Tutorial 1 - Introduction

The purpose of this tutorial is to introduce you to the “look and feel” of Ezicad

You will learn how to

• Open jobs.

• Zoom the display.

• Pan the display.

• Use modes and layers (and their function keys)  to control what is displayed on the active screen.

• Use Modes - Input to specify the units for Angles and Distances

• Use a Query to find or alter the attributes of a point.

• Use the “Join” hotkey to find the bearing, distance and grade between any two points (Also known as Inverse)

• Open multiple windows to allow different “views” of a job.

• Display different jobs at the one time.

Before starting, you need to have installed the Tutorial Data from the Ezicad Tutorial Disk supplied, so if you haven’t already done so, please install the data now by inserting the disk and using the Run command from Windows to activate A:\setup.

Note: It is not the intention of these tutorials to provide you with basic instruction in how to use Windows.  If you do not already have a basic knowledge of how to use Windows to do the everyday things like; start programs, open folders, select files, minimize and maximize sessions, set up printers and print then it is reasonably pointless in trying to complete these tutorials.

Please save yourself time and frustration by first undertaking some basic training so you are comfortable with the basic functions provided by your operating system before you attempt to undertake these tutorials.

Once you are ready to proceed, you can 'double click' the Ezicad shortcut on your desktop, or select the Start button, then select Programs to display the list of programs available on your computer.

Select  Ezicad from that list, and a screen will appear as seen below.

Now select File from the menu followed by Open.

The tutorial data is normally stored in a folder named “C:\Program Files\Ezicad\Ezicad\Tutor” so you need to use Windows to open that folder for you. 

If the program is suggesting that you Look In a folder named My Documents, use the Windows browsing capabilities to search for the folder named “C:\Program Files\Ezicad\Ezicad\Tutor” and open it.

Once the folder is open the screen similar to that seen below. (Depending on the version of this document, there may be more, less or different files listed in the folder, so don’t worry if the screen is not 100% identical).

In Ezicad terms, the most important file in any job is the database where all the points are stored, so you will see a list of all the databases in the folder. Note that to maintain compatibility with earlier versions, the 3 character “Job ID” is retained at this stage, but later releases of the software will move to the “long filenames” allowed by the latest Windows versions.

As you select these “db” files with a single click of your cursor, you will see details about the job listed in the relevant descriptive fields, allowing easy identification.

The Job, or Database that we are interested in is job “970”, so highlight the file called “db.970”. The descriptions should indicate that it is data for Tutorial 1A, so double click “db.970” and the screen should appear as below.

Please note that the points in the job are not meant to represent anything like the jobs you will encounter in daily practice, but are merely an invented set of points designed to spell out TRPS, and to be used in this Tutorial. 
(If you are wondering why, a version of this program is marketed in Malaysia under the name TRPS and the 4 characters seemed to do what we needed to show you the tools available)

So, if you use your imagination, and can make out the letters of TRPS on your screen we are off to a good start, so let’s explore what functions are available.

Firstly, if you look from the top of the screen, you will see the second line is the Menu list that contains the various “drop down menus” you will learn to use to complete your tasks.

Below the menu list are two rows containing a number of icons, and these icons can be used to give you quick access to commonly used functions.

If you run your cursor slowly over the icons, a window will appear on the end of your cursor arrow telling you what each icon accesses, so take a few moments now to position your cursor over each icon in turn to get the idea of what they do.

The first function we will explore is the Zoom function which allows you to control the size of the job, or more correctly, how much of your current job is displayed on the screen at any given time.

  Zoom

To access the Zoom function you can

       1. Select the Icon showing a magnifying glass over the corner of a screen , or

       2. Press the “Z” key on the keyboard.

Once you either select the icon or press“Z” you are in Zoom Mode, and more particularly, you are in Zoom Window mode, and your cursor will have changed to a magnifying glass.

The program is now waiting for you to place a Window around the area you are interested in.

To do this move your cursor to where you want one corner of the window to be, and hold down the select button (normally the left one) on your mouse. With the button held down, move the mouse to drag the window until it envelopes the area you wish to see at a larger scale.

For example, in the screen below left you see a window around the “T”  and “R” in this job, and in the screen on the right you see the screen which is presented once the button is release.

