Tab

Description

Features (Polygons or Polyline or Points) tab

This tab contains the properties related to the objects (the features) contained within the layer.

Note:    Most data sources include a homogenous set of features of the same geometry type, so they have one feature tab that corresponds to the layer’s geometry type. Other types are added as feature collections (e.g., DGN, DXF), which can have more than one type of geometry, and will therefore have multiple feature tabs, one for each geometry type.

Depending on the type of features that the layer contains, the Feature tab displays one of the following:

§  Points: The Points properties displayed in the property sheet depend on the symbol type selected in the Symbol field located at the top of the Points tab. Symbol types can be Text Label, Image Label, Shape, Regular polygon, Circle, Ellipse, Arc, 2D Arrow, Box, Pyramid, Cone, Cylinder, Sphere, 3D Arrow, or 3D Model. See the relevant properties specification for each type of symbol in the guide section dedicated for it.

§  Polylines - See “Creating a New Polyline” in the “Objects and Labels” chapter for more information.

§  Polygons: The Polygon properties displayed in the property sheet depend on the symbol type selected in the Symbol field located at the top of the Polygon tab. Polygon symbol types can be Polygon, 3D Polygon or Building. See the relevant properties specification for each type of symbol in the guide section dedicated for it. See the relevant properties specification for each type of symbol in the guide section dedicated for it.

Note:   You can copy a layer style and paste it on to another layer with features of the same geometry type. All feature and annotation properties, i.e., properties included on the Feature (Polygon, Polyline or Point) and Annotation tabs are copied and pasted. See “Copying and Pasting Layer Styles” in this chapter for more information.

Annotations tab

The Annotation properties displayed in the property sheet depend on the symbol type selected in the Symbol field located at the top of the Annotation tab.

Annotation symbol types can be Text Label, Image Label, Rectangle, Regular Polygon, Circle, Ellipse, Arc, 2D Arrow, Box, Pyramid, Cone, Cylinder, Sphere, 3D Arrow or 3DModel. See the relevant properties specification for each type of symbol in the guide section dedicated for it.

Layer tab

This tab contains the properties related to the layer as a whole, e.g., loading mode and coordinate system. See “Layer Tab” in this chapter for further information.

Field

Activity

General

Name

Type the description or name of the layer.

This text appears in the Project Tree as the name of the object.

Activation Action

Select the action to perform when selecting the locked layer from the Project Tree.

The action is also applied on the annotation symbols group and the features group, if the groups are included in the layer.

Message

The message associated with the layer. The number displayed is the number of the message.

To create a new message, or update an existing message, open the Create Message dialog box by clicking in this field and selecting Edit. See “Using the Create Message Dialog Box” in the “Working with Objects” chapter for more information.

Location

Defines the initial location of the camera when a locked layer is selected from the Project Tree.

The location parameters also apply to the Features group, and to the Annotations Group if it was created.

Altitude Method

Sets the altitude method to be used for the specified location:

§  Select Relative to Terrain to place the location point at a specified altitude above the ground.

§  Select Absolute to place the location point at a specified altitude above the terrain database vertical datum base ellipsoid.

Altitude

Enter the altitude above the ground for the specified location.

X

Enter the X-coordinate of the location of interest.

Y

Enter the Y-coordinate of the location of interest.

MGRS

The coordinates of the location of interest in Military Grid Reference System (MGRS) coordinates. This field is only available if Show MGRS Coordinates was selected in the Options dialog box. See “View” in the “Using TerraExplorer Options” chapter for more information.

Direction

Enter the horizontal angle of the camera when viewing the location.

Tilt

Enter the vertical angle of the camera when viewing the location.

Viewing Distance

Enter the distance between the camera and the specified location.

This property also affects the radius of the flight patterns.

Set Viewpoint

Click Capture to capture the current camera position and set as the camera parameters for this location.

Jump To Viewpoint

Click Jump to make the 3D Window reflect the changes made to the location’s fields.

Visibility Conditions

Minimum Streaming Altitude

As you zoom in on a layer, information may become too coarse. You can set the minimum streaming altitude below which the layer objects and annotations in the layer stop streaming in.

