Re: [Therion] Turning LIDAR point clouds into cave maps

[Julian Todd]

If you can export your file as a las/laz file (or it also takes
PolyCam's zip file of a laz file),
then I have a place where you can preview it using the potree.org
software.   https://las.nix.how/

Try using the shortcode: c0987  to see a scan that was made underwater
using photogrammetry.

The potree software converts the pointcloud into streamed data, so it
doesn't matter how
massive your starting scan is as it only loads a limited amount.

This is used as the starting point for tunnelvr, should you choose to
use it for tracing

up your scan into a 3D map representation.

Julian.



On Wed, 29 Nov 2023 at 13:28, Bill Gee  wrote:

> Hello everyone -
>
> This is probably more of a general practices question than something
> specific to Therion.  Among the group there is likely to be some
> experience with this.  I hope at minimum someone can guide me to a place
> for further learning.
>
> A few years ago Apple released a very high-end smartphone which has a
> LIDAR feature (iPhone 12 Pro).  There are a few more models now which
> have it.  I have heard of some people using this to create cave maps.
> There is much I do not understand.
>
> Has anyone in the group taken the point cloud from an Apple LIDAR scan
> and turned it into a Therion cave map?  If so, I am very interested in
> the details of the process.
>
> The biggest issue I see is this:  How does the iPhone know where it is?
> There is no GPS in a cave.  GPS is not accurate enough even if it did
> work.  Inertial navigation also has big problems dealing with a cave
> environment.
>
> There are many other issues, but I think that is the big one.
>
> Thanks!
>
> --
> ===
> Bill Gee
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Re: [Therion] Tunnel to therion conversion

[Julian Todd]

So, two things here.

The morphing of old drawings to new data could have been automated if the
process of sub-selecting from the whole survex dataset could be
formalized.  Only by survex processing the whole cave system and then
snipping out the cave section you want, instead of compiling from some
sub-directory, can you get the legs into their real world positions with
the final loop closures applied.

Secondly, the bezier lines output by tunnelx will be accurate and should
work for Therion.  If the segments are too short and annoying, I could
write a script that takes in a valid therion file, combines them into
longer pieces and outputs them as longer combined splines.  This script
could at least be used for other purposes and would be easier to debug as
you wouldn't need TunnelX to preview the input and output.

But the main issue is -- as Mad Phil has pointed out -- by the time we do
all this and pester one and a half people to train themselves and be
interested in ploughing through all this work to eventually produce an
output after a number of years that's pretty much the same as what you have
already, the era of cheap lidar scans and handy intuitive 3D
representations will be upon us.  So this is a bit like investing time into
a new revised edition of the London A-Z Streetmap booklet just as google
maps and OSMand are coming out on these new-fangled smartphone thingies
that are never going to catch on.

Meantime, I've been practicing the talk I'm giving at the UIS2021
conference in France this month:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vOktKq0c7BY

Julian.


On Thu, 30 Jun 2022 at 12:03, Footleg  wrote:

> I did this for some of my Matienzo surveys which I originally started
> drawing in Tunnel before I moved to Therion when the process of morphing
> old drawings onto new data became too time consuming as the project got
> larger. The approach I took was to export the drawings from Tunnel as SVG,
> then process these in Inkscape and save to Therion format using the Therion
> Inkscape plug-in. The main pitfall I found was that the 'click to place
> line points' method of drawing splines in Tunnel had led to much denser
> points per line than typically is the case when drawing in Therion with the
> 'click and drag out handles' method with bezier curves. I found I tended to
> get many short line fragments from the conversion, and tiny line
> fragments overlapping themselves or hidden under other lines. Cleaning
> these up was time consuming, and I eventually concluded I would get better
> drawings by using bitmaps of my Tunnel drawings as background sketches in
> Therion and redrawing them in Therion. Like many big survey projects where
> nobody else seems interested in getting involved beyond the actual caving
> trips it all proved too much work for me alone and after 10 years my
> enthusiasm waned, so much remains to be drawn up still.
>
> Footleg
>
> On Wed, Jun 29, 2022 at 6:10 PM Wookey  wrote:
>
>> Has anyone done any work on the task of converting existing Tunnel
>> sketches (xml) to therion .th2 files?
>>
>> CUCC (Cambridge Loser expeditions: https://expo.survex.com) has a huge
>> investment of tunnel drawings (55km of cave?), but because there are
>> no elevations for any of this and Tunnel is a bit niche we are
>> pondering using therion more.
>>
>> If a semi-automated conversion of the existing drawings was possible,
>> that would help enormously.
>>
>> It seems like it shouldn't fundamentally be too hard to turn xml
>> lines/beziers into therion lines/beziers, and map the line types, but
>> there are issues with how to allocate lines to files and how to get
>> the scaling right.
>>
>> I've not done anything at all about it yet, but thought I'd check if
>> anyone else had before having a proper look.
>>
>> Thoughts?
>>
>> Wookey
>> --
>> Principal hats:  Debian, Wookware, ARM
>> http://wookware.org/
>> ___
>> Therion mailing list
>> Therion@speleo.sk
>> https://mailman.speleo.sk/listinfo/therion
>>
> ___
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Re: [Therion] Tunnel to therion conversion

