Axion 3D Atlas/ATLAS.iso/manual/m_2d.txt

Text File | 1998-03-17 | 11KB | 177 lines

{bigtext=20,85,"2D View"}

{4}The program defaults to a view of the entire world. The easiest way to zoom in
is press and hold the left mouse button at the center point of where you want
to zoom, and drag out the zoom rectangle. When you let go, the program will zoom
into the selected region. To zoom back out one level, simply click the right
mouse button. There are other options for zooming in and out described below.

There are different data types that can be shown in 2D mode. The default one
which you see when you first run the program is a 1-km resolution image made up
of many satellite photos tiled together. 1-km resolution means that each pixel is
spaced 1 kilometer apart on the ground. This allows you to zoom in a great deal
on the imagery in order to see features like individual lakes, mountains and other
features. The program allows you to zoom in on the 2D image up to a scale
of 1:220,000.

{2}Menu Options:{4}

{3}Display Type:{4} As mentioned above, the default data type shown is the satellite
imagery. There is also shaded gray relief, and color-coded elevation data. To
choose different data types, click on the 'Display Type' menu option on the
right hand side, select one of the choices, and then press the 'close panel'
arrow to accept or press ESC to cancel.

{3}Details:{4} This allows you to turn on or off different vector data types which
draw on top of the raster image. You can choose between different types of roads,
rivers, railroads, borders, and city boundaries. Data types which are turned on
show in green, and those which are turned off show in red. As with the 'Display
Type' (or any other window), hit ESC to cancel, or 'close panel' to accept.

{3}Search:{4} Allows you to search for different types of data. The program
contains a searchable database of over 1.6 million populated place names, or
'localities'. Click on the 'search' button, and you will see a window with a
text field where you can type in the name you want. The number in brackets
after each word is the number of occurrences found in the database of that
particular name. If You choose a name (for example, 'Fairview', which occurs
many times in many countries, you can click on the 'Choose Locations' button
to select one or more specific names to show from those found. Each name will
be listed along with what country it is located in. You can highlight multiple
items in the list using the standard Microsoft Windows method by holding down
the control key as you click items in the list. You can then choose to draw
only those you have selected, or all of them in the list. The names you found
will be shown in red on top of the 2D map. In order to turn them off later when
you don't want to show them anymore, simply choose 'search' again and then
choose 'cancel'. If the name you searched for does not appear on the map after
you choose 'draw', you may be zoomed in too far. Zoom back out farther on the
2D map and you should be able to see it. There is also a checkbox that, if
turned on, causes the program to automatically zoom to the locations in the
list, nicely centered on the map.

{3}Measure:{4} Allows you the measure the distance between two points on the map.
The distance units used are those currently shown on the scalebar at the bottom
center of the map.

{3}Names:{4} Toggle off or on the display of names on the map. Currently,
country names show based on how far in you are zoomed on the map. If you are
zoomed in past as scale of 1:1,500,000 then city names also show up.

{3}Options:{4} Allows you to pick what color scale will be used when showing the
shaded elevation data. Also, you can choose whether to apply the color scale
to the global elevation range, or use the entire color scale for the area
currently zoomed into (so that the color scale is stretched from the minimum to
the maximum elevation value currently showing on screen).

{3}Legend:{4} Shows the map legend window which gives the color for the
different vector layers, and the different symbols used for different types
of cities.

If the cursor comes to within 15 pixels of any edge of the map (and you are not
at the top zoom level), it changes into an arrow. If you click the left mouse
button, the map will pan 80% of the width of the screen in the direction
indicated. If you like, you can also use the arrow keys on the keyboard at any
time to do the same thing.

