WHAT'S NEW FOR WINDOWS COMPASS =========================================================================== Newest =========================================================================== 1. Cave Editor (1-31-10).

Fixed a problem in the Editor where if used the Geographic Calculator to calculate Declination, any changes you have made to the header would be lost. 2. All Programs. (1-31-10). The Geocalculator was updated to include the magnetic declination models through 2015. 3. SVGExporter. (3-20-10). There is new Cartography tool to help you generate finished maps from Compass. The SVGExporter allows you to export SVG map to programs like Inkscape or Illustrator. The SVG Exporter also allows you to merge new data into an existing map. It also allows you to update an existing map with new data. The program handles moving, rotating, scaling and warping of your existing maps to handle changes in the data, new surveys, resurveys, blunde r removal or just changing the map format. 4. Sketch Map Editor. (3-20-10). There is new Cartography tool to help you generate finished maps from Compass. The Sketch Map Editor allows you to edit your sketch map images to make them easier to use. You can trim them, adjust the contrast, remove smudges, scale and rotate the sketches. You can also merge multiple maps into a single image that is easier to handle and load into drawing programs for tracing. Finally it will warp the image so the stations marks exactly match the positions of in the actual plot file. 5. Cave Editor. (8-31-10) There is now an option to copy the Survey List to the clipboard. This includes comments and date, in the order they are displayed. 6. Project Manager. (9-8-10). Fixed a problem where the compiler would not accurately calculate the magnetic declination based on the date. 7. Cave Editor. (9-11-10). Made the columns in the editor resizeable. You can ad just the column width by dragging the seam between columns at the top of the editor s creen. 8. SVG Exporter. (10-7-10). Fixed a problem with the Scale Bar in Metric mode. 9. Viewer, CaveXO. (10-7-10). Fixed a problem with the LRUD orientation on Vertical shots. 10. Project Manager. (1-1-11) Fixed a problem with the SEF import where shots with missing "To" stations were not handled properly. =========================================================================== 12-22-09 =========================================================================== 1. Project Manager (3-26-08). I have made several improvements to the way Compass handles the creation of new

surveys. In the past, the editor took its default format from current survey format. This could cause problems when you wanted to save other default, but not change the default survey format. As a result, the Editor now has a separate option that allows you to explicitly set the default format for new files. This is the only way you can set the default format. (As a result, you will need to set and save the setting the first time you use the new version.) In addition, the Project Manager now takes its default setting from the Editor's settings when it creates a new files. 2. Project Manager/Viewer (7-18-08). There is now an option to display cave maps in Google Earth by exporting KML files. In addition, the Geo-reference information entered in the Project Manager is now propogated through out all the programs. 3. All Programs. (9-2-08) Fixed a problem with all programs where some objects, especially grids, were the wrong size if you ran the video display at a resolution other than 96 dpi. One side effect of the problem was that some buttons and other objects on the screen would be invisible because they would be pushed off the screen or covered up. 4. CaveXO. (9-2-08). The OpenGL version of CaveX now has more sophisticated lighting and materials controls. For example, you can now setup 8 lights instead of the original 1. 5. Viewer (9-7-08). Cleaned up the Complex dialog to make it easier to use. The window is now resizeabe; the grids so they expand as the window expands, which displays more items. I also improved the way the selecting and highlighting works. 6. Project Manager (9-7-08). Cleaned up the Fixed Stations dialog box to make it easier to use. The window is now resizeable; the Fixed-Station grid expands with the window to display more items and the columns are now resizeable. 7. Cave Viewer (2-24-09). Added a feature that displays the station coordinates next to the station. 8. Cave Viewer (2-25-09). Added features that allows the station coordinates to be displayed as either UTM, Long/Lat Degrees or Long/Lat Degrees, Minutes and Seconds. 9. Project Manager (4-21-09). Compass now has the option of handling situations where two or more fixed station lay in different UTM zones. 10. Project Manager (5-3-09). Improved the Geocalculator world map with a higher resolution image of the earth. It will also display UTM zones and/or Longitude and Latitude line on the map. Finally, it also allows zooming the map for more resolution. 11. Project Manager (5-4-09). Cleaned up several human