[Julian Todd]

Wookey,

The TunnelX program already has an SVG exporter that exports splines with
the right control points here:

https://github.com/CaveSurveying/tunnelx/blob/master/src/SvgGraphics2D.java#L267
This would save a lot of effort re-implementing a TunnelX file parser when
it's got one already, so it's just a matter of looping through the geometry
and writing it to a .th file in the format you want.

We could also use the TunnelX subsets (currently used for colouring) as the
basis for blasting apart single directly editable Sketch files into
hundreds of little Scrap files of non-overlapping passageways by exporting
the geometry assigned to each subset tag to a file of the same name.  If
there are enough young folk on expo who are raring to do it all in Therion,
send them to me and we can write and debug these exporters together.  I
won't do it on my own because Therion is too hard for me to operate.

As you know, I've moved far beyond this 2D cave representation business,
which I now believe is fundamentally obsolete in the era of cheap lidar
scans and GPUs built into every phone.  There's a short little demo here,
which shows how elevations could actually work on a phone (since no fixed
2D view can ever be adequate):  https://youtu.be/zIQAslYa_HA?t=43
  and you can download copies
direct to your Quest2 VR headset here:
https://sidequestvr.com/app/1630/tunnelvr   Once you start working in 3D
you begin to realize just how spectacularly little is conveyed in these 2D
drawings, for all their visible complexity and clutter. I've put together a
talk at the UIS conference about it and will bring demo equipment.

Julian.


On Wed, 29 Jun 2022 at 18:10, Wookey  wrote:

> Has anyone done any work on the task of converting existing Tunnel
> sketches (xml) to therion .th2 files?
>
> CUCC (Cambridge Loser expeditions: https://expo.survex.com) has a huge
> investment of tunnel drawings (55km of cave?), but because there are
> no elevations for any of this and Tunnel is a bit niche we are
> pondering using therion more.
>
> If a semi-automated conversion of the existing drawings was possible, that
> would help enormously.
>
> It seems like it shouldn't fundamentally be too hard to turn xml
> lines/beziers into therion lines/beziers, and map the line types, but
> there are issues with how to allocate lines to files and how to get
> the scaling right.
>
> I've not done anything at all about it yet, but thought I'd check if
> anyone else had before having a proper look.
>
> Thoughts?
>
> Wookey
> --
> Principal hats:  Debian, Wookware, ARM
> http://wookware.org/
> ___
> Therion mailing list
> Therion@speleo.sk
> https://mailman.speleo.sk/listinfo/therion
>
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[Therion] cave survey drawing up in VR

[Julian Todd]

Hi folks,

I've got a pretty neat system for drawing up cave surveys in Virtual
Reality now.
(I showed it to Wookey today, and he assures me it's not too off-topic for
this list.)

It's networked, so two or more people can be in the same drawing session
and work with each other.  There's a short video of me and Mike Futrell
doing this on this page:
https://sidequestvr.com/app/1630/tunnelvr

You don't need a VR set to use it. There are downloads for PC versions here:
https://github.com/goatchurchprime/tunnelvr/releases/tag/v0.5.9

If anyone gets it working and wants a tour, email me and we can set up a
phone call and I'll join in and talk you through.

I am pretty sure in the long run doing cave surveys in 3D like this is a
lot easier than what we are doing in 2D at the moment, because it doesn't
have all those problems with overlapping drawings, layout, keeping track of
symbols and files that we now do.

Julian.
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[Therion] 3D scanning project of Google

[Julian Todd]

I applied for one of those phones for use in this project:
http://www.housahedron.co.uk/42-2/scanning-and-drawing/

Unfortunately, they didn't give me one.  Anyway, it seems to have the same
capabilities as a kinect.  Probably not so good for caves.



***But that's just data acquisition.  I do have another idea for presenting
the data.

For example, there is this android app for displaying the underlying
geology overlayed onto the landscape as you walk around:
   http://www.bgs.ac.uk/igeology/3d.html

I am busy sending centreline data of a cave system to those guys so that we
can try to do this with a cave.  It's a problem of making them interested
enough in the concept.