Please note that the program takes the dimension of the window you specify and then expands that in whatever direction necessary to fit the active window.    In this case, the vertical dimension of the window shown has been used to fill the screen, and there is room in the horizontal direction to also display the points in the letter “R” as well.

Don’t be confused by those programs that allow you to put a window around something, and then only display the contents of the window on the screen, that is not the intention here.

The other function currently available within zoom is to reverse the effects of the Zoom Window, and to again display the whole job in the active window.

To achieve this you wish to Zoom Extents, so when you activate Zoom (either from the icon, or pressing Z) immediately press the “E” key to indicate Extents are required, and the screen will be redrawn to show all the points in the job within the active window.

You can also enlarge the size of the job,or zoom in with the ‘+’ icon, or you can reduce the size of the job, or zoom out with the ‘-’ icon, and you should try them to see what they can achieve for you.

Note: you also have the ability to Zoom by a specific 'magnification', or to Zoom to the Previous view. 

If you wish to specify the magnification, press Z followed by M - a small window will appear requesting the magnification you want. If you want to see more of the job in the screen space, enter a value less than one e.g. 0.5. - Obviously to see less but at a higher magnification use a number above one.

You can also show the Previous zoomed view by pressing Z followed by P. Note, it only goes back one level - that is the definition of Previous.

   Pan the Display.

As well as Zooming, it is useful if you can also Pan, which means to move the existing window over the underlying data. To Pan, you can either;

 -Press the “P” key, or

 -Select the Icon with  4 arrow heads on the toolbar (seen above).

When you enter Pan mode, the cursor will change to be a cross bearing 4 arrow heads as seen above.

All you need to do to Pan is to put the cursor near the point you wish to move, press the left mouse button, and hold it down while you ‘drag’ the cursor to where you would like the point to be.

For example, in the screen below left we have positioned the cursor near Point 12 in the “R”, then dragged across to near the left hand border, and down a little from horizontal. You will see a line drawn to show where the item will move.

When you release the mouse button the screen will be redrawn in its new location, as seen in the screen shown below right.

Now that you know how to control the extent of the data which is displayed, next you need to consider how you can control what is shown on that display at any point in time as far as the attributes of the points, strings, contours and triangles are concerned.

The combined effects of the Modes and Layers functions control the Display, and first we will consider Modes.

   Modes - Display   

You may access the Modes function by selecting its icon, or by pressing the F9 function key. 

The modes icon is the one to the right of the Zoom icon and it represents a screen display controlling how the job will appear.

When you select the Modes Icon, or press the F9 function key, the screen on top of the next page will appear.

If you look at the first two options available, you will see that the Display can either be controlled by Layers, or by Modes, and while the program gives default control to the layers,  there are times when your data is not conveniently arranged in layers, so it is important that you know how to take control over what is displayed.

To give you an example of what you can do, click the radio button adjacent to Modes to indicate that you wish to use the Modes function to control the display.

Next select the “ON” button adjacent to heights to indicate that you want the heights of all the points displayed.

Now select “OK” at the bottom of the screen.

The screen will now appear as at right, and you should notice that heights of all the points are now displayed rather than the point numbers, and the text is now all the same colour.

If you wish, you can again call up the Modes screen and turn Point codes ON.

Alternatively, you can also use the function keys which were established in previous versions of Ezicad to turn various attributes On/Off.

The Function Keys and their attributes are as follows.

F1            Help (On Line Manual)          F2 Point Numbers 
F3            Strings                                   F4            String Names
F5            Heights                                  F6            Codes
F7            Contours                               F8            Triangle Model
F9            Modes Screen                       F10          Layers Screen
F11          Points (dots)

Please note that there are a limited number of function keys available, and they have been assigned to the most commonly displayed items.

If you wish to display Description, Layer Names, Road Number, Chainage or Offset there is no function key available so you will need to use the modes screen to turn these items on or off.

You should also be aware that the Modes function is also designed to display only one attribute at a time, so you can either have Point Numbers displayed, or you can have Codes displayed etc, but you can’t have some Point Numbers and some codes. To do that you need to use layers.

You can however use the Select option from the modes screen to limit the display to a specified range of point rather than all points in the job. But if you look at the screen you will see there is only one Select range, so the attribute currently turned on will be displayed for the range of Points you have specified.

This function was not designed to allow you to display different attributes for different ranges of points. That ability is handled by layers which we will now introduce you to.

Before you proceed, please press Z followed by E to display the entire job.

