wireframe-generating scripts

[Andy Waddington]

On Thursday  2006-12-07 02:16, Wookey wrote:

> (doncha just love 'spreasheet' as a language?)

No. I have some code (for calculating drag on a kayak) in a spreadsheet
which I have been trying to incorporate into a program in a procedural
language on and off for a couple of years and it is utterly untranslatable.
Spreadsheets are perhaps the most awful invention of the twentieth
century. What is particularly irritating is that this spreadsheet was
created from a procedure in a proper language whose source is not now
obtainable :-(

> So what I need now is the bit everyone needs - a simple way to turn
> such an X-Y grid (containig Z) into a wireframe survex file (or even
> the option to gives survex the data directly and it make a wireframe
> automagically.)
> Does anyone have any code for this?

I think I've got code somewhere that will turn it into a .3d file
directly, but, of course, it's in RISC OS Basic, so you'd need
brandy. The .3d format may have evolved since it was written, but
I presume there is backward compatibility ?

> Anything will do, but desirable features of such a program would be 
> 
> 1) the ability to not force square grids on people. (co-ords set to
> 'NONE' in the sheet should cause wireframe lines simply not to be
> generated in that area).

I think the code requires a height at every point. It probably requires
a fairly specific input format, too, since I was generating a grid of
heights (for the plateau in Austria) by hand by inspection of the map.

> 2) To add a perimeter line so that the area has non-jaggy edges. 

I think the code requires a perfect rectangular area - so the perimeter line
is already part of the grid.

> 3) It would of course numebr the X and Y differently so as not to
> generate hundreds of loops (which the current crufty solution does).

Since the code maps direct to .3d, it never goes through the "lots of
survey legs" stage, and doesn't put labels on the "stations" at all.

So it may be of limited value to you ... if it is of any interest,
reply and I'll try to find what I did with it - it was many years ago
(long before I'd met perl or python) that I was trying to generate a
grid of the plateau.

Andy