Where needed this program creates 'previews' that are simply temporary graphics on your computer screen. These are 'smart' and know what to do when saved as features. They can be edited, manipulated, deleted, and saved automatically to an appropriate Shapefile. This program will automatically append data to appropriate available files in the View. Available files can be 2D or 3D types. When results are written to disk either directly or through a preview, a dialogue box pops up listing these, plus an option to make a new Shapefile. This program will automatically choose all features if no features are selected. Thus you choose records by selection, otherwise all records in the file will be processed.

In addition most tinshapeZ operations are fully automatic with little input from you. A TIN surface file is also a polygon file and can be used as such. Outputs are TIN surface files which can be used for further building. Thus, you may build on a surface, then build some more on its output, and so on... working piecemeal until finished.

Create TIN as Shapefile Create TIN as Preview

These two functions are identical except that one produces a graphics preview first (that you can edit and 'save as..' later on) and the other writes the results directly to a new or current Shapefile. These functions create triangle polygons from random points. As input, you may use 2D points having an elevation field in the Shapefile, or a pointZ Shapefile where the elevation is part of the point coordinates.

Each triangle will have its three elevation coordinates, slope, aspect, and an illumination factor calculated and written to the database. The illumination factor is the intensity value of light striking the triangle. The light source angles are entered via a dialogue box. Other TIN files or polygon graphics can act as a border to constrain processing, and you may build up a large file from a selection of points on the border without having to process all the points at once.

3D View by Rotation Angle 3D View by Observer Position

These are Shapefiles rotated and saved in 3D, 'legended' by illumination, and viewed from an observer position.

You may view any file created with this program in 3D. You may view any other Shapefile in 3D. And you may view any number of active files all at the same time. The file need not be in a 3D format, nor does it need an elevation field. If it is a 2D type, then it will just show as a 'flat' perspective. Views are in 'preview' graphics form at first, which can be edited, then saved to a Shapefile. Attributes will be carried over from the original file to the new 3D file. There is a option called 'Vertical scale factor' which allows you to adjust the vertical scale of the view.

Polyline Contours

This function calculates the minimum and maximum Z values and advise you of these. You may then use them to set the starting elevation and vertical increments for calculating the contours.Contour lines will be drawn in a preview form first.

Drape Multiple Shapefiles over Surface

This function finds the feature vertices in all active Shapefiles (2D or 3D), calculates the elevation value of the vertex-to-surface intersection and recreates the feature as a Z type. It then writes to a Z Shapefile for each. All attributes are carried over to the new files. Polygons are triangulated to match the surface triangles.

Drape/Merge Polygons into Surface

This function triangulates polygon (or polygonZ) features in one Shapefile to match the surface. It then cuts a matching hole in the surface, triangulates the edges, and places itself into it. The results are written to one PolygonZ Shapefile. Attributes from both files are carried over to the new file. The new file is also a surface that carries the attributes of the draped polygons.

Drape/Merge Polygons w/Walls to Z-Offset

This function does the same as above but in this case it allows you extrude (in the Z direction) the draped portion. The distance extruded or vertically offset is entered by you, and can be plus or minus. A plus value means that you are 'growing' something from the surface, a negative value means you are 'digging' into the surface. Walls are automatically created to match upper and lower elements.

This function has an option to keep the draped elements flat, or in a 2D state, bypassing the draping triangulation. What is the difference between draping the polygons or keeping them as flat? An example would be that if you were to 'grow' telephone poles or piles, you would want flat tops, but if you 'grew' wheat or trees you would like to see this conform or drape to the land surface as a block.The top of the poles in this example are flat, whereas the 'trees' match the surface from which they are offset.

Build Walls from Polygons to Surface

This is the reverse of 'Drape/Merge Polygons w/Walls to Z-Offset'. Here you build walls from a polygon with a specific elevation to the surface. The polygons remain as is, if they are 2D, but are triangulated if they are 3D, and not flat. Holes are cut in the surface under the polygons. Vertical surfaces (walls) are constructed to the surface to match both the cut edges and the polygons.

In addition, if the polygons overlap, walls will be constructed from the top to the next below it and so forth. Thus you may have walls made from polygon to polygon and finally to the surface from all polygons.

Build Walls from Polygons to Plane

This works as above, but only one polygon Shapefile is used and the walls are built down or up to a constant elevation. This is also a means to graph polygon data. You can run this on a surface file to build walls around it, as seen in the previous example.

Cut Holes in Surface or Clip Surface

These are subsets of 'Drape/Merge Polygons into Surface' above. In the first instance a hole is cut into a surface by selected polygon features. In the next an area inside polygons is cut out. With this function you may clip a file into two parts and view them together in 3D (by selecting both at once). This will allow you to 'legend' or colour each individually. Clipping is done by selecting a 2D or 3D polygon Shapefile and a surface Shapefile.

Point Grid Line Grid Triangle Grid

A triangulated surface is constructed from points, and these become the vertices of each triangle facet. Visually, there is a randomness about this. But a surface can be made to look regular by dividing it into a regular grid pattern. These three functions intersect a surface in a regular grid pattern. The intersections of the grid are points carrying the elevation of the underlying surface. The functions produce either points, lines or triangle polygons as implied.

Triangulate Polygons Preview

This function breaks up polygons into triangles. It is faster than extracting points then tinning, and automatically uses the polygon border as the constraint. Additionally, it will function on polygonZ features that may be vertical.

Additional Tools and Utilities

Extract Points from Themes
Point Selection Filter
Refine Triangles
Flip Triangle Pairs
Recalculate Illumination Factor
Calculate Surface Area
Calculate Volume to Plane
Calculate TIN Attributes

Tools

BC TRIM Data Example

This is an example of B.C. Government TRIM Contour Line Data, converted to points and triangulated by tinshapeZ. This view is a JPG image of an 80,000 record triangle shapefile obtained from 40,000 points (or pointZ). The shapefile is viewed in 3D and coloured in grey scale according to classification of illumination values in the attribute table, with the polygon outlines set to "none". The 'plan view' of this file is shown at the top of this page. The 'plan view' and the '3D view' are two different shapefiles. The 'plan' was created by tinShapeZ's TIN operation, and the '3D view' was created by tinShapeZ's 3D view function, using the 'plan' as input. All attributes from the 'plan' shapefile are carried over to the 3D file.The JPG image was created by ArcView's Layout Export function.