Introduction
Geocap is a software for mapping and modeling geoscientific data, designed with focus on interactivity and flexible control of visualization and manipulation. Geocap is operated through projects. The project "holds" the data in a folder-like structure, similar to Windows "File Explorer". All datasets are "children" of either a folder or another dataset. Geocap offers different project templates, giving you a pre-defined folder structure that fits your workflow for a specific type of work. In this tutorial collection we are going to use the Shelf/UNCLOS project template.
Data visualization and manipulation is operated through commands. Commands can be used to display datasets in the graphics window, manipulate existing datasets or to generate new datasets. The Geocap Shelf module offers a range of commands with tailor made article 76 functionality.These commands are available in a Toolbox or if you right click a dataset or folder in the project.
All the project data is visualized in the graphics window and by using the mouse it is possible to pan, zoom, rotate, spin, scale z-axis and so on.
This section will guide you through the basics of opening a project, explore and display the project data and navigate in the graphics window.
Exercises
Starting Geocap
Start Geocap
On your start menu click Start > All programs > Geocap > Geocap 7.x.x - 64 > Geocap 7.x.x - 64
Initial Setup
Geocap comes with a range of settings which can modified to make it easier to work with. One of these settings is the working directory which is the folder Geocap will open every time you browse for something. We will now set this directory and we will also turn on auto save.
Set working directory and auto save
- Click Tools > Options
- Click the browse icon for the Working Directory.
- Select the folder Geocap1 and click Select folder
- Click on Projects
- Check the box Automatically save all projects at regular time intervals
- Set the Time interval to 5
- Click OK
Geocap Project
Open the Atlantis project
- Click File > Open > Project and browse to the location of the Atlantis project.
- Select the Atlantis.db file and click Open. A window similar to the one below will appear.
Tip
Next time you can open the project by going to File > Recent Projects.
Pressing the small triangles (or '+' in older Windows versions) to the left of a folder will display the folder's contents. Datasets and folders are organized very similarly to a file tree structure. A folder can contain other folders, or datasets.
Note that there are two "modes" of the project view. Switch between these two by clicking on the tabs; List and Tree. List view sorts folder content into a separate window, while Tree view sorts everything into the tree itself.
In the next exercise we are going to explore how the Atlantis project is structured. Taking notice of how folders and datasets are organized. Datasets and folders can be cut, copied, pasted, renamed and deleted. This is performed from the popup menu which appears when right-clicking a dataset. The right click popup menu also contains commands which may be executed on the datasets. Notice the different icons of the different datasets. They correspond to the schema of the data set. The name of the schema is written in the second column.
Explore the project folder structure
- Expand the folders and observe the sub folders
- Look at the right-click menus.
A Geocap project is stored in a folder on your computer. The project consist of a ".db" file, which contains information about the project tree, and several files which contain the data sets. You should let Geocap manage the files in the project folder and should not store other files in this folder.
If you want to make a backup of your projects, or if you want to exchange Geocap projects with other Geocap users you may zip the project folder with all the underlaying datasets into one file. This is convenient for sending e.g. to support@geocap.no.
Displaying Data
Display data
Display the various datasets in the project
- Locate a grid dataset (structured points or seabed) e.g. 2. Seabed/Grids/atlantis
- Tick the checkbox next to the dataset to display it.
- Right click the dataset again and select Zoom to Data. This will make the display window center the graphics window around the dataset.
- Display some of the lines e.g. lines found under 1. Maritime Lines.
Note that by checking and unchecking the first level folder 1. Maritime Lines, or 2. Seabed all datasets displayed under this folder are shown and hidden.
Navigating in the 3D window
Note: Operating Geocap with a two-button mouse or using the Touch-pad is possible but not recommended. The recommendation is a three-button mouse with a wheel, see picture below.
You may use the computer mouse to move around in the display window. You do this by pressing one of the mouse buttons while the cursor is in the display window, and moving the mouse while keeping the button pressed.
- Rotate - Left mouse button
- Pan - Middle mouse button (or wheel) or Shift + left mouse button
- Zoom - Right mouse button
- Scale Z - Mouse wheel (scroll)
- Spin - Ctrl + left mouse button
The mouse buttons
Navigate using the mouse
- Try to zoom in and out.
- Try to pan.
- Try to rotate the data.
- Try to scroll the wheel to increase the z-scale.
- Now try to examine three areas more closely my panning, zooming in closely and rotating.
Tip
Set the focal point by positioning the mouse cursor on a desired point in the display window and push the X key on the keyboard. This focal point will be the center of the display and the point of rotation.
Scrolling the mouse wheel is one way to scale depth (z) values of the dataset.