionally the line direction will be displayed at every vertex point. The warning that the current layer is turned off was re- moved from the layer controller. Although the check for the current layer to be turned off is furthermore executed when creating new drawing elements. Apr 23,13: The state office for geographic base data and surveying in the German state of Saxony now offers the new NTv2 grid file NTv2_SN.asc for transforming coordinates from RD/83 to ETRSD89. The grid is available at www.landesvermessung.sachsen.de/inhalt/etrs/ method/method.html#ntv2 After copying the grid file to the DAT folder of the CAPLAN installation, the datum transformation provides the new me- thod "NTv2 - Saxony 2013: RD83 -> ETRS89" This method replaces the older grid SaeTA2010.asc. Apr 19,13: Staking out a single lane of a road surface now offers new options for the height computation of the string line. Hi- therto, the elevation was based on the lane extension. Now it can be based directly on the lane elevation as well. Apr 10,13: Hitherto, the point stack dialog applied fixed tolerances for point computations (0.30m horizontal, 0.60m vertical). The dialog now makes it possible to edit these values to cater for specific accuracy requirements. The file filter for loading horizontal and vertical align- ments from ProVI files was changed to A????.* and T????.*. Thus, all files with extensions are made available in the file dialog as well. The reports for computing point offsets, station points and detail points for alignments now offer the new variable $AXIS1 to output the name of the alignment for every com- puted point. Observations in the Leica GSI format can consist of both slope distance and reduced horizontal distance. Hitherto CAPLAN imported both these distances, which could lead to differences because of the horizontal distance being pos- sibly reduced geometrically. Now only the slope distance will be loaded. In such cases a reminder note is written to the ERR file. Apr 05,13: Regarding the inclusion of the attribute definitions in DXF block definitions, the group code 280 with DXF version R12 has been output incorrectly since December 2012. This error was rectified today. Apr 04,13: The display of alignments in the project window now offers several additional options, which can be set separately for each individual alignment: - Visibility and color - Show alignment name - Show stations of main points - Show periodic stations All these viewing parameters are stored in the project file and can be edited via the view controller dialog "Align- ments Display". The color of images inserted in the plan window can be chan- ged e.g. to a color gradient. For some image formats the recoloring failed under Windows XP. This error was recti- fied today. Apr 03,04: If the point stack was being computed without using any control points, this sometimes resulted in a break in the computation (i.e. not all points were computed) if the con- figuration of the observations was ambiguous. Now the algo- rithm has been stabilized and provides correct results in in the majority of cases. Mar 27,13: The first parameter for the orthometric reduction of level- led height differences depends on the latitude of the pro- ject area. Now this parameter can be edited prior to the reduction. When transforming a DXF file all block definitions with an insertion point different from 0,0 were not transformed. This error was rectified today. Mar 15,13: The plan generation has been enhanced and now offers many additional features: - Plan generation can be restricted to previously selected points. - The object type can also be added as a label for points. - Longitudinal sections can be drawn. The layer structure for the generated plan entities can be managed more precisely and more flexibly: - For each class of objects you can independently define whether the layer will be derived from the object type (concerning points, elevations and lines) or from the ob- ject name (concerning all other object classes). - Within the object classes, the generated plan entities can be assigned to different layers. For these layers, the prefix and suffix (hitherto P/S/H...) can be defined by the user via layer masks. The subdialogs for the plan generation have been adapted to manage the layer structure of the object classes in each subdialog as well as to manage it in the overarching "Options" dialog. Mar 13,13: Loading data in LandXML format that originated from Leica instruments in some cases resulted in a program crash. This error was rectified today. The internal defined text fonts INSONORM and DIN16/17 did not contain a representation for the characters ² ³. These representations were added today. The text fonts are part of the download "CAPLAN Workbook". Feb 27,13: The NTv2 grid transformation for Bavaria was not correctly integrated in CAPLAN. This error was rectified today. The profile construction of a left/right border in some cases did not use the correct reference point. This error has been rectified. Feb 20,13: KML files from Google Earth can now be loaded into the plan window using the file type "Google Earth (*.KML)" from the "Load Lines" dialog. Placemarks are transformed into points whereas paths and polygons are loaded as polylines. To dif- ferentiate the data thematically, the CAPLAN object type will be derived from the description field in the KML file. Feb 18,13: The NTv2 grid transformation for the German state of Bremen has been added to CAPLAN. The NTv2 file is available from www.geo.bremen.de/sixcms/detail.php?gsid=bremen04.c.7287.de After saving the grid file HBTa2010.gsa in the DAT folder of the CAPLAN installation, the datum transformations in CAPLAN are able to access this new grid file. Feb 08,13: Profile construction functionality in cross section plans was extended with the option to combine two horizons. The first horizon can be extended or a new horizon containing combined profile data can be created. The toolbar for profile construction continues to grow. It has therefore now been divided into five smaller parts, which can be placed individually in the program. Feb 07,13: In the plan window, the layer manager and the layer select- ion in the dialog for selecting objects by means of their properties both use a dropdown box with check boxes. These boxes now offer a context menu not only when closed but when open as well. The shortcuts Ctrl+A, Ctrl-Shift+A, "+", "-" and "*" allow a more rapid selection (as is the case in the point list in the project window). Feb 06,13: No functions for profile construction are available in mirrored cross sections. However, the CAD drawing elements were locked for edit operations anyway in such cases. This lock has now been removed. Jan 28,13: Since the last update issued on Friday 25th of January, an error has given rise to program crashes when accessing files from network drives. This error was rectified today. Please update your installation immediately if you have loaded a recent update since 25th of January. When using ETRS coordinates, a very special set of circum- stances resulted in a program crash when editing a single point. This error was rectified today. Jan 23,13: When using a hidden point rod with Trimble instruments the observations to the tip of the rod are computed and stored. With the new option "Primary observations from DualPrisms" the original observations to the prisms are loaded into CAPLAN rather than the calculated values. With this approach the prism 99 is assigned to such observations. After defin- ing a hidden point rod with number 99 in the prism directory (two prisms and correction 0.0), CAPLAN can compute the ob- servations to the tip of the hidden point rod by itself. Jan 22,13: Adding a DTM to the current one was improved. Now the se- cond DTM may be divided into several parts but will still be correctly integrated into the current DTM. Jan 21,13: When entering points related to a reference line, a new op- tion allows you to relate the station/offset coordinates to the previous point. Thus, for example, points stated on a dimensioning chain can be entered very easily. Jan 17,13: Regarding the DXF export from the plan window, the option "Only used layers" previously wrote all drawing layers to the DXF layer table. Now only the layers that are actually used by drawing elements will be output. Jan 16,13: In the plan window, the dimensioning of a distance now re- members the most recently entered offsets from the base line. Dimensioning text for a polyline (length or gradient text) can now be defined using a lateral offset from the line leg. Jan 15,13: In the plan window, polylines can be filled and thereby be transformed into area elements. Hitherto the original poly- lines were removed. Now the user can decide whether the po- lylines are to be removed or retained. Jan 11,13: After updating our development environment to a newer ver- sion, some errors occurred when outputting reports, if ang- les were stated in degrees. This error occurred on December 19th and was rectified today. With regard to profile construction, the function "Add left/ right" allows additional units to be used to specify grad- ients. Besides 1:n and percent, degrees and gons are now also accepted. Jan 07,13: A long-awaited function for DTM was added: the merging of two DTMs. Via "DTM / Model / Add DTM ..." a second DTM (which is al- ready open) can be added to the current DTM. Both original triangulation meshes will be maintained, including consid- eration of outer borders, breaklines and exclusion areas. A new triangulation mesh will only be created in the over- lapping area. Dec 21,12: During the DXF export, CAPLAN can create block attributes that are directly connected to point symbols. Thus the com- plete original point data is available in your CAD applica- tion. The block attributes will now be added directly to the block definition as so called attribute definition entities, which facilitates attribute editing in AutoCAD. The export dialogs provide a new "Attributes visible" option via which it can be specified whether or not the attributes should be visible in AutoCAD. Invisible attributes can en- hance the legibility of plans if they contain annotations such as point names and elevations. Dec 21,12: The dialog for creating a plan frame processes the mouse input from the detail window according to the currently ac- tive dialog element. E.g. with the focus on the edit field for easting or northing the plan area can be moved. When the rotation field was enabled the focus sometimes switched inadvertently to another dialog control. This error was rectified today. Dec 19,12: We can now release the first program version developed using the new development environment. This is evident from the new appearance of the toolbar boxes. All the existing CAPLAN features have of course been retained. This new en- vironment gives us the chance to access and make use of Microsoft's new technologies. IMPORTANT for all users with a DONGLE: Please load and in- stall the new version 6.51 of the HASP dongle driver from our download page. In a DTM, CAPLAN generally allows only one outer border. In a few special cases, however, such as when creating a diff- erence model, the new DTM can consist of two or more outer borders that give rise to 'islands' in the DTM. This is checked by CAPLAN during loading of DTMs, and previously such additional outer borders were automatically removed in such cases. However, this was not always desired, so the user can now decide whether to retain this 'invalid' border or to delete it. Dec 17,12: When saving plans, CAPLAN verifies if all plans that are shown in viewports are included in the saving. Additionally it is verified if all plans showing the selected plans in viewports (normally frame plans) are included in the saving. When the point snap in the plan window identifies a poly- line vertex the height of the vertex will now be taken into consideration as well. Dec 13,12: A new profile construction function was added. Now a horiz- on or an Elling line can be renamed at several stations at once via "Profiles / Horizon / Rename..." and "Profiles / Elling / Rename...". The definition of a lateral boundary in profiles can now use not only a reference to the center line, but also to any existing profile point, which enhances the flexibility of this function. When loading DXF files to a project or to the plan window a new "Factor" allows all the coordinates imported from DXF to be multiplied by a factor. If, for example, a DXF unit equates to one millimeter (which is the case in some archi- tectural plans) the factor 0.001 transforms millimeters to meters during loading into CAPLAN. Additionally the filter lists for layers now only select the visible layers by default, thus allowing import of only the visible entities from a DXF file with one click. Dec 07,12: All transformations with control points now offer the con- text menu in each point list to allow point selection and editing of the point weight. Dec 06,12: The formatting of negative stations referring to alignments was reworked. Now the stations are displayed on screen and listed in the reports as in the following examples: - Station -1230.00 will be formatted as -1-230.00 - Station -487.00 will be formatted as 0-487.00 LeicaGeoOffice (LGO) exports observation data from the 1200 system formatted as LandXML. Due to variations in LandXML some cases occurred that CAPLAN could not interpret cor- rectly. Now observation data formatted as LandXML will be imported correctly from LGO. Displaying the height bands of a DTM takes a very long time if the band interval is set to a very small value compared to the height range of the DTM. This also slows down the export to VIS-All. Hence, CAPLAN now checks the interval of the height bands and increases it if necessary to speed up displaying the height bands and exporting the DTM to VIS-All. Nov 30,12: When performing profile constructions it is useful to be able to identify profile points not only by mouse clicks but also by point names. Hence we have defined reference names to enable accessing of points in a profile horizon, as the true names of the profile points are arbitrarily set. The reference name assigned to a point relates to the cross section: - From left to right the points are named L1,L2,L3 etc. in ascending order. - From right to left the points are named R1,R2,R3 etc. in descending order. - Beginning at the center line, the center line point is named A. To the left the points are named 1A,2A,3A etc. in descending order. To the right the points are named A1,A2,A3 etc. in ascending order. Thus each profile point can be accessed - which allows new functions and permits extensions in older constructions: - Remove profile points across several stations. - Copy horizon within a specific range - Add point to left/right referencing a specific point - Add fillet to left/right referencing a specific point Nov 26,12: Transforming DXF elements with an extrusion <> (0,0,1) some- times resulted in incorrect coordinates. The extrusion vec- tor of all the DXF elements will therefore be set as (0,0,1). Extrusions not equal to (0,0,1) often occur in DXF files ex- ported from Microstation because Microstation exports its 3D line strings as 2D polylines with extrusions if they con- sist of only two or three points. Please note: In particular with such 2D polylines, the ele- vation of the vertices will be changed due to the new ex- trusion. Nov 21,12: DXF elements with an extrusion vector not equal to (0,0,1) were sometimes transformed incorrectly during the transfor- mation of DXF files. This error was rectified today. Nov 16,12: With regard to the transformation of DXF files between glo- bal coordinate systems, the height transformations now also take the assigned geoid data into account. Nov 15,12: The guideline 883.002 from the Deutsche Bahn AG states two sets of parameters for datum transformations between DB_REF and ERTS89. Only the second one "DB_REF nach ETRS89" enables CAPLAN to transform correctly in both directions. The fixed parameters "Germany DB_REF" were updated accordingly. Nov 14,12: At the request of many users, we have enhanced the point snap in the plan window. Now the vertices of polylines and areas are snapped to even if the points have no symbol. When printing plans on a large format plotter or outputting them to PDF format, the paper size can be adapted to the size of the current plan by activating the option "Adapt paper size to plan extents". Thus the paper fits exactly to the plan. When printing to a PDF file, the name of the current plan will be proposed as the PDF file name. Nov 07,12: When changing the referenced plan within a viewport the view area will be retained if both plans, the old one and the new one, overlap each other. Otherwise the newly refer- enced plan will be displayed completely in the viewport. Nov 05,12: The new function "DTM / Interpolate / Elevation difference" takes points that are not part of the DTM and computes the difference between the point height and the height of the DTM surface at this point position. ----------------------------------------------------------- Oct 31,12: Release and distribution of version 3.4 ----------------------------------------------------------- Oct 31,12: Shortly after the editorial deadline of our "colored pages" the NTv2 grid transformations for the German states of Ham- burg and Brandenburg were added to CAPLAN. The NTv2 files can be purchased from the regional authorities - Hamburg: "NTv2_FHH.gsa" - Brandenburg: "bb3040h.gsa" After saving the grid files in the DAT folder of the CAPLAN installation, the datum transformations in CAPLAN can access these new grid files. Oct 22,12: The reporting of DTM triangles offers a new variable called $POS, which describes whether the third point of a triangle lies to the left (L) or to the right (R) of the first two points. In other words it describes the direction of the triangle: L = counter-clockwise / R = clockwise. The observation date of a cross section can now be shown in the profile layout using the placeholder <#CSOBSDATE>. The current observation dates are taken from the file OBSDATE.DAT in the project directory. The file contains lines in the format "Station | Date" and looks as follows: 1150.0000 | 06/23/2012 1170.0000 | 06/25/2012 Oct 19,12: In the plan creation, the drawing of alignments parameters has been improved by replacing the radius with a clothoid parameter when drawing a transition curve. Oct 18,12: When creating a DTM border, the checking of the new border has been improved to avoid the generation of independent islands. Oct 17,12: With Trimble instruments, captured images can be assigned to points. Now these images can be transfered from the JobXML file to CAPLAN as point attributes using the 'Image' field. This procedure is available for points and also for observations. When editing polar observations the hyperlinks stated in the point attributes are now treated as real hyperlinks like it is already possible in the point directory. Oct 15,12: The line dialogs in the project window as well as the dia- log for DTM lines now store the option "Scroll detail win- dow" persistently. Thus the setting will be retained for when the next call is made to the dialog. With regard to the network adjustment, the standard devi- ations of the points were previously transferred to the point attributes with incorrect values if, with low redun- dancy, the standard deviations were computed from the a priori values. This error was rectified today. With the intersection of two lines in the project window, the intersection point was set to an elevation of 0.0 even if no elevation was to be computed. Now the elevation will be removed in such cases. Sep 28,12: Hitherto, when accessing plan area definitions in the plan creation, only the plan areas that matched the entered scale were made available for selection. Now all plan areas are made available and the scale of the selected plan area is set as the plan scale. The point directory in some cases identified point names as hyperlinks by mistake. Now the identification of hyperlinks is considerably more robust. In addition, an attribute may contain multiple hyperlinks (separated by '>'). In such cases a mouse click on such an entry creates a context menu offering all the links for selection. Sep 19,12: In the plan creation, when presenting regular stations al- ong alignments, labels are now added for the starting and end stations. When loading levelling data, the temperature coded in the raw data file was sometimes not read. This error occured on Windows XP stations and has been rectified today. Sep 12,12: The individual coloring of height bands within a DTM can be saved to and restored from a so called CLG file. If the elevation range from a loaded CLG file differs signifi- cantly from the current DTM the elevations from the CLG file now can be adjusted to the DTMs elevation range. CAPLAN is not yet capable of directly reading DWG files from AutoCAD. Thus DWG files have to be converted to DXF format so that CAPLAN can load the data. For this pur- pose the page http://www.opendesign.com/guestfiles/TeighaFileConverter offers a DWG/DXF converter at no charge. For editing DWG files we recommend the CAD software BricsCAD (www.bricscad.com) which offers almost all the functionality of AutoCAD for much less cost. Sep 05,12: Transferring contour lines and height bands to the plan window lead to erroneous results in some cases caused by very small elevation differences of a few mm. This error has been rectified today. While making this change, the "If equal elevation add value" parameter was also removed from the smoothing parameters. Aug 28,12: The parameter management of plan frames (FRM files) and profile layouts (PRM files) has been completely renewed. - The old two-digit pen was finally replaced by a new pen which had already been used in the plan window for seve- ral years. Thus, the color selection is no longer limited to seven colors but has been extended to 24bit RGB. - The selection of symbols and line types is no longer re- stricted to numerical symbols and line types. All names can be used. The dialogs for plan frame generation and profile layout now offer new dialog controls beneath the list for editing the current line. Direct editing in the list is no longer possible. As part of these changes, the format of the FRM and PRM files was updated. Thereby the maximum number of bands in profile plans is no longer restricted to nine bands but has been extended to 20 bands. Aug 20,12: When drawing ridge lines in a DTM, a ridge line may not in- tersect itself. Hitherto an internal error occured if this was the case. Now ridge lines are immediately checked for intersections during creation and the user is prompted to make corrections if necessary. Aug 17,12: The line directory in a project offers the identification and selection of redundant lines. This process now also in- cludes the rounding curves in polylines. Aug 16,12: A double click on the list header separators causes the width of the current column to be adjusted to the visible text entries. In some cases, especially in the the point list, the column width was set so small that it was almost impossible to read. This error has been rectified. Aug 13,12: In some cases, profile plans have to be furnished with the UTM coordinates of the starting and end points of profile lines. The profile layout therefore offers new placeholders <#ESTART> and <#NSTART> representing the easting and north- ing of the starting point and <#EEND> and <#NEND> repre- senting the easting and northing of the end point. Aug 10,12: The dialog for selecting drawing elements in the plan win- dow by their properties (called via "Edit / Select / By Properties...") has been enhanced. Now all properties of the drawing elements (e.g. text height, text font, line style etc.) can be applied to the selection filter. The layer combo box now offers check marks to select multi- ple layers. Thus you can select elements lying on different layers in one go. With the help of this dialog you can select elements for subsequent editing using "Edit / Selected Elements / Pro- perties...". Aug 06,12: If points or polylines in the project window contain hyper- links in the attributes, these attributes are now listed in the respective element's context menu and can be clicked to access the hyperlink content. When selecting multiple elements in the plan window the call to "Edit..." via the context menu unfortunately resul- ted in a program crash. This error was rectified today. Aug 01,12: In the plan window, the dialog for editing the properties of multiple elements has been reworked. Now all the proper- ties of similar elements (e.g. texts) can be edited toge- ther (e.g. size, rotation, achor point, etc.). Thus editing plans is much more flexible. The first element of vertical alignments loaded from Topo- rail was previously interpreted i ncorrectly if it was a curve. This error was rectified today. The license check for network licenses has been reworked. Hitherto the drive ID was checked, which could change on each login. Now the network domain controller will be quer- ied instead. Access was quite slow in some networks so the access procedure has been optimised. Jul 30,12: The dialog "Help / About CAPLAN..." now displays direct links to our homepage www.cpentw.de and to our mail address info@cpentw.de. Jul 27,12: As as is the case with points, the polylines in a project can now handle up to eight free attributes. For editing the attribute values of points and lines, the relevant dialogs now offer a new tab page called "Attributes". On this page the attribute values can be changed via double click or via the list's context menu. When surveying river cross sections the center line of the river will in many cases be derived from a polyline. Thus the center line may bend at the section stations. If the cross sections in CAPLAN were generated from points and the cross section points were afterwords transformed back to the reference system via "Profiles / Transform...", the points at such bending stations were not previously always correctly transformed. The transformation has now been re- worked and acts consistently now. Jul 26,12: The list report outputs character strings with their full lengths when formatted with the place holder "<>". Thus long file names may previously have gone beyond the end of the line. Now in such cases the lengthy strings are broken at the end of the line, which enhances the readability of the report. Jul 24,12: The reports for deriving profiles from points via "Profiles / Generate / From Points..." and "Profiles / Generate / Single Cross Section..." now also include point attributes. The point attributes are also available in the profile report generated by "Profiles / Edit..." and in the report generated by "Profiles / Transform...". The task "Profiles / Generate / From Points..." has been improved with regard to calculating the profile lines used for cross sections by implementing a similar algorithm as used in drawing the profile lines. Profiles now allow multiple points with identical stations/ lateral distances/elevations, provided that the point names are different and that the option "Unique point names" has been activated. Jul 18,12: The point dialog now displays file names or links to web- sites that are part of the point attributes as hyperlinks, so that the files or websites can be opened with a click. Thus for example an image can be assigned to a point and can be displayed immediately with a click. Further dialogs will be adapted in the same way soon. When loading a DTM from REB data format DA45/DA30 and DA58, the leading zeros were not in every case trimmed from the point names correctly. In such cases the triangulation failed. Now the leading zeros are generally trimmed from all data lines. Jul 11,12: The new "Draw / Viewports..." dialog in the plan window can draw the borders of all the viewports from other plans that show the current plan. Thus the current plan can display all the areas shown in the viewports. Jul 09,12: Our licences for educational establishments are delivered with a USB dongle which only has to be present during setup. At run time the dongle is not required. During recent weeks an error occured in the software which caused CAPLAN to rev- ert to DEMO mode. This error was corrected today. Jul 06,12: The dialog for computing the offsets of points from align- ments allows the pedal points to be added to the current project. In such cases the elevation difference to the ver- tical alignment was previously not correctly computed. This error was corrected today. Jul 04,12: When writing points to the Verm/pro format, the horizontal state was previously fixed at a value of 100. As of now, a dialog allows the horizontal state to be entered by the user. Jun 29,12: When computing volumes between horizons according to REB 21.013, the definitions of positions is converging with the rules of DA68 and now allows positions at which horizons can alternate and assigned station ranges apply. Thereby computation boundaries can be introduced. The creation of new plan frames now accesses all the attr- ibutes of the new plan area definitions and takes into acc- ount the parameters assigned automatically or from the FRM file. The list of plan areas lists only entries with an assigned scale that corresponds to the current plan. Hitherto, changing a plan's scale retrospectively was only possible using a workaround. Now, accessed via "File / Prop- erties..." or via "Properties..." from the plan list's con- text menu, the "Properties" dialog allows the option to change not only the plan name but also the plan scale. Changing the scale is only possible with plans that are not yet referenced from another plan via a viewport. Jun 21,12: Sometimes the names of fixed points are unknown during the field work and temporary point names are assigned. In such cases, real point names can be identified and assigned la- ter using the function "Observations / Radial & Identify Points...". Drawing longitudinal and cross sections with the help of PRM files now offers a third so called description band be- sides the station and elevation bands. This description band shows the point name, the point code or the height difference to the vertical alignment. The parameters can be amended using the function "Profile / Layout..." in the plan window. The dialog "Profiles / Generate / From Lines..." previously interpreted the lateral alignment offset incorrectly so that the intersection points were computed on the alignment. This error was rectified today. Jun 14,12: Alignments in the Deutsche Bahn AG's Gleisnetzdatenbank (GND) database can contain multiple, independent track parts for each track and each direction, especially in railway station areas. Hitherto only the first track part was loaded. Now CAPLAN recognizes all track parts and loads them as independent alignments. Until now the assignment of font files to the CAPLAN text font 0 was confined to TTF font files. Now the internal font files DIN 16/17 and ISONORM can also be assigned to text font 0. Jun 13,12: The plan area management has been fundamentally reworked: - The parameters were previously stated in meters. Now the area sizes refer to a plan scale and are thus stated in centimeters. - The definition of the plan area can reference FRM files (e.g. STD_A3.FRM). Using variable FRM files (e.g. STANDARD.FRM) an outer format can be defined as is provided when creating plan frames. - A duplicate of a plan area can be attached at each of its sides (upper/lower/left/right). This makes it possible to create plan areas abutting seamlessly together. Joining lines in the project or plan window will now be continued until pressing ESC (resp. the right mouse button) to quit. In the plan window the layers of the currently selected elements can be isolated so that all other layer will be switched off. This isolation can as well be undone. The corresponding function calls are part of the layer control- lers context