(I tried to code this idea myself, but the directional sensors in my phone
were just too noisy.  Could work a bit harder at this and use a device with
a bigger screen.  The currently broken code is here:
https://bitbucket.org/goatchurch/groundwindow )

The big idea is that we should be able to walk around the landscape holding
our big tablet in front of us giving an X-ray view of the cave underneath
us.  Maybe you could hold it up against the mountain and see all the cave
systems inside of it.

This would be fantastic for following passages on the surface in order to
see if any of the surface features correspond with potential entrances.
 Also, for example, you could walk around trying to line up a big trunk
passage or a plane of development, because you would expect sometimes for
these features to puncture the surface.

Besides this, it would be a really cool way of looking at cave surveys --
not just as a poster on the wall.  Caves are often relatively small, so you
could relocate them into the ground underneath a park or a field and
navigate around them even on a 1-1 scale like a virtual maze.  This is a
better game than sitting on your chair and spinning meaningless pictures
around on the screen.

Julian.





On 6 June 2014 17:15, Martin Sluka  wrote:

> https://www.google.com/atap/projecttango/#project
>
> m.s.
> ___
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[Therion] New release of Cave Converter

[Julian Todd]

Why don't you keep the code and the docs onto bitbucket -- where I
keep the TunnelX code?
https://bitbucket.org/goatchurch/tunnelx

Then all your bug tracking stuff would get done automatically,

For that matter, why isn't the Therion code in some place like there too?

I've been quite happy with it there, and I get to use the Mercurial
version control system, which makes quite a bit more sense to me than
Git (which is what you have to use if you put the code on Tithub where
all the cool kids work).

Julian.


On 17 March 2013 10:31, Footleg  wrote:
> Only ten days since I released an update to my Cave Converter program,
> but I just put out another update. Just one bug fix in this one, but
> it finally fixes the last niggling issues in converting survey data
> into Toporobot format (at least as far as I am aware) so I put it
> straight out. My most complex caves now all convert properly for
> import into PocketTopo for taking underground on a PDA for surveying
> trips. The change log entry is as follows:
>
> 16 Mar. 2013
> - Fixed bug in Toporobot writer which left survey series unlinked when
> two series crossed over
>   each other in the middle of each series (i.e. Not joined at the
> start or end of either series).
>
> Same place as usual for the download:
> http://wscc.darkgem.com/caveconverter/
>
> Footleg
> ___
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> http://mailman.speleo.sk/mailman/listinfo/therion

[Therion] ICS 2013 Brno

[Julian Todd]

I've got my ticket now.
   http://www.speleo2013.com/registration/overview/UNITED%20KINGDOM

I'll probably be bringing along survey posters made by tunnelx as well
as my laptop.  That's the limit of what I can do.

What will Therion be doing there?  Probably buying a stand.

I'm hoping it's an opportunity for all the cave survey software people
to get together and talk shop.  About tricks for boulder layout
algorithms and colour schemes, how to make the software compatible,
and how to archive cave survey data.  That sort of thing.

Julian.



On 22 January 2013 10:32, Ladislav Blažek  wrote:
> Hi guys,
>
> anybody of you going to International Congress of Speleology 2013 in Brno?
> Maybe it will be good opportunity to meet and talk somewhere in Brno. And of
> course to taste Czech beer :-)
>
> L.
>
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[Therion] wikipedia

[Julian Todd]

Try some references to compass points articles.

http://www.chaos.org.uk/survex/cp/index.htm

JT


On 13 December 2011 09:04, Xavier Robert  wrote:

> Hi Martin,
>
> If this is what you want, you can find mapping project on my caving club
> web site :
>
> * for the Gouffre Jean-Bernard System :
> http://www.groupe-speleo-vulcain.com/01_04_topographie_jean_bernard.html?lang=en
> * For our last Expedition in Borneo :
> http://www.groupe-speleo-vulcain.com/expeditions-borneo.html?lang=en(with 
> sources)
>
> Cheers,
> Xavier
>
>
>
> Le 13 déc. 2011 à 09:48, Martin Sluka a écrit :
>
> There is a request from one wikipedia editor:
>
> x
> Are there any reliable, third party sources which can speak to the
> notability of this software? I see that people are using it as witnessed by
> the articles in newsletters; but, I don't see any reliable sources. WTucker
> (talk) 06:02, 13 December 2011 (UTC)
> x
>
> So may you add the links to your project pages or send me a link I'll do
> it.
>
> Martin S.
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>
>
>
> --
> Xavier Robert
> Chercheur CR2 - IRD
> ISTerre - Maison des Géosciences
> 1381 rue de la Piscine - BP 53
> 38041 Grenoble Cedex 09
> France
>
> mail 1: xavier.robert at ird.fr
> mail 2: xavier.robert at ujf-grenoble.fr
> mail 3: xavier.robert01 at gmail.com
>
> Phone :
> Fax : 33 (0)4 76 51 40 58
>
>
> xavier.robert01 at gmail.com
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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>
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[Therion] WikiProject_Caves

