Land Surveyors: free Contouring program

SiteTopo is a free contouring program for Land Surveyors.

Loads survey point files, or DXF and XML formats.

Works with plain AutoCAD (no addons needed), and makes no changes to
your CAD setup.

* Digital Terrain Modeling for generating Contours from your survey
points.
* 3D view lets you see your survey from any perspective.
* Features such as contours are updated automatically anytime the
surface changes.
* Includes raining and ponding simulation.
* Overlay CAD image onto surface.
* Add Breaklines to surface just by clicking on points.
* Cut Sections through surface and export.
* No installation, standalone executable.
* Currently, it is Free!

Download it: http://www.sitetopo.com/

Flash movie of the program in action: http://www.sitetopo.com/flash/demo1/demo1.html

 

Has anybody used this program?
The demo is very impressive. Are there any limitation(s) on using
your own data sets?
Can the results be exported to other cad programs such as acad?

A google groups gets no replies?? People should be all over this.

 

No limitations.

Yes, the program saves data in DXF or XML format.

 

Croberts,

I have taken the liberty of reposting your announcement on


A lot of those guys like to make topo (contour) maps, but AFAIK there
is no really good free contouring program.

Your stuff looks like a good complement to the FDM version of
Terramodel (NOT Terramodeler - that's different sw). I will give you
some fedback vs. the builtin Terramodel contouring etc functions after
I have had a chance to play with it a bit, if you wish.

BTW, what is the max. number of points you can play with? I'm
thinking of BIG SRTM data files, like perhaps the size of the island
of Mindanao, S. Philippines. Terramodel poops out around 8 million
points.

Best regards,

- Tom

 

The limit on the number of points would be how much memory you have.

I don't know how well the program would work with huge data sets, as
the largest point set I have is about 350,000 points.

 

Well, okay?

How many bytes does your software need to use per point?

I'll let you know when I get around to it. What's the biggest you'd
like me to start with, just as a suggestion?

I think the largest file I had the patience to sit through with
Terramodel was something around 4 and a half or 5 million points.
Can't remember - it was way back in mid-January.

 

106 bytes per point.

I would say start small and see what happens. After loading the
points, the program will start to triangulate - press ESC to stop this
process.

 

106 bytes per point.

I would say start small and see what happens. After loading the
points, the program will start to triangulate - press ESC to stop this
process.

 

Here is a screenshot of a large data set:

http://www.sitetopo.com/images/gallery/canyon2_lrg.jpg

 

===============

I could process a file with 13,000+ points, but your program died on
me trying to load a file with 32,000+ points. No explanation
available. Just died.

It looks like you spent more time on that .bmp file than on your user
interface; the first thing I did was delete that file!

Your "helpfile" sucks - it can't even be kept on the screen while the
user tries to follow your odd key usage.

After spending 15 minutes trying different things with your weird user
interface, I can only conclude that, as Letterman would say, "You just
ain't wired up right, buddy!"

Your program produced contours that did not look at all like the
contour patern from Terramodel for a section of terrain, and with all
of the problems above I could not be bothered to play around to
discover why.

I'm afraid you've got a long way to go yet, Charles.

Did anyone else give it a go - maybe I am being unfairly critical
here?

 

Could you send me the data files to debug the program?

Sorry that you got frustrated with the program, that was not my
intention.
To be clear, the program is targeted for land surveyors, typical
surveys (where I work) are on the order of 1000 points. So I have made
no attempt to optimize for memory footprint - for example about half
the data size for a survey point is reserved for the description,
which does not make sense in your use of the program.

This is the 13,000+ point file?
Could you also send me the contour pattern from Terramodel so I can
compare?

Thanks,
C. Roberts

 

Responded by email - I was wrong about the contours vs. Tm - they are
okay - just hard to see this in Sitetopo.

Big file also sent.

 

Got your email - Thanks

 

Please keep us informed as to the progress - or possible problems/new
versions.

 

The file Happy Trails sent loads without problems on the development
machine:

http://www.sitetopo.com/images/temp/samal-32k.jpg

So I will have to find a machine that shows to bug to fix it.

I will post again when I release a new version.

C. Roberts

 

Sorry - I asked Charles to remove it from his site - proprietary
client information.

The file worked on Win2000, then also worked on XP where it had not at
first, once I changed the point number range from something in the
high 60,000's and up, to 1 and up.

Charles has also, at my suggestion, added support for inputting the
..HGT files from the SRTM data, but I haven't tested this yet. He has
examples on his site.

 

Free for the time being.