menu. The context menu is available as long as the layer controller is closed. Jun 12,12: Since the last update several errors have been rectified: - Longitudinal sections were not drawn correctly. - Points in the Zeiss M5 format were not recognized if the coordinates were marked with 'E_' and 'N_'. - The point stack computed only stations and tie points in the first run. All polar points were ignored. Jun 11,12: Points can now be saved in the Trimble JobXML format to transfer them to TSC2 or TSC3 for stakeout purposes. May 30,12: The import of alignments from the Swiss Federal Railway (SBB) TOPORAIL format has now been extended to load the stationing alignment from an *.EKM file (new format). May 29,12: When exporting data to the DXF format from CAPLAN, the DXF variables $EXTMIN and $EXTMAX are now written to the DXF file because, unlike AutoCAD, some applications (e.g. from Leica) require these variables when loading DXF files. When in a dialog in the Plan Window, the settings for point snap, element selection and view of plan coordinates can be changed as desired. Hitherto these settings were reset to their original state on closing the dialog and then served as starting values for the next function. Now each dialog preserves the most recent settings and restores them when next opened. May 25,12: For the last weeks, the storing of a profile layout to a PRM file has resulted in incorrect marks for additional drawing data in the file. This error was rectified today. When drawing multiple cross sections, profiles from multip- le alignments can now be combined in one step. Especially river cross sections, which were previously created indivi- dually,can now be drawn very rapidly. When starting the point stack dialog without control points being loaded in the project, the computation speed was slow if many polar points were involved. Now the computation has been accelerated considerably. May 21,12: Some improvements have been made to the profile dialogs in the project window: - The dialog for editing profiles in a project can now be resized. - Furthermore, points without elevations can be retained. - Profiles with only one point can be created and will be drawn correctly as a section plan. If the undo function is called during the indenting of DTM lines the dialog was previously not closed until a query to the user was answered. This query no longer appears. May 16,12: The Bavarian Landesamt für Vermessung und Geoinformation (LVG), in collaboration with SAPOS, has created an NTv2 grid file 'NTv2_BY2011.asc' for the transformation from Gauß-Krüger to ETRS89. The grid file can be purchased from the LVG. After saving the grid file in the DAT folder of the current CAPLAN installation, the datum tranformations available in CAPLAN can access this new grid file. Mar 14,12: The function "Calculate / Join Two Lines by Arc..." now in- terpolates the elevation of the new points at the beginning and at the end of the arc joining the original polylines. May 11,12: The command "Edit / Select / In corridor..." allows points to be selected within an area around a line or alignment. The area can also be restricted in terms of height. May 10,12: Hitherto, the internal CAPLAN text fonts were written to DXF by assigning the AutoCAD font file "TXT". From now on the following assignments will be used: "DIN16/17" -> "ISO" "ISONORM" -> "ISOCP" Script files -> "TXT" May 09,12: The shortcut Ctrl+S closes the current polyline in all the polyline dialogs. Dialogless functions in the plan window (e.g. Bearing and Distance) can now be exited by clicking the right mouse but- ton. May 02,12: The grid-based point numbering now supports a new naming scheme based on ALKIS for the German state of North Rhine- Westphalia. ----------------------------------------------------------- Apr 30,12: Release and distribution of version 3.3 ----------------------------------------------------------- Apr 24,12: The method of displaying the external reliability of a con- trol network using rectangles was introduced a number of years ago in Switzerland. CAPLAN now also offers this opt- ion for actual and planned networks, with the values output as a list and graphically. The reliability rectangles can be interpreted in the same way as error ellipses: The smaller an error ellipse the more accurate the point - the smaller the rectangle the more reliable the point. Unreliable points indicated by infinitely large rectangles occur relatively of- ten, as this is the case if a point is determined using only two observations, such as with polar points or points in an open traverse. Infinitely large rectangles are distinguished from normal rectangles by using special symbols. Apr 24,12: When computing the intersection point of two lines, a line defined by start and end points can now be rotated by any angle. The parallel offset will always be applied after ro- tating the line. Apr 23,12: The transformation from coordinate system 42/83 to ETRS89 in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt can be done using the program LSA_TRANS issued by the local "Landesamt für Ver- messung und Geoinformation". The highways department there now offers a grid file NTv2LSBB_LSA.gsa for use with the NTv2 method. This is available by contacting the address vermessung@lsbb.sachsen-anhalt.de. After copying this file to the DAT folder this transformation can now be carried out in CAPLAN. Apr 13,12: Data security relating to profile construction has now been enhanced. Hence it is no longer possible to remove a profile from a project when this profile is in construction mode in the plan window. Furthermore, the function "Disconnect from Project" has been removed from the profile construction because it became superfluous due to the fact that additional drawing elements in profile plans are now retained when updating profiles. Mar 30,12: The Leica GSI format, which is used in CAPLAN for loading coordinates and tacheometric observations, has certain lim- itations. Leica thus also supports the LandXML data exchange format in its new Viva series of instruments. CAPLAN there- fore now offers a new LandXML interface for loading points/ lines and observations created by the Viva controller soft- ware. At present CAPLAN supports Version 1.2 of LandXML, which contains all key survey data although not the Leica extension HeXML. All customers using a fully licensed version of VIS-All can also transfer threedimensional points and lines to VIS-All. Hitherto the symbol size was set in such a way that some of the symbols had incorrect proportions. This has now also been corrected. Mar 23,12: When dimensioning lines with their length or gradient it is possible to reverse the direction of the polylines with a click. This allows the dimensioning texts to be placed on the opposite side of the line legs in order to improve legibility. The elevation of all accompanying symbols in the plan win- dow is now interpolated along the reference polyline. Mar 19,12: In the point stack it is possible to compute single points and influence the associated observations. The list in this subdialog can now be sorted on the basis of the differences column by clicking on that column header. Mar 15,12: When importing Trimble JobXML format data, CAPLAN now pro- vides the option of including the two point descriptions (in addition to the feature attributes) for assignment to CAPLAN attributes. The point code can be also be assigned to a CAPLAN attribute. The profile construction function "Add point to left or right" now offers a positive and a negative slope when intersecting with a horizon or with a fixed elevation. Thus both variants can be handled in one step. Mar 13,12: The gradient indicators in a ground plan can now be furn- ished with one of the units percent or permille for the gradient slope. To this end, the axis subdialog of the plan creation dialog offers the "Options" button. Within this subdialog the last list entry offers the unit selection. Mar 12,12: The dialog for selecting a horizon ID or an elling po- sition shows only the numbers without HZ or EP. The num- bers can now be selected very quickly via the keyboard. Mar 01,12: A new parameter NABLA is now available for use in the list output (TPL template) of a network adjustment. The NABLA value indicates the threshold for detecting a gross error (in meter or gon units) for each observation. The NABLA parameters are also available for use in a network pre- analysis. Feb 17,12: The spatial point projection onto alignments (3D special) now correctly takes the left and right distances into account. The Bundesamt für Geodäsie und Kartographie (BKG - German Federal Agency for Geodesy and Cartography) has refined the quasigeoid defined in 2005 (called GCG05). The new and recently released quasigeoid is called GCG2011 and CAPLAN has now been extended so that the binary file GCG2011 can serve as a geoid file for CAPLAN. Feb 02,12: Construction points created e.g. from line intersections or by trimming/extending a line will now be named incrementally with consistency across all functions. When projecting points to lines or alignments, the pedal points created can now be named using a combination of a fixed text and incremented last characters. The function "Edit / Point Names / Renumber..." now offers a name mask in which e.g. the current point name can be ref- erenced using "". More detailed information is available in the online help files. Jan 30,12: A new interface for raw tacheometry observation data from Trimble instruments has been implemented. By selecting "Trimble JobXML (*.JXL)" from the file type list, raw obser- vations in the JobXML format can be loaded into CAPLAN. Jan 26,12: Two lines in a project can now be connected using a joining arc. The new function can be invoked via the menu command "Calculate / Join Two Lines by Arc...". During a network adjustment operation, the distribution of all the standardized residuals (SR) can be graphically dis- played in the plan window as bar diagrams. The relevant option is available on the "Observations" page of the network ad- justment dialog. Ideally, the standardized residuals should be normally distributed. As the actual distrubition can now be shown in diagrams, a visual check can be done. Jan 25,12: When loading DXF data into the plan window, the layer proper- ties were in some cases ignored previously so that all layer colors were set to black e.g. for DXF data from the Bavarian Cadastral Agency. This error has now been rectified. Not all variants of the GeoGraf vertex format (LNE) were previously loaded correctly into CAPLAN. The interface has been revised and now also loads arcs from the LNE format. Jan 19,12: The file dialog for loading alignments now allows selection of multiple files for certain alignment formats e.g. DA40, DA50, ProVI, Vestra S40, Novapoint TIT, Geodimeter JOB, Trimble DC and Verm.ESN. When loading a horizontal alignment from DA40 the corre- sponding vertical alignment can immediately be loaded from a DA21 file of the same name. Furthermode the alignments name can be derived from the file name because the two di- git alignment id contained in DA40 text lines is not always useful or sufficient for the distinction of alignments. Jan 16,12: The computation of standard deviations of leveled elevation differences whilst loading leveling data or determing height closures has been improved. The standard deviation from back/ foresight observations sums up the differences dif between back and foresight observations using the formula StdDev = Sqrt ( Sum(dif*dif/l[km]) / 2*Count Delta-H) Height closures are now computed using the the averaged height differences and the standard deviation sums up the loop misclosures mis using the formula StdDev = Sqrt ( Sum(mis*mis/l[km]) / Loop count) The dialog for defining station values (e.g. when interpo- lating profiles) now offers a new check mark for including the stations of the cross sections that already exist in the current project. The interpolation of profiles from polylines now allows assignment of an object type e.g. a horizon ID, to the newly created profile points. Jan 13,12: The data export to VIS-All now allows polylines to be used for transferring exact roof lines. With three-dimensional polylines, the elevation of a roof line is individually derived from the elevations of the vertex points. Jan 12,12: Hitherto when working with leveling data, only the last observation to multiple intersights to identical points was loaded into CAPLAN. Now all multiple observations will be loaded, thereby allowing computation of average values when processing data. Jan 05,12: Loading points from a JobXML file previously swapped easting and northing values accidentaly. This error has been corrected. Jan 04,12: Profile construction in the plan window sometimes resulted in a program crash whilst copying a horizon to a new project. This error has been corrected. Dec 30,11: The final step of the network adjustment allows the adjust- ed coordinates to be applied to the project. This step is now output to the list report. The allocation of matching control points in some cases resulted in the renaming of the matched points in the current project. Any such renaming will now be reported in CAPLAN.LST. Dec 28,11: Support for use of the DC format for data exchange with Trimble instruments is to be discontinued in the long run by Trimble. The JobXML format will now be supported, as this contains the complete set of data relating to a surveying task. To this end, an interface for loading points and lines into CAPLAN in local coordinates using JobXML has been developed. This inter- face appears as the entry "Trimble JobXML" in the list of file types available when loading points or lines and offers a very flexible assignment of point attributes. A CP file saves the current project settings, such as zoom extent, view layers, projection, etc.. In order to show a proj- ect in the same state as it had been when recently closed, CAPLAN previously updated the CP file every time a project was closed, even if no data had been edited. Thus the file time of the CP file changed and no longer showed the time of the last data edit actions. Via "Settings / General", the "Backup" tab offers a new op- tion to interrupt such "silent" saving and ask the user if the CP file should be updated or not in such cases. Dec 23,11: In the case of several elements located very closely to one another in the project window, the edit command invoked via the context menu did not always edit the previously activated element. This error has now been corrected. When loading raw observation data from the Leica GSI format, the changes to the prism constant and the ppm factor are now added to the report if requested. Dec 09,11: The REB file output from the volume calculation using two DTMs did not contain all the relevant points in a few rare cases. This has now been corrected. Dec 01,11: The dialogs for importing data from the GND database of the Deutsche Bahn AG now show long descriptions for the selec- tion of both coordinate systems. Nov 28,11: Hitherto it was not possible to change the angular units if CAPLAN was installed in "C:\Program Files" on the Windows Vista or Windows 7 operating systems because "C:\Program Files" is write protected in such cases and the copying of the TPL file was thus rejected. Now a copy of the template file CAPLAN.TPL is available in the TEMP folder and can be edited at any time. The English version of the template file is called CAPLAN.ENG. Nov 25,11: Profile construction in cross section plans always resulted in regeneration of the profile plans and thus all additional drawing objects were lost. Now all the additional drawing ob- jects are preserved during profile construction. This will facilitate, for example, the retracing of profiles from pro- file templates. Nov 18,11: When loading points and lines from a DXF file into a CAPLAN project, points with identical coordinates were assigned to existing points previously read in, so the point information from subsequent points was lost. Now points with information derived from blocks with attributes will receive preferential treatment in such situations in order to ensure that infor- mation from the attributes (e.g. point name) is preserved. Nov 17,11: The dialog for entering stations in positions relative to a center line previously required the fields "Start at?", "Interval" and "End at?" to be cleared if the values were not to be considered. The "Station Range" check mark can now be used to disable or enable these fields. Nov 16,11: DXF elements with an extrusion vector that differs from (0,0,1) will now be treated in a special way when imported int to CAPLAN. Arcs, circles and ellipses will be approximated as polylines. With DXF polylines containing arcs, the arcs will be removed and the chord will be imported into CAPLAN. Nov 14,11: When importing a DXF file as a plan or background, the newly created symbols were previously stored only temporarily and the data was thus not displayed completly on reopening. The storage scope for the symbols can now be defined on the first page of the import dialog. The volume computation using DTMs now provides the option of outputting the balance of area and volume to the list report. Nov 11,11: The computation of station points and the setting out of a road surface, for example, create new points with the station values in their names. With regard to negative station values, the minus sign will now also be included in the new point names. Nov 02,11: In Windows Vista and Windows 7, the DesktopWindowManager (DWM) is responsible for the screen display of each window. With larger projects that perhaps contain several hundred thousand points, it can be the case that DWM interrupts the drawing of data and restarts it immediately. To avoid such an infinite regeneration loop you have to stop the Windows service "Desktop Window Manager Session Manager". ----------------------------------------------------------- Oct 31,11: Release and distribution of version 3.2 ----------------------------------------------------------- Oct 26,11: The DB_REF reference system was added to the list of stan- dard reference systems with the name "Germany - DB_REF". Oct 19,11: In the Plan Window, the calculations "Trim Line", "Extend Line" and "Line Intersection" can now also be called from the toolbar on the left hand side of the window. Oct 17,11: The process for entering relative coordinates in the Plan Window has been improved. Now the dialog can be placed any- where on the screen and remembers its position. Several points can also be entered in succession without closing the dialog. Oct 14,11: Several tasks in both the Project and the Plan Windows cre- ate intersection points (e.g. trim lines, extend lines, line intersection). The elevation of such intersection points can now be taken either from the first or from the second polyline, or can be calculated as an average of both elevations. Oct 13,11: A new option is available on the "Directions" dialog page in the measurement data import dialog: "Rename target to avoid a change of zero". Activating this option results in an unmoved horizontal circle if different targets with the same name are detected. Instead, a question mark is added to the second target point name in order to avoid a circle rotation (change of zero). Oct 10,11: A new interface for horizontal alignments was added to im- port S40 files from VESTRA. Oct 05,11: For all control point transformations, the point weight can can now be changed for several marked lines. The listing of 3D objects now also offers the three compon- ents of the normal vector for output. The components can be added to reports via "Settings / List Template...". Oct 04,11: Several lists in CAPLAN allow the storage and loading of list data via LDX files. This possibility has now been ex- tended to include the selection of reference points in net- works and in deformation analyses. In the dialog for editing fixed control points, loading and saving always relates to the current list view. The transformation from RD83 to ETRS89 in the German state of Saxony is now available in CAPLAN as NTv2 transformation SaeTA2010. The corresponding raster file SaeTA2010.gsa can be found at www.landesvermessung.sachsen.de/inhalt/etrs/etrs.html After copying this file to the DAT folder of your CAPLAN installation, data in Saxony can be transfomed with an accuracy of a few centimeters. Sep 22,11: The creation of polylines and areas in the Plan Window is now facilitated by the ability to enter relative coordinates. By pressing the corresponding button in the toolbar of the dialog or by pressing F10, a dialog will be displayed at the bottom right corner of the detail window which allows polar or rectangular coordinates to be defined by clicking or typing. Sep 21,11: The fieldbook report for leveling data previously created different leveling lines depending on whether the current project contained elevation points or not. The fieldbook report is now created independently from a project's eleva- tion points and accurately represents the leveling lines contained in the observation data. Sep 20,11: As a result of many user requests, we supplemented symbol attribute labels so that they can include eastings and northings. This provides additional flexibility with regard to the labeling of coordinates. Sep 19,11: Functionality for loading circles from DXF into the Project Window has been improved. Hitherto, either the circle's center point (point import) was loaded or the circle was created as as a polyline (line import). Now, the center point will be imported in both these cases. It is thereby ensured that the center point of a circle is always avail- able (e.g. in the case of drilled piles). Sep 14,11: The volume computation using profile horizons creates a re- sults sheet in A4 format. If many positions have been incl- uded in the calculation, one results sheet may be too small to display all the positions. In such cases, as many re- sults sheets as necessary will be generated automatically. Sep 07,11: If polylines were dimensioned in the Plan Window with both length and gradient, the dimension texts overlapped each other due to the identical placement. The "Longitudinal Offset" parameter in both dialogs now offers the possibili- ty of offseting the dimensioning text along the leg of a polyline, thus avoiding text collisions. Sep 06,11: The road surface functionality has been revised and now offers rounding curves at stations where width or crossfall change. The curves are taken into account when edited lanes and in all other surface tasks as well. - When editing a single lane, the crossfall can be extended with reference to the previous lane. - A polyline can be used as a template for a single lane. Via the button "Get line", all vertices of the selected polyline are used to compute the station, width and crossfall. All computed values are added to the list in which existing list data are retained. - If the surface layout is symmetrical along the center line, one or several lanes can be mirrored to the oppo- site side of the center line. - The selection "From surface" in the station dialog can distinguish between TI points and starting/ending points of roundings. - The section view of a vertical curve in the plan window is extendend by a width band. For this, it is possible to choose the lanes that will provide the data for drawing. A new toggle in the polyline dialog control whether the current view will be adapted to the point clicked on in the list if it is not visible. This avoids changing the current screen view unintentionally while editing a polyline. Aug 30,11: Selected elements in the Plan Window were sometimes diffi- cult to recognise if the basic color of selected elements was similar to the specified election color. In such cases, selected elements will be displayed with the complementary color of the selection color. Aug 30,11: The transformation of DXF files now applies the transforma- tion scale to images as well and thus adjusts their size. Aug 29,11: Editing profile data in the Project Window now allows sort- ing of data tables using any selected column. Aug 11,11: The track network database of Deutsche Bahn AG can contain data from various coordinate systems in a single database. Now the import dialog for points and the import dialog for alignments allows selection of the plan and vertical ref- erence systems in use. The layer manager and many other drop-down lists offer a new method for selecting an item. While entering an item's characters, the best fitting entry will be automatically found and selected. Aug 05,11: The transformation of DXF files now also takes into account viewports in paper space as well. Their parameters are modified so that the transformed model data is still visi- ble in the viewport. Please note: existing coordinate lab- els and grid crosses are no longer valid after such trans- formations! Jul 29,11: During plan creation, regular stations along an alignment will now be labeled in round values and no longer on the basis of the starting station. Jul 28,11: The Flat Earth projection is a special projection used when 3D scenes involving the earth surface's are produced in simulators. Although the Flat Earth projection is not a conformal projection and is therefore of less importance in the realm of surveying, it has been implemented in CAPLAN in order to support direct conversion between national grid coordinates (such as UTM based on an ETRS89 system) and simulator coordinates. Jul 19,11: The export of points from a project to a DXF file was en- hanced with the addition of DXF version 2004 compatibility. Long block names and long layer names are thus preserved. A new feature enables all Z values to be set to zero. Jul 15,11: The closed layer controller offers a context menu which can be opened via a right mouse click. This offers entries for turning layers on and off by using a wildcard e.g. "SV_*". A new feature was added recently which allows the current layer configuration to be saved to (and loaded from) a file. The layer configuration comprises not only the visi- bility but also all other layer properties, such as color, linetype etc. The placeholders for plan and profile frames were extended to include the entries <#WIDTH> and <#HEIGHT>. These allow the width and height of a plan to be added to a frame lay- out. The values are formatted in centimeters e.g. "42.0 cm" for the width of an A3 format plan. Jul 14,11: The scale factor of a reference line can be defined as the ratio between the total line length as measured and as calculated from coordinates. The factor used to reduce dis- tances can now also be selected as the scale factor. Jul 07,11: Until now, pipe shift data from inclinometer or inkrex ob- servation data was displayed in sections in combination with terrain data. The new function "Plan / Diagrams / Single Pipe Displacements" can be used to create A4 plans for each individual pipe. In addition to the observation data the differences between epochs can be computed and displayed. Such epoch comparisons can also include the dis- play of velocities and distorion rates. The frame template PIPE.FRM can be used for such plans and is installed during setup from the CD. Several functions in the Plan Window result in the creation of new elements based on an original element (e.g. dimen- sion labels for polylines). Now, in addition to the layer, the properties color, line weight and linetype can also be transferred from the original element to such derived ele- ments. To this end, the "Pen" dialog offers the additional choice "By Original". Jun 24,11: Clicking free vertex points to define polylines or areas in the Plan Window results in vertices without elevations. The coordinate list's context menu now allows the elevations to be calculated or set for such points. For easier use, the "Interpolate empty elevations" option causes these values to be calculated at the time the dialog is exited via the OK button. Jun 17,11: The Plan window now allows the loading of ALKIS data in NAS format (German cadastre standard) to form a complete plan. This is done by selecting the "NAS-XML (ALKIS) (*.XML)" file type in the "Load Drawings" dialog. You will find the necessary NAS*.DAT configuration files, with applicable default values, in the "CAPLAN Workbook" download. Please copy these files to the DAT folder of the CREMER installa- tion. Using the arrow keys allows you to pan the screen area of the detail window in all four directions (up, down, left and right). Jun 15,11: A line (e.g. for use for the intersection of two lines) can be defined by a starting point and a bearing. The bearing can now be specified by clicking a point in the detail window. Jun 14,11: The sorting algorithm for point names in the point list shifts all numeric point names to the top. These are then followed by the alphanumeric point names, which are com- pared character by character. Since Summer 2010, the point names have been left aligned prior to the comparison which, in some cases, resulted in somewhat confusing sort orders. The "Names" tab in the "Settings / General" dialog now off- ers an option to turn off this left alignment of the point names; they will then be right aligned prior to the compar- ison. Example: left aligned right aligned PN1 PN1 PN11 PN2 PN12 PN3 PN2 PN11 PN3 PN12 Jun 08,11: When saving points to the Geodimeter, Leica, Sokkia, Topcon, Trimble and Zeiss tacheometry formats, all the points are now checked for unique point names. Otherwise, measuring and setting out with a total station does not really work. Jun 06,11: The dialog for editing the fix points in a network now pro- vides a selection by object type via the point list's con- text menu, as is the case with the creation of a network. You can now use an INI file with all the parameters re- quired for the CAPLAN setup, in order to enable an unatten- ded installation to be carried out. Further details are de- scribed in the online help, in the topic "Installation - Unattended Setup". Jun 03,11: Loading tacheometric observations took the tolerance for recognizing a circle zero directly from the sum of the two input fields. From now on though, the tolerance part that depends on the distance will be computed using the actual distance to the target point. May 30,11: When drawing a vertical alignment, the version released on May 12th in some cases omitted the last part of the gra- dient line. This error was rectified today. May 26,11: The status line of the project window now displays the name of the active element on the left hand side. May 25,11: Loading DXF data into the Plan Window has been improved again. Further special cases are now covered, such as im- plausible coordinates, invisble elements and complex sym- bols. Inserting vertex points into a polyline may have collided with curving a line segment if the new vertex point lies very near to the polyline. Now points always precede the curving when in project window. To ensure the precedence of the symbols in the plan window the point snap has to be enabled. May 19,11: Until now, the transformation of DXF files included only the center point of arcs. The connection to neighboring ob- jects was thus not always precise. Now, however, the start- ing, middle and end point of arcs will be transformed pre- cisely. The transformed arc is computed on the basis of these three points, using the new parameters. The connec- tion to neighbouring objects is thereby preserved. May 17,11: When a road surface is defined with reference to an align- ment, the alignment's vertical curve can also be assigned to a lane of the road surface, thereby creating a lateral vertical curve. This is often done when constructing high- ways as the alignment represents the central reservation and the vertical curve relates to the driving surface. All computations associated with road surface's take the lateral offset of the vertical curve into account: - Setting out a road surface - Setting out one lane of a road surface - Checking a road surface - Interpolating point elevations from the