interface issues to make the program easier to use. The Node Editor now does not convert between Meters and Feet unless specifically configured to do so. You can also double click on Tree Item to make it easier to perform tasks such as editing, compiling and entering fixed stations. 12. Project Manager (7-7-09). There is now an option to disable the use of declinations. This is useful if you want to create a map referenced to magnetic north. 13. Viewer (8-27-09). Fixed a problem where extraneous lines would appear in the plot if some of the Fill Passage Models were enabled. 14. Project Manager (10-7-09). Fixed a problem where the survey statistics could be altered by suspended shots. For example, the lengths individual surveys in the survey statistics section could be off by the difference in length between the actual shot and the suspended shot. 15. Project Manager (10-8-09). The Project Manager now saves a default setting for the "Compile When" and "Close When" options. That means that you can set the program to default to Always Close and Always Compile the program. 16. Viewer (10-8-09). The Viewer now has the option of opening "Maximized" so it fill the whole screen. 17. Viewer (10-8-09). The Station Labeling options in the Viewer now apply to Elevation, Station Coordinates and Shot Parameter options. For example, this means that you can set Station Coordinates to display every N-number of shots so the display is less cluttered. 18. Viewer (10-12-09) Fixed a problem where if you right clicked on the a survey and chose to use the Edit feature, the Viewer would close when the Editor opened. The same thing would happen in you tried to edit the survey from the "Find Survey" dialog. 19. Editor (12-06-09). Improved the "Survey Search" option so the dialog box is not modal and stay on top. This allows you to find a survey and edit it without closing the dialog box. 20. Viewer (12-11-09). The Viewer now supports coloring the passage modeling in the Complex Plotting Feature. In the past, the Plot Sections and Plot Surveys only colored the center line when the passage option was enabled. Now the whole passage can be colored if Passage Modeling mode is set to 3D Polygon. 21. Viewer (12-14-09). The Viewer now supports highlighting loops in the plot. You can individually select each loop for display. The program uses an optimizing algorithm that finds the set of loops with the shortest individual loop lengths. 22. Project Manager (12-22-09). Fixed a problem that occurred when you had a mixture of Links and Fixed stations. The Links, which cannot be georeferenced, were setting the zone to 31 during compilation. This caused a problem exporting KML files.

=========================================================================== 12-30-07 =========================================================================== 1. Cave Editor. (2-20-07) The Editor buffer has been increased from 5000 to 10,000 shots. This was done to handle those rare instance in which you have more than a few hundred shots in a survey. In general, you should not have more than a few hundred shots in a survey. The typical survey team can only survey a few hundred shots in a day, so the only way you can have more the a couple hundred shots, is if you combine the surveys of more than one team or more than one date. This defeats the purpose of splitting the cave into separate survey's. You should always start a new survey whenever you change the area the survey covers, the date is different or the survey team is different. 2. Viewer (5-22-07) Fixed a problem in the Viewer where you couldn't go from the Viewer to the Editor for certain files and paths. 3. Editor (5-22-07). Added feature in the Editor that displays detailed information about the file that is currently open, including dates and command line information. 4. Project Manager (5-31-07). Added a feature to produce "Developed" or "Unfolded" profiles. The feature produces plot files where all the passage are set to the same azimuth. This effectively flattens the profile view of the cave. This allows you to see the full profile of the cave even when the passages twist around so them come directly toward or away from the screen. 5. Project Manager (6-3-07). Fixed a very subtle bug that occurred if you had at least two fixed stations, you were using UTM convergence rotation and you were closing the cave with a fairly large error. Under these circumstances, the Convergence Rotation would get applied twice causing the loops not to be close properly. 6. Viewer (6-8=07). Made the Find Survey Dialog more usable by making the dialog resizable, so grids of data could be expanded for easier viewing. 7. CaveX (8-20-07). Because Windows Vista does not support DirectX Retained Mode, there is a new version of CaveX called CaveXO which uses OpenGL. OpenGL works under all versions of Windows. 8. All Programs (8-20-07). All the Compass Help files have been converted to CHM help file format. This was necessary to in order for Compass to work properly unders Windows Vista. 9. Project Manager (8-27-07). There is now a new option that displays statistcal information about all the "Sections" in

a Project. 10. All Programs (8-30-07). Made a number of changes to the way all programs install so they can be installed and used under a lower privilege account. 11. Project Manager (8-20-07). A number improvements were made to the statistics display. 12. CaveX (11-3-07). The new version of CaveX (CaveXO) can now read and write X-Files. 13. Viewer (12-9-07). Fixed a problem where if you tried to print a plot with thick lines using the Complex Plotting with Station Labeling turned on, only one survey would print with the thick lines. 14. Viewer. (12-9-07). Added an option to the Complex Plotting Feature that allows you to select a full palette of colors for the Survey and Section coloring options. 15. Editor. (12-30-07). There are two new block modify features. The first one is used to come up with relevant surveys names for files where the survey names have been omitted. It does this by analyzing the survey shots. The second feature allows you to rearrange the LRUD data when it was incorrectly entered. =========================================================================== 9-17-06 =========================================================================== 1. Project Manager (11-2-05). Fixed a problem where suspended shots were not included in the per-survey statistics. 2. Viewer. (11-27-05) The Viewer now saves various station handling options such as the Station Mark Shape, the Station Mark Size, etc. This allows you to configure default settings for these options. 3. Viewer/CaveX. (12-11-05) Fixed a problem with the 3D Exporter that limited the Station Names (and other strings) to eight characters when Station Names can be up to 12 characters. 4. Project Manager. (1-4-06). Added an attached error log that automatically displays during compliation or loop closing. This make it easier to get to the error log and make you more aware of error conditions. 5. Cave Editor. (1-21-06) The Editor now has two new features that allow you to make changes to Station Names across a large number of shots. The options allows you to add Prefixes and Postfixes to Station Names. The options also allow you to remove Prefixes and Postfixes to Station Names. The option can be applied to assortments of whole surveys and a range of shots within surveys. 6. Viewer. (2-28-06) The Viewer now has a new option that