Modes - Input

After you select the Modes option, you can select the Tab titles Modes-Input to specify how you intend to input data, including the Angle and Distance Units you wish to use.

Angular and Distance units.

Although we somehow manage to be able to navigate ships and aircraft from one continent to another using a consistent method of measuring angles and distances, it is unfortunate that Surveyors and Civil Engineers still choose to use different units on different continents.

Since Ezicad is aimed at a global market, we have attempted to provide methods whereby you can enter whatever units you choose to work in, for both angles and distances.

When you first run Ezicad, even before a job is loaded, you can see on the bottom right of the status bar what units are the current default for inputting data, and for outputting data.

If you look at the portion of the screen shown at right, you will see a series of fields tracking the cursor coordinates, and then a group of 4 fields which show, from left to right, Distance Input Units, Distance Output units, Angular Input Units, Angular Output units.

Ezicad makes the conversion from one system to the other simple by allowing you to input in one unit and plot out the plan with another unit displayed.

These values are set for each job by accessing the Modes- Input screen.

This is achieved by either pressing the F10 function key, or by selecting the icon.

If you then select the Tab titled Modes-Input, the screen shown at right will appear.

Here you can select the angular and distance units you wish to use when you are entering the data, and also the angular and distance units you wish to have displayed and plotted.

Using these selections makes it easy to convert old title plans to newer units, or to simply merge together surveys done in different units.

If you are entering field data from stadia/topo surveys, or traverses into the Data Entry Spreadsheet, you can also select at that point the units you have used in the field.

You will see on the bottom of the Entry Spreadsheet that you can pull down and select the required unit for both angle and distance.

Angles

You will see that you have the options of:

Note that Ezicad measures all angles based on a North Azimuth.

Distances

The options you have here are;

    Layers

The Layers icon that is shown at left, can be found to the right of the Modes Icon, and the layers screen can also be quickly accessed by using the F10 function key.

When you select layers, a screen similar to that at right will appear.

Here you will see that there are six different layers in the current job. 

If you do not assign points to a particular layer they will all be placed on a default layer of 0.

Before you start tinkering with the screen, remember that the Modes screen has ultimate control over whether the display takes notice of  the Modes or the Layers parameter screen, and since we have just finished using Modes to control the display, we need to switch it over.

Select the tab marked “Modes - Display” and turn on the Layers button. Then select the Layers tab to bring back the screen above.

To get some idea of the capabilities of this Layers function, we will first turn layer 0 and layer “Centre”  OFF so they are not displayed.

To do this, position the cursor on the relevant line in the layer table and select it with the select button on your mouse. The selected layer will be highlighted and you then pick the relevant option from the selection boxes below.

Note you can also select a number of layers at the one time by “dragging” the mouse over the layers to be selected, but we will leave you to practice this function on your own.

Once you have turned 0 and centre OFF, Select layer “Are”. Then use the pull down option to choose to display the Height (hgt) for this layer.

Now select layer “Pee” , use the pull down option and scroll through the list to assign the “code” to be displayed.

Next select layer “Ess” and assign the attribute of “desc” to display the description.  

If you wish, you can also assign different colours to each of these layers to make identification or differentiation easier, but though you can see the difference on the screen, since this tutorial is printed in black and white, the different colours will not reproduce here.

As well as allowing selection of which attributes are to be displayed, the layers function allows you to display only those points in which you have a current interest.

So, for example, call up your layers screen again, turn off all layers except “TEE” and “PEE”, and the screen should appear as below.

Hint: One way to achieve this with a minimum of actions is to select “None On” to turn all layers off with one action, and then select Tee and turn it on, and then Select Pee and turn it on.

The standard Windows method of selecting items using Shift Select  for Groups and Control Select for individual items is applicable in the Layers function.

   Query

The next Icon displayed on the menu bar is in the form of a question mark, and if you have a question about any particular point, or wish to change a particular point, you can select this icon, or enter “?” from the keyboard.

You may type in the number of the point you are interested in, or point to it with the cursor, and its details will be displayed.

A line will also be drawn from the bottom left hand corner of the window to, or towards the point to indicate its location. 

In addition you can use the “Next” and “Previous” buttons to scan forward and backward through the database.

If you wish to alter the values of a point, you can position the cursor in the relevant field, and type in the value you require.

