Importing Surfaces

Note:  Your role must have the Manage Surface Uploads permission enabled to import surfaces. See Global Settings > Roles for more information.

The surface model represented in GeoSpatial Manager is a combined model composed from many individual source surfaces. Each source surface in turn may have been derived from one or many sources. The Import Surface tool allows you to upload source surface files, which GeoSpatial Manager then automatically merges into the combined surface.

Tip:  When initially importing multiple historical surfaces, it is recommended practice to import the oldest surface first, then check the visualisation before importing the remaining surfaces.

To upload a new surface, follow these steps:

  1. Click Import Surface located at the top of the page. A page will display that allows you to import surfaces.

  2. Specify one or more surfaces for upload. There are two ways to do this, as follows:

    • Drag surface files directly from Windows File Explorer and drop them into the area in the middle of the page labelled Drag and Drop Surface Files.
    • Click . In the file browser that opens, select the files you want to import, then click Open.
    Note

    Surface files must be one of the following formats:

    • Vulcan Triangulation file (.00t)
    • Maptek Object file (.maptekobj). Maptek Object files must contain exactly one surface.
    • AutoCAD DXF file (.dxf)
    • Wavefront OBJ (.obj)

    After you have specified the files, they appear in a list with each new file highlighted in red. The red highlight indicates that GeoSpatial Manager needs more information about the surfaces before they can be imported, explained in the next step.

  3. Configure the details of each surface.

    To the right of the file list are several tabs where you can configure the details of selected surfaces.

    Select one or more files by making sure their checkboxes are selected in the file list. Then, configure each detail section on the right such as Time or Coordinate System by making sure the section is expanded and filling out the fields as necessary. Required fields in each section are marked with an asterisk (*). These fields must be set before you can proceed with surface import. When you have configured all required fields, the Upload for Merging button will become enabled.

    Time

    GeoSpatial Manager needs to know the date and time that each surface represents to ensure that surfaces appear in the correct chronological order. If your surface filenames follow a systematic naming scheme incorporating the date and time, you can configure GeoSpatial Manager to automatically parse the date and time from the filename. Otherwise, you can set the date and time (or just the time component) manually.

    To set the date and time for selected surfaces, make sure the  Time tab on the right is expanded.

    Setting the date and time manually

    • To set the date manually, click the button in the Date field. In the calendar tool that appears, select the date corresponding to the selected surfaces, then click to apply the date.

    • To set the time manually, click the button in the Time field. In the panel that appears, select the time for the selected surfaces in 24-hour clock format. Click to apply the time.

    Parsing filenames automatically

    To parse filenames for the date/time, you need to specify or configure the date/time parser.

    • To use an existing filename parser, select it from the File Name Parser drop-down, and press Apply.

    • To configure a new date/time parser, click the button to the right of the File Name Parser drop-down. In the Date Time Parsers panel that appears, you can create and configure any number of named date/time parsing formats.

      Note:  You must be assigned a role that has the Edit Settings permission enabled to configure date/time parsers.

      To create a new parsing format, click , then configure the format as detailed below.

      Label

      Enter a unique name for the parsing format.
      Format

      Enter the date/time format corresponding to the file naming scheme. You need to specify the format in terms of a sequence of tokens that represent the expected date or time component, or other tokens such as separators. The most common tokens are shown in the table below.

      Token Description Example
      yyyy Year 2023
      MM Month as a two-digit padded number 09
      dd Day of the month as a two-digit padded number 30
      HH Hour in 24-hour time as a two-digit padded number 14
      mm Minutes as a two-digit padded number 15
      ss Seconds as a two-digit padded number 00

      As an example, the date/time 2:15 pm, September 30, 2023 might be represented in a filename using the ISO 8601 format as 2023-09-30T141500. A format that can correctly parse such a string would be yyyy-MM-ddTHHmmss.

      Click the Tokens link to the right of the Format field for a complete listing of all possible tokens.
      Start position

      Optionally specify the position within the filename to start searching for the date/time from. A positive number will trim N characters from the beginning, while a negative number will trim N characters from the end.
      Zone

      Select the time zone applicable to interpreted dates and times.
      Default

      Enable this option to set the parsing format to the default. This means you won’t need to manually select the file format parser each time you import a surface.
      Sandbox

      As you define the format, you can test the result of applying the format to a filename in the Sandbox area on the right-hand side of the panel. Enter a filename in the Test file name field, and click .

    Coordinate System

    GeoSpatial Manager needs to know the coordinate system that each surface is in to correctly geolocate it. To set the coordinate system for selected surfaces, make sure the  Coordinate System tab on the right is expanded.

    • Select an existing coordinate system from the drop-down list and click Set to apply it.

    • Click to the right of the drop-down list to manage coordinate systems. See Global Settings > Coordinate Systems for detailed information.

      Note:  You must be assigned a role that has the Edit Settings permission enabled to manage coordinate systems.

    If you have a default coordinate system configured, this will be applied automatically to imported surfaces, but you can override this if necessary.

    Metadata

    Metadata are small pieces of information encoded as key–value pairs associated with a surface. You can associate an arbitrary number of textual metadata with an imported surface. Depending on configuration, a metadata field can be either required or optional. You can inspect the metadata associated with an imported surface by checking its details in the surfaces list.

    • To apply metadata to selected surfaces:

      1. Make sure the  Metadata tab on the right is expanded.

      2. Fill out each metadata field as required. Metadata fields flagged as being required will show by default. Depending on the configuration of the field, you may be able to select preset values from the drop-down list, or type in a non-preset value.

      3. Click Set.

    • To add predefined, optional metadata fields (if defined), click the button successively until all the desired fields are shown.

    • To remove an optional metadata field, click the button to the right of the field. Required metadata fields cannot be removed.

    • To create new or configure existing metadata fields, click the button.

      Note:  You must be assigned a role that has the Edit Settings permission enabled to configure metadata fields.

      The Metadata Schema Editor allows you to configure metadata fields.

      Click Add to create a new metadata field, or select an existing field’s key from the list to change its settings. Configure the fields as follows:

      Field Name

      Enter a unique identifier for the metadata field.

      A metadata field cannot be renamed once it has been created. The Field Name field will not display for existing metadata fields.
      Enabled Marking the field as Enabled makes it available for addition to surfaces.
      Required Marking the field as Required makes the field mandatory. The user will need to set this metadata for every imported surface.
      Preset options Preset options are predefined values that appear in the field’s drop-down list. Click the button to add a new preset option and enter the value in the Preset field. Click the button to remove a preset option.
      Allow non‑preset options Enable this option to allow the user to enter arbitrary text for the metadata.
      Metadata field keys cannot be renamed or deleted once they have been created. If a key becomes obsolete, you can turn off the Enabled option to prevent it from appearing. If you need to rename a key, it is recommended to disable the existing key, and then create another key with the new name.

    Note

    To associate a note with imported surfaces:

    1. Make sure the  Note tab on the right is expanded.

    2. Enter the note in the text field.

    3. Click Set.

  4. Select the files you want to upload. You can do this by making sure their checkboxes are selected in the file list. If you have many files, you can select all valid files by clicking the Select Valid button.

    • To remove files from the list of surfaces to import, select their checkboxes in the file list and the click the button.

  5. Click Upload for Merging to upload the selected files.

After uploading, GeoSpatial Manager queues surface files in correct time order for processing into the combined surface. Switch to the Home page to view the surface.