When flying lower than the “Minimum Streaming Altitude” the objects disappear and the streaming of layer data pauses (If the Load Option was set to “Streaming” on the General Settings page, see “Selecting General Layer Settings” in this chapter for further information).

Maximum Streaming Altitude

As you zoom out, it may be difficult to see more detailed information. You can set the maximum streaming altitude above which the layer objects and annotations in the layer are no longer visible.

When flying higher than the “Maximum Streaming Altitude”, the objects disappear and the streaming of layer data pauses (If the Load Option was set to “Streaming” on the General Settings page, see “Selecting General Layer Settings” in this chapter for further information).

Connection

The Connection section displays layer connection parameters based on the layer file sources.

If the layer source is a local file, the file name is displayed in the From File field, see "Loading Layers from Feature Files" in this chapter for further information.

If the layer source is a remote server, see “Loading Layers from SkylineGlobe Server” and “Loading Layers from Other Feature Servers” in this chapter for further information.

Layer Name

The name of the layer selected from the server (Read-only).

File Name

The name of the layer file (Read-only).

Load Layer

The load layer section enables you to select the load mode and specify which areas to load within the layer.

Load Option

Select one of the following load modes:

§  Streaming: the layer features are streamed from the server according to the plane location during the flight.

§  All Features: all layer features are loaded at once.

Filter

Define a filter for the layer; the filter is any valid SQL WHERE clause. Click the Preview button to display the filtered information.

Note:   The WHERE statement is an OGR SQL dialect. See http://www.gdal.org/ogr_sql.html for more information.

Suggested Block Width

Sets the block width of the stream requests sent from TerraExplorer to the remote server.

Changing the block width can improve performance. For example, a block width that is about double the average line feature size, or covers about 50 point features, can improve streaming behavior.

This field is enabled when the Load option field of the Load Layer section is set to Streaming. Select one of the following block width setting methods:

§  Auto: TerraExplorer Pro calculates dynamically the request block width according to performance related criteria.

§  Predefined block width suggestions: Select the block width in kilometers.

Ignore Geometry Z Value

Select whether to ignore the layer’s z-coordinate value. This field is only displayed for data sources that support Z values.

Z Value Units

Select the desired units of measurement for z-coordinates: meters, feet, centimeters, decimeters, inches or yards. This field is only displayed for data sources that support Z values.

Refresh Layer

Click the Apply button to reload the layer from a server or file according to your load settings. Any changes made to specific objects are overwritten. Changes that were applied to the entire group using the Layer Properties, are applied again to the reloaded layer.

Projection

Reproject Source

Determines if the layer’s geographic information is reprojected from the source coordinate system to the terrain coordinate system.

Reproject Elevation

Select the check box to reproject the layer’s elevation values to the terrain’s coordinate system. This option only applies when Altitude Method is set to Absolute. Geocentric layers are always reprojected.

Layer Coord Sys

Displays the layer’s coordinate system.

Coordinate System

Click Set to open the Coordinate System dialog box.

Import Attribute Fields

The Import Attribute section enables you to select which attribute fields to load with the layer. You can add attributes that were not selected for loading when the layer was initially added to the terrain, (See “Selecting Layer Attributes Fields” in this chapter for further information) or you can clear field attributes that were initially selected.

Note:    Field attributes on which property field values were based (See “About Basing Native Feature Layer Properties on Layer Attribute Fields” in this chapter for further information.) cannot be cleared and their check boxes are unavailable.

Layer Bounding Box

The loaded feature layer area is bounded within the coordinates of a fixed rectangular area.

These coordinates are retrieved from the source file or the source server. You can change the coordinates of the layer bounding box only if the Load Layer parameters are set to Streaming.

Reset

Click to reset the coordinate information to its original values.

Upper Left X

Click to modify the X coordinate of the upper left corner of the layer.

Upper Left Y

Click to modify the Y coordinate of the upper left corner of the layer.

Lower Right X

Click to modify the X coordinate of the lower right corner of the layer.

Lower Right Y

Click to modify the Y coordinate of the lower right corner of the layer.