will fit the cave to the current screen size. This allows you to view the whole cave when even when the Viewer window is small. 7. Editor. (2-28-06) When deleting a survey, the highlight now moves the previous entry rather than to the beginning of the list. This makes it easy delete several surveys because you don't have re-find your place in the list. 8. Editor. (2-28-06) Fixed several minor problems in the Advanced Survey search feature. 9. 3D Converter (2-29-06). Fixed a problem in where the program would omit stations with the same name only one was upper case the other lower case. 10. 3D Converter. (3-27-06). Moved the "Unit" option off of the Misc Page and put it in a more obvious place where it is visible from the export options. 11. 3D Converter. (3-28-06). Fixed a problem where the Elevations in some Shapefile DBF files were not converted to meters when the Meters option was selected. 12. CaveBase. (4-27-06) Added a new feature to CaveBase that allows you to add, delete or move fields in an existing database without losing data. 13. Viewer. (6-25-06). Fixed a problem that occurred when you were trying to enter a search string in a "Search/Find" dialog box. If any of the characters in the search string were one of the Menu Shortcut keys, the character would not be entered, and the Action associated with the short cut would be carried out. 14. Editor. (7-15-06). Fixed a problem where clicking on the results of an advanced search would take you to the wrong survey if the surveys were not in the original order, such as sorted by date. 15. Project Manager. (8-8-06). Fixed an unintialized variable problem that could cause small inaccuracies the statistics reporting. 16. Project Manager. (8-15-06). Improved the file-opening dialogs so they can be expanded to view more files and folders. 17. Editor. (8-15-06). Increased the editors shot capacity from 1500 to 5000 shots. Also added a feature to warn the user that the too many items have been pasted into the editor and the buffer overflowed. 18. Project Manager. (8-24-06). The "Custom Export" option now allows you to export the closing shots a separate part of the list. 19. Viewer. (9-16-06). The Viewer now has the ability to display shot information such as azimuth, length or inclination next to each shot.

20. Project Manager. (9-16-06). The Project Manager now displays distance from the entrance for each station as a part of the statistics display. This is not the straight-line distance from the entrance, but the actual walking distance to reach the station 21. Viewer. (9-16-06). The Viewer will now display the distance to the entrance in the "Find Survey/Station" tool. This is not the straight-line distance from the entrance, but the actual walking distance to reach the station 22. Viewer. (9-16-06). The Viewer will now color surveys by their distance from the entrance. This is not the straight-line distance from the entrance, but the actual walking distance to reach the station. 23. Viewer. (9-17-06). The "Complex Plotting" of the Viewer now allows you to selectively color passages according to their distances from the entrance. This allows you to create color maps showing time or difficulty in reaching certain zones of the cave. =========================================================================== 11-1-05 =========================================================================== 1. Viewer. The Measurement Tool now displays commas in thousands place. This makes it easier to read the very large numbers that are displayed when the cave is referenced to geographic coordinates. 2. 3D Exporter. Fixed a bug in the Shapefile exporter where if the program was set to meters, the bounding box was still exported in feet. 3. Viewer. The Viewer can now read GIF, PNG, TIFF and JPG files for bitmap backgrounds. 4. Viewer. Normally, the Viewer displays all passages walls, even though they may face away from the user and may be hidden by the front wall. As a result, the Viewer now has a "Hide Back Walls" option. When the is enabled, passage walls facing away from the user are not displayed. This makes the display less cluttered and makes it easier to pick out individual passages. It also speeds up the display 5. 3D Exporter (12/29/04). Fixed a problem where the Exporter could not be run twice without restarting the main program. 6. All Compass Programs (12/29/04). All programs now show the name of the file they work on in the Icon on the Windows Task bar. This makes it easier work with multiple copies of Compass running working on different caves. 7. CaveBase (12/29/04). Fixed a problem where CaveBase would complain if you used the "Reopen" menu to view and aliased database.