The 'tools' control panel at bottom right contains several tools for
advanced zooming and other functions:
  - The arrow allows you to search for information about data showing on the
    map. If you click the arrow, it turns highlighted. You can then click on
    cities, countries, or major rivers on the map to get information about
    them. If city boundaries are turned on under 'Details', then if you zoomed
    in sufficiently far enough to see the city borders and you click on one of them, you
    can get the name of that city or town. As you click on multiple names,
    they appear in white on top of the current map. You can toggle them on
    or off by clicking on them again. If country names are turned on under
    'names', then clicking on a country will take you to the information
    for that particular country. If major rivers (dark blue) are turned on
    under 'details', then you can toggle names off or on the same as city
    names. If you are zoomed in far enough, and localities and/or ocean place
    names are turned on, you will also see small dots. These are additional
    populated place names and ocean feature names which you can click to get
    the name for. You must click within 5 pixels of a named feature in order
    for the program to find it. You can continue to find names and display
    them on the map, or press ESC or right mouse button to quit. When done,
    you can print out the result using the print function at the bottom of
    the screen, and specifying 'copy raster image from screen'. Note that if
    country names are turned on under details, if you click somewhere on the
    map and it doesnt find a name because you did not click close enough to a
    named feature (city, locality, ocean feature, or major river), but you
    did click somewhere on land, you will get the screen for the country that
    you clicked on.
  - The magnifying glass allows more advanced control of the zooming in and
    out on the 2D map. There are many ways to zoom:
    - The standard method is to click and drag a zoom window centered at the
      initial mouse location on the map. The resulting map scale is shown as
      you drag the rectangle on the map. When you release the mouse, the
      map will be re-generated providing you did not choose too small an area.
    - To zoom back out to the previous zoom level, simply right click the
      mouse.
    - To make the zoom rectangle anchored from a corner rather expanding from
      the center point, hold down the shift key as you drag out the rectangle
    - Clicking the mouse rather than dragging out a zoom rectangle zooms
      in to 30% of the size of the current zoom window, centered at where the
      user clicks the mouse.
    - Conversely, the user can hit the control key to toggle the zooming mode.
      You will notice that when the cursor is over top of the map, the cursor
      changes into a magnifying glass with a '+' sign, signifying that if the
      user clicks the program will zoom in 30%. The control key toggles the
      magnifying glass between '+' and '-'. When the magnifying glass has
      a '-' sign, clicking the mouse on the map will zoom OUT 30% rather than
      IN 30%.
    - clicking on the '+' button on the tools control panel beside the picture
      of the magnifying glass lets the user then move the cursor over top of the
      map, and click to zoom in 30% centered at where they clicked.
    - clicking on the '-' button on the tools control panel beside the picture
      of the magnifying glass zooms out 30% from the current zoom window at the
      same center location if possible, regardless of whether the previous
      zoom level was 30% larger than the current zoom level or not.
  - The crosshair tool lets the user change the center point of the current
    zoom level to a new location. Click on the crosshair button, then click
    on the map where you want to shift the center point to. This function is
    available if you are not at the top zoom level.
  - The small picture of the world lets you jump all the way back up to the
    top zoom level regardless of how many levels you are zoomed in. This
    function is available if you are not at the top zoom level.

The user can change the distance units of the scale bar at bottom center of the
map by clicking on the scale bar. The units will cycle between kilometers,
miles, nautical miles, meters, and many other more archaic units such as
Roman miles and Furlongs. The value chosen is the one that will also be used
in the point-to-point distance measurement function mentioned above.

You will also notice that as the cursor moves over the map, the elevation of the
land directly under the cursor is shown beside the elevation scale bar on the
right hand side. The current latitude/longitude of the cursor location is also
shown, along with the value of the geomagnetic declination (difference between
true and magnetic north) at the cursor location. The map scale value shown at
lower right is the map scale measured horizontally across the center of the map,
taking into account the physical size of the monitor (14",15",17", or 21")
specified by the user in the Options window or during installation.

The user also can change the area units of the surface area measurement of the
current map by clicking on the text at bottom left which displays the surface
area. The units will cycle between acres, hectares, square miles, and square
kilometers.

If you click on the word 'elevation' at the top of the elevation scale bar at
the center right side of the screen, you can change the elevation values shown
throughout the program from meters to feet. This also works in the Globe and 3D
View display modes.

If you click on the panel showing the current latitude/longitude location of the
mouse, you get a window which allows you to specify an exact center point to
zoom in to on the world map. This function is available at the top zoom level.
This would be useful if you wanted to center the map exactly at a point such
as 0 degrees east/west and 0 degrees north/south.

To zoom to a specific map scale (centered at the current center location of the
2D map, as opposed to dragging out a zoom rectangle with the mouse), left click
on the map scale text at bottom right.

The program stops you from zooming in any farther than a scale of 1:220,000.
Also, as you zoom in to a very high level, the program starts to gouraud-shade
the raster data in order to improve display quality. Regardless of whether
the video card installed on your machine supports advanced graphics capabilities
such as gouraud-shading, the software can still provide the smooth shading
functionality in software so as to provide the best graphics quality.