road surface - Creating profiles from a road surface In cross section plans, the lateral shift of the vertical alignment is also taken into account and displayed later- ally to the center line. When creating plans, the gradient indicators of an align- ment can be shifted by a variable distance from the axis. Setting the distance to 0.0 causes the gradient indicators to be located directly on the center line. May 10,11: When horizontal distances are reduced to the coordinate plane, the total reduction includes a projection part and a part relating to the elevation. As elevation values are referenced to the geoid, which usually differs from the co- ordinate plane, the elevation values must be corrected, particularly if the difference in height between the geoid and ellipsoid is significant. It was previously necessary to provide this correction using the 'elevation of coordi- nate plane' value (H0). From now on though, a geoid is al- ways taken into account when distances are to be reduced, so H0 is usually set to 0 in such cases. ----------------------------------------------------------- Apr 26,11: Release and distribution of version 3.1 ----------------------------------------------------------- Apr 26,11: When importing cross section data from DA 66, profile poin- ts with an identical axis offset in one horizon are not permitted. In such cases, CAPLAN amends the offsets of the affected points by 1 mm. Apr 21,11: Coordinates of surveyed points can only be calculated using the point stack function if sufficient control points exist in the project. As a special exception it is now also poss- ibkle to start the calculation in an empty project. In such cases the point stack automatically introduces an arbitrary local coordinate system. The volume calculation from cross sections (Elling) requi- res closed Elling lines. Thus all Elling lines will be checked if they are closed. Stations with open Elling lines will not be added to the volume calculation. The calculation of surface areas from cross sections executes this check as well, but in this case open Elling lines are required. Apr 14,11: When drawing cross sections, all profile plans generated will be issued immediately with a unique identifier (ID). This ID is displayed in the plan list after the profile name e.g. "1+275 (ID: 3)". A profile construction can then be applied to multiple pro- files with the same ID. It is sometimes the case that prof- ile plans are generated in a number of different drawing steps (e.g. via CTRL+double click in the Project Window) but should be modified in a single step. For this purpose you can transfer the unique ID from one profile plan to various other profile plans via "Profile / Transfer ID...". During a CAPLAN session, the profile plans generated have a direct connection to the source projects, as identified by the ID in the profile plan name. After each profile const- ruction, all changed profile plans are fully redrawn and any additional drawing elements would previously be lost. Hitherto the only way to 'disconnect' profile plans from projects was to save the plans to an M file and load them again from the M file. Via "Profile / Disconnect from Project...", the profile plans can now be directly dis- connected from the projects. You can then embellish the profile plans in any way you like. Thanks to its universal applicability, the NTv2 transfor- mation is now widely used. However, a GSA file containing adjustments for longitude and latitude values is not always available. It is though possible for CAPLAN users to create their own GSA files if a program for the coordinate convers- ion is available. CAPLAN now allows user-defined GSA files to be accessed, which can then be used in the NTv2 trans- formation process. The creation of a GSA file is explained at length in the CAPLAN Help files. As a result of the growing importance of GNSS technologies, surveyors increasingly have to deal with longitude and lat- itude values or even with Cartesian X,Y,Z coordinates rather than easting and northing values. However, a CAPLAN project is a projection of the earth's surface and can only be rep- resented using easting and northing values. In the past this discrepancy could be bridged only by applying import and ex- port functions combined with a transformation, which was quite onerous. As a new solution, the dialog for entering or modifying single points has now been extended, so that besides easting and northing coordinates, which are now pre- sented on the first dialog page, the longitude and latitude values (on the second page) and the Cartesian X,Y,Z coord- inates (on the third page) can also be directly viewed and modified. The entry of detail points referenced to a survey line has been enhanced with the addition of new options allowing the entry of point elevations: Individual, Above reference height, Elevation of survey line, and Elevation above sur- vey line are the input options. Apr 11,13: When adjusting a vertical network, a plan containing either the provisional elevations and their shifts or the adjusted elevations and their standard deviations can be output. The elevation shifts or standard deviations are drawn as verti- cal bars. Apr 07,11: For detail points on an alignment, the elevations could previously be entered using various options (e.g. indi- vidual, above vertical curve etc.). A further option is now available: this involves using a reference elevation so that only the height difference must be provided for each detail point and CAPLAN then calculates the elevation (reference elevation plus height difference). Mar 31,11: The reporting of road surface data now offers an alternative: interpolatation and output of the surface data at individual stations. Mar 30,11: The computation of volumes between horizons (menu command "Profiles / Volumes...") has been reworked. The positions are now defined first (as with Volumes from Cross Sections) and the valid stations for each position can thus be ident- ified immediately. The dialog thus provides a unique station list for each position. This station list may be extended using zero pro- files in order to exclude certain station ranges from the computation. Hitherto in such cases it was necessary to run the computation mutiple times for different station ranges. In order to provide a smooth transition for our customers, the old function will continue to be available via "Profiles / Volumes (old)...". If you have to enter slopes in a DTM dialog (e.g. excava- tion, terrace or slope classes), you can now type angles specified in degrees (e.g. 60.5°) or in gons (e.g. 45.5 g). Mar 25,11: When importing points from Zeiss REC format, leading zeros in point names can now be removed or retained. Mar 22,11: Standard leveling can be carried out using the "Rote Hose" technique to avoid certain methodical errors. With Zeiss/ Trimble instruments this variation of the method B-F is registered as aBF. CAPLAN now allows the correct import of such data. Mar 17,11: To activate an image element in the Plan Window using the mouse, it is necessary to click on the rectangular border of the image. However, the border line is not always clear- ly identifiable if the image contents do not fill the en- tire rectangle. The click-sensitive border line has there- fore been widened so that the border line can be found and clicked with less effort. Mar 15,11: A notification will now be provided to users indicating point modifications made in the Project Window that affect currently invisible lines. After upgrading the GeoGraf interface (PAR file) to cater for GeoGraf version 6, the names of the exported points were declared as "Info". We have now identified the settings responsible for this in the PAR file and amended the output. Thus GeoGraf now recognizes point names correctly. Mar 14,11: The epoch comparison and deformation analysis have now been enhanced to check all selected projects for identical co- ordinate system definintions. In the Plan Window, the editing of polylines did not always recognize rectangles correctly. This error was amended to- day. Mar 09,11: The computation of station points sometimes resulted in in- correct station values, especially when main points were being computed and the station list actually contained the stations of the main points as well. This error was recti- fied today. The export of an alignment to the Trimble DC format now writes the correct id "37" for vertical alignment points without a rounding radius. If the point selection using a rectangle is carried out with an elevation range specified, only points with valid elevations will be included in the selection. The dialog "Edit / Coordinates / Set Elevation..." invali- dates the point elevations if no elevation is entered, i.e. the edit field remains empty. Mar 07,11: Selected polylines in the Plan Window can now be adorned with accompanying symbols. The new dialog can be invoked via the menu command "Edit / Polyline / Accompanying Sym- bols...". The old functionality that could be used to place symbols on polyline vertices has been integrated as a spec- ial case in the new dialog. Feb 22,11: The Ctrl+U keystroke can now be used for switching between the Project and Plan Windows, which can be useful if this has to be done frequently. When points are to be loaded into a project, the standard file type now also offers the L-files as options. If an L- file is selected, only the points in it are loaded, without the connecting lines. The area unit "acres" is now available in all dialogs that are related to area calculations. Feb 16,11: The line selection in a project's line directory can now be saved to or restored from file via "Save list data" and "Load list data", which are accessed from the line list's context menu. Feb 15,11: In the epoch comparison, each epoch is now provided with a different color and line type, thus increasing the legi- bility of the plans considerably and reducing the need for manual input to a minimum. Feb 11,11: In some cases it is useful to include part of an existing polyline in a new polyline. The Plan Window now offers the possibility to add polyline vertices or areas to the poly- line or area currently being edited. The button "Insert polyline" shows all the vertices belonging to the selected element. All the selected vertices will then be added to the line before the active point. This option is also available when editing horizon or Elling lines in profile construction mode. When shifting the coordinates of selected elements in the Plan Window, the use of negative scale factors in the east- ing or northing directions will result in the data being mirrored about the northing or easting axis. Feb 10,11: The interpolation process for elevations on polylines in the Plan Window has been redesigned again. If a polyline vertex is based on an existing symbol, the symbol's elevat- ion is taken as the elevation of the polyline vertex. In all other cases, the elevation column remains empty. A level interpolation can be launched via the context menu, once alignment of the polyline has been determined in plan. The context menu can also be used to carry out other elevation- specific tasks. Feb 08,11: The following three options can be changed in the Plan Win- dow at any time, irrespective of whether a dialog is open or not: - Point snap mode on / off - Object picking mode on / off - Plan coordinates (cm) or easting / northing values (m) All three options are now handled in the same way when a dialog is open and the settings are stored just temporarily for use in the dialog. Upon dialog termination, the three modes are reset to their original states that existed be- fore the dialog was invoked. In all dialogs for editing drawing elements, the rotation angles are defined in an anticlockwise direction and are stated in (decimal) degrees. The reference direction is now determined by the "Plan coordinates (X,Y in cm)" option in all dialogs: If the option is activated, the angle is orient- ed to the plan's x-axis. Otherwise, the angle value refers to the easting axis of the global coordinate system. Of course, this distinction is only of relevance in rotated plans. Feb 07,11: In many cases it is easiest to derive longitudinal or cross sections from fully elaborated plans by intersecting the drawn polylines. Now, with "Profiles / Generate / From Lines", sections will be created from the intersection points generated by the project's polylines. The project's current point selection can now be saved to or restored from a file using "Save Selection" and "Load Sel- ection", which are accessible from the point list's context menu. The LandXML format can now also be used as an interface for exchanging data defining road surfaces built up using lanes. Feb 02,11: If points in a project are transformed, either by a datum transformation, a parameter transformatoion or a coordinate swapping operation, all the lines involved are moved along with the points. Rounded arcs in such lines, however, were not scaled up to now. This situation has now been improved: a conformal transformation with an isotropic scaling effect now includes adaption of line arcs to the new scale. In all other cases, the arcs are removed if permission is granted by the user. Precise leveling can be carried out using the "Rote Hose" technique in order to avoid special methodical errors. With Zeiss / Trimble instruments this variation of the B-F-F-B method is registered as aBFFB. CAPLAN now allows the correct import of such data. Jan 27,11: A new rectangle can now be defined in a plan using a dedi- cated dialog in which all the rectangle parameters (such as width, height, position etc.) can be specified. Editing a rectangle is also done via this dedicated rectangle dialog, instead of using the general polyline dialog, as was the case until now. Jan 26,11: The profile layout now offers the parameters R21-R24, which provide precise details about the center line text (position, text height and rotation). If the profile points are labeled with their point name, the point names will be left aligned if the text rotation dif- fers from 0.0 (horizontal). Horizontal point names will still be centered. Jan 25,11: The DXF interface now also loads ellipses into projects. The ellipses are approximated using polylines. Multilines could to date not be loaded from DXF. But, from now on, at least the centerlines of multilines can be loaded as poly- lines. The search for redundant lines in the lines directory can now be restricted to linies with an identical object type. Thus e.g. fences lying on the edge of slopes will be ex- cluded from a search. Jan 11,11: For many years, height differences in CAPLAN have been dis- tinguished in the observation database with respect to the survey method used: leveling or trigonometrical surveying. Both these height difference types may occur in large proj- ects if both surveying methods are employed. However, such a combined spatial network could not be created in a direct way up to now; it was in fact necessary to create the trig- onometrical network and the leveling network separately. Merging these networks then resulted in both types of height differences being conducted in two groups (H0 and H1). This work-around is now no longer necessary. In addition to the general height differences (H), there are now also the lev- eled height differences, which are stored in a new section (L). The relevant changes have been implemented in all the functions related to height differences in a network: - Network creation (using the observation database) - Network planning for a prediction (prognosis) - Saving a network (in an N-file) - Network adjustment - Network prognosis - Deformation analysis - Editing network data - Factorizing of standard errors (a priori) - Merging of two networks - Height closures - Network display in a Project Window - Drawing a network plan Dec 29,10: The placeholders used in section plans, plan frames and pro- file frames have been revised completely. - The placeholders can now be surrounded by fixed text parts e.g. "Scale: <#SCALE>" will expand to "Scale: 1 : 2000" - The format characters "###" following placeholders are no longer needed. The placeholders will always be replaced by their full value. Old style placeholders will of course still be supported correctly. - The menu command "Frame / Placeholders..." offers a dia- log for specifying user-defined placeholders, which can then be applied to plan layouts. The use of environment variables is supported - simply add a leading $ character e.g. NAME = $USERNAME. User-defined placeholders are saved hierarchically in up to three ASCII files called PlanVars.DAT, which will then be accessed by the plan frame commands. - The new placeholder <#SIZE> adds the plan size in square centimeters to the plan or profile frame. - A longitudinal section can be furnished with the new place- holder <#AXOFFSET> for writing the lateral offset to the section plan. - The new placeholder <#REFH> inserts a profile's reference height into the current text. Dec 23,10: Longitudinal and cross sections can now also be exchanged via the LandXML format. Dec 16,10: When importing profile data from DA 54, Elling IDs can now be assigned to the positions defined in the DA 54 format. Furthermore, the import can be restricted to specific pos- itions by selecting the relevant positions in the dialog list. Dec 15,10: The epoch comparison now retains additional settings e.g. the dimension of the comparison (plan, vertical, spatial) or the option to allow point gaps. To enhance the overview of plans that are created, the title of the comparison can be added to plan names. Dec 14,10: The initial station of an alignment can now be easily shift- ed. Accessed via the button "Initial station", the alignment edit dialog now offers a subdialog in which the station shift can be defined using an arbitrary main point on the alignment or a point in the project. Dec 09,10: Similarly to the import of leveling data, the fieldbook re- port of leveling data offers the choice to build leveling lines that are as long as possible. Nov 30,10: The intersection of two planes in a project is a new func- tion provided under the menu command "3D Objects / Plane / Intersect Plane...". The result of the intersection is a straight line in space, which can be added to the project as a new 3D object. Nov 26,10 The visibility of points and lines in the project window is turned on and off by the view layers dialog. The visibility can be indicated in the point list and all relevant dialogs with a light bulb symbol. The display of such bulbs is turned on and off via "View / Options...". As of now, the point selection in the detail window (e.g. by polygon) considers the visibility. Invisible points are excluded from selection process. When creating 'REB data' via a volume calculation between two DTMs, the outer borders of both DTMs must be identical. The check algorithm has been enhanced and allows additional border points as intermediate points of straight sections of the border. Nov 25,10: The transfer of DTM contour lines to VIS-All has been acc- elerated considerably by connecting single contour parts to polylines. Nov 21,10: The new version 3.0a of CAPLAN supports version 2.0.2 of VIS-All for 3D visualization. VIS-All 2.0.2 is available on our download page. The previous VIS-All version (2.0.0) is still supported, but only for visualizing DTM surfaces (without triangles and contour lines). Nov 18,10: The dialog for editing network control points has been re- newed. The standard error values are now entered in milli- meters - which matches the unit for entries made when cre- ating a network. The value entered can be applied to all control points that have a check mark (similar to the old dialog) or, alternatively, to the blue selected points (new). If a check mark is removed and then set again, the origin- ally entered standard error reappears in the list. The new X=Y=Z option can be used in a spatial network to edit all three coordinates simultaneously. Creating a parallel line in the project window now allows object types and attributes to be transferred from original points to new parallel points. Nov 15,10: Double-clicking an object in the Project Window previously led to various different actions, depending on the data in- volved. For example, double-clicking an alignment without a vertical curve resulted in the edit dialog being invoked. But if a vertical curve was present, a section view was immediately displayed in the Plan Window. The behavior resulting from a double-click has now been standardized. Double-clicking now always results in the object editing dialog opening. The vertical section view is created by holding the CTRL key while double-clicking the object. The "Draw Section View" option in the context menu also displays the vert- ical section view in the Plan Window. Nov 12,10: Up to now, a DTM border could only be indented by clicking one triangle side after the other. This function now offers an option to indent multiple triangle sides by selecting them via a crossing polyline (fence). Nov 11,10: As with reference systems, which increasingly form part of the everyday work of surveyors, geoid models are also now used more often. The geoid user interface has therefore been subjected to a major upgrade. Particularly the refer- ence system used as the basis for the geoid model is not only displayed in the editing dialog now but is also saved in the geoid files (in the comment lines). This is bene- ficial for all users that often work with geoid models. A geoid report can now be generated from the editing dialog. This lists the original geoid data (based on the geoid ref- erence system), and also the geoid data referenced to the coordinate system used. Nov 08,10: When adjusting a network, the reporting of the BAARDA test can now include the observation group. The list template sections "Network.ListBaarda1" and "Network.ListBaarda2" now therefore offer the new variable <$GROUP>. Oct 28,10: Copying points from the Project Window to the Clipboard caused a program crash if the attributes of all the points were extremely long. This error was rectified today. ----------------------------------------------------------- Oct 26,10: Release and distribution of version 3.0 ----------------------------------------------------------- Oct 25,10: The profile constructions in the Plan Window now enable you to delete profile points, horizons and Elling lines using the DEL key as a shortcut. Upon closing the point directory it removed all points from the project that had neither valid plan coordinates nor valid elevations without any message. In such cases the user is now queried to confirm or deny the deletion. Oct 18,10: Distances measured at terrain level must be reduced to the coordinate plane before they can be used for the determin- ation of coordinates. And conversely, when distances are calculated from coordinates, they must be corrected before they can be used for staking out in the terrain. The dist- inction between distances at terrain level and distances in the coordinate plane could often be ignored in previous coordinate systems (such as in France, Germany etc.), but the introduction of ETRS89 and its UTM projection results in differences arising that must be taken into considerat- ion. The definition of official cadastral areas has also changed in some German federal states: The new definition relates to the horizontal area at terrain level, whereas the previous definition (which is still valid in the other federal states) refers to the area at the ellipsoid level. CAPLAN can be used for both approaches: areas can be calc- ulated from coordinates and adjusted for the new definition as well as the old definition. The general approach, which is to offer the correction of distances and areas only in dialogs and in projects, still applies. Distances and areas based on coordinates are not corrected in direct calculati- ons (i.e. without a dialog) or in the Plan Window. Volume calculations are also left uncorrected, as the correction effect of 1 per mille is much smaller than the tolerable deviation. More and more states establish their on satellite systems for surveying purposes. Hence the term GPS (Global Positio- ning Systems of the United States) will be superseded by the more general term GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System). Oct 15,10: Until now we have provided the DTMViewer for the 3D visual- ization of DTMs generated in CAPLAN. However, the effort to develop and maintain an additional 3D application exceeds our capacities, as we wish to focus on the development of our key applications. We have now therefore engaged the company Software-Service John as a partner in order to be able to use its application VIS-All® to present CAPLAN data in 3D. Via "DTM / Export to VIS-All...", your data can be directly exported to version 2.0 of VIS-All®, which allows three dimensional checking and presentation of the data. The setup file for VIS-All® and a free info license will be provided on our next update CD, which will be shipped at the end of October. Oct 11,10: Line coding in the field can be implemented usind line num- bers. These line numbers are no longer restricted to pure numeric digits but can now include alphanumeric characters as well. Sep 30,10: The LandXML format was added to the interfaces of the Digi- tal Terrain Model. CAPLAN now offers the file type "LandXML Format (*.XML)" when loading and saving DTMs. Sep 29,10: Digital terrain models exported to TTM format for Trimble applications could not previously be imported by the new Trimble Business Center. This error was rectified today. Sep 28,10: Hitherto, the alignment files from the company Sinning were assumed to contain data in fixed columns. Thus not all TRA and LGS files could be read by CAPLAN because the format is block oriented and the width of the blocks is not fixed. The block oriented format is now interpreted correctly by CAPLAN. Sep 24,10: The file "CAPLAN Z-Format.xsl" provided by Trimble converts a JXL file (Trimble Job XML) to a Z format (CAPLAN observ- ations) file. This file has been updated by Trimble and can be found on our download page at "CAPLAN: External files". Sep 22,10: The "Normbasierte Austauschschnittstelle" (NAS) from the German AdV enables you to load cadastral data (ALKIS) into a CAPLAN project in order to create points and lines. Dec- orative elements, such as street names and parcel numbers, are not imported as they cannot be displayed in the Project Window. The import function is available at "File / Open or Load / Lines...". The dialog offers "NAS XML (ALKIS) (*.XML)" as an entry in the file type list. The new task "DTM / Build / Slope..." computes the inter- section of a slope with a DTM or a fixed elevation. The slope is based on a break line and slope values for cut and fill. These slopes can be useful for the planning of roads, mounds and areas of excavation. A coding error caused a crash in CAPLAN when selecting lat- eral distances during the interpolation of cross sections. This error was rectified today. Sep 20,10: Datum transformations are no longer specialized operations carried out by a few experts but are becoming increasingly prevalent in the everyday work of surveyors. The redesign of how reference systems work in CAPLAN was therefore only a question of time. The following main aspects form the basis of the new design: a) The specifications of all the reference systems avail- able should reflect the latest published details. The sources can now be reviewed in the help pages and can thus easily be validated by everybody. b) The dialog-based definition of a coordinate system often ended up causing mistakes and calls to the support line. Although the dialog has not been redesigned, pictures of the dialog now clearly show the input parameters for each country / system included in the help. c) In a project, a reference system was specified by its R- number (in the CP file). The R-numbers were defined as reference systems in the RefSys.DAT file, which could cause inconsistencies when projects were transferred. The parameters of a reference system are therefore saved completely in the CP file now. d) The old RefSys.DAT file contained a lot of systems of dubious quality, most of which were never used. This old file will therefore be removed after a transition period and is now replaced by standard systems and user-defined reference systems, which can be saved in hierarchically located RefsysX.DAT files. As a user of CAPLAN you won't notice the background changes very much in the user interface. The menu has been stream- lined though, and only the following two commands remain: 1. Transformation / Reference Systems... and 2. Transformation / Position Ellipsoid... The first command invokes a dialog displaying all the ref- erence systems contained in the data set (similar to object types and layers). From that dialog, new systems can be ent- ered and reports can be generated. The second command re- positions the ellipsoid of the current project and is al- most identical to the previous function. The special Dutch stereographic projection (Double Project- ion attributed to Schreiber) can now be used in CAPLAN. Sep 10,10: The "Feedback to CP..." could not be sent as an e-mail if you had a recent version of Microsoft Outlook installed. This error was rectified today. Sep 07,10: When exporting to DXF from the Plan Window, hatch patterns were sometimes not displayed correctly in AutoCAD. The rea- son was that the pattern origin was located far away. This error was corrected today. Sep 01,10: When staking out the lanes of a road surface, the report is usually sorted by lane number. The dialog now offers an opt- ion to sort the report by stations as well. The number of GSI words contained in one line of a GSI file was hitherto restricted to 15. Today this restriction was set to 30 GSI words per line. Aug 20,10: The transformation of DXF files now also considers elements with global coordinates that form part of a block definit- ion. Background data and dimensions are therefore trans- formed to the correct coordinates. Aug 13,10: In anticipation of the Intergeo trade fair and Version 3.0 of CAPLAN, all the program and file icons have been rede- signed to provide an improved and consistent look. In par- allel, the toolbar icons in the graphical user interface (GUI) have been updated. The applications thus have a mod- ern and appealing look. Aug 12,10: The last update on Aug 05 contained a small error with reg- ard to defining coordinate systems in CAPLAN. This error was rectified today. Aug 09,10: When loading a DXF file in the Plan Window, CAPLAN tries to translate the known AutoCAD line types to the internal CAPLAN line types 1-6. This speeds up the display in the Plan Window considerably. Aug 04,10: Line coding in the field has been enhanced once again. With all line coding methods, the lines can now be divided auto- matically if the code of the surveyed line point changes. Jul 22,10: An additional interface for alignments is available for im- porting so called ASCIIBAHN data from CARD/1. The function "Alignments / Single Alignment / List Elements" was removed because the alignments can be listed via the alignment directory. The line coding method "Link to named point" requires the name of the previous point as a piece of additional infor- mation. This method has been extended to facilitate line recording: Specifying the hyphen symbol"-" as the point name causes CAPLAN to create a connection to the previously registered point. Jul 19,10: In various CAPLAN dialogs, there are text entry fields that can store multiple text entries in a list (such as stakeout report text strings). Previously, obsolete text strings could not be removed from the list. However, our new text list now displays a Delete icon next to the activated text element. A text element can be removed by clicking on this icon and then confirming the subsequent question. In the Plan Window, the two tasks "Trim Line" and "Extend Line" are now invoked by two different menu commands, so