8. 3D Exporter. (1-8-05). Fixed a problem where if you exported a DXF file, the "Save Dialog Box" would not be correctly set for Shapefiles. 9. SDTSConverter. (1-16-05). Added a feature that suggests a filename based on the DEM Title. This makes it easier to convert a group of files without having to look at the content of the file to figure out which quadrangle it is. 10. Declination. (1-20-05). The magnetic models for calculating declination have been updated to with latest IAGA data. This means that Compass can now generate magnetic declinations until year 2010. 11. 3D Exporter. (1-26-05). Fixed another problem where Shapefile data was output as feet even though meters was selected. 12. Viewer. (2-1-05). Fixed a bug that had crept in that would not allow you to save Rose/Depth graphs to files. 13. Project Manager. (2-3-05) The Blunder Detection dialog box can now be expanded so that more entries can be viewed in the lists. 14. Editor. (2-6-05) Added a feature that allows the Editor to search for any Station Name, word in a Comment or any survey Team Members. 15. 3D Exporter. (2-7-05). The Exporter can now mark station locations witn a circle. The circle can transparent or opaque. 16. Viewer. (2-7-05). The Viewer can now mark stations with circles as well as triangles. 17. Viewer. (2-10-05). Fixed a size problem with passage wall marks. 18. Project Manager. (2-25-05). The survey statistics section now shows Total Length, Total Shots, Included Length, Included Shots, Excluded Length and Excluded Shots. 19. Project Manager. (3-5-05) The lists in the Statistics and Blunder Detection windows now support wheel mice and hot scrolling. (Note: you may need to click on one of the cells in the list before it will respond to the Wheel Mouse.) Also, right click context menu has been added to the Status Dislay. 20. CaveX. (3-12-05) CaveX now has the ability to generated 3D Rose-Depth diagrams. These full 3D models that can panned, rotated and zoomed, which allows them to be viewed from any angle. 3D Rose Diagrams are much more useful than ordinary Rose Diagrams because they allow you to see passage trends that only exist at certain depths in the cave. 21. Viewer. (3-16-05). The Viewer now has the option of scaling metafiles. This gives more control of the scaling and image size when metafiles are imported into drawing programs.

22. Editor. (3-20-05). Fixed a problem that occurred where if you entered new data and then inserted a new shot without leaving the cell, the new data would be lost. 23. Viewer. (3-20-05). Fixed a problem where the saving a scaled bitmap would cause the cave to be scaled too large. 24. Viewer. (3-20-05). The interface for the Viewer has been reworked so there are now scrollbars on the screen when the Viewer window has not been maximized. This allows you to scroll to any part of the cave plot without expanding the window. 25. Viewer. (3-21-05). There is now a miniture 3D Compass on the tool bar that can be used to rotate the cave in 3D space. This makes it easier to do rotation without opening the larger 3D Compass. 26. Project Manager. (3-21-05). Made several improvements to the Blunder detection routines. These include displaying the original Azimuth, Length and Inclination with each blundered shot candidate. This makes it easier to select the likely blunder. For example, let's say the program suggests that a 10-degree inclination adjustment on a shot will close the loop. This means that simply changing the sign on a 5-degree inclination would fix the error. If the shot has a 5-degree inclination, it is a very likely candidate to be blundered. 27. 3D Exporter. (5-3-05). The 3D Exporter will now exports a label that displays the cave depth at each station in the DXF files. 28. Project Manager. (5-25-05). The Project Manager now has a popup menu that will appear when you right click on the Project Tree. The popup menu gives you easy access to most common commands. 29. Project Manager/Editor. (5-25-05). The Geocalculator has been improved so it is easier to enter Longitude and Latitude. In the past, the auto-correct feature of the program would change several numbers at once if you entered an invalide Longitude or Latitude. 30. Editor. (6-25-05) Fixed a problem with the "Advanced Search Feature" where it would not work properly when European number formats were used. For example, in many European countries, a comma "," is used as a decimal point, whereas a period "." is used in the US. 31. Project Manager/Editor. (6-25-05) Fixed a problem where Editor would report that the Geographic Position was not set if the computer was set to European number format. (See number 30 above.) 32. GTFViewer. (7-11-05) The GTFViewer now has the ability to adjust brightness, contrast and gamma to improve the quality of an image. 33. Viewer. (8-6-05) The Viewer now has a right-click context menu that allows you carry out commands more quickly.