[Julian Todd]

If any of you also have some time, you might also enjoy(!) the on-going
discussion here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Templates_for_discussion/Log/2011_November_22#Template:Infobox_ukcave

Short summary: I gave up trying to put cave location coordinates into the
{infobox cave} template, because the yanks are so against the idea that
they can't even leave it blank for other people to use, so I invented
{infobox ukcave} for the purpose of being none of their business.  But now
I've annoyed another bunch of people who can't handle having two infoboxes
for the same thing!

Please insert your comments into that debate if you can.  It can't get any
worse.

Julian.



On 28 November 2011 05:30, Martin Sluka  wrote:

> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/**Wikipedia:WikiProject_Caves
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/**Therion_(software)
>
> Just to know
>
> Martin s.
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[Therion] displaying models in a browser

[Julian Todd]

VRML is a dead format.  There's nothing that is effectively replacing
it.  WebGL is showing promise (partly because it's based on OpenGL,
which is *the* graphics standard, rather than some funky invented
one).

Do these demos work for you?
http://khronos.org/webgl/wiki/Demo_Repository

Web things are by default read-only.  Do you mean viewing them from
different angles, rather than editing them?

Julian.


On Sun, Dec 19, 2010 at 11:11 AM, Graham Mullan
 wrote:
> Someone on UKcaving asked about displaying 3d models on the web, as opposed
> to making them available as downloads.
>
> Andrew immediately suggested generating vrml files and I see that Therion
> "appears" to be able to generate these. However, I cannot find a Firefox
> plugin that will display these, or X3D files.
>
> Has anyone else thought about this issue? It would be good to be able to
> display and manipulate models directly in a browser window.
>
> Graham
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[Therion] Version Control Systems and Therion

[Julian Todd]

As people have realized, getting cavers to understand/use version
control systems at all is incredibly difficult.

While a distributed version control would be the best answer --
especially in the field -- they are impossible for normal people to
use.  It will go wrong immediately, and people will get frustrated,
and give up.

I have had some success getting some non-techies to use TortoiseSVN
(they're all on Windows) and knowledgeforge, under the following
project:

 http://knowledgeforge.net/project/sesame/

The majority of the data can be SVN checked out from:

  http://knowledgeforge.net/sesame/club/c/

The files are broken into survex data, scans of survey drawings, and
tunnelx (s!) files.

The terms of use of this server is it's public data -- as it should
be.  Personally, I believe there are very few reasons for cave data
not to be public, but you can't convince everyone about what is right.

If you look around the data on knowledgeforge, you will find that
club/hmg is password protected.  This is because it is
http://www.hongmeigui.net/ data for Chinese caves, and there was a
recent government decree that made it illegal for foreigners to make
any maps in China.  This is one of the very few legitimate reasons for
keeping cave data private.

If anyone wants to join knowledgeforge and upload sets of cave data, I
can add them to the project.

As I said, this particular platform has legs.  That is, non-techie
cavers are routinely committing files to it.  This is the big
breakthrough.

Julian.



On Sat, Nov 14, 2009 at 9:50 PM, Bruce  wrote:
> Eighteen months ago there was some discussion about VCS that people were
> using with Therion. We have two largish projects and soon to be three people
> working on their own copies of the files that every now and again I try to
> merge into a coherent dataset.
>
>
>
> I suspect it’s well passed the time where we should have been using a VCS,
> but you know how it is.  Sometimes it seems easier to run along pushing a
> bicycle than it is to take the time to choose an appropriate one, and hen
> learn to ride it.
>
>
>
> A few VCS options were mentioned, including bazaar http://bazaar-vcs.org/en/
>  and subversion http://subversion.tigris.org/
>
>
>
> In an effort to get more local people involved and ease the learning curve
> for Therion newcomers I’m thinking that putting all our data on a web page
> and allowing those working on it to have ftp access.  Bearing in mind that I
> have no experience with any type of automated version control (am
> downloading bazaar as I write this) is there any advice out there?
>
>
>
> Best VCS application to use?
>
> Are ease of use for learner computer users, ftp, Therion and VCS mutually
> exclusive?  My (sheltered) experience with ftp so far is that it is no more
> complex than using files on a local disk.  Is this a good route or should I
> try another path?
>
>
>
> Any feedback or advice welcomed.
>
> Cheers
>
> Bruce
>
>
>
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>

[Therion] wikipedia and cave surveying

[Julian Todd]

Hi folks,


Anyone out there want to join me in trying to organize the caving 
content for wikipedia?? 