the previous option for differentiating these has been rem- oved from the dialog. The elevation calculation for a new point is similar to the elevation calculation used in the line intersection dialog. Jul 02,10: The conformal transformation of alignments can now be re- ported in CAPLAN.LST. Jun 30,10: The new sorting algorithm for point names sometimes wrongly identified very different point names as being the same, such as the point names "607" and "06-07". This error has now been rectified. Jun 28,10: Profile constructions in the Plan Window that have been carried out in multiple profile plans can be undone and re- done (as can other changes in multiple plans) in all the relevant plans in one single step. Jun 25,10: The point name masks in the dialogs - Alignments / Station Points - Profiles / Road Surface / Setting Out - Profiles / Road Surface / Setting Out a Lane now include continuous point numbering (e.g. "SP23AA###") in addition to the existing station mask (e.g. "SSSSS.sss"). Jun 24,10: If drawing elements have been selected in multiple plans in the Plan Window, the Delete command results in a dialog be- ing displayed that can be used to delete all the selected elements in all the plans. In the Plan Window, all changes that have been executed in multiple plans can now be undone and redone in all the rel- evant plans in one single step. Jun 18,10: Multi-line tooltips for points and alignments are now used to improve the display of information. In the Plan Window, the colors of elements are adjusted to a contrasting color if they are not sufficiently different from the background. However, areas with a SOLID fill are always displayed with their original color. This behavior is now also applied to areas that form part of symbols. Jun 16,10: The sequence of ascending point names is now displayed in a similar fashion in all the lists containing points. The seq- uence equates to a standard alphabetical sorting, compar- able to the lexically sorted rows generated by CREDIT. Other data sets, such as object types and layers, are also sorted and displayed in accordance with these rules. Jun 08,10: The two dialogs "New Layer" and "Available Layers", access- ible in the Plan Window, have been merged to create the "New Drawing Layer" dialog. A new layer can also be created directly from all editing dialogs in the Plan Window. For this purpose, a new button has been placed to the right of the layer selection drop- down list in the dialogs. Jun 04,10: Some functions for editing drawing elements in the Plan Window could not always easily be found. The menu structure in the "Edit" main group has therefore be rearranged, and these functions are now grouped under the element types to which they belong. May 28,10: In the Project Window, the dialog controls for angles now provide a data interface to the Clipboard via CTRL+C and CTRL+V. Warnings and errors that occur during a DXF import are now displayed at the end of the process. Hitherto, polygon meshes resulted in polylines with incor- rect vertices. These DXF elements are now ignored. May 26,10: The time-distance diagrams resulting from an epoch compari- son are now furnished with a zero line in order to enhance legibility. May 25,10: In some cases, the naming of polylines is an important is- sue for users. Up until now, the last used polyline name was stored persistently in the user preferences. Hence the polyline names could differ considerably in a project as a result of different users and various project directories being used. To achieve more clarity in naming polylines, the last name used is now stored in the project directory. May 21,10: As an option, elevations can be calculated while leveling data are being imported. Although this method is not gener- ally recommended, it is often the only means of obtaining a clear calculation report without investing too much effort if intermediate sights or profile points also form part of the survey. The background to this is that CAPLAN stores leveling observations and radial observations in the same way, so foresights and intermediate sights cannot be distin- guished once they have been imported. The elevation deter- mination report has therefore been improved when elevations are calculated in conjunction with the import of the actual data: All multiply leveled points are compiled at the end of the report, and the averaging process is also documented in detail. May 17,10: Converting polylines to alignments (using the menu command "Alignments / From Polylines...") resulted up to now in all the vertex points in the lines being retained, so the creat- ion of profiles in the vicinity of these points was often problematic. A radius can now be specified in the dialog for the horizontal alignments as well as for the vertical curves. The result is very similar to a tangential polygon approach for the horizontal elements, i.e., the circular arcs do not pass exactly through the vertex points but create a curve bypassing them. May 12,10: The new NTv2 transformations have proved popular since be- ing included in the latest update. In practice, however, they have been quite time consuming, particularly when specific grid files (possibly located on a file server) with small grids are used, as the grid file must be access- ed each time a grid change is required. To improve perform- ance, each grid that has been used is now saved in an inter- nal memory, which can be accessed much faster than the grid file itself. Apr 29,10: The calculation of a spline curve in a project (Alignments / Single Alignment / Spline...) results in an alignment that passes exactly through the given vertex points, with the curvature being zero at the first and last vertex points. Hence, the alignment smoothly transits to a straight line at both ends. It is now also possible to define a tangent bearing at the first and / or the last vertex point, which results in a curvature other than zero at these vertices. Editing a polyline in the Plan Window now takes vertex ele- vations defined in the dialog list into account: If the clicked point does not have a specific elevation, CAPLAN tries to derive an elevation for the new vertex from the dialog list in the following way: A new vertex inserted before the first or after the last vertex is assigned the same elevation as stated in the first or last vertex in the list. However, if the new vertex is inserted between two existing vertices, the elevation is automatically inter- polated, proportionally to the distances between the points. ----------------------------------------------------------- Apr 27,10: Release and distribution of version 2.8 ----------------------------------------------------------- Apr 23,10: Via "View / Overlay Projects...", the current project can be overlaid with other open projects. The visibility and color of the overlaid projects will be retained. Apr 22,10: For your convenience, we have defined some additional short- cuts. Project window: Ctrl+Shift+O Turn object selection on/off Plan window: Ctrl+H Edit text elements Ctrl+Shift+O Turn object selection on/off Ctrl+Shift+S Turn point snap on/off Apr 21,10: When closing the Plan Window, not all modified plans were correctly selected for saving in an M-file. This error has been rectified today. If the plan height exceeds A4, the plan frame will be creat- ed with additional folding marks in the vertical direction. Profile plans are now centered horizontally in the plan area if exact folding is specified. Apr 19,10: A project title (for profile plans) and a date and time (for project comparison) can now be assigned to a CAPLAN project using the "File / Properties..." command. Apr 13,10: The dimensioning of polylines in a plan (Dimension / Poly- lines) and the dimensioning of slopes (Dimension / Gradi- ents) can now be done with the addition of graduation lines at positions where the line segments meet. This option is useful for clearly indicating the individual segments of long polylines. Mar 31,10: The control point transformation "Conformal 2D+H" now pro- vides an individual vertical scale factor. Mar 30,10: The function for averaging the coordinates of neighboring points (Edit / Coordinates / Equal Position) has been en- hanced again: All three functionalities, namely "Plan Mean", "Level Mean" and "Merge Point", can now be carried out either for an individual point group or for "All groups". CAPLAN thus now allows the automatic averaging of coordi- nates for points that have to be surveyed more than once due to their various code features. Mar 29,10: The cycle mode (Ctrl+Shift+S) for activating an object in a Project or in the Plan Window is now obsolete as the new object selection function has been introduced. It will therefore be removed from CAPLAN. M-files can now be opened in CAPLAN by double-clicking the M-file in Cremer Commander or in Windows Explorer. For this, the file type *.M has to be removed from the list "Settings / Launch File With..." in Cremer Commander. The appropriate file types are automatically registerd via the CP Setup program. When updating CAPLAN from our home- page, the filetypes can be registered by calling "CAPLAN_W.EXE / RegServer" in the Windows Command line. Mar 24,10: Similar to the option in the Project Window, the Plan Window now also provides a solution for selecting an element from among many objects located close to each other. The new option "Settings / Object Selection" offers a list of all the objects lying close to the clicked position. While run- ning edit dialogs the list is confined to the relevant ob- jects (e.g. symbols, polylines). Mar 19,10: When loading leveling data from the Zeiss format, the point code was inadvertently assigned to the subsequent point. This error has now been rectified. The epoch comparison was revised once more. For clarity, the pipe displacements have been separated and are now pro- vided by an extra dialog. The epoch comparison can now be found at two different menu locations: - "Report / Compare / Epochs..." - "Plan / Diagrams / Epoch Comparison..." Pipe displacements can now be displayed via - "Plan / Diagrams / Pipe Displacements..." The transformation of profile points to UTM coordinates now also includes points in blind corners. In such cases, a cor- responding message is issued at the end. Mar 15,10: The editing of multiple selected elements in the Plan Wind- ow (using the menu command Edit / Selected Elements / Prop- erties...) now also allows to change the symbol size. The currently selected symbol is now correctly displayed. Mar 08,10: The evenness (planarity) of a surface can now be checked in CAPLAN using the "3D Objects / Plane / Control..." menu command. A surface control is based on measured points pos- itioned in a rectangular grid covering the surface. The sur- face can be oriented in any direction in the 3D space; there is no limitation regarding horizontal or vertical surfaces. As well as generating a control report, the detected offset values can also be transferred to a newly created project where the offsets can be presented in color, depending on the magnitude, with the help of a DTM. Mar 01,10: Grid leveling is mainly intended to check the planarity of horizontal surfaces with grid sizes of between 1 x 1 m and 5 x 5 m, depending on the exact purpose. As the plan posi- tions of leveled points are not determined they must be derived from the point number indicating the position in a rectangular grid. This new function can be found in the menu under "Observations / Leveling / Grid Leveling...". Feb 24,10: If two or more objects lie very close together in the Pro- ject Window it can be difficult to select a specific object by clicking with the mouse. The new option "Settings / Ob- ject Selection" offers a list of all elements which lie close to the clicked position. While running task dialogs the list will be reduced to point objects only. The NTv2 approach is used to transform the older national GK coordinates to the newer ETRS89 coordinates. The reali- zation BeTA2007 comprises Germany as a whole but is compa- ratively rough, with a grid size of approximately 11 x 11 kms. The individual German federal states have therefore published more precise data files with smaller grids (some- times as small as 500 x 500 m) which can be processed by CAPLAN in the same way as the BeTA2007 data file is proces- sed. If you wish to use the more precise data for a federal state, please contact us directly. If a data file exists and is available in that state we will find a way to make the data and the transformation accessible to you. Feb 23,10: A new Elling position is now provided with a suitable hatch pattern in every case. The selection of a horizon ID or an Elling position during profile construction is now persistent and the most recent- ly used setting is therefore suggested. Feb 22,10: In the Plan Window, the "Dimension / Gradients" function now uses the per mille sign (‰ = ASCII 137) rather than the pre- vious "ppt" text label, if gradients are to be stated in per mille. However, one must bear in mind that the per mille sign is not necessarily available in all script fonts. The per mille sign can also be used to label a vertical curve (the gradient band) if the R-57 parameter in the PRM layout file (e.g. ALIGN_P0.PRM) is, for example, defined by "3.2" where the digit "3" represents the number of decimal places and ".2" means the gradient to be stated in per mille. Station points referenced to an alignment can be calculated by applying various elevation options. These options are no longer selected in a sub-dialog but directly from a drop- down list that always and clearly shows the currently sel- ected elevation option. The station dialog (where alignment stations are defined) has been furnished with a preview which displays all the stations contained in the dialog list. The preview helps to check whether the stationing is sufficient for a volume calculation from cross sections or if certain stations must be added to the list. The coordinate system definition has been improved in vari- ous aspects: - The Level reduction of distances needs the elevation of the coordinate system, which is usually 0. For ETRS89, however, the negative elevation of the WGS84 geoid is now automatically suggested. - In the change zone dialog, the central meridian of the target system is now automatically suggested. - In the change system dialog the test point coordinates are now transformed to the target system so that the dist- ance reduction example is always correctly displayed. Feb 17,10: Volume calculations between horizon lines can sometimes fail in cross sections if the horizon lines don't inter- sect with each other even when an extension is provided. In order to clarify the situation for the user, the line ex- tensions are now displayed as dashed light blue lines in all cross sections. Feb 03,10: A new interface to CARD/1 version 8.X has been implemented. Points (.ASC) and lines (.POL) can now be loaded and saved. Feb 01,10: Manually entering of line points (for polylines or break lines) is now supported by a new function that can trans- fer the currently selected points in an ascending order. Jan 28,10: In a best fit circle calculation (2D or 3D), the accuracy of the radius, which is derived from the surveyed points, is poor when the length of the circular arc is short. If the radius is known, e.g. from a prefabricated construction element, this can now be introduced in the best fit calc- ulation to provide a more accurate center point for the circular arc element. Jan 27,10: Further improvements were made to the epoch comparison: - The spatial comparison allows a choice between 2D and 3D display for the vector plans. - The Time-Length diagram for multiple points assigns dif- ferent line types to each point in order to improve dist- inction between the points. Jan 22,10: The processing of leveling data has been enhanced: - When loading raw observations, short lines can be built from point to point. - The rules for computing tolerances in traverses cann now be reported in CAPLAN.LST using [Geo.Traverse5] and [Geo. Traverse9]. - Leveling loops detected by "Observations / Radial / Height Closures" can now be transferred to the project as poly- lines. - If average values are used for computing the orthometric correction, CAPLAN points this out and marks the relevant lines in the report with a question mark. The deformation analysis generally identifies homologuous point by their identical point names. In special cases CAPLAN can identify additional homologuous points by their identical position. Jan 21,10: Datum transformations (via the menu command "Transformation / By Datum / Change Datum...") now also include special transformations if the required parameters are available. Special transformations usually achieve better accuracies than direct datum transformations, and should therefore be used if possible. The special transformation "Potsdam Datum -> ED 50" was the only one of its type until now. It has now been embedded in a more universal solution concept in which the NTv2 approach has also been included. The NTv2 approach was originally developed in Canada in order to transform the old NAD27 to the new NAD83 coordinates. In Germany it is used for BeTA2007 to transform national grid coordinates from the old DHDN system to the new ETRS 89 system. Other trans- formations may in future follow the general NTv2 path as this approach is available in many GIS systems. As the old German coordinates are slightly distorted, the correction values are dependent on the location. The BETA2007.gsa file (located in the BIN directory) contains all the location dependent values in a grid (of size 600 x 360 seconds = ca. 11 x 11 kms). According to the German AdV committee, sub- meter accuracy is guaranteed. The transformation of point files now also includes all special transformations that are available. The coordinate transformation in DXF files has been improv- ed in many respects: instead of a single file it is now al- so possible to transform multiple DXF files in one batch process. Special transformations (such as NTv2) are now also available. Even level transformations can be applied. However, these have only effect on Z-values. Text labels containing elevations (such as spot height labels, block attributes etc.) remain unchanged as is the case with con- tour lines. Jan 20,10: Text elements exported to DXF were always displayed with the TXT font if the User Account Control was activated un- der Windows Vista or Windows 7. This behaviour has been corrected today. Jan 18,10: The new option "Orient text to reader" is now available for improving the legibility of contour line labels in a plan. This kind of contour line labeling can be found on Swiss topographical maps. Jan 15,10: In some cases, MTEXT elements were placed incorrectly when they were exported to DXF as they were moved downwards about half a line. This error has now been rectified. Dimensioning of distances, polylines and gradients may re- sult in texts oriented upside-down. Via the option "Orient texts to the reader" these texts can be turned upright. Jan 11,10: Laser scan files can sometimes exceed the limit of 4 GB. This limit is determined by the address space of a 32 bit operating system. However, if files are read and written line by line in a sequential manner it is now possible to proceed with files greater than 4 GB. Point files larger than 4 GB can now therefore be transformed. Jan 08,10: GEOgraf allows points without point numbers in its projects. Until now, nameless points could not be imported into CA- PLAN. However, from now on CAPLAN will assign new names to all nameless points and load them correctly. Dec 23,09: The epoch comparison now allows distortion rates to be disp- layed for pipe displacements. This enables areas with large displacements to be easily identified. Comparing two projects with "Report / Compare / Points..." allows a new project to be created containing points with z coordinates corresponding to the point differences calculat- ed in the comparison operation. A DTM can then be generated with the differences displayed as isolines. Dec 21,09: The renaming operation for matched control points can now be restricted in scope by selecting the desired points in the matching points list. Dec 08,09: Inclinometer measurements utilizing vertical and horizontal pipes allow underground movements to be monitored (e.g. the displacement of rock formations) and these can be displayed in temporal diagrams. These measurements can now be entered and edited in CAPLAN via the "Edit / Extras / Pipe Displacements..." command. Pipe displacement data are handled in an epoch comparison process in which the data points can be projected onto an alignment, thus enabling generation of a section plan. The auxiliary program CpInfo.EXE (introduced in February 2006) was designed to convert our (at that time) new point data formats back to the old formats so that auxiliary tools used by our customers could still handle our files during a transition period. Almost four year have passed since then so we have now decided to remove the auxiliary program from standard software distributions. Dec 04,09: When alignments are included in the plan creation process, a selection can now be made regarding whether the additional station labels are to be placed on the left-hand or on the right-hand side of the alignment. Dec 02,09: When projecting points onto a reference line, a polyline or an alignment, the report was previously sorted by point name. From now on, a sort order using increasing stations will also be provided as an option. Nov 24,09: The print dialog now offers additional options for aligning plans on paper. For example, the "Bottom left" option may be suitable for profile plans on A3 sheets and the "Bottom right" option may be useful for large format plotters used together with folding machines. Nov 17,09: In a rotated plan, the rotation angle for symbol and text elements can be stated either in relation to the north dir- ection or in relation to the plan. Closed polylines and area elements are now furnished with the "closed" property when exported to DXF. Nov 09,09: The definition of standard errors for network observations has been improved. Each observation type now has a dialog test field in which the effect of various test distances can be checked. For zenith angles, the original parameters (such as the refraction variation) are now entered direct- ly. ----------------------------------------------------------- Nov 05,09: Release and distribution of version 2.7 ----------------------------------------------------------- Nov 03,09: When storing points in a Trimble DC file, the 10.70 format will now be used instead of the 7.70 format. Oct 21,09: In order to enable construction of horizons and Elling lines to be done in profile plans it was necessary for all hori- zons (HZxx code) and all Elling positions (EPxx code) to be assigned unique layer names. This limition has now been re- moved. Oct 19,09: Loading a DTM from a DA 45/DA 58 file sometimes resulted in an incorrect triangulation if the DTM points lay very close to each other. This error has been rectified today. Oct 16,09: In the epoch comparison, a new vector plan is now available showing the horizontal displacement vectors in combination with the vertical displacement vectors. The dialog used for the calculating or setting out of stat- ion points along an alignment has been redesigned to provide a similar "look and feel" to other dialogs. Oct 15,09: The dialog used to enter or to edit alignments has been im- proved with respect to long alignments containing a large number of elements: The dialog can now be "locked" so that the alignment can be clicked on in the detail window and the nearest element is then searched for and activated in the dialog list. An element's station is displayed in the lower area of the dialog box and no longer in the list of elements. If the first element of an alignment is deleted then the alignment's initial station is automatically changed to the starting station of the second element. Oct 08,09: In the report of a bearing and distance calculation in a project, the slope value is now also provided as an elev- ation angle and as a gradient in the form 1:n. Oct 02,09: Points which are newly created in the Subdivide Lines func- tion can now also be numbered incrementally starting at a specified number. Oct 01,09: The Epoch Comparison function has been improved considerab- ly: - The vectors can now represent velocities rather than dis- placements. The velocity unit can be freely selected. - The vectors can be projected onto alignments and then be displayed in alignment related diagrams (in plan view and in section view). - All projects participating in the epoch comparison are checked to see whether their coordinates lie in an over- lapping area. Sep 28,09: When point coordinates are averaged, two or more points are replaced by a single mean point. In the past, this situat- ion often resulted in a partial loss of lines. Now, all the lines are preserved, using the mean point as a vertex. Re- dundant lines that may arise in the process can be selected and also deleted in the Line Directory dialog. Setting out a single lane of a road surface can now be con- fined to only the points on the left hand or the right hand side of the lane. Sep 25,09: Zeiss leveling data files differ in language depending on the language version of the instrument software. Previously, German leveling files could only be processed by the German version of CAPLAN and English leveling files only by the English version. Now, Zeiss all leveling files are correctly processed in both cases, regardless of the language version of CAPLAN being used. Sep 21,09: For the calculation of a single polar point or a single section point (Calculate / Single Point / Polar Point or Section Point) it is also possible to enter zenith angles as an option. Up to now, these were not reduced to take account of the earth's curvature and refraction. A reduc- tion is now applied if the "Reduce" option is activated. Sep 18,09: The new file and directory functions introduced at the end of August were mainly designed to cater for the VISTA oper- ating system. However, the new functions were not compati- ble with the older Windows 2000 operating system. This has been rectified today. Hitherto, the user-defined formats interpreted strings with non-numerical characters as having coordinate values 0.0. These coodinates then had to be excluded from the import by means of the validation conditions (X#0.0 & Y#0.0 & Z#0). However, points with valid 0.0 coordinates were also exclud- ed from the import as a result. Now, CAPLAN first checks the strings and marks them as invalid if they are made up of non- numerical characters. The previous validation conditions are no longer necessary and are therefore not proposed any more for new formats. Sep 16,09: The transformation of point files (by datum or with parame- ters) is now reported to the LST file. Sep 15,09: The current coordinate system is now displayed in the status bar next to the coordinates. Sep 10,09: In some cases, the creation of an excavation or a heap in a DTM ended up in a program crash. This error has been recti- fied today. Sep 07,09: Hitherto, the DTM line import process was terminated when an incorrect line was encountered. Now the import continues and all following lines are still imported. All the errors that occur during the import are reported in the ERR file. Sep 03,09: When setting out a single lane, the elevations of the strings were previously calculated erroneously if the lane was on the left hand side of the alignment. The error has been fixed now. The file layout in our File Open dialog has been improved. Up to now, only a single view option was available whether the file list should be displayed with grid lines. Now, there are further three options available in a dialog that can be reached via the "Options..." menu command in the con- text menu: Access of files and directories in the Desktop area (fill virtual folders), use of "friendly" file names (such as CD drive (F:) instead of F:\) and specification of file sizes in KB units. These options may help adapt both the layout and the functionality to the Windows Explorer. Folders that are not required for the file management (such as tools, wastepaper bin etc.) still remain excluded from as tools, trash can etc.) still remain excluded from the view in our directory views. Aug 27,09: The capacity of the undo memory is no longer restricted. However, if an operation consists of many single steps the user is reminded that storing the operation will take a little extra amount of computational time. Aug 24,09: In the Line Directory (Edit / Lines / Directory...), mul- tiple (redundant) lines can now be selected using the "Red- undant" function button. This can be useful if, for example, the redundant lines are to be deleted. The point sequence is the only criterion of whether a line is marked in the list as "redundant" or not. Varying arcs or object types are ignored. If a line (e.g. B-C) overlaps part of another line (such as A-B-C-D) then the shorter line is also marked as "redundant". Aug 19,09: The export of KML files for Google Earth has been moved from the Transformation menu to the File menu and can now be in- voked via the "File / Save / Points..." and "File / Save / Lines..." commands. Cross sections generated from points previously resulted in profiles being created beyond the end station of the horiz- ontal alignment that were identical to the last cross sect- ion before the end station. Now the computation ends at the last cross section before the end station. Aug 14,09: Specific areas can now be defined and extracted from large volumes of point data, e.g. from airborne laser scanning, for loading into CAPLAN. This is done by defining and apply- ing a boundary to restrict the point import scope. Just act- ivate a (closed) polyline before loading the points into a a project. This results in only the points lying inside this polyline being loaded into the project. Aug 13,09: The calculation of the mean coordinate values of neighbor- ing points using the "Edit / Coordinates / Equal Position" function previously resulted in a single point which was furnished with the mean coordinate values. This method is now referred to as "Merge Point". Two further methods, called "Plan Mean" and "Level Mean" are now also available. Both methods preserve the original neighboring points and they are simply labeled with the mean plan and/or elevation values. Aug 12,09: Points and lines from a CAPLAN project can now be exported in a KML file for display in Google Earth. This can be done with the command "Transformation / Export Points / WGS...", as this now provides the additional entry "Google Earth (*.KML)" in the list of available file types. Jul 31,09: The points of a DTM difference model are now assigned the object types from the original points in the participating projects. An elevation shift can now also be applied to the vertical curve of an alignment. The new option is available in the "Edit Vertical Curve" dialog. Jul 28,09: Extreme discontinuities in a DTM surface caused the smooth- ing algorithm to sometimes produce unpleasant bulges when computing contour lines. We have now improved the algorithm so that bulges in the vicinity of breaklines are avoided (if breaklines have been defined and applied for smoothing). Observation data in Leica GSI format usually contains the combined scale and prism constant values in one data word (ID 51) in which case the prism constant must be stated in mm. If a unit other than mm is desired (e.g. prism constant in 1/10 mm) then the values should each be transferred in a specific data word (ID 58 for prism constant, ID 59 for scale factor). Jul 27,09: A scale bar in a plan can now also be oriented vertically (via the menu command Dimension / Scale...). Jul 22,09: When block attributes were exported to DXF, the attributes were aligned with the associated symbol. Now the attributes can also be