Currently the menu includes the option to identify the survey under the cursor. There is also the option of editing the survey under the cursor. 34. Viewer. (8-9-05) The Viewer's Complex Plotting Feature has more options for Surveys and Sections. Surveys can now be selectively displayed using Color-By-Depth. Sections can be selectively Excluded, Colored, Show Stations or Colored By Depth. This makes the Section and Survey options symetrical. 35. Viewer. (8-13-05) The Viewer's Complex Plotting Feature now allows you to selectively plot Sections or Survey using the 2D and 3D passage modeling features of Compass. This is useful for plotting cave passages along with surface terrain. 36. Viewer. (8-14-05) Several features were added to Viewer's Complex Plotting Feature. First, Passage Wall Modeling can be independently applied to any survey or cave section. Second, you now have independent control over labeling stations so that station labels can be added to any of the other options. 37. Viewer. (8-20-05) Several new features were added to the Viewer's Complex Plotting Feature. First, the tops and bottoms of the Depth colors can be set based on the top and bottom of the selected surveys and sections. Second, the ability to adjust each band's width had been improved so that the bands can be narrower. There are also features that make it easier to select individual bands. 38. Viewer. (8-20-05) The Viewer now has the ability to color the cave according to the distance from the user's view point. By using a gradient of 23 colors, the program creates illusion of 3D passages with the need for colored glasses. The option includes a white-black color scheme for black screens, a black-white scheme for white screens and a red-blue scheme for enhanced 3D. You can also create your own custom color schemes. The display is also "Depth-Sorted" so the near passage appear on top of far away passages, no matter what the original survey order was. 39. Project Manager. (8-21-05) The Project Manager now saves the UTM Datum along with the Geographic Location. Also, a default Datam is saved with the "User Defaults." 40. All Programs. (8-24-05). The Geocalculator now has several improvements in the way Datum conversions are handled. The main change is that it uses the Molondensky transform for more accuracy when converting between datums. 41. Project Manager. (9-6-05). The Project Manager now allows you to save a default setting for Meter vs. Feet so that all parts of the program default to the specified units. 42. Project Manager. (9-17-05). Fixed a minor problem where the first station in the plot file is not necessarily the origin of the cave. 43. Project Manager. (10-13-05). Project Manager now allows the user to select a default directory where most cave files are kept. The program then automatically uses the default as

the starting point you go to open a file. 44. GTFViewer. (10-24-05). The GTFViewer will now save images as GeoTiff images. This will allow you to register any image with geographic coordinates and scales. 45. Viewer. (10-27-05). The Viewer now supports the option of locking bitmap images to the cave. This is useful for tying topographic maps, aerial photographs and other maps or drawings to the cave. Once the image has been registered, the image will expand, contract, shift and rotate synchronisly with cave. There is also the option of editing, triming, and resizing the image. You can also adjust the contrast, brightness and gamma of the image. This is useful for correcting overly dark or light images and improving it readability. 46. Project Manager. (10-27-05). Fixed a problem with the Project Manager where it would not save the state of the Convergence option if it had been turned on and then turned off. In other words, if you enable Convergence, saved the file and then turned it off, you could not save the fact that it had been turned off. 45. Project Manager. (10-27-05). Added a feature to the Statistics Section that allows custom export of information to databases and spreadsheet. The feature allows you to create Coma or Tab-Delimited text files that can be imported into most data bases and spreadsheets. You have complete control over which data items are exported. 46. Viewer. (10-29-05). Improved the Drag Mode zooming feature to make it smoother and to work over a larger range. =========================================================================== 12-1-04 =========================================================================== 1. Viewer. The DXF Exporter now has the option of putting passage marks at either the From or the To stations. 2. Project Manager. Fixed a problem where fixed stations did not purge the station list which caused station name collisions with some files. The program now properly handles both links and fixed stations. 3. Project Manager. Fixed several problems with file handling in the Project Manager. 4. CaveX. CaveX now has a "transparency" option, which allows you to see through the passage walls so you can see the survey shot line, survey stations and other nearby passages. 5. CaveX. There are several improvements to CaveX's scaling and zooming, which makes it easier to fly through the passages. 6. Project Manager. Reduced the Project Managers use of CPU time while the Editor is running. This reduces the program's demands upon the system and makes other applications more

responsive. 7. Project Manager. Fixed some minor problems with the default date and location for Geographic Calculator. 8. Viewer. Added complete passage modeling options including Octagnonal passage shape, merged prism ends and corner rounding. 9. Viewer. Fixed a bug in the Find Stations tool where the cursor would not move back to the nearest station if it was moved a short distance from the station. 10. Viewer. Fixed a problem where the Viewer would not center on a station with certain video drivers. 11. Viewer. Several improvements were made to the way the Viewer responds to mouse movements and button clicks. The Viewer now longer get stuck in drag mode with the view changing everytime the mouse is moved even when all the button are up. The automatic update works better in various dragging modes. 12. Viewer. The Viewer now supports a wheel mouse for zooming. 13. Viewer. The Viewer can read TIFF, JPEG, and Metafiles for background images. The Viewer also has a dialog box that allows you to preview the images before loading. 14. Project Manager/Editor. Fix a problem that made it difficult to enter certain UTM coordinates. The problem occurred because the program tried to automatically correct for invalid UTM values. Now it just displays an error message. 15. Project Manager. There are now two buttons on the Project Manager. One processes and displays the whole project and the other only processes and displays the highlighted item. This makes it less confusing and clearer what item is being processed and displayed. 16. Editor. To simplify entering shot flag information, the Editor copies the flags from the previous shot, when you create a new shot. There is now an option to disable/enable the feature. 17. ExTierra. ExTierra is a new Terrain modeling program that can create realist 3D images of the earth's surface using DEM files. The images support coloring, shadowing and texturing and can produce real-time animation speeds of hundreds of frames per second with a good graphics card. The terrain can be overlain with topographic maps and aerial photographs which give extremely realistic views of the surface that look like you are literally flying over the land. 18. All Programs. There is now an integrated 3D compositing engine in all Compass programs. This enables all Compass viewers and to produce sophisticated 3D models of cave passages.

