Xcaverot displays processed cave surveys in a window and allows you to manipulate the view. Aven is a more sophisticated cave survey viewer which runs under X and also on Microsoft Windows. We recommend you use Aven in preference.
Note that there is no perspective in the view. This means that it is impossible to tell which way round a cave is rotating, or whether you are viewing something from behind, or in front. So if you think the direction of rotation in wrong, or changes as you watch, this is just your brain being confused, not a bug!
The best way to move the cave is with the mouse. If you hold down the right button then the cave is dragged when you move the mouse. If you hold down the left button, then the cave is rotated if you move left or right, and zoomed if you move up and down. If your mouse has a middle button then you can use it to tilt the cave.
P and L select Plan and eLevation respectively.
Apostrophe ', and Slash / tilt up and down respectively. Tilt goes 180 degrees from plan view to a view from directly below (upside down plan).
Enter starts the cave spinning, and Space stops it. The speed of rotation for this, and tilt, is controlled by Z and X.
Crosses and/or labels can be displayed at survey stations. Ctrl-X toggles crosses and Ctrl-N station names. Ctrl-L toggles the display of survey legs. Ctrl-O toggles whether all names are displayed, or only non-overlapping ones.
Delete is useful if you get lost - it resets the scale, position, and rotation speed, so that the cave returns to the centre of the screen. There are also keyboard controls to use instead of the mouse:
Z, X : Faster/Slower Rotation R: Reverse direction of rotation Enter, Space: Start and stop auto-rotation Ctrl-Cursor Left, Ctrl-Cursor Right: Rotate cave one step clockwise/anti-clockwise Ctrl-Cursor Up , Ctrl-Cursor Down: Higher/Lower Viewpoint ] , [: Zoom in/Out U, D: Set view to Up/Down N, S, E, W: Set view to North, South, East, West Delete: Reset to default scale, rotation rate, etc P, L: Plan, Elevation Cursor Left, Cursor Right: Pan survey Left/Right (on screen) Cursor Up, Cursor Down: Pan survey Up/Down (on screen) Ctrl-N: Toggle display of station names Ctrl-X: Toggle display of crosses at stations Ctrl-L: Toggle display of survey legs Ctrl-F: Toggle display of surface legs O: Toggle display of non-overlapping/all names Q: quit program Shift: accelerates all movement keys |
A little experimentation should give a better understanding of how this works.
There is an auto-resizing scale bar on the left side of the screen. This varies in length as you zoom in or out. The current length is given at the top. In the top right is a compass pointer showing which way is North, and a clino pointer showing the angle of tilt.