aligned with the north direction or the plan frame. Jul 20,09: The dimensioning of polylines now offers a new option for labeling the vertex points with their station values. Jul 17,09: A new interface to the Verm/pro software system (files *.KVP) has been added to the CAPLAN point data exchange. The dimensioning of coordinates in the Plan Window now allows the addition of a unit (such as "m", "cm") and the text can be moved in relation to the symbol in order to prevent the new coordinates from clashing with existing text (such as point names or codes). Jul 14,09: The R43 parameter, which is used to diverge the vertical lines in a profile layout, previously had to be set to 2 in order to draw identical profile points only once. This effect is now also achieved with a parameter value of 1. Jul 08,09: Via the menu command "Profiles / Road Surface / Interpolate" the elevation of a road surface can be interpolated at sel- ected or all points located in the range of the surface area. Jul 07,09: The dialog for editing text elements in the Plan Window has been augmented by a new "Search and Write" function, which can be used, for example, to search for elevation labels in the plan (Search: ???.???) and then complement them with leading or trailing supplementary text (Write: H=<*> m). The placeholder is replaced by the (selected) text found whereas the placeholder <*> is replaced by the entire text. In our example, the elevation label 1476.409 becomes the new text H=1476.409 m. Jul 03,09: In the stake out report created from a Trimble DC file, the recorded stations and distances referring to the alignment are now also included. Jun 30,09: Control points are usually identified and matched by means of their identical names. This method is very fast and straightforward, but there are situations when control points must be identified by matching plan positions within a given tolerance. This new, somewhat more time-consuming method is available via the menu command "Transformation / With Control Points / Match Control Points...". An additio- nal dialog option allows the matching points to be renamed so that identical points names are achieved; this allows all subsequent control point operations to be carried out as usual, with matching names. Jun 26,09: The transition curve based on a parabola-shaped curvature (according to Schuhr) was previously not properly calculat- ed if the transition bridged two circles with opposite cur- vatures and different radii (such as +300 and -400). This special case has now been rectified. Jun 25,09: The pedal points calculated by projecting points onto the parallel of an alignment are now referenced to the parallel (and not to the center line anymore). The name mask for the pedal points offers the "SSSS.sss" placeholder for the stat- ion value and "#" to number the pedal points in an ascend- ing sequence. Jun 24,09: The point stack could sometimes take a long time to carry out calculations if a lot of polar points were included in the survey. The dialog has now been optimized so the per- formance is considerably improved. Jun 19,09: CAPLAN linetype definitions are fundamentally different from the definitions in AutoCAD. The CAPLAN linetypes cannot therefore be transferred directly to DXF. As an alternative we provide the CAPLAN.SHX and CAPLAN.LIN files in the EXTERNAL directory on the Setup CD as well as on the down- load area of our internet site. Just copy both files into the support path of your AutoCAD installation and load the linetype definitions from CAPLAN.LIN after you have opened the DXF file in AutoCAD. You will be pleased to see the lines with linetypes 1 through 19 just as they appear in CAPLAN. When points are saved to Geodimeter format the number of decimal places used for the exported coordinates can now be specified. Jun 12,09: When loading a background scene into a project, the coordi- nate ranges will be checked to see if they overlap each other. Jun 10,09: The DXF interface is now capable of importing SPLINE ele- ments. The only limitation is that the spline vertices are linked by straight lines. Jun 04,09: The visibility and color of layers in viewports can be spe- cified independently from the settings in the original plan. When editing a viewport, the layer state can now also be re- set to the state used in the original plan. The layer states can also be copied between two viewports using the data im- port and export capability of the layer list. Jun 03,09: DXF output has again been improved. When exporting text elements from a plan to DXF version 2004, they can now be output as MTEXT elements. The advantage with this is that, since AutoCAD 2006, MTEXT elements have a 'background' pro- perty that can be activated in order to keep text elements free from other elements. This is useful for contour line labels, for example. Both the prefix and suffix of block attributes layers have been replaced by a single layer mask in which the asterisk can be used as a placeholder for the layer name of the symbol. May 29,09: Further dialogs have been furnished with additional mouse pointer symbols that change to indicate the required type of user input. The use of many of the dialogs has, thus, now been made much more intuitive. May 27,09: In the Plan Window, the dialogs for editing a symbol or a text element now offer an additional aid for defining the position, size and rotation of the symbol or text using the mouse pointer. When the relevant input field is activated the mouse can be used in the detail window to define the respective input value. May 26,09: As is the case in the Plan Window, projects can also have elements located very close to each other that are some- times difficult to select by clicking with the mouse be- cause of their proximity to each other. Now it is also possible in a project (as was already the case in a plan) to initiate a cyclical mode, using the menu command "Edit / Activate in Cycle" or the shortcut Ctrl+Shift+S, in order to find one element after another when clicking. The curr- ently active element in the cycle is selected by pressing the Enter key. In order to speed up the graphical display in the Project Window, symbols are only kept free from crossing lines if the Exact drawing option is activated. A polyline with ver- tex symbols so large that neighboring vertex points overlap each other will result in line segments being omitted. May 25,09: A deformation analysis of two plan networks or two spatial networks sometimes failed. Small but significant deformati- ons were sometimes not recognized because the first global test was not correctly carried out and this resulted in a notification being issued that no deformation could be found. This error has now been rectified. May 19,09: The text edit dialog in the Plan Window has a new text in- put area which accepts a plain Enter key to break a line (previously Ctrl+Enter was required) and which allows ASCII characters to be entered using the key combination ALT+ . The text can also be placed and rotated using the mouse if the corresponding edit field is active. If the user cancelled the loading of a background scene, the most recent CAPLAN versions sometimes crashed. This error has now been rectified. May 15,09: CAPLAN sometimes crashed when a line was copied from one project to another using the Clipboard. This error has now been rectified. Station points referenced to an alignment can now be assign- ed an elevation lying above the vertical curve (or above the road surface) by applying a constant vertical shift. May 13,09: When exporting a frame plan to DXF, the name of the frame plan will be used for the layout name. ----------------------------------------------------------- May 04,09: Release and distribution of version 2.6 ----------------------------------------------------------- Apr 30,09: A long or short version of a report can be output from a project's line directory. Calculating point offsets from lines or alignments can be executed in the dialog several times (e.g. by changing the point selection or by selecting another line or alignment). Not only the last but all computations will now be written to the report. Apr 28,09: Zenith angles must be reduced before they can be used for high-precision point determinations, particularly in three- dimensional control networks. The effect of the deflection of the vertical is now taken into account if a geoid model is defined. The dialog "Edit Properties" now offers an additional option for keeping symbols free from crossing lines with regard to a selection of several polylines in a plan. Apr 27,09: Missing elevations in line vertices can be automatically determined by interpolation if the line has neighboring ver- tices that do have elevations. The new task can be invoked via the "Edit / Lines / Interpolate Elevations..." menu com- mand. In the point directory it was previously only possible to report points that had changed. Now, a report including all the points can be generated containing the exact information as it is displayed in the directory list. Apr 21,09: In the dialog for the creation of profile plans, a title text can be entered on the last dialog page. This title text then appears at the top of the results plan for the volume calculation summary. From now on, the title will also be output to the calculation report and can be used to auto- matically fill placeholders associated with the keyword <#TITLE>. In the vertical curve editing dialog an option can be sel- ected specifying whether the elevations refer to the TI points or to the elevation of the projected curve. As the elevations are internally always TI-based, the option is initially set to "TI elevation". If the user switches to the "Curve elevation" option, all the elevations contained in the dialog list are converted accordingly. In this way, the list now always reflects the current option. Apr 20,09: The representation of alignments in terms of plan creation has been enhanced. Additional stations can now be displayed along center lines, and gradient indicators can also be pla- ced at the stations of the TI points defining the vertical curve. Furthermore, all relevant drawing parameters have been made accessible in the new "Options" sub-dialog, where they can be freely edited. Apr 16,09: The Deutsche Bahn (German Railways) is currently changing its procedures in order to deliver its railway data as Access databases created using GND-Edit software. These databases contain points as well as alignments defined with their horizontal and vertical positions. The points and alignments can now be loaded into CAPLAN using the "GND-Edit / DB AG" format. A new function allows the intersection of a plane with a DTM to create one or more intersection lines which can be saved in the project as polylines. This new function can be invoked via the menu command "DTM / Interpolate / Plane Intersections...". The function can be used for tasks such as the creation of contour lines (using horizontal planes), DTM section lines (using vertical planes) and slope sect- ions (using oblique planes). Apr 15,09: Stations with only face right observations were not correct- ly reported in the CAPLAN.LST protocol. This error has now been rectified. Apr 08,09: Coordinates for detail points referenced to a cylinder can now be calculated. The reverse function, i.e. the project- ion of points onto a cylinder, has also been implemented. The relevant new dialogs can be invoked via the menu comm- ands "3D Objects / Cylinder / Detail Points..." and "3D Objects / Cylinder / Project Points...". The infrastructural planning software VESTRA uses modifi- cations of the DA001 (points) and DA21 (vertical curves) formats for data exchange. CAPLAN now takes these modifi- cations into account. Mar 31,09: We have made the first steps in providing support for XML. We have initially implemented an interface to LandXML. At the moment, points and lines, as well as alignments with their vertical curves, can be loaded from and saved to LandXML files. Mar 27,09: All profile points from a specific horizon or Elling posit- ion can now be removed with the new function "Profiles / Remove Horizons..." . Renaming of horizons or Elling posit- ions is further supported by the already existing function "Edit / Object Types / Replace by Table...". Mar 24,09: The station dialog can now transfer the stations from a surface definition to the stations list. Furthermore, a point can be clicked to transfer its station to the act- ive input field. The point attributes in raw observation data from Geodimeter JOB files were hitherto reset for each target point. The att- ributes now remain valid for all subsequent target points, unless new values are set. Mar 23,09: It is now possible to transfer points from a project into a plan via the Clipboard. In such cases, the points appear in the plan as symbols displayed in accordance with the defini- tion of their respective object types. The symbols are label- ed neither with the point name nor with the elevation. The new functionality also permits the pasting of all sorts of generic point data, such as from EXCEL, into a plan. Mar 18,09: When a polyline in the project is edited, an audible signal indicates when a point code differs from the line code. This signal can now be turned on or off using the toolbar for the polyline dialog. Mar 17,09: The selection in a cyclical process of elements lying close together in the Plan Window has been reworked because the key combination (utilizing the Shift key) induced side eff- ects relating to other commands. Now the cycle mode can be entered via the shortcut Ctrl+Shift+S or via the menu command "Edit / Select / In Cycle". The current active element in the cycle is selected / deselected using the Enter key. The cycle can be canceled by pressing the Esc key. The design mode and final mode of a plan frame are now differ- entiated more clearly. The frame can only be saved to a FRM file in design mode whereas it is only in the final mode that viewports can be edited in order to include, for example, overviews or sections in the plan. Mar 11,09: If it is specified during the plan creation process that DTM slope shading is to be displayed then arrows are also drawn indicating the direction of flowing water. These arrows are now drawn three-dimensionally with an optional label showing the gradient (in percent). Scaling of symbols and text elements can now be carried out in multiple plans. The function for changing properties of selected text elemen- ts now includes the text size, which can be set to a constant value (stated in mm). Mar 10,09: After a background scene has been loaded from a file, the source file name is now displayed in the lower left corner of the background. Feb 28,09: If a user-defined format is specified as "free format" then the data row is divided into multiple elements by means of a separator. Each element is then associated with its number, such as 1=point name, 2=code etc. It is now also possible to concatenate multiple consecutive elements and then to define a numeric association for the whole package. For ex- ample 6-8 = point attribute 1. Feb 26,09: The option "Reverse profiles", which is part of the profile layout information, can now be used for both cross sections and longitudinal sections. In this way, hydrological longi- tudinal sections, which are usually stationed from mouth to source, can be displayed with the mouth on the right hand side and the source on the left hand side. Via the new menu commands "Transformation / With Datum / Point File..." and "Transformation / With Parameters / Point File..." it is now possible to read a file point by point, with each point then being transformed and output into a sec- ond file. This functionality is available without the need to have a project. As with the transformation of a DXF file, there are only two files involved in the process, these being the input and the output file. The function is therefore particularly useful for large point files. A further advant- age is that, as well as grid coordinates, geocentric (XYZ) and geographic coordinates (longitude, latitude, height) can also be accessed directly. The data formats can be selected from the list of standard formats and user-defined formats can also be applied. Feb 25,09: If two or more elements lie very close together in the Plan Window it can be difficult to select a specific element by clicking with the mouse. However, if you hold down the Shift key while clicking on the element, CAPLAN enters a cycle mode which detects one element after another. The type and layer of each element found are displayed in the status bar. Hitt- ing the Enter key adds the current cycle element to the element selection. If you press the Escape key the cycle will be exited without selecting an element. Feb 24,09: Elling lines, combined with profile horizons, can give rise to a large number of vertical lines and texts in the profile plans, which can make such profile plans less legible. With the new horizon parameter 36 (layout) in the profile layout (FRM file), the drawing of vertical lines and texts can be suppressed for HZ and / or EP lines. Feb 19,09: Until now, user-defined formats could be defined for point and line files, which were then applicable to the loading and saving of these files. Point format customization has now been developed for point files with geocentric coord- inates (X,Y,Z) and for point files with geographic coord- inates (longitude, latitude and height). All user-defined formats are now managed in a specific dialog that can be in- voked via the "Settings / Formats..." menu command. Feb 16,09: The new frame template FB_A4R.FRM (fieldbook, A4 reduced portrait format without margin) can be used to provide frames for field sketches, drawings etc. The new template is auto- matically copied into the DAT directory during the Setup pro- cess. Deutsche Bahn (DB) AG certification for our CAPLAN network adjustment modules: Since February 2000, our CAPLAN adjust- ment modules have been admissable for the DB Netz AG. In a letter (written in German), which we would like to copy and send to you, they state that our "program modules meet the requirements of the DB guidelines 883.0020 (creation and doc- umentation of control points)". Feb 06,09: The parameter R43, which is used to spread vertical lines in the profile layout, can now be given a value of 2. This causes identical profile points to be drawn only once. The resulting profile plans are thus more legible, particularly when horizons and Elling lines are combined. Feb 04,09: When loading points from the DA001 file format an empty elev- ation is now interpreted as an invalid elevation. Until now, only character '3' in column 44 could indicate an invalid elevation. Feb 02,09: During field surveys, lines are often coded by negative point codes. The resulting lines can now be split automatically whenever the negative point code changes. The resulting line parts each receive the code of the starting point. Jan 26,09: The new "File / Save all" and "File / Close all" commands are useful when working with multiple projects. Jan 23,09: When section plans are exported back to projects it is now asked if other (modified) sections can be included in the export even if they are not selected. Jan 16,09: Today, the new interface for GPS baselines from the Trimble Business Center was implemented. For this purpose the Trimble data exchange format *.ASC is required. Sections displayed in a plan are now optimized in space so that particularly flat inclined sections occupy less paper space. Jan 13,09: Whenever an image is inserted in a plan, the georeferenced position is automatically loaded from a W-file and suggest- ed as the image's position, provided a W-file can be found. Some customers have asked to have a W-file generated in which the current image position can be saved. Now the image editing dialog provides exactly this functionality. Jan 09,09: Splitting an alignment sometimes failed. This error has been corrected. Jan 02,09: If the layer color happens to be (almost) the same as the background color then the complementary color is automati- cally used instead to display lines, symbols and other elements consisting of lines. Previously, the complementary color was used in the Layer Controller and other dialogs to represent the layer color in such cases. This situation was not always satisfactory because SOLID areas are always dis- played with the defined layer color, which in such cases was different from the color displayed in the Layer Control- ler. We have therefore now reconciled both aspects and, from now on, the layer color will be displayed accompanied by two vertical lines that appear in the complementary color. Jan 01,09: The list generating function sometimes produced incorrect reports in CAPLAN.LST when point collisions occured. Follow- ing a reworking of this, all reports are now correctly pro- duced. Dec 29,08: The layer assignment in the function "Write Symbol Attribu- tes" sometimes failed if the layer setting "Assign directly" was activated. All texts were then incorrectly assigned to the currently active layer. This error has now been amended. Dec 18,08: Frame plans created from profiles were all given the same name, which made the distinction of the frame planes diffi- cult. The names of the frame plans are now extended with the names of the first and last profile plan in order to ease the identification of such frame plans. Dec 16,08: A rectangle parallel to the coordinate grid lines can always be created with the mouse in two modes: either with two mouse clicks (indicating the bottom left and upper right corners) or by "dragging" the mouse (from the bottom left to the upper right corner). The dialog for creating a new plan frame has been redesigned. The area of interest parameters are now pre- sented in a more intuitive way. If, in the frame plan creat- ion process, coordinate grid lines were also generated then this viewport should neíther be moved nor changed in scale, otherwise the grid lines will become invalid. This critical situation is now recognized and highlighted by means of a meaningful message being issued to the user. Dec 10,08: The scale of a plan seen through the current viewport can now be changed directly via the "Frame / Viewport / Scale" menu command. Dec 09,08: If a DTM or a volume calculation is exported in the REB data format, the point names are now checked to see if they are purely numeric, as some software packages require numerical point names for REB data. Alphanumeric point names can be converted to numeric point names via the menu command "Edit / Point Names / Renumber...". Dec 08,08: The intersection of two circles previously led to incorrect intersection points if the intersections did not lie between the two center points. This error has now been rectified. Dec 02,08: Via the menu command "Frame / Viewport / Edit..." it is now possible to edit the currently active viewport directly in the Plan Window. This is often more convenient than remov- ing the old viewport and then creating a new one. Nov 21,08: Frame plans can now be generated for plans with different horizontal and vertical scales (such as Time-Length diagrams resulting from the epoch comparison function). In such cases the coordinate grid will not be created. Nov 17,08: Both the comparison of epochs and the deformation analysis now provide the distances in 2D and 3D as new options for the "Time-Length-Diagram", besides the previously available differences in easting, northing and elevation. The distanc- es always refer to the first point in the sequence of points in time. Nov 12,08: The import process for points and lines from DXF into a pro- ject allows all empty codes to be set to default values us- ing the Context Menu of the "Code" column in the layer list. The layer properties are saved in the local project area and are reused in the plan creation process and for later DXF export. In the plan creation process, vector arrows can now be supp- lied with an additional label indicating the vector length - a choice of showing this in 2D or 3D is available. Nov 10,08: Via the "List / Point Modifications..." menu command, chang- ed points can be reported and / or selected. The old point state is loaded either from a point file or from a line file. Nov 07,08: The recent changes made to the process of loading observat- ions from the DC format (loading of attributes) could some- times result in an incorrect assignment of a target height. This error has been corrected. The intersection line of a volume calculation based on two DTMs can now be created without the need to create a diff- erence model. Nov 06,08: The unit for crossfall inclination values (e.g. %, 1:n) used for road surface input can now be selected for subsequent data entries. The setting also affects all previously entered data lines, which are converted to the new format. Oct 30,08: In the station dialog, a new option has been added in order to produce additional station values: if a vertical curve is stated then the starting and end points of the vertical roundings can be included in the list of stations. Oct 28,08: The dialog that provides dimensioning between two points in the Plan Window is now also able to optionally include the differences in easting and northing in the dimensioning task. ----------------------------------------------------------- Oct 20,08: Release and distribution of version 2.5 ----------------------------------------------------------- Oct 16,08: In the plan creation dialog, the selection of lines is no longer executed line by line, but the lines are now grouped in view layers corresponding to their object type. These can then be selected instead of individual lines. Oct 15,08: CAPLAN previously placed fitted and aligned texts from DXF too far to the right. This error has now been corrected. Oct 10,08: The "Save for Handover" function now includes all relevant data pools (symbols, linetypes, patterns, layers, object types and project settings), which can be saved optionally. This enables the source and target computers to now show an identical display of all data. Oct 07,08: To supplement the well established intersection functions line / line and line / circle, a new member function inter- secting two circles has ben added in the Project Window. It can be accessed via the menu command "Calculate / Intersect / Two Circles...". Sep 25,08: Simultaneous editing of multiple plans is particularly suit- able when applied to cross section plans. The following functions have thus been enabled for multiple plan editing: Edit / Selected Elements / Properties... Dimension / Polylines... Dimension / Gradients... Dimension / Areas... Sep 22,08: Contour lines in a plan can be labeled with elevation values if the contour lines' Z values are known (as in the plan creation). The new function is invoked from the Plan Window via the menu command "Dimension / Contour Lines...". Multiple slope lines can be freely defined in the dialog, along which the contour line labels are placed. The ele- vation values are set upon the contour lines without ínter- rupting them. Also, index contours that are labeled in the plan creation process are not interrupted anymore (as was the case up to now). For the processing of coordinates or observations using tacheometry data from Leica (GSI format), Trimble (DC for- mat) and ZEISS (REC formats), the conditions required were extended recently in terms of entry flexibility. Log- ical expressions, as used with the marking of lines in CREDIT, can now be entered using number and text comparisons as well as logical operators (and/or). Sep 18,08: The path names used in the Setup process may now contain any combinations of environment variables and constant text parts, e.g. $USERPROFILE$\Cremer\USR. Sep 12,08: Whilst drawing a polyline in the project window an audible signal indicates whenever the object type of the clicked point differs from the object type of the current polyline. Sep 10,08: The ALT key provides two additional zoom functions that are now available in both the Project and Plan Windows. While the ALT key is held down the left mouse button can be used to define a zoom window. Simultaneously pressing the ALT key and the right mouse button results in the entire plan area being displayed. Sep 09,08: Selecting drawing elements based on properties can now also be done over multiple plans, thus providing a convenient preparatory step for the new dialogs (labeling symbol attr- ibutes and replacing text). Not only the positive (adding) selection can apply across multiple plans but resetting the selection in multiple plans is also possible and can be very useful in the preparatory stage. Sep 08,08: Point symbols in a plan have the same properties as points in a project: besides the point name, the object type and up to 8 further attributes are associated with a point. There is a tooltip that can display all properties of a point - in a project as well as in a plan - which is con- trolled by settings made on the "Tooltip" page of the "General Settings" dialog. In the plan creation process only the point name and the elevation can be added to the point symbol as text elements. All further point attributes can now also be created and displayed as text labels using a new dialog invoked from the Plan Window using the menu command "Draw / Symbol Attributes...". Sep 03,08: Many dialogs in the project window provide lists in which points, polylines, alignments, profiles or DTM lines can be selected (e.g. Point Directory, Line Directory etc.). Clicking on an element in the detail window highlights the corresponding list entry and vice versa. A new feature now enables changing of the selection state of a list entry (i.e. adding or removing the check mark) when the element is clicked on in the detail window while the Ctrl key is held down. In order to provide an optimized dis- play of the element selection, the selected elements are now shown in the detail window with the selection color in preview mode. Sep 01,08: The new function "Edit / Text...", available in the Plan Window, allows carrying out of Search and Replace text oper- ations in the current plan. Other plans containing text elements can also be included in the text operations. Besides the standard "Search and Replace" function, the "Search and Edit" and "Round Numbers" functions are also available in the dialog. Since numbers are purely text ele- ments in a plan, the "Round Numbers" function can be used to conveniently adapt (reduce) the digits. When creating a new DTM, the points marked for elimination can easiliy be highlighted in the detail window by clicking on the relevant list entry. Aug 29,08: The calculation of intermediate profiles has now been added to the profile construction tools. Once the profile plans have been drawn the new function can be invoked in the Plan Window via the menu command "Profile / Intermediate Pro- files...". Between the two given profiles (horizons) inter- polation lines are then added, along which the new profile (horizon) points are interpolated at the desired intermedi- ate stations. Aug 25,08: The function "DTM / Interpolate / Sections..." was improved once more: a section can now include more than one DTM. The section plans can be presented in standard layout mode (as up to now), or a PRM template can be applied (new). Further- more, cut and fill areas can be filled with a hatch pattern and labeled with the area values, provided there are (exact- ly) two DTMs involved in the section plan. Aug 19,08: The new Plan Area Management functionality is now available in the Plan Window via "Frame / Plan Areas...". Plan areas can be freely defined and saved in a VP file. They can be rotated and are allowed to have (small) trapezoidal indent- ations (as sometimes used for special railway plans). The trapezoid parameters have therefore been removed from the list of frame parameters. Plan areas can be used in the plan creation process. Also, and more importantly, previously defined plan areas can be used when creating plan frames, so that identical plan areas can serve