19. Viewer, CaveX. These two programs now have an integrated export engine which handled exporting DXF files, Shapefiles and VRML files. VRML files are the big new addition. VRML images can be used post 3D Cave Image on the internet. Since VRML Viewers are available for all types of computers and operating systems, they can be used view cave images on virtually any computer. =========================================================================== 6-7-04 =========================================================================== 1. Project Manager. The Project Manager now calculates the surface area of all the passages in the cave. This can be useful calculating the area available as habitat for cave dwelling animals, calculation heat transfer to between rock and air, etc. 2. Viewer. Fixed problem where the Viewer did not display the print dialog before printing and also did not display the "Print To File" option. 3. DEMReader. Fixed a problem where the DEM Reader would not properly display the corner locations on some for DEM Files. 4. Editor. Fixed a problem that caused a floating point error if you tried to repair a shots that had been entered as inclination but was really depth gauge. 5. Editor. Added an option that allows you to repair depth gauge units where the values were entered as meters or feet incorrectly. 6. Project Manager. The Blunder tools now gives you the choice of displaying data in either meters or feet. 7. SDTSCon. There is a new program that converts SDTS DEM file to the old DEM format. It is faster and more error tolerant than other programs. 8. Project Manager. Fixed a problem where the statistic display columns did not alway align vertically. 9. Project Manager. Fixed a problem that occurred if you compiled the same data twice with out restarting the program. If you did this on some caves, the statistics would be slightly different between compiles. 10. Editor. The automatic station incrementing function now leaves all leading zeros in tack. 11. Geo Tiff Viewer. The Viewer now has the ability to manually scale imnages. This allows you to do measurement on images that don't have the usual GeoTiff scaling and coordinates. 12. CaveX. CaveX can now saves screen images as bitmap files. 13. Viewer. The Viewer now offers the option of tilting the

whole cave in addition to tilting the color and the Depth Exclusions. This allows you to remove any tilt to the cave caused by geological uplift. 14. Project Manager. Fixed a problem with the Loop Closer that would cause distortions when closing long strings between fixed stations. 15. New Discounts. Groups discounts for Compass products has been increased by 5%. 16. GTFViewer. The viewer now shows compass angle along with the other measurements. 17. CaveX. The program now show more accurate Yaw, Pitch and Roll values. 18. Project Manager. The Project Manager now includes Passage Floor Area as part of its statistics. 19. All Programs. The resource useage of all Compass programs has been reduced. This is especially useful for people who are using Windows 95, 98 or ME because these operating systems don't allocate resources very efficiently. This makes Compass more stable under these operating systems. Also means that you can open up to four copies of the Viewer without depleating resources under Win98. (Note: this was never an issue under WinNT, 2000 or XP.) 20. Viewer. The Complex plotting feature now display a list of all that surveys that have the complex plot. This is useful for picking that pertain to certain parts of the cave or characteristics. allows you to been included in out the surveys have certain

21. Viewer. The Complex Plotting Feature now allows you to select specific parts of a cave to analize the tilt of the passages. This allows you to compensate for the regional dip of the cave based on specific parts of the cave. 22. Project Manager/Editor. The Geographic Calculator now calculates magnetic declination based on the IGRF and DGRF models, covering a range of date from 1900 to 2005. This allows you to enter accurate declination for any location and any modern date. The Project Manager also has a feature that overrides the entered declinations and calculates them for each survey during the compile and closing process. 23. CaveX. CaveX has improved movie capture controls that allow you to set up the file in advance and then trigger the start and end of capture with a single button click. This makes it much easier to setup and then capture movie animations. 24. CaveX. The help file for CaveX have been extensively rewritten. 25. CaveBase. CaveBase has been convert to a 32-bit program. It has an improved windows layout, making it easier to view and edit the data. There is improved support for Access