The function will NOT allow you to change the point number of a point, but you can alter any of the other database fields, so please be careful and make sure you know what you are doing before you start.

If you do change any of the values, once you select the “OK” button you will be asked to verify that you wish to save the changes which you have made, and you must select Yes if you wish the changes to be made permanent.

Joins - (or Inverses)

You will often need to know the bearing and distance between two points in your job, and in Ezicad we call this a “Join”. ( It is also known as an “Inverse” in some areas.

The Join function does not have an icon, and is accessed by pressing the “J” key on your keyboard.

This is one of the “Hot Keys” which you need to remember to make use of the software easier.

Once you press J, you will find a “Join” Dialogue Box appears as seen in the screen at right, and the box is requesting a First Point and a Second Point.

You may type in the Point numbers of the relevant points, or you may select the points you require by pointing to them with the cursor.

To select the point, simply place your cursor (the tip of the arrow) over the point attribute that is displayed and select it with the left button on the mouse.

If you select Points 1 and 9,  the bearing and distance between them will be displayed as seen in the screen at right. If both points have valid heights then the percentage grade between them will also be displayed. You will also see a line drawn on the screen between the points.

Multiple Windows

In some cases it is useful to have two (or more) different views of a particular job, and this can be easily achieved as shown below, but before you start, use your Layers function again and turn all the layers On.

First pull down the “Window” menu from the menu list, and select the “New Window” option. You will see a second window appear with your job displayed in it, and when it appears it is “cascaded” over the existing window, partly obscuring the first window.

So you can see the contents of both windows at the one time, Ezicad has function to allow you to “tile” the windows, and because jobs are of different shapes, you have the ability to tile either vertically or horizontally.

If you again pull down the Window menu and select the option to Tile Vertically, the screen will appear as in the diagram below left, while if you choose to Tile Horizontally, you screen will resemble the screen below right.

If you Tile Vertically, and then Zoom a window around the “R” shape in the job, you should see a screen as below left.

You should be aware at this stage that while you can have two, or more windows open at any time, only one window can be active at any given time.

The active window can be determined by looking at the “bar” along the top of the window.

One will be coloured, while the other will be “greyed out”, and the one which is coloured is the active window. (Because you can set screen colours to your own taste, we can’t predict what colour the bar will be, but you will see the difference)

If you wish to switch to make the other window active, simply position the cursor within the  window and press your left mouse button. You will see the “coloured bar” changes to indicate the new active window.

Any changes which you make as far as Modes or Layers are concerned will take effect immediately in the active window,  but will not become apparent in the non-active window until it is redrawn.

You can use this feature to give yourself a simultaneous display of two different attributes of the points on display.

 For example, in the screen at left we have the display in the right hand window controlled by Layers, while in the Left hand window we have zoomed up the area of the “R” and then used Modes to display the point numbers of those points in the active window.

To extend this concept a little further, if you look at the screen displayed below, you will see four windows.

To achieve this, you use the “New Window” function three times to create three new windows, and then use the Tile Vertical command to set the four “panes” in place.

You then make each window active in turn, and while the window is active use the Zoom command, and/or the Modes/Layers function to control what is displayed in each window.

So far we have concentrated on different views of the one job,  but you should be aware that it is also possible to display different jobs at the same time.

Multiple Jobs on Display

To achieve this, open your first job as normal, and then use the File Open command to open the second job you are interested in. This will automatically open the second job in a new window that will be overlaid over your first job.

Then you use the Window menu and either Tile Vertical or Tile Horizontal depending on the shapes of  the respective jobs.

The screen adjacent shows an example of what can be achieved with job 970 in the left window and job DAM in the right window.

Please Note that just because the function to open different jobs is available, it does NOT mean that you should use it every time you come to the computer.

It is a fact of life that if you have two jobs open at the one time, the speed of processing of each of the jobs is necessarily degraded over the speed  achieved with only one job open, so use the function when you need to, not just as a matter of course.

This ends the initial general introduction to the look and feel of Ezicad, and if you are comfortable that you know how to use Windows generally, and the functions of Ezicad explained in this exercise then you can commence on the next tutorial example.

If you are not completely comfortable with your ability to work within Windows, to maximise and minimise windows, to alter the default printer, to open and close files and windows then please save us, and yourself, a great deal of heartache and frustration by taking the time to now become comfortable with these items before you go on.