different purposes. Hitherto, plan frames were restricted to being parallel to the relevant plan. This restriction has now been removed. Plan frames can now be freely rotated in relation to the relevant plan. Aug 14,08: The GEOgraf interface (using the PAR file) has been improv- ed: in addition to the object types of points, the object types of lines are now also included in the duplex data transfer. The Code / Object type allocation table therefore needed expansion. Circular arcs in lines are now also sup- ported. Aug 12,08: The new function "DTM / Interpolate / Elevate Lines to DTM" allows you to provide elevations for polylines (e.g. parcel boundaries) so that they lie exactly on the DTM surface. These polylines can be then imported into the DTM, for ex- ample, as an outer border line. Aug 06,08: The location of data sets (e.g. layers, object types, sym- bols) can be managed very intuitively via the context menu (accessed using the right mouse button). The "Edit Data Loc- ation" dialog was therefore removed. Aug 05,08: The calculation of single points (e.g. Polar point, Section) was enhanced again. After applying a point to the project the point number is automatically increased and the relevant dialog field is activated. Aug 04,08: When a network design plan is created, the most recently entered a priori standard errors for each observation group (such as distances, directions etc.) are now included in the report, thus improving identification of different prog- nosis variants. Aug 04,08: When Adjusting control networks with only little redundancy (less than 20) the confidence ellipses become very large if the confidence is based on the empirically determined var- iance. Therefore, a new alternative can now be chosen that uses the given a priori variance rather than the empirical value. This new way has also provided a solution for the special case of a network without any redundancy. Unfortunately, these amendments not only required some new report sections in the list template but also resulted in the need to modify already existing sections relating to network adjustment, network prognosis and deformation analy- sis: - Network.ListTitle1D/2D/3D - Network.ListHzPoints2 - Network.List3dPoints4 - Network.PredictPoints - Deform.StartAdjustment If you have customized any of these report templates to fit your needs then this step must be done again with the new report template. Jul 28,08: Point selections based on the selection of one or multiple object types (codes) is used in CAPLAN in various places: - Network control points - Datum points for a free network - Reference points in a deformation analysis - Identification of TI (tangent intersection) points - Identification of water level points All the aforementioned tasks have now been unified in a new dialog that allows selection from object types (codes) that are actually in use. Jul 25,08: The elevation of a new profile point in the "Insert Profile Point" dialog can now also be defined in relation to the current horizon. Jul 24,08: The calculation of line lengths in the project with the function "Calculate / Bearing and Distance / Of Line..." now also uses exact arc lengths rather than approximating arcs with a polygonal substitute. This change has resulted in an entire new protocol layout with an adjusted report template. If you have customized the original report templ- ate (Geo.CalcLineAzim...) to fit your needs then this step must be repeated once more with the new sections (Geo.CalcLineLength...). Jul 18,08: The loading points from files into a project operation can now be reported in CAPLAN.LST by activating the "Report points" option in the file open dialog. Jul 14,08: Raw observation data from Trimble can be directly converted to a Z-file using the Style Sheet "CAPLAN Z-Format.XSL" which is publicly available at Trimble (www.trimble.com). The file can also be found on our Installation CD in the EXTERNAL subdirectory. Jul 11,08: Center lines provided by DB AG (German Rail) have recently been providing cubic parabolas as transition curves. CAPLAN's import of alignments has thus been extended to correctly load cubic parabolas from the VermESN format. Jul 04,08: The new right angle traverse available via "Calculate / Traverse / Right Angle Traverse" computes the hidden cor- ners of a building via the distances between all corners. A prerequisite is that two coordinated building corners have to be provided. Jul 02,08: The point snap within a viewport was displayed but in some cases wrong coordinates were applied. This behavior has been remedied and the point snap now acts consistently. Jun 25,08: Previously, even when the point snap was activated not all symbols were recognized by the snap function when drawing a polyline in the plan window. The free space available at the polyline vertices was thus not computed in some cases. The symbol recognition has now been improved and the free spaces are calculated accurately. Jun 23,08: Import of WGS coordinates previously required the definition of a global coordinate system. Now a local coordinate system is also sufficient. In order to position the local system at least one point must already exist in the project. With more than one point an orienting angle can also be deter- mined. Jun 19,08: The dialog for editing a lane of a road surface can now process a clicked point as well. The lane parameters calcu- lated from the clicked point are written to the dialog pa- nel. Furthermore, the current road surface is displayed as a preview. Jun 18,08: Every plan in the Plan Window stores its last view parame- ters and restores them when activated again. These view pa- rameters are now also stored in the M-file. So when loading an M-file the previous view of a plan will be displayed. Jun 13,08: When loading leveling data the calculated elevations of multiply observed points will be checked more thoroughly. Jun 11,08: The length of alignment names was extendend to 16 chars. The previous axis format, with eight-digit names, will con- tinue to be readable by CAPLAN. From now on all, A-files will be written with 16-digit alignment names. When export- ing alignments to previous CAPLAN versions the columns 9-16 have to be deleted from the A-file (preferably using CREDIT). The PRM files were modified as well and are available with the CAPLAN workbook download. The conversion of polylines to alignments now ensures unique alignment names and carries out various checks on the name entered in the dialog. The task can only be executed if uni- que alignment names are provided and if the names are not already in use in the project. May 28,08: A best fit cylinder can be determined by at least five sup- porting points that are spread across the surface at suit- able locations. The new function can be invoked from a pro- ject via the menu command "3D Objects / Cylinder / Best Fit...". May 27,08: Data exchange with GEOgraf vertex files (POL files so far) was improved: The new LNE file name extension is primarily used and the polyline object type is also fully supported. May 26,08: The special 'Rote Hose' leveling sequence is now correctly implemented in the Z-format. The original measuring sequence, however, can no longer be verified with data from a Z-file. May 21,08: The display seen through the current viewport can be rotated using the "Frame / Viewport / Rotate..." menu command. The "Rotate" function is available if the viewport is not locked. May 16,08: Some project point operations are now also included in the LST report: - Add / edit single point - Delete points - Point collisions (old / new / average) The line coding method "1-2-3" allows the definition of arcs. In some cases the radii of the arcs were not correct- ly calculated. This bug has been fixed now. May 15,08: The behavior of the "Edit Identical Point Names" and "Neig- boring Points" dialogs has been adapted to make them more similar and thus easier to operate. May 13,08: The calculation of a point section can now also include the elevation of the new point provided that the level differ- ences or, alternatively, the zenith angles (and the differ- ences between station and target height) are at hand. May 09,08: The Plan Window now has a new "Rotate" function which ena- bles selected drawing elements to be rotated around a refer- ence point. The selected elements can also be aligned to a reference line. May 07,08: In some cases the volume calculation between horizons could not calculate a solution even though the horizon lines were extended. The algorithm for calculating the extensions has therefore been improved. May 05,08: Point name comparison is used for various tasks (such as the detection of identically named points). Now lower / upper case is ignored if the relevant option on the "Names" tab of the "Settings / General" dialog is activated. May 02,08: When loading raw data from another folder into a new project it was sometimes the case that the CAPLAN.LST report was created in the original folder rather than in the current folder of the new project. This is corrected. Apr 24,08: When intersecting two lines, or a line with a circle, the report now also includes the intersection points that lie on the extension of the lines. The least-squares adjustment of a network risked crashing when applying the adjusted coordinates are applied. The error dates from April, 11 and was rectified today. Apr 22,08: A further range of plan frame layouts are now available: STD_A2.FRM A2 Landscape format STD_A3R.FRM A3 Landscape format reduced STD_A4R.FRM A4 Portrait format reduced STD_A4W.FRM A4 Landscape format STD_A4WR.FRM A4 Landscape format reduced The reduced formats are designed for printing on A4 or A3 printers without loss of information. You can find these FRM files on our current update CD or you can download them with the "CAPLAN Workbook" available at our homepage www.cpentw.de/download.html. Apr 21,08: When the coordinates of two points with the same name are identical (point collision), it was previously the case that a joint decision to select "Old", "New" or "Average" coordinates for the plan and level coordinates could be made. Independent decisions can now be made for the plan and level coordinates. Note: the "All" button is not available if the decision is different for plan and level coordinates. Large numbers of points cannot therefore be treated very efficiently with this option. Please refer to the CAPLAN Help where you can find the steps necessary to avoid such point collisions in the first place. Apr 16,08: The dimensioning of gradients can now make use of an addit- ional symbol pointing downhill. Apr 15,08: The dialogs "Subdivide Lines", "Approximate Arcs with Poly- gons" and "Alignments from Polylines" always preselect the currently activated line. Apr 09,08: As in the standard 2D plan, profile points in a profile plan now also contain the code, including the attributes, which can then be exported to DXF as block attributes. A prerequi- site is that the profile points must be generated using the profile layout parameters 29-34. When a DXF file is imported into the Plan Window the import dialog now displays the extents of the drawing elements as well as the extents of the DXF drawing. This provides better information with regard to helping to choose an appropriate plan scale. Apr 07,08: Topcon GPS baselines can now be loaded from a TVF file (TVF= Topcon Vector Format). Apr 04,08: The layer priority used for the DTM color gradient is no longer set to zero but is now taken from the layer selected in the plan creation process. ----------------------------------------------------------- Apr 03,08: Release and distribution of version 2.4 ----------------------------------------------------------- Apr 02,08: Orthogonal dimensioning of points from a line in a plan now allows insertion of right-angle signs at the pedal points. These can be chosen to be displayed as single / double arcs or single / double lines. Apr 01,08: 3D objects can be transformed in space by applying a con- formal 3D transformation. The new dialog can be invoked via the menu command "3D Objects / Transform...". Mar 31,08: If cross section data lies far away from the center line then, when drawing such cross sections, the center line can now be prevented from being displayed with the option "Within CS". Mar 25,08: Via "View / To Clipboard", the contents of the Detail Window (either project or plan) can be copied to the Clipboard in a bitmap format. The bitmap can then be pasted, e.g. into MS Word or into an image processing software. Mar 19,08: The UTM coordinate system is allowed to have an origin other than the equator, as a latitude of origin can now be speci- fied. The stereographic projection can be combined with a scaling factor other than 1. Mar 17,08: Detail points can now be calculated referenced to a plane. The new dialog is available via the menu command "3D Objects / Plane / Detail Points...". The boundaries of a plan can now be made visible (via the View / Options... command). A visible plan boundary can be helpful in an empty plan or for detecting distant drawing elements. Mar 13,08: When calculating a volume between two DTMs using prisms, the overlapping region will be highlighted with a hatch pattern, if calculation boundaries in both DTMS are displayed. Mar 12,08: The dialog for trimming profile lines now preselects the most recently activated alignment or profile line. A pre- selected polyline will be taken as the cutting edge. Multiple points in a project with the same name can automat- ically be renamed with an appended subnumber /1, /2 etc. However, some total stations refuse the slash as a valid character. Instead of the slash it is now possible to use another separating character. The dimensioning elements for a distance in a plan can now be moved to a parallel position. In this case two lines are added indicating the original point positions to which the distance value refers. Mar 11,08: During combined portrayal in a section plan of a vertical curve and a longitudinal section, additional intermediate elevations can be added to the curve at stations taken from the longitudinal section. Mar 07,08: The prism method volume calculation report can now contain the coordinates and elevations of the triangle points. Mar 04,08: Section lines through a DTM can now be created with points at a constant interval. Consequently, DTM sections have a similar range of options to the longitudinal profiles. Dimensions placed on distances and orthogonal lines in a plan no longer require symbols as reference positions but accept freely positioned points as well. It is therefore not neccessary anymore to place symbols before dimensioning can be carried out. Mar 03,08: When generating profile plans the properties of the HZ and EP codes (i.e. color, line type, line weight, layer) are now applied. The horizon parameters as specified in the PRM file are used only for mixed horizons. Feb 27,08: The projection of points onto a plane has now been implemen- ted. The new function can be invoked via the "3D Objects / Plane / Project Points..." menu command. All dialogs that are concerned with point projection onto a selected object (such as an alignment, polyline, plane etc.) behave now in a similar way. Feb 20,08: Similarly to filling closed polylines with a hatch pattern, and thus creating area elements, it is now also possible to process the reverse task in the Plan Window via the menu command "Edit / Polyline / From Area...": After the rele- vant area elements have been selected the new polylines are created from the border lines of the area elements. Free vertices of selected polylines can now be adorned with a symbol of your choice. The benefits can be seen when dim- ensioning (of distances etc.) is needed. The new dialog is available in the Plan Window via the menu command "Edit / Polyline / Vertices..." after the relevant polylines have been selected. In large DTMs (with more than 50,000 points) the display of DTM lines is initially omitted (as is the case with invisi- ble lines and triangle numbers). Feb 19,08: The selection of measured points in the project has now been developed into a 'Selection by Significance': besides the measured points it is now possible to select (or to unsel- ect) network points as well as DTM points. Feb 13,08: Any selected drawing elements in the Plan Window can now be transformed by means of two or more identical points. These control points are used to conduct a Helmert transformation providing the parameters transforming the elements. The dialog is invoked via the menu command "Edit / Selected Elements / Transform...". If more than two identical points are used then either the GPUNKT or the KOTRAN licence is re- quired. As images can be part of the element selection the existing image transformation, which was invoked via the "Calculate / Image Transformation..." command, has become superfluous and has therefore been removed from the menu. Feb 07,08: The calculation of point offsets from lines and alignments, and the road surfaces check, now also reports points that lie outside the stationing range of the line / alignment as well as points in blind corners. Feb 06,08: Files with alignments formatted as datatype 50 no longer necessarily have to be preceded by a datatype 00 containing the name of the alignment. Feb 01,08: CAPLAN is now able to display the new 3D objects in a detail plan. All polylines are generated with a valid Z-value (ele- vation) - thus providing full three-dimensional information which can be tranferred via the DXF data interface to any CAD system. Jan 28,08: For special close range surveying tasks the precision of a project can be set to "Laboratory precision". This option is available in the "General settings" dialog via the tab "Precision". The precision setting affects the display, storage and list- ing of data. Jan 25,08: The two-way check of leveling observation data was improved. The selection of pictures in the plan window using a cross- ing window was enhanced. Jan 18,08: A few specialists among our engineering surveyors have em- phasized since years the significance of three-dimensional calculations in CAPLAN. A plane as an individual 3D object was regarded as being particularly desirable. The long a- waited enhancement has now been implemented with the intro- duction of the following 3D objects: - Spatial line - Plane - 3D Circle and - Cylinder. The new 3D objects are most similar to the already well- known alignment elements, as they too are not dependent on points but actually contain their own coordinates. They are saved in an O-file which now also forms part of project data. The new 3D objects have been integrated in the CAPLAN user interface in the same way as all the other objects you are already familiar with. Hence, the standard operations, such as Activate, F4, Ctrl+C etc. can be applied without the need for further explanation. The new functions have been collected under the new "3D Ob- jects" menu command. Existing functions that have always carried out 3D tasks have been moved to the new menu group and have also been redesigned in order to provide a seamless integration in the new environment: - Detail points of a spatial line - Project point onto a spatial line - Best fit circle in 3D space - Intersection of spatial lines with a DTM The two existing functions concerned with alignments - Best fit straight line (2D) and - Best fit circle (2D) have also been redesigned to provide a similar appearance and user interface as the equivalent new / improved 3D dia- logs. Although the new 3D objects are still in the early days of their career, they nevertheless already provide an extensive range of useful functions: - Best fit plane through 3 or more points - Best fit spatial line through 2 or more points - Intersection of spatial lines and a plane - Intersection of radial observation sightings and a plane - New project as view onto a selected plane which means in other words that the local coordinate system of the selected plane (trihedron) becomes the global coor- dinate system of the new project. From a mathematical viewpoint almost all 3D tasks can be described in terms of a transformation. The new 3D object functions therefore require a KOTRAN or GPUNKT licence. Further technical details can be found in the CAPLAN Help. Jan 11,08: The selection functionality for line vertices has been im- proved considerably. The lines of interest can now easily be selected from a list containing all lines in the project. It is also possible to deselect line vertices. Jan 09,08: The dialog for determining a best fit 2D circle was redes- igned and now looks and works like the dialog for a best fit spatial circle. Dec 21,07: When writing elevations to DXF attributes, the attribute values were previously set to 0.0 if the option "Set all Z-values to zero" was activated. Now the actual point ele- vation is always written to the attributes. Dec 14,07: The new print dialog in both the Project and Plan Windows now contains a print to file option. Dec 12,07: The DXF export now offers additional settings for the block attributes. Besides the text height, the text font, the distance from the symbol and the number of decimal places for the elevation can also be set. All dialogs in the Plan Window which create or edit drawing elements used the layer from the Layer Controller so far. Now the layer can be directly chosen in all of these dia- logs. Dec 10,07: A graticule symbol can now be displayed in the lower left hand corner of the detail plan using the Plan Window view options. The graticule symbol represents the orientation of the currently used coordinate system. The old Denker geoid model, which was restricted to the area of the former West Germany, was now replaced by the new GCG05 geoid covering all Germany within the new boun- daries. Dec 03,07: Existing symbols and freely selected spots in the Plan Window can be labeled with coordinates using the new func- tion "Dimension / Coordinates...", where plan values and / or elevations can be selected for display. The dimensioning of a distance and the dimensioning of a polyline can now also optionally be carried out in 3D. In order to improve clarity and distinction, the 3D values have a "(3D)" suffix. Dec 02,07: The locations of configuration data like object types, lay- ers, symbols etc. are described more precisely via tooltips in all dialogs. Nov 19,07: The center point of the best fit spatial circle defines the origin of the circle plane's coordinate system. Nov 16,07: A parallel line, whether created in a project or in the plan window, can now be shifted vertically. Nov 15,07: Our new dimensioning function "Dimension / Polyline Angles" displays and adds a value label to each inclination angle of a polyline that consists of at least three vertices. Nov 14,07: When importing polylines into a DTM, the intersections bet- ween the polylines are now computed much faster. The poly- lines can also now be imported into the DTM despite having existing intersections. However, this can lead to an infer- ior quality of the DTM close to the intersection points. Nov 09,07: Previously, post processed GPS baselines could not be loaded from the Trimble TGO software up to now. The new interface now replaces the Trimble DC format until now. Nov 07,07: The legend of used symbols, line styles and patterns is now displayed as a table and is thus more concise. The legend elements can be created on layers derived from the object types. ----------------------------------------------------------- Oct 22,07: Release and distribution of version 2.3 ----------------------------------------------------------- Oct 17-07: The "Define Circle" dialog recalls the previously used calc- ulation method. Tangent angles and radii can now also be calculated on the basis of clicked points. Oct 16,07: The Verm.esn point format is now also available for loading and saving points. Oct 12,07: As the navigation tools have been simplified the "Zoom Out" function was removed. The "Zoom All" function applied to a non fixed viewport either restores the inital view state or the last fixed view state of the viewport. Oct 11,07: The "Edit Profile Horizons" dialog was removed from the pro- ject menu. The HZ and EP codes of profile points can now be changed via the menu command "Edit / Object Types / Replace by Table...". Oct 10,07: Already existing viewport areas can be used as areas of in- terest when a new frame plan is created in the Plan Window, by just selecting one of the viewport areas. Oct 05,07: In profile construction mode the coordinates of horizon lines and Elling lines, respectively, can now be entered directly in the edit dialog. Oct 04,07: Similarly to the Plan Window, the Project Window now also provides the menu command "View / Options..." for specific- ation of the viewing colors. Oct 02,07: The F4 key used to edit the active element now also works on horizons and Elling lines in profile construction mode. Oct 01,07: Navigation using the mouse (in the project as well as in the plan window) can be conducted without a mouse wheel if the alterative method is activated in the "Settings / General..." dialog on the "Navigation" page. Sep 21,07: In the Plan Window the free space allocated to keeping polyline vertices free from crossing lines can be updated via the menu command "View / Update Free Space". The up- date is recommended after symbols have been changed, e.g., after symbols have been scaled. Sep 18,07: Via the menu command "Profiles / Generate / Single Cross Section..." a cross section can be derived directly from surveyed points without the need for a previously defined alignment. The location of the cross section can be deter- mined by either the best-fit straight line or by a start- ing / end point. Sep 17,07: Via the menu command "Edit / Object Types / Replace by Table..." the object types assigned to points, lines, pro- file points and observations in the project can be replaced according to the allocations described in a table. The opt- ion "All points with object type..." was therefore removed from the "Set Object Type" dialog . Sep 13,07: Via "DTM / Interpolate / Sections..." one or more sections through a DTM can be created in a convenient way. Sep 06,07: The editing process of polylines was improved once again, both in the project window as well as in the plan window: In order to exchange a vertex point in a line just press the Shift key, causing the current vertex point to be high- lighted with a red circle. Clicking another vertex will then replace the old vertex with the new one. As an alter- native to the Insert Arrow, a rubber band can help to supp- ort line construction effectively and intuitively. The only drawback of the rubber band method is that tool tips (such as point names etc.) must be suppressed. Sep 03,07: In profile construction mode a horizon line can now be cre- ated and edited in the same way as a polyline. Aug 29,07: In the project window cross sections which overlap each other in plan view can now be trimmed using other cross sections or polylines as a cutting edge. In this way multiple volume calculations in the overlapping zone can be avoided. A rectangle can be defined by three arbitrary points and generated as a new polyline in the project window. Aug 27,07: Hitherto only points which occured in all of the particpating projects could be included in an epoch comparison. Now it is also possible to include points with "gaps", by activ- ating the option "Include all points even if they do not occur in all projects". Aug 24,07: The internal identification numbers of menu commands and dialogs were changed. Therefore, if you download a recent CAPLAN version from the Internet then you should also down- load the CAPLAN help file in order to maintain a consistent program version. Unfortunately, the "Favourite Tasks" col- lection is not valid anymore and must therefore be recre- ated. Aug 23,07: When editing a road surface, separate lane width and cross- fall values can be entered at different stations. In the DXF data export the block annotations are placed next to the visual block contents. Aug 15,07: Profile templates can now be inserted with a horizontal shift. The report generator automatically reduces long names of files and directories if the placeholder does not provide sufficient space. In each section of the template the cur- rent date and time are available (under the names $CURDATE and $CURTIME). Aug 10,07: In the Plan window a rectangle, passing through three arbi- trary points, can be calculated and used as a new drawing element in the plan. Aug 03,07: In the plan creation process circular arcs forming part of an alignment now remain as arc elements in the plan and are not approximated by polylines. The alignment's name can opt- ionally be placed at the beginning as a text label. If the printing area of a project or a plan is smaller than the print paper format then the output can be centered on the print page. Multiple plans can now be printed in one go even if they have different plan formats. Jul 31,07: By saving DTM data with the "Datatypes 058 + 030" format in conjunction with output of datatype 049, a file can be created for use as an input file to the Wirth machine control system (use filetype "STRAPS DTM *.dat" for loading). Jul 30,07: When calculating a volume from DTMs, a file can be generated which contains all data required for the official check program for the (German) REB 22.013 standard. Jul 27,07: The calculation of surface areas between cross sections can now be invoked from the project window via the menu command "Profile / Surface Areas...". A prerequisite is that Elling lines which are not closed must be present. Jul 24,07: Via the menu command "Profiles / New..." new cross section plans can be created in the Plan window. You can then imme- diately start with profile construction tasks. Jul 17,07: Road surface data can now be exported to the external YXZ format, which serves as input for the Wirth machine control- ling system. Jul 12,07: The plan legend for point symbols was now complemented with line types and hatch patterns. The element colors are derived from the respective object types. For the DTM color gradient and slope shading the number of decimal digits can now be specified. Jul 10,07: GPS baseline setup checks now indicate missing observation times. This is helpful when observation data need to be corrected. Jul 09,07: CAPLAN can still be used as a viewer for M files and DXF files even if no license is available or after the test time has elapsed. Jun 20,07: DTM triangle numbering now includes only the visible tri- angles, with invisible triangles now being assigned the number 0. This ensures consistent triangle numbering even when the DTM is saved in and reloaded from a DTM file with an external format. Jun 19,07: The volume calculation using cross sections with the Elling method has been completely redesigned. During profile const- ruction, closed polylines can be created and assigned to an EPxx position. The new EPxx codes are handled very similarly to the well-known HZxx object types. The Elling volume calculation is organized using positions and is invoked from the project window. Stations with a zero profile can be introduced individually for each position. At these stations the cross section area is set to 0.0. Various outputs can be created, among them profile plans with cross section area values and data output files according to the German REB standard. Jun 14,07: Building a difference model with DTMs including exclusion areas the exclusion area border line could sometimes show unpleasant ripples. This behaviour is now corrected. Jun 11,07: Within profile constructions (shift / cover horizon) a profile line can be duplicated via an offset of 0.0 meters. The recog- nition of profile points and profile lines was also improved. When opening a plan CAPLAN searches for image files not only in the stated directory but also, in case the image cannot be found, in the current directory where the M file is located. Jun 06,07: The application window is now compatible with a set of mult- iple