databases. The latest version of the Borland Database Engine is now distributed with Compass. 26. DEM Reader. There a number of improvements to the DEM Reading including a number of bug fixes, improved screen layout, and rewritten help files. 29. Editor. The number of shot that can be edited in a single survey has been increased from 500 to 1500. 30. AURIGA SUPPORT FOR COMPASS. Auriga is a program that allows you to enter and plot cave data directly into a Palm computer. Since Palms computers are small, light and inexpensive, they can be carried underground and are the perfect surveying tools. Auriga now has features that allow you export the cave data to Compass. For more information, follow this link: http://www.speleo.qc.ca/auriga 31. CaveX. CaveX now has improved passage modeling. Corners have been made smoother and more precise. There are also features that handle vertical passage properly. 32. Shapefile Export. Shapefile Export. Compass now can to do direct exports of Shapefiles, which allow cave data to be read into ArcView and other ESRI programs. The export includes nine different parameters so that different aspect of the cave passages can be viewed separately in the GIS programs. The options include 2D and 3D passage modeling. Having Shapefile export in Compass allows you to use free ERSI software such ArcExplorer. =========================================================================== 4-13-2003 =========================================================================== 1. ALL PROGRAMS. Windows allows two basic font scalings. The most common is 96 pixels per inch. The other is 120 pixels per inch. Some parts of COMPASS were improperly scaled when the Windows was in the 120 pixel mode. As a result, all COMPASS program have been improved so they work better with the large font modes. 2. VIEWER. The Viewer can export the Rose Diagrams and the Depth histograms as Windows Metafiles. This produces much higher quality images in word processor and publishing programs. 3. VIEWER. The Viewer now has an animation option that allows you to create movies much easier than before. The animation option allows you to set a series of points that define the animations sequence. The program then produces a series of intermediate points that creates a smooth, realistic animations sequence. 4. GENERAL. Jim Olsen has created a new program that convert COMPASS files to Adobe Acrobat files. This is very useful for creating finished maps from COMPASS data. The web address is: http://www.caversdigest.com/software.htm

5. ALL PROGRAMS. Solved a problem where files with path names longer than 80 characters could cause a problem. Path names can now 255 characters long. 6. VIEWER. Some versions of Windows cannot handle bitmaps larger than about 16 megabytes. In the past, the Viewer wouldn't allows you to try to save bitmaps larger than 16 megabytes. The Viewer will now warn you, but still allow you to try. 7. VIEWER. The Viewer now has a features that helps draw passage models for vertical or near-vertical passages. When the feature is turned on, the program substitutes west, east, north and south for Left, Right, Up and Down respectively. This gives more realistic models for steep passages. You also have the choice of selecting a threshold angle at which the vertical modeling takes place. 8. VIEWER. The "Views" option in the Viewer now saves the passage wall modeling mode. Previously generated "Views" will now be obsolete. 9. PROJECT MANAGER. Fixed a problem with the some of the icons would no display properly. 10. VIEWER. Fixed a problem where the Viewer did not save Enhanced Metafiles correctly or set the right extension. 11. DEM Reader. Fixed a problem that would not allow the DEM Reader to read certain large, 10-meter resolution files. 12. Project Manager. Fixed a problem were the Loop Closer would not close traverse between fixed stations. 13. Project Manager. Added a tool for importing CMAP files. 14. Project Manager. The program now has the ability to display a chart of station sequences. This makes it easy to find what station names have been used and what names are currently free. Thanks to Peter Bosted for the idea and the basic algorithm for accomplishing it. 15. Project Manager. The SEF export tool now has the option of omitting the directory structure from the SEF file. Some programs don't handle SEF directory commands properly. 16. Project Manager. The statistics display can now show a list of excluded shots and excluded shots are now displayed in the station sequence option. 17. Project Manager. Fixed a problem where a multi-cave system with fixed entrance locations would not close properly. The closer would link duplicate stations together. 18. CaveBase. There is now an example database for Fulford Cave included with with CaveBase. 19. CaveBase. The program now allows the window to be expanded to full screen size. This allows you to see more

items in the database table. 20. CaveX/Web Page. Microsoft has discovered a security problem with the XWeb control and Internet Explorer. The web page now has information about resolving this problem. =========================================================================== 5-15-2002 =========================================================================== 1. Viewer. Fixed a problem where the station labels would draw outside the "Paper" in the Print Preview window. 2. Editor. Fixed a problem where the Editor would display a blank cave name when a new survey was created. 3. Viewer. The Exclude Extents option of the Complex Plotting feature now allows you to zoom in on the Windows. This makes it easy to visually set more precise clipping boundries. 4. Viewer. All the pan, zoom and rotate buttons in the Print Preview dialog will "auto-repeat" if hold you them down for a half second. This makes it much easier to position the cave on paper. 5. CaveBase. Fixed a problem with CaveBase where it could not connect to the new 32-bit version of the Viewer. 6. Viewer. Viewer now has the ability to display multi-page print preview and print all the pages in one operation. This is useful when you are printing caves at a scale that will take up more than one page. The preview will display up to 100 pages simultaneously, with each page placed in a grid so you see how the cave layouts on pages. These are perfectly scaled pages that show an exact model of the what will appear on the page, including rotation, colors, labels and passage wall modeling. You can micro-adjust the position on the pages 7. Credit Card Registration and Ordering. You can now do COMPASS registeration online using Visa or Master Card. This is especially useful for overseas users because it avoids the problems of currency conversion and sending money through the mails. 8. Project Manager. Fixed a problem where passage dimensions would be wrong if you closed shots where the From and To stations were reversed. 9. Viewer. Fixed a problem where the Quad Labels would disappear or do strange things if you zoomed in too far. Also fixed a bug where the Reference Setting and Corner Setting would not work properly if the Decrement options were on. 10. Editor. Fixed a problem with the new editor where it would not limit the length of stations names to 12 characters. 11. Editor. Fixed a problem that caused problems saving newly modified data. If the "Read Only" attribute were set on a "*.DAT" file, or the backup file (*.BAK), the editor could