There's quite a bit of material floating around.  Get an idea by 
drilling down from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Caves_by_country


The problems include the lack of a special page for cave surveying, 
wherein some excellent examples of very old and new surveys should be 
uploaded to show off their artistic and historical value.  Also, there 
needs to be an infobox to make all the pages beautiful. 


Further details are noted at: 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Goatchurch#Caves


Julian T.

[Therion] That other cave drawing programmer in Prague

[Julian Todd]

To whom it may concern. 


Aren't there a whole bunch of Therion programmers in Prague whom I've 
never met?  It seems I am washing up in Prague tonight (hopefully) and 
will be around until Tuesday.  Can I meet + buy a beer for/talk cave 
surveying with anyone there in town? 


Yours,

Julian T.

http://freesteel.co.uk/wiki/index.php/Tunnel

. 

[Therion] wikipedia of therion

[Julian Todd]

Hello,


I've noticed that this here Therion probably fits within the bounds of:

   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Notability_%28software%29


Anyone thought of typing it in?  If we cover them all then we can have 
"List of Cave surveying software" onto the wikipedia, which might make a 
good reference. 


Julian T.

[Therion] zoomify

[Julian Todd]

John Pybus wrote:
> Nice idea Julian.  What does your system need on the server?  Are you
> making the code available?
>
>   
Yes, if it can be generalized into a utility we can use for this and for 
other purposes that we could embed in our application.  Behind it 
technically is OpenMesa, Python, a little bit of C++ functioning through 
swig to render into the OpenMesa windows, and javascript.  I don't know 
of any other implementation of this idea.  It's a complex system of 
demons and call-backs on the server to keep the 3D model in memory so it 
doesn't get killed after you grab each frame. 


> I wonder if by constraining the angles of rotation/elevation to e.g.
> 10-15 deg steps you could prerender rotated and elevated views to speed
> up rotation (a la Quicktime VR).
>   
We're experimenting with some animation, but it takes lots of memory.  
As I said, the animation isn't so vital in my opinion as a system for 
changing the view to the correct place so you can inspect something 
closely.  That's what this could do very well.  It's a slight weakening 
of the standard 3D visualization concept which merits consideration. 


Julian T.

[Therion] zoomify

[Julian Todd]

Wolfgang Zillig wrote:
> Hello Julian,
>
> it seems that I don't understand what you want. Do you want to show the cave 
> model under fixed viewpoint (animated gif, mpeg...) or shall the user be abel 
> to turn and rotate the model like he wants? Do you also need to include a 
> digital elevation model and surface texture?
> Wolfgang
>   
I've got what I want.  It's something I'm writing for the purposes of 
Computer Aided Manufacture.  I was asking if anyone else thought it 
could be applied for those lovely cave renderings you have to make a 
sort of zoomify in 3D.  That's all. 


Julian T.

http://www.freesteel.co.uk/cgi-bin/adaptiverough.py

[Therion] zoomify

[Julian Todd]

Wolfgang Zillig wrote:
> Why don't you use VRML?
>
> Wolfgang
>
>   
VRML is dead.  I had cave surveys in it and it was never satisfying.  
The next thing might be:


http://www.xml.com/pub/a/2003/08/06/x3d.html. 


Ultimately, computer images are 2D, and the fuss about making high frame 
rates merely so you can drag the mouse back and forth is, I think, 
over-rated.  Animation in time is very useful on a 3D image, but not 
necessarily animation in viewing angle.  Unfortunately all the tools are 
optimized to do the latter, but not the former. 


Julian T.

[Therion] zoomify

[Julian Todd]

I just tried to get zoomify to work on my webpage for a cave drawing.  
It only works for jpegs, not pngs.  Is that right? 


Meanwhile, I have some technology for generating 3D renderings on a 
webserver and showing it through a normal browser without a plug-in.  If 
anyone has the time and inclination to generalize it into a zoomable and 
rotatable cave viewer, let me know. 


http://www.freesteel.co.uk/cgi-bin/adaptiverough.py


Julian T.

http://www.goatchurch.org.uk/tunnelx/index.html