monitors. Collecting traverse points in the Point Stack function was faulty. The error has now been corrected. Jun 05,07: From now on the contents of a viewport are drawn prior to the frame plan contents, thus ensuring that the frame plan elements (such as grid crosses) are on top of all other ele- ments and thus visible. Up to now it was not possible to build a DTM deposit / ex- cavation model if one of the border points lay exactly on the straight connection between its direct neighbours. This particular case is now taken into consideration. Jun 01,07: With regard to detail point calculation, the reference align- ment can be considered as spatial curve, provided a vertical curve is given. The alignment-related values (such as stat- ion etc.) are then related to the spatial curve. The new amendment can be reached via the '3D Special' selection in the dialog. The function allowing import of leveling data from the Top- con format was completed today. May 29,07: Writing points to an Access database is now performed much faster if the target table is empty at the beginning of the writing process. Selected drawing elements in the Plan Window can easily be scaled by rotating the mouse wheel while simultaneously holding down the CTRL key. One increment of the mouse wheel scales the selected elements up or down by 2.5 %. ----------------------------------------------------------- May 24,07: Release and distribution of version 2.2 ----------------------------------------------------------- May 15,07: Creating new layers in the Plan Window is now more intuitive. You can create a new layer from the scratch via "Settings / New Layer...". The command "Settings / Available Layers..." allows you to select layers from the predefined layer table. May 08,07: Horizontal and vertical alignments can now be imported from the TIT and NYL formats, which are generated by the infra- structure planning software Novapoint. Apr 30,07: If a plan was used as a project background then, until now, all drawing elements were displayed, regardless of whether some layers were switched on or off. Now the layer visibility is taken into account when the background is loaded. Raw leveling data from Zeiss instruments contain language- dependent type identifiers. These are now being correctly interpreted. Apr 26,07: Besides setting out a single lane of the road surface it is now possible to set out the points of all lanes at once via "Profile / Road Surface / Setting Out...". Apr 20,07: The export of images to DXF 2004 was improved. Rotated images are now displayed correctly in AutoCAD. Apr 19,07: The display of water level lines in profiles was completely revised. The water level elevation can now be specified on the dialog page "Height". It is possible to enter one ele- vation valid for all stations. Furthermore, an individual elevation can be derived for each profile from a profile point with a special code. Apr 18,07: The dialog where station values can be specified now offers additional possibilities. Stations of center line main points, tangent intersection points as well as apex points can be added to the station list. Apr 16,07: In the course of a volume calculation between horizons a file can be generated which contains all data required for the official check program according to the REB 21.013 standard. Additionally, the cross sectional areas can be dimensioned in the profile plans. Apr 10,07: The automatic exclusion of border triangles in the DTM was further improved and now recognizes extended indentations. Apr 05,07: In the dialog "Select Points by Object Type" you can now save the current setting to file and restore it later from that file. When saving lines in a project you can specify whether a given point selection should be considered or not. Either all of the vertices must be included in the point selection or it is sufficient if the line contains at least one sele- cted point. Apr 04,07: The function "Shift Coordinates" has been added to the Plan Window. Selected drawing elements can be shifted and scaled accurately. Mar 29,07: Calculating a railway line using measurements from a rail- way staff now utlisze only two measured points per station instead of three points previously. With only two points there is no redundancy, so deviations cannot be determined. Mar 23,07: When creating a legend for the DTM levels of a difference model the upper level was superfluous. This has been corr- ected. The report of the transformation with parameters now con- tains the name of the parameter set. Areas with a SOLID hatch pattern are now exported as SOLID elements in the DXF R12 file format. Mar 16,07: Point names in raw observation files (from total stations, leveling instruments and GPS receivers) are transferred un- modified to CAPLAN. Only Leica and Zeiss point names are treated differently as their leading zeros are removed. In every case, the Z file therefore contains the final point name. The new GeoGraf version 4 is now also supported by CAPLAN. PAR files from the older version 3 as well as PAR files from the newer version 4 can be loaded and saved. Mar 13,07: When saving a DTM to data formats DA45 and DA58 the point names are now written with their letters. Up until now only the numerical name part was used. Mar 12,07: If an alignment is inverted then not only the stations of the alignment, including the vertical curve, are transformed but the related profiles and the road surface are now trans- formed as well. In the project window you will find a new menu item "Calcu- late / Intersect / Trim Line..." (the line to be trimmed must have been activated first): In the dialog the line can be trimmed using another line / parallel or the line can be extended until another line / parallel. Arcs in polylines can be approximated by polygons. These approximated polylines can then be integrated in a DTM. Mar 09,07: CAPLAN is now able to load alignments from the new format generated by the external program ProVI. Alignments from CAPLAN to ProVI are still transferred in the old data for- mat as this will still be supported by ProVI and is suff- icient for definition of alignment geometry. Mar 06,07: When loading and saving cross sections in data type 66 for- mat, the sides of the cross sections can be mirrored. This is often useful when hydraulic cross section data are to be produced. The calculation of perpendicular offsets between two align- ments can now store the intersection points in the current project for further use e.g. staking out of these points. Mar 02,07: A plan frame as well as a profile drawing frame are deter- mined by a set of parameters. Also, the plan frame size, whether it is specified or undefined, is determined by these parameters. Now, the plan frame width and the plan frame height can be specified differently from each other. The "Elevation" block attribute in a DXF file is taken from the symbol's Z coordinate. In a profile plan, however, the Y coordinate is taken instead. Feb 22,07: When writing points to ZEISS format invalid elevations will be set to -9999.0 to distinguish them from valid elevations. Feb 19,07: Polylines can now be modified with circular arcs in the Plan Window as well - quite similar to the lines in a pro- ject. Line calculations, such as the line length and the enclosed area, are now calculated accurately - not an ap- proximation with a polygonal substitute. Circular arcs are also preserved during data exchange (import / export) with DXF files. Whenever an excavation, a heap or a terrace is created the original outer border lines, break lines and exclusion areas are reintegrated in the new model. Feb 16,07: All file dialogs provide a new bar where your favourite dir- ectories can be managed - thus allowing fast access to im- portant directories. In the dialog where the vertical curve of an alignment is edited or entered a new option is now available: the verti- cal curve can directly be loaded from a file. This allows loading of an alignment in two steps: first the horizontal elements and then the vertical curve from another file. Feb 15,07: The Setting Out Report did not recognize the GSI format in some cases. This defect has now been rectified. Feb 12,07: In the course of a network adjustment it is now possible to change the Baarda threshold value (3.29) by entering an error probability other than the default value (0.1 %). The function "Subdivide Lines" allows consecutive naming of all dividing points on currently selected lines if you do not use '*' (placeholder for line name) in the point name mask. When merging lines the line highlighted in the dialog list is now immediately activated in the project window and vice versa. Feb 02,07: A coordinate file is loaded in an accelerated mode if the project does not contain any points and if multiple points with the same name are allowed. Up to now the load time for 100000 (200000, 1000000) points was 20 (100, 3100) seconds, whereas the current load time is reduced to 4 (9, 200) sec- onds. The time saved is thus quite considerable if more than 100000 points are involved. However, it should be noted that for such large projects there are still other bottlenecks which remain as CAPLAN was originally designed for middle-sized projects with a maximum of about 100000 points. Jan 30,07: Up to now it was not possible to create and to edit a DTM in a local coordinate system, and then to transform the DTM as a final step. This was because as the point positions changed the DTM became invalid and therefore had to be removed. Now all the point indices are updated according to the transformation so that the DTM remains valid. Jan 22,07: The current task in the "My Tasks" drop down box can easily be repeated by simply pressing the ENTER key if the detail window (project or a plan) is active. In this way tasks can be continuously executed. The dialog for entering a viewing scale was simplified as only the scale number, e.g. "250", is required for a scale of 1:250. Jan 17,07: The graphical output of a geodetic network no longer incl- udes a frame or grid. The legend descriptions now constit- ute a separate legend plan from which the contents can easily be transferred to the frame plan. Jan 15,07: The new profile constructions "Profile / Add Arc To Left..." and "Profile / Add Arc To Right..." now allow the addition of circular arcs and trenches to profiles. Jan 12,07: Alignment referenced detail points (Alignments / Detail Points) can now be entered with an elevation difference that refers to the alignment's vertical curve or to the road surface elevation. Jan 04,07: The profile constructions "Add Point to Left" and "Add Point to Right" are now more user-friendly and offer many more alternatives for construction. Dec 22,06: An individual background color can now be specified for both the plan and the project window. The CAPLAN workbook (CAPLAN.DOC) and the training courses (Training1.DOC and Training2.DOC) are now available via the Cremer website as PDF files. Dec 21,06: Some profile construction operations, such as "Add Point to Left", "Add Point to Right" and "Insert Profile Template" are now more flexible and allow referencing of the const- ruction to any individual point of a profile horizon. The reference points have to be specified in each selected pro- file station at the end of the dialog sequence. Point snapping mode can now also be used when specifying points for profile constructions. Dec 15,06: Network control points can be selected via the point code (object type) in the network setup process. The new feature is available in the context menu. The line surveying method "Link forward negative point code" was extended by a fifth method, "Link backward negative point code". This will certainly please all CADdy users as the new method is exactly what CADdy supported in the old days. Surveyors can thus retain existing data collection routines and the KOR files can be imported to CAPLAN without loss of link lines/feature strings. Dec 13,06: You may now create profiles with empty bands by selecting a PRM file that contains more band definitions than projects involved. Dec 08,06: Working with larger image files is now complemented by a pro- gress dialog which appears during lengthy operations such as loading or recoloring. The current operation can also be terminated prematurely via the dialog's Cancel button . Dec 04,06: Some tasks applicable for an active line in the project are now directly available in the context menu. Nov 30,06: For a user defined coordinate format with separators you can now decide if consecutive separators should be interpreted as oneblock or individually. Nov 23,06: CAPLAN can still be used as a viewer for M files and DXF files even if no license is available or if the test time has elapsed. Nov 21,06: If cross sections (referenced to an alignment) are spread across several projects, resulting station gaps occur, you can select all stations without gaps via the command "Select complete stations" from the context menu. Nov 17,06: When elevation labels are exported to DXF there is now an option allowing the text to be split (leading and trailing characters as well as the actual decimal point are expor- ted as 3 distinct elements to DXF so that the decimal point is correctly positioned). If this option is not activated then the elevation label is exported as a single text ele- ment and so the decimal point is correctly positioned only if a fixed size font is used in the CAD system. Nov 11,06: In the Plan Window a scale bar can be added to plans via the menu command "Dimension / Scale...". ----------------------------------------------------------- Nov 08,06: Release and distribution of version 2.1 ----------------------------------------------------------- Nov 03,06: Georeferencing of an image can alternatively be provided by a so-called World File. Save for Handover: A project as well as plans from the Plan Window can be saved "for handover". This means that all relevant files are packed in a single archive file which can easily be transferred to the recipient. For a project (CPZ file): all project files including the background (X file) with images and georeferencing files. Loading a CPZ project file includes automatic unzip. For plans (MFZ file): all plans (M file) with the included images and georeferencing files. Loading an MFZ file in- cludes automatic unzip. For DXF drawing files (ZIP file): all plans (DXF file) and, for DXF version 2004, also the images and georeferencing files (as far as available). Oct 30,06: When drawing cross sections the stations provided are now collected from all open projects. You may now draw empty bands if you select a PRM file with more bands defined than projects involved. The layout of a longitudinal section allows editing of an additional vertical alignment curve. Three further bands, the gradient band, the curvature band, and the crossfall band may also be included in the layout editing process. Oct 23,06: Up until now, the naming convention for layers, symbols, line types and hatch patterns was restricted to DXF version R12. From now on the naming convention is extended according to DXF version 2004. These conventions allow upper and lower- case letters, many special characters and a maximum length of up to 255 characters. Oct 20,06: Within the plan window it is now possible to transform an image (Calculate / Image Transformation...) by using two control points. In the dialog the actual and true coordi- nates of these points are entered (either manually or by mouse click). CAPLAN then calculates the transformation parameters which fit the image to the global coordinate system by shifting, rotating and scaling. This function can be used for geo-referencing of images. Saving of polylines out of the project (via File / Save / Lines...) can now be restricted to the currently selected points (instead of the selected lines so far). In this case all the selected points are saved along with those lines that have their supporting vertices completely selected. Consequently, it is now much more convenient to transfer any part of a project. Archiving a DTM can now also be done via the DXF format. The saving function (as DXF triangle export) was already available since the DXF loading function was introduced. Oct 18,06: In the plan generation process observations (terrestrial measurements as well as GPS baselines) can now be included (instead of the rather limited ellipses). This was also a customer's suggestion made at the InterGEO. Oct 17,06: Some improvements suggested by our customers at the InterGEO are now implemented: - A spatial circle can also be calculated without prese- lection of points. - You can now store images (e.g. company logos) in the frame parameter files and reload them when generating a plan frame. - When exporting the DXF format it is possible to restrict the output of layer definitions to the layers that were actually used. Oct 06,06: Images (bitmaps) such as orthophotos can now be inserted in plans where they can be freely positioned and recolored. These plans can then be used as background information for a CAPLAN project. The following image formats are supported: JPG, BMP, TIF, GIF, and PNG. Oct 06,06: The long awaited combination of a vertical alignment curve together with a longitudinal section is now implemented. In addition to the section view the alignment's curvature band and crossfall band can also optionally be included in the plan. However, the prerequisite for such a combined plan is a PRM template file as (such as ALIGN_P1.PRM), in other words: there is no default representation available. Via the new menu command "Profiles / Overview..." an over- view of all cross sections can be generated. An overview is particularly helpful for detecting stationing gaps etc. if cross sections are spread across multiple projects. Oct 02,06: The plan list in the Plan Window was provided with check mark boxes in order to provide a clear distinction between the activated plan and selected plans. Selection is enabled via check marks in the plan list. The profile construction has been improved tremendously: The new station lists in the construction dialogs allow the selection of any profile station where construction should be made. You can even browse through the stations (by click- ing either in the dialog list or the plan list of the Plan Window). The currently selected station is always displayed with a preview of the current construction. When browsing through cross section plans CAPLAN tries to retain the current view as far as possible. If the Page-Up / Page-Down keys are used for browsing then the focus will be kept in the detail window. Oct 01,06: In order to individually represent the vertical curve of an alignment and to provide an additional curvature / crossfall band the new dialog "Alignments / Vertical Alignment / Gen- erate Plan..." has to be invoked. In the dialog a template (PRM file) can also be specified. The longitudinal and vertical scales can also be selected. Sep 19,06: The list of plans in the Plan Window can now be edited in a more comprehensible way via a context menu. Sep 05,06: If no point numbers were entered in the "Enter Line Points" dialog CAPLAN crashed after the "Apply" button was clicked. This error is now fixed. Aug 18,06: When loading DXF files into a project you can now merge points even in empty projects. Thus drawing imprecisions can easily be corrected. In the Plan Window you can now dimension the lengths and the gradients of multiple selected polylines and areas in one go. Aug 17,06: The dialog "Assign Object Types" was now extended so that you can select the points via their object type. Aug 11,06: A symbol (point) in a plan can now have - as any other point in a project - up to eight attributes besides the object type code. These attributes can also be edited in the Symbol Edit dialog. Multiple point / symbol properties (such as point name, object code, attributes etc.) are available for DXF export where they can be saved as DXF block attributes. In turn, during DXF import, it is possible to select DXF block attributes and assign them to CAPLAN point attributes. The profile plan layout (which may be Standard or From PRM- File) can now be edited with the help of a dialog "Profile / Layout (PRM)..." where the effect of changed R parameters can be directly inspected in the plan preview. Additional drawing elements can then be specified in the profile temp- late plan and can finally be saved in a new PRM file toge- ther with the R parameters (via Profile / Save...). Aug 04,06: For DXF import of points into the project window as well as for the point representation in a plan creation process it was previously necessary to fill the dialog lists with the same tables (such as the Layer - Code relation etc.). Once you have entered the relations in the list you can now save the completed list data, via the context menu, to an LDX file, from where it can be reloaded later on. Aug 03,06: When creating a plan with lines, you have now an additional option for filling areas, with the option to align the patt- ern to the longest polygon side. Jul 21,06: In the Plan Window it is now possible to intersect two poly- lines (menu command Calculate / Line Intersection...). The intersection points are created as new symbols. Thereafter, the distances etc. can be dimensioned. Jul 19,06: Via the menu command "Transformations / With Control Points / 2-Point..." a new simplified Helmert Transformation is now available, where the coordinates of both control points are just entered in the dialog. This means that the function tion does not need a second project database. The new func- tion is available with a basic CAPLAN license (without an additional module). Jul 12,06: The line coding method specified by 1=Start, 2=Continue and 3=End was enriched by a further alternative method with 5= Start and 6=End. The advantage of the alternative method is that all points following the starting point will automatic- ally be included in the polyline. Jul 07,06: The user-defined coordinate formats can now be organized in such a way that they will be available in Global data loca- tions (in the CONFIG.INI file residing in the global DAT directory). Jul 04,06: The view controller in the project window and the layer controller in the plan window have new possibilities for multiple selection via the SHIFT-Key. The layer controller also offers a context menu (when the list is closed). Jun 26,06: When using the layer manager or editing the object type table you can change multiple lines via the list's edit functions. Jun 23,06: Radial observation data can now also be loaded from TOPCON RAW format. Jun 21,06: Loading or saving of an alignment in the old Leica GSI for- mat required the easting and northing coordinates to be shortened with constant shift values. These can be entered in a new dialog as of now. Jun 16,06: The text windows dedicated to the LST-file and to the ERR- file can both be kept open as long as CAPLAN runs. In this way one can conveniently watch the report generating pro- cess in real-time. Furthermore all printer settings (such as landscape orientation) are retained. Jun 14,06: The dividing points of polylines are not only added to the project but can also be added to the polyline as well. Jun 09,06: 3DFACE surface elements were until now not loaded from DXF files. The element's vertices are however now treated as POINT elements and are thus loaded into the Project Window or into the Plan. The frame templates STD_A4.FRM and STD_A3.FRM provide a fixed size as of now. The width and height parameters can be edited in the dialog list. The area of interest is de- termined with just one mouse click (which is the center point of the area). Jun 08,06: All tasks for setting out of points are now equipped with a variable, user-definable, name mask applying to the point names. Circles and circular arcs can now be defined with variious construction options. Ellipses and parts of ellipses (arcs) can now also be drawn. CAPLAN uses the polyline element for this function. Jun 01,06: The new function "Draw / Circle..." generates a circle or a circular arc in the Plan Window. The circle or arc ele- ment is in fact represented by a polyline. May 24,06: The dimensioning values available in the Plan Window are now available with a range of units(such as m, mm, cm, feet etc.). May 18,06: With the new function "Edit / Names / Renumber..." it is now possible to renumber (i.e. rename) selected or all points (e.g. from 1 through end number). May 17,06: Importing circular arcs as alignments from a DXF file is no longer possible. ARC elements are now loaded as polylines (with bulges). The loaded polylines can then be converted to alignments whenever necessary. May 12,06: Via the new menu command "Calculate / Best Fit Circle..." a spatial circle can be calculated passing through selected 3D points. All deviations are shown in the result list. May 11,06: Via the new menu command "DTM / Calculate / Sum Of Areas..." polylines, defined in a DTM, can be selected as area perime- ters. All areas are calculated and listed with both values, 3D and 2D. May 09,06: Importing points and lines from DXF into the project window was completely revised. Block attributes from DXF can now be transferred to CAPLAN as point names, elevations and object types. As the import of polylines also includes arcs and circles, the DXF import of center lines has now been discontinued. May 04,06: The import of GSI data from the digital level LEICA SPRINTER is now processed correctly. ----------------------------------------------------------- Apr 24,06: Release and distribution of version 2.0 ----------------------------------------------------------- Apr 21,06: Blocks from a DXF file can now be imported into the symbol editor. During the import you can choose which blocks should be loaded and where they should be saved (e.g. local). Addi- tionally, all block definitions are loaded during the DXF plan import for use within the drawing. They are stored as as local symbols (i.e. existing symbol definitions won't be overwritten). Apr 18,06: You can now define a spatial line (3D) directly via the two point names. Apr 09,06: The object type is now included in the data transfer to the plan window and can therefore be used as an attribute when creating or reading DXF files. Apr 04,06: Whilst importing data with unknown object types you are now able to immediately edit all properties of these new object types. The same functionality is available when data are im- ported into a project via the Clipboard. Mar 31,06: The import of polylines into a CAPLAN project can now also utilize user-defined file formats. As with points and link- lines from a total station the line codes must be defined by an additional attribute. Mar 28,06: DXF export of plans from the Plan Window was fundamentally improved. Frame plans with viewports are no longer exported as one plan model because the structure with the different layout and model space is now correctly converted and saved in the DXF file. If CAPLAN shows different plans in multiple viewports these plans are automatically placed one after another to form a single model space. It is obvious that such a composed model cannot represent true coordinates all over its extents. However, this is implied in the AutoCAD restriction to a single model. Besides the older format (R12) CAPLAN is now capable of gene- rating the new 2004 DXF format which has the following ad- vantages over the R12 format: - Full RGB color depth of all elements - Support of line weight - Area elements with all properties - Multi-line text as so-called M-text - True type fonts as text style - Viewport borders are not restricted to rectangles Mar 25,06: The drawing element selection based on predefined properties (Edit / Select / By Properties...) was improved today: Any drawing element can serve as a reference object by simply clicking it. The dialog will then show and consequently use the properties of that reference element. Mar 22,06: When printing from the plan window it is now very easy to output the current view at a scale equal to that of the ori- ginal plan. You just set the corresponding option in the new print dialog. Mar 08,06: From today CAPLAN is capable of managing large UTM proj- ections. With this capability larger regions or countries (such as Europe or Nigeria) can be handled with a single coordinate system. Of course, the distance corrections req- uired can grow rather large at remote eastern or western extremeties. Mar 03,06: The generation of statistical reports concerning the object types were now organized in a new dialog available via the menu command "Report / Object Types...". Mar 02,06: Both the View Controller and the Layer Controller can now be used in a more "intuitive" way: the tick marks are al- ways applied even if you closed the drop down box by click- ing outside it. Only the ESC key can prevent the new selection from being applied. Feb 21,06: When editing a polyline in the Plan Window it was, up to now, not always easy to recognize the line leg where a new point was to be inserted. With the new dialog option "Show insert arrow" the line leg can be clearly indicated in the preview with an arrow. Feb 21,06: It is now possible to select a predefined frame size format format in the "Area of Interest" dialog (with the formats loaded from the PlanForm.DAT file located in the DAT dir- ectory). In this way you can adhere to a required plan frame format (such as ISO or ANSI). Within the project window you can now display the short description of a point's object type via the view con- troller. Feb 20,06: Control coordinates of a network can now be given point attributes: Control points are represented by a specific object type with up to three attributes holding the coord- inate accuracy in all three dimensions. The attributes can can be used for a more automated approach way when a new network is established and they can also be filled with accuracy values during a network adjustment. Feb 16,06: Selecting an object type for a line in a CAPLAN project is now much easier because all object types using the same line style are shown in a concise list at a glance. When editing a polyline in the Project Window it was, up to now, not always easy to recognize the line leg where a new point was to be inserted. With the new dialog option "Show insert arrow" the line leg can be clearly indicated in the preview with an arrow. Feb 15,06: The view layer dialog in the project window (reached via the command "Settings / View Layers...") now allows you to set the display options by object type or by drawing layer. Feb 11,06: The function "Dimension / Gradients...", now newly avail- able in the Plan Window, is similar to the polyline dimen- sioning except for the output, which is not line lengths but rather gradient values. Feb 10,06: Now that the old attribute width restrictions no longer exist the "General Settings" dialog has space again for new settings: Now, the tooltip-texts dedicated to points in the Project Window are configurable. Feb 09,06: The auxiliary program CpInfo.EXE is dedicated to our long- term customers: Conversion from the old object type to the new object type format is done automatically by the new CAPLAN version 2.0, and all new data are saved in the new format anyhow. Many customers, however, have created other auxiliary tools on their own or with external help which require the old CAPLAN data format. In order to enable full functionality during a certain transition time we are therefore providing the auxiliary program CpInfo.EXE which converts the new data format back to the old format. Feb 06,06: Loading a DXF file from the Plan Window was established to- day. Except for a few special cases the entire contents of a DXF file can be represented in a plan. Feb 01,06: Object types, symbols, line styles and hatch patterns can be presented in a graphical form via the menu command "View / Show / Object Types..." etc. As the data elements may come from different directories the graphical diagram may either follow the hierarchical structure or can just show the elements which are available in the current project directory. The diagrams are produced in a handy size with portrait orientation so they conveniently fit in a standard-sized folder. Dimensioning of points in the Plan Window with reference to a polyline was now amended: If the polyline has more than one leg the reference line (i.e. the first leg) can now be selected. Instead of the starting point the leg's end point can now also serve as the origin. Jan 30,06: The list, an element of numerous CAPLAN dialogs, was again improved. The following new features were made available and can thus be used in many dialogs: In order to change a list entry one was forced until now to invoke the Context Menu via the right-hand mouse button from which the function "Edit Entry" had to be chosen be- fore editing could be done. Now a simple double click on the field you would like to change will immediately lead to the mini dialog where the new entry can be made. In principle, a whole list line can now be dragged, using the mouse, to another location (beneath or beyond), where it can be dropped. This generally adopted mechanism of Drag and Drop is now made available in some dialogs. Jan 23,06: While importing profile data from DA 66 format the horizons are now made selectable in a dialog list. In this way it is possible to supply different projects with a specific subset of profile horizons. Jan 21,06: With support of the new function "Edit / Lines / Subdivide", which was now added in the project window, straight lines can be divided with a middle point. The sequence of all middle points may then serve the basis for a new alignment. Jan 17,06: When a DTM is saved with datatype 58 a horizon number can be provided. Furthermore, datatype 49 can (optionally) be excluded from being saved. Jan 02,06: Within a polyline it's now possible to have arcs with an apex angle greater than 180 degrees. Dec 28,05: Besides the object type you can now assign further attri- butes to the GPS baselines (as is already possible with radial observations). Dec 20,05: The management of object types was completely redesigned. The object types are now held in the OBJTYPE.DAT file which may occur in different directories (global, regional and local). The existing files KLASSE.DAT (from the DAT folder) and *.KLS (from the current project folder) will be auto- matically migrated to the new format. The new object types provide more and signifcantly improved functionality: - The lengths of the code and the further attributes (now eight) are no longer restricted. The attributes are thus stored in a new format in the CAPLAN project files (K,L, V,6,7,8,N). You can easily migrate to the previous format via a new conversion program. - You can now assign a fill pattern to an object type. When creating a plan closed polylines can then be converted to areas with fill patterns. - The dialog for entering point attributes has been redesign- ed and simplified. - It is possible to define different attributes for each object type (the attribute definitions of the default obj- ect type are used if no definition is made). Data types can be assigned to each attribute. - Symbol names and line type names are no longer restricted to 1-999 and 1-99 respectively. Dec 19,05: When exporting points from the project window to DXF format DXF blocks with attributes are generated. The point name, the elevation and the object type are written as block attributes. Dec 16,05: Whenever symbols are exported from the Plan Window in DXF format the DXF blocks are now enriched with attributes. As attributes both the point name (if available) and the elevation can be chosen as options for output. ----------------------------------------------------------- Dec 15,05: Release and distribution of the intermediate version 1.8b ----------------------------------------------------------- Dec,13 05: The dialog for editing profiles now allows copying of a sel- ected cross section which is assigned a new station value. Dec,12 05: All symbol related displays during a running task dialog now take the active snap mode into account. Not only the co- ordinates but also the result text as well as the preview reflect the symbol being snapped or not. Nov 29,05: The Clipboard functions in the Plan Window are now clearly distinguished according to the type of coordinate system they work with: The 'classical' functions transfer global coordinates (such as UTM) via the Clipboard. This corresponds well with the transfer of elements in the Project Window. The global coordinate transformations include scale and rotation, depen- ding on the plan scale and the grid direction. These functions are to be used to copy measured objects whilst re- taining their correct geometry. The new functions, however, work directly with plan coordin- ates. They are all invoked via shortkeys that include the shift key. These functions are particularly useful for trans- fer of drawing elements in cm units, as seen on the paper The 'Insert' function now allows repeated paste operations at different locations (defined by clicking with the mouse). Nov 26,05: The Plan Window function "Dimension / Distance..." was im- proved. Nov 23,05: Whenever the angle units are switched from 'degrees' to 'gons' or vice-versa, the standard list template in the BIN directory (CAPLAN.TPL) is updated correspondingly. Nov 22,05: Text elements consisting of a keyword / placeholder combi- nation can now also be employed when profile plans are created. The standard templates STANDARD.PRM etc. were ad- justed accordingly. Nov 17,05: For volume calculations between two DTM models there is now an option to take into consideration the exclusion areas, which are possibly contained in the previous model. The same option is also available when creating a differ- ence model. Nov 12,05: During spline generation a vertical alignment can be added optionally if all constituent points have a valid elevation. Nov 11,05: Point and line files in the MAS80 format can be used by CAPLAN for transfer in both directions (import and export). The column ranges can be set via a dialog to accomodate special allocations. Nov 28,05: The following errors have been eliminated in a corrected version (1.8b): If a drawing element, which was already selected, was to be copied to the Clipboard via the context menu then the element was first deselected so that effectively nothing was copied to the Clipboard (Nov 28, 05). The function "Dimension / Distance..." in the Plan Window provided erroneous distance values (Nov 24, 05). Exporting area elements to a DXF file could lead to a crash under certain conditions (Nov 19, 05). Nov 19,05: The following errors have been eliminated in a corrected version (1.8a): CAPLAN crashed during profile construction with a new pro- ject (Nov 16, 05). Exporting area elements to a DXF file could possibly cause an unending loop (Nov 16, 05). Erroneous paste of points via the Clipboard was corrected today (Nov 10, 05). ----------------------------------------------------------- Nov 07,05: Release and distribution of the new version 1.8 ----------------------------------------------------------- Nov 02,05: The new function "Frame / For Profiles..." in the Plan Win- dow has now closed the deficiency which had existed for so long in comparison to the old LQPLAN program: At last, lon- gitudinal and cross sections can now be embedded in a frame with a proper titlebox etc. The frame for a 2D plan as well as the frame for profiles both originate from the same template file, which was prev- iously called RAHMEN.DAT but is now changed to STANDARD.FRM. Similarly, the old PROFIL.DAT file now has the new name STANDARD.PRM. Although you can load the parameter settings from the old RAHMEN.DAT and PROFIL.DAT files it is now rec- ommended to use the new filetypes *.FRM and *.PRM to save modified frame parameters. In order to improve data management for certain data types the following name extensions are supported from now on: *.STA Station values *.STO Offset values *.TRV Point sequence for traverse The creation of profile plans was improved as follows: - The horizontal bands can be labelled with a name different to the project name (alias name). - The frame parameters were loaded from the old PROFIL.DAT file (which is now STANDARD.PRM). You can now also select any other PRM parameter file. Oct 27,05: From now on the definition of individual elevation intervals and slope classes along with their colors can be loaded from and saved to a file. Additionally, individual color gradients can be defined for any part of the elevation intervals or slope classes. Oct 25,05: A CAPLAN project (CP file) cannot be open twice at the same time, as was possible up to now. In fact, the CP file is locked (kept open) for as long as the first instance of the project is open and running. The menu function "Save As" can be called directly via the short key F12 (or Shift+F12). Oct 20,05: With the new menu command "Plan / Legend..." a plan legend can be created. The folder-sized intermediate plans can contain (optionally) a point list (2D or 3D) and a summary of all used symbols with a description and explanations to the DTM color gradient as well as to the DTM slope shading. The completed legend can then be transferred via the clip- board to the final destination (either in the plan or at a suitable location in the plan frame). Oct 14,05: The Project Window and the Plan Window will work in the near future in very similar ways with the main emphasis on an effective data transfer between both. Today we have come closer to this goal: the "symbol" and "polyline" drawing elements can now be transferred from a plan to any CAPLAN project via the Clipboard functionality. The "area" drawing element is handled as a "polyline". The new points or lines are named according to the scheme #.Plan where # represents an incrementing number starting from 1. Oct 11,05: At last, the DTM Color Gradient and the DTM Slope Shading options, including the flow lines, can be tranferred to a plan. The two Slope Shading options are complemented by a third shading option where the DTM model surface is made clearly apparent through use of light and shade effects. In a similar way to the contour line generation, the DTM model surface can be smoothed during the plan creation process. Sep 23,05: The recently implemented frame / viewport functionality was used as a base to generate a plan frame as an independent task in the Plan Window. Thus, plan creation and frame generation are now two separate functions. The template file is no longer bound to the name RAHMEN.DAT but can be named and selected freely. The additional drawing elements (for title box adornments etc.) can be edited after the frame plan has been prepared. Finally, the modified frame plan can again be saved in a new template file. All requests from our customers have now found an appropriate solution, particularly the following: - Free selection of the template file (RAHMEN.DAT until now) - Clipping area can also be loaded from a file - Placeholders with automatically updated text Sep 08,05: In order to show areas with their calculated area value the Plan Window now provides the function "Dimension / Areas..." which adds a text element with the area value, such as 567.12 sqm, to each of the preselected polylines and area elements. The text elements are placed at the centroid of the area element they belong to. As an option, all areas can be hatched with a unique pattern. Sep 01,05: As with the symbols also the linetypes can now be managed in a more flexible way: the old number range from 7 through 999 has dissolved in favor for arbitrary names, although the old restrictions are still valid for a short transition period. The definition of a linetype is allowed to contain any symbols (even the user-defined ones) as well as text elements and the newly introduced area elements. As far as lines are part of the definition these have the continuous linestyle (style "1") which means that a linetype defini- tion must not contain another linetype. All linetype defi- nitions can be stored in a global, regional or local version of the LINIEN.DAT file whose format is very similar to the format of the M file. CAPLAN automatically migrates any ex- isting linetype definition files to the new format. Aug 22,05: The Plan Window was enriched with the new area drawing ele- ment, which is basically a closed polyline filled either with a unique color or with a hatch pattern. For the setup pro- cess a PATTERN.DAT is delivered for installation in the DAT directory in order to provide CAPLAN with a standard selec- tion of hatch patterns. Area drawing elements evenly filled with a specified color (SOLID style) are prerequired to manage Color Gradient and Slope Shading representations of a DTM. Many customers have asked for these features to be included in the DXF export. Aug 03,05: When saving plans in DXF format the layer definitions (e.g. color, linetype, on/off) can also be exported now. Aug 01,05: The management of symbols was completely redesigned. From now on alphanumeric symbol names are allowed. For compatibi- lity reasons the symbol names will be restricted to numbers 100 to 999 until our next update. The new symbol generator allows creation and editing of symbol definitions in the same easy way as other editing operations in the Plan Window. Text can also be part of a symbol. The symbol definitions are held in the SYMBOL.DAT file which may occur in different directories (global, regional and local). The file format was changed according to the meta file format. CAPLAN automatically migrates your user defined symbols to the new format. Jul 29,05: The third reconstruction stage of the Plan Window has star- ted with frames and viewports as prerequisites for layout multiple cross sections in one superior frame plan. Also the ground plan should be generated without a frame in the near future. A frame can then be added just before the plan is finalised. Jul 13,05: All network adjustments (in plan, level and spatial) were now provided with a Chi-Square-Test for the total error factor. Jun 13,05: In order to define the vertical curves of an alignment it is now possible to enter tangent lengths instead of radius values. Jul 04,05: During the second reconstruction stage of the Plan Window the following improvements were made (up to now): In both the Project and Plan windows it is possible to load a background scene. In the project window the background helps to locate all survey objects but cannot be edited It is saved in an X-file as part of the project. In a plan the background scene is held in the BACKGROUND layer and therefore automatically integrated in the database of a plan. When creating a plan the individual themes (such as contour lines) are now normally assigned to a layer, which defines the color, line style and line weight. The Setup process provides a set of predefined layers dis- tributed in the LAYER.DAT file for installation in the DAT directory. The new Layer Manager allows two types of layers to be dis- played and edited: The first layer type persistently stored in file(s) LAYER.DAT and the second type created temporari- ly when a plan is loaded from file. Up to now the layer colors were saved along with the layer names in the INI file CpUser.INI, section "ColorOfLayers". Because more properties were added to the layer structure this persistency is not supported anymore. The traditional 2-digit pen as a combination of line weight (0-9) and color (1-8) was enhanced: - The scale of line weights was extended by the "1 pixel" option at the bottom end. All drawings performed on screen can only be done with this option. The other line weights can be applied only during printing. - The old color palette was now replaced by a new RGB color system (R=red, G=green, B=blue). - The colors and the line weights can either be defined individually or by referencing to the corresponding layer ("From Layer"). Conversion of old colors (0-8) found in M files: The colors 0 and 8 (black) are interpreted as "From Layer"; all other colors 1-7 as "individual". The introduction of a new layer as well as editing an ex- isting layer is done with the same dialog, which therefore clearly shows all the properties of a layer. The follow- ing properties are new: - Weight (1 pixel, 0.13 mm ... 2.00 mm) - Lock (elements of layer cannot be modified) - Print (elements of visible layer are printed) - Priority (uppermost text element has highest priority) All layers including their attributes are stored in the M- file. During the M-file loading process these layers will be restored with the same attributes as they were stored before so that the plans will appear as they were seen when saved. A new plan with various properties can now be created via the function "File / New Plan...". The empty plan can be filled with arbitrary drawing elements. The surrounding rectangular area of a plan can now be re- calculated via "Zoom All", provided that a further "Zoom Out" won't be possible and that the plan type allows a change of extents (no frame plan). Jun 08,05: When generating cross sections "From DTM" and "From Road Surface" the offset values are now entered in a new sub dialog which allows definition of individual offset values. Jun 04,05: Via "Settings / General..." a new option "Longitudes west of Greenwich = positive" is available which will certainly be appreciated by our customers in the USA, Canada and Ice- land. May 31,05: As an additional type of transition curve the cubical para- bola was implemented to support railway alignments. May 24,05: Whenever new points are added to an existing DTM the mesh- ing process is now automatically followed by an improvement of triangle shapes according to the method "Best triangle quality". Existing break lines, however, are not changed. May 10,05: Similar to the restructuring of lines in CREDIT, the parameters for instruments, prisms, staves and profile tem- plates can now be held in different directories (global, regional and local). May 09,05: The Plan window is expected to be thoroughly renewed in time for the the Intergeo exhibition (October). During the first reconstruction phase the following news were implemented: A new menu shows the main entries "Edit" and "Draw" separa- tely. The "Draw" menu contains all functions that add new elements to the plan. All "Draw" functions (e.g. add slope hatchings etc.) are previewed directly in the detail window. In the dialog managing both the loading and saving of draw- ings the file type can be selected. When saving, a valid file name will always be suggested. Instead of one activated element it is now possible to select multiple elements. As well as the standard functions Ctrl+A, Ctrl+Shift+A more selecting possibilities are available: - Selection in a rectangle (also crossing) - Selection in a surounding polygon - Selection in polygon (within and crossing) - Selection of elements crossing a line The selected elements can be copied or moved to the Clipboard (via Ctrl+C or Ctrl+X) from where they can be reinserted (via Ctrl+V = true position, Ctrl+Shift+V = arbitrary). Addition- ally the selected elements can be moved with the mouse or they can be deleted (Ctrl+Del). Selected symbols / text elements can be scaled (magnified) with a scale factor. Selected symbols / text elements can be rotated (newly dir- ected). Among other options a polyline can serve as a reference for directions. Selected elements can be attached to a layer via the View Controller: When selecting an element the corresponding layer is shown in the View Controller. Multiple selected elements with different layers are labelled as "Various Layers". If a certain layer is selected in the View Controller whilst elements are selected then all selected elements will be as- signed to the new layer. The edit functionality was optimized internally which results in much faster operations (up to 4 times as quick). Text elements can be multiline now. The special anchor posi- tion 10 was reintroduced. Consequently, a spot height is one text element - no longer three distinct elements (symbol + 2 text elements). New text styles are: underlined, double underlined, and with frame. However, the underline styles is possible only in com- bination with a one-line text. Symbols were provided with tooltips revealing the symbol's name. A special symbol highlight indicates the nearest symbol in "snap" mode. Apr 11,05: When loading points from the Leica ASC format the coordina- te type (31-39) is now scanned in a larger column range (between 68 and 100) and will hopefully be found there. Apr 09,05: New development in the Plan Window: multiple drawing elements can be selected simultaneously (using Ctrl+mouse click). The Clipboard functionality as well as the displacement func- tion can already be applied. Apr 08,05: Longitudinal and cross sections can be embellished with gradient values in percent. In order to achieve this the profile parameters R135, R235 etc. have to be defined in the parameter file PROFIL.DAT, where the values represent the desired text height in cm units. Mar 31,05: New development for displaying the DTM: From now on you can set the contour line interval, the density of contour lines and the color gradient independently. It is now also possible to display contour lines at specified elevations in a diff- erent color. Mar 25,05: Via the menu item "Edit / Names / By Table..." points can now be renamed using a table. The table may either be entered in the dialog or loaded from a previously prepared file. Mar 23,05: The function "Report / Compare / Points..." can optionally select the matching points. The polyline coding method "1-2...2-3" was extended with code=9 which not only terminates a line (as code=3) but also closes the line as a loop. ----------------------------------------------------------- Mar 16,05: Release and distribution of the new version 1.7 ----------------------------------------------------------- Mar 12,05: Distances, regardless whether they are part of the radial observations or contained in the network, can be scaled via a common dialog where also a constant value can be set to be added to all distances. Mar 11,05: Besides slope shading the DTM triangles can now be displayed in color according to the slope class they belong to. It is also possible to report the DTM triangle areas falling in the specified slope classes. These reports can be used for submissions or clearings. Mar 10,05: The long expected deformation analysis is now completed in all dimensions (plan, level and spatial). Unfortunately, only a few specialists can take full advantage of the impl- ementation following the congruency model from Pelzer. Feb 24,05: Project names are now forced to be unique. The situation of two different projects with identical names would lead to the same project files which would overwrite mutually if care is not taken with the naming. Data deleted from a project (such as alignments) are now also deleted from files (e.g. A file) for consistency rea- sons. To avoid inadvertent deletions CAPLAN compares the current project status with the status the project had when it was opened: Files which have no reference in the opening CP file will (obviously) not be loaded but updated (or even removed) when the project is saved. Therefore, in such cases a warning is given. Feb 17,05: When plotting the vertical alignment of a route the apex points (needed for drainage) are now added to the drawing. Feb 11,05: When writing the network equations into a file the lines can now be formatted for Excel. With Excel the matrices can then be operated on for further investigations. Feb 10,05: As with the polar point calculation the point stack also did not modify any existing coordinates in the project. Now the point stack shows a message which can be answered with "Modify" if the existing coordinates should be replaced. Feb 09,05: The adjustment of an unconstrained network can now be carr- ied out with partial minimum norm. The datum points can be selected with the help of an additonal sub dialog. Feb 03,05: In any list where checkboxes precede the rows the tick marks can now be set or removed within a certain range by click- ing with the mouse and simultaneously pressing the shift key, in a similar way to a common standard selection. Selecting and unselecting rows in a list (such as the point directory, table of object types etc.) with the help of the filter dialog can now include jokers "?" and wildcards "*". Jan 31,05: Distances from Trimble DC file were meteorologically corr- ected up to now. However, if the air pressure is recorded as zero in the DC file the distance must not be corrected. Jan 26,05: Selecting and unselecting of points was improved once more as the name of any selected point will now automatically appear in the entry field. Consequently a range of point names such as "From" - "To" can be produced by clicking the "From" point followed by entering a minus sign and finally clicking the "To" point . Jan 22,05: Both DTM functions "Swap Diagonal" und "Line from A to B" will now repeat their task automatically until the user cancels by pressing ESC. Jan 05,05: A point selection can now also be defined with a name mask (such as 2??? or *1). Jan 04,05: The center line directory can - in a similar way to the polyline directory - be used for renaming, reporting and deleting center lines. Jan 03,05: A DTM difference model - either directly or via volume cal- culation - will now be generated with an additional inter- secting line (elevation = 0). Optionally, the 'following ing model' can also be given the intersection line (but with a different elevation). Dec 30,04: When generating a plan with center lines the spiral elements are now labeled with their parameter A = xxx. Dec 27,04: Under the term "Perpendicular Offsets" the location of a second center line in cross sections referring to a first center line can be calculated. Dec 17,04: Setting out a road lane surface through string lines on both sides is now implemented as an individual function. The calculation of level points was now extended so that multiply observed radial points can be determined via a mean value of individual results. Dec 16,04: The road surface can now be checked with surveyed level points. As well as the written report the level differences can also be saved in a new project so that the vertical deviations become visible via a DTM. Dec 15,04: It is now possible to use an Access Database (MDB file) as a point repository. After the database colums have been linked to the corresponding CAPLAN fields the points can be loaded and saved. Dec 10,04: Different raw data formats (versions) from Trimble DC must be handled with individual settings which caused some requests to our hotline support. In future the format ver- sions 7.7, 10, 10.7 will be detected automatically along with the correct presettings. Dec 09,04: A new function is available in the plan window: A distance between two points (symbols) can be dimensioned. Nov 26,04: The dialog for editing an individual profile was completely redesigned. Thanks to a combination with the former profile table it is now possible to select, edit, list or delete not only one profile but multiple profiles. Via the new menu item "Alignments / Single Center Line / From Polyline" any activated polyline can be defined as the template for new center line, which may also have a vertical alignment if all polyline vertices are valid in elevation. Nov 19,04: From a DXF file CIRCLE elements can also be loaded as center lines. Nov 12,04: A DTM can be loaded from the binary Trimble TTM format. It is also possible to save a DTM in a TTM file. Oct 29,04: From today CAPLAN is capable of loading and saving a center ter line in Trimble DC file format. The vertical alignment is also included. Output of contour lines can be suppressed if their length is less than a given minimum value. Oct 26,04: A new function is now available via the menu item "DTM / Interpolate / Gradient...": Starting at a given position the route taken by downward flowing water can now be traced with a polyline. At your request the polyline can be stored in the project. Oct 21,04: In order to generate hydraulic cross sections two options were added in the Layout dialog page: turning on the left and right side of the profile and labeling offset values referring to the leftmost profile point. Oct 20,04: Handling of a horizontal / vertical alignment with Zeiss Elta CU / Trimble 5600 can be done with a program from Sinning / Intermetric using a TRA-file for the horizontal elements and a LGS-file for the vertical elements. Both files can now be loaded and saved by CAPLAN. Oct 18,04: All points in the project window can be labelled with their easting and northing coordinates using the view control box "Point coordinates". Visibility and size of this additional label is stored in the project file (CP file). Oct 16,04: The function "Report / Points..." is gaining importance for generating formatted point files. Therefore up to 20 alterna- tive sections in the list template (TPL file) are available from now on. To support identification of these TPL sections each section can be given an alternative (alias) name. If a center line (alignment) is saved in the datatype 40/50 format then a small dialog appears with the question whether the center line name should be saved in a comment line. Some applications have trouble with a comment line. Oct 12,04: Whenever a DTM is displayed with slope shadings arrows are now additionally drawn showing the slope direction (i.e. direction of water running downhill). This information is helpful for all who are concerned with sewage planning and water related issues. Oct 11,04: As we would like to bring CAPLAN to the British market we are going to provide some amendments in the next months. Today the LSS file format was implemented as a first mea- sure. Oct 05,04: Editing or new entry of polar observation data and GPS baselines is now done in two separate dialog boxes. The target points of each station can be viewed clearly thanks to the resizable dialog box. Sep 27,04: Bug fixed: Neither error ellipses nor displacement vectors were generated after a plan control network was adjusted. Sep 17,04: Persistent project settings are now saved in a simplified way: As before all project settings are basically saved in the CONFIG.INI file located in the current project directory. This measure ensures identical settings when the same project is later be re-opened. To supply even a new project with the current values all project settings are now additionally stored in the file CpUser.INI (new measure). The values from CpUser.INI are always applied when no CONFIG.INI file can be found in the current project directory. Some companies, however, prefer to apply uniform standard settings rather than the most recent values from the file CpUser.INI. Even this behaviour can be achieved: a a CONFIG.INI file has to be manually created in the DAT directory, e.g., as a copy of the CpUser.INI file. The ent- ries are then edited according to the company's preferences. The file CONFIG.INI has precedence over the CpUser.INI file. Loading and saving is governed by the following priorities: Loading Saving CONFIG.INI Priority 1 Yes C:\Cremer\DAT\CONFIG.INI Priority 2 No (manual) C:\Cremer\MNU\CpUser.INI Priority 3 Yes Sep 15,04: Point name ranges (from-to) had to be defined using exist- ing point names until now. This restriction is now removed. For example, the definition "100-199" is now valid even if the points "100" or "199" (or both) do not exist. Sep 13,04: Bug fixed: The disturbing message of a missing KOTRAN lic- ense during a point stack calculation is now removed. Aug 26,04: Up to now it was possible to output all observation equat- ions during a plan or level control network adjustment. Now the normal equations and the inverted equations (variance-covariance matrix) can also be output similarly. ----------------------------------------------------------- Aug 23,04: Release and distribution of the new version 1.6 -----------------------------------------------------------