not save the changes in the editor. This could happen if the data came from a CD-ROM other data source that set the read only attributes of files. 12. Editor. Fixed a problem where the Editor would not notice changes made just by the Delete key. 13. DEM Reader. The DEM Reader will now copy data from Edit Grid to the Windows Clipboard. This can be useful putting terrain data into spreadsheets and other programs. 14. Editor. You can now navigate the edit using Tab character to move to the next cell and Shift-Tab to move to the last cell. 15. PayPals. Now supports zero fees for international orders. 16. Viewer. The Viewer now gives you the option of removing the dotted line crossbars that appear in the passage modeling when mark stations. 17. Project Manager. The compiler now converts negative shot lengths to positive for the purpose of totaling cave lengths. (Apparently, there is old data that contains negative shot lengths.) 18. Editor. Fixed several other problems that caused problems saving data under certain operating system conditions. 19. General. The Section Name is based on the name of each data file. As a result, the size of the Section Name has been increased to 20 characters to make it more compatable with long filenames. 20. DEMReader. Fixed several bugs in the option for copying and pasting to the Edit grid. 21. DEMReader. The DEMReader will now save users default such meters/feet and all the plot options. 22. Viewer. The pen thickness option in the Printer Options Window, now applies to station marks. This makes the marks easier to see on a high resolution printers. 24. Viewer. The station marks are now scaled in Points instead of Pixels to give a more consistant display. 25. Viewer. The Printing routines have been rewritten to improve their reliability and performance. For example, the routines have been rewritten so they more faithfully reproduce bitmap colors. 26. Viewer. Some large format printer and plotters have defective drivers that cause problems if you try to print on paper larger than 32 inches in any dimension. The Viewer now has an option that compensates for this problem by lowering print resolution. 27. Project Manager. There are several improvements to the Project Manager display. The "Project Tree" displays a

specialized icon for each type of data in the project. Also, there is now a special icon that allows you to tell at a glance that a data file has fixed stations or links associated with it. The "Project Tree" is also much faster updating and searching, which is useful for large cave systems. 28. Project Manager. The drag-and-drop capability in the Project Tree has been improved so that it works more naturally and intuitively. =========================================================================== 11-16-2001 =========================================================================== 1. General. All COMPASS programs have been converted to 32-bits. This makes all COMPASS programs several times faster. It also means that there is complete support for long filenames. 2. General. COMPASS is now completely integrate into Windows shell including the ability to double-click on files to process cave files. It also includes the ability to create new survey files and project files from the Windows context menus. 3. General. All COMPASS program have new and more professional installation programs which handles integration with the operating system. 4. General. Over the years, the COMPASS help files grown haphardly as new feature were added. As a result, they were disorganized and there were many typos and spelling errors. All the main COMPASS help files have been complete rewritten and reorganized, with many more hyperlinks and more information. There are now more than 480 pages of help in the main COMPASS help documents. 5. Project Manager. The Loop Closer and Compiler have been integrated into the Project Manager. This makes COMPASS easier to use and gives better access to statistics and blunder location tools 6. Project Manager. Project Manager is three times faster, compiling and closing all 108 miles of Lech in 26sec on Pentium 450. 7. Project Manager can now be expanded to full screen for better viewing of the surveys and settings. 8. Project Manager. Statistics and Blunder Finding options have been vastly improved. Both Compile and Close statistics have been integrated into Project Manager. Paging has been eliminated and all statistics are displayed on a single screen. The statistic window can be expanded to full screen, for easier viewing. It is also much easier to generate statistics and validate that the loops are being closed properly. 9. Project Manager. The Compiler now displays 2D error

information as well as the usual 3D information. The 2D information only includes north and east aspects of a loop error, excluding the vertical. This is useful for focusing separately on compass/length errors versus inclination errors. It is also useful for caves where the inclination measurements are significantly inferior to the other measurements. 10. Project Manager. The Compiler now displays additional statistical information for survey loops. This includes the number of shots per loop and various error values per shot. 11. Project Manager. Fixed a some inaccuracies in the statistics including problems with area, volume and meters conversions. 12. Project Manager. The loop display in the blunder detector can now be copied to the clipboard for display in another document. 13. Project Manager. The "Tie-In" blunder detecting tool now displays the "from" station to more clearly deliniate which shot is adjusted. 14. Project Manