Survex 1.2.8 released

[Olly Betts]

On Tue, Oct 29, 2013 at 11:34:50PM +0100, Graham Mullan wrote:
> Sorry Mr Gates
> 
> I forgot that no computer ever needs more than 16kb of RAM.

Actually, that was 640KB.  But 4GB really is a lot when you're talking
about survey data.

The largest dataset I have to hand is ~55,000 survey legs, which is all
CUCC's survey data from Austria, plus that for nearby areas which we've
got from other groups, plus a 50m resolution surface mesh covering more
than 100 square km.

On 64-bit Linux (so with larger pointers), cavern needs 66MB of memory
to process this, and aven uses 477MB to view it.  A fair amount of that is
going to be fixed overheads (the size of the code for aven and all the
libraries it loads looks to be ~60MB for starters), but ignoring those
gives a conservative figure of 470,000 survey legs in 4GB.

> You can, certainly run 32-bit builds on 64-bit Windows. I run all sorts of
> 32-bit software under W7 64-bit. Indeed I am one of the last people to be
> using Lotus WordPro as it just so much better for my purposes than any of
> the newer alternatives.
> 
> However, Survex is a rather more complex device than it was in the Good Old
> Days(TM) and one day it might just run out of steam.

Perhaps when higher resolution terrain data become readily available.

If it actually becomes an issue for people, I'm happy to provide a
64-bit build, but unless it is actually useful, I'd rather focus my
effort on making Survex better.

> I was only asking.

I was only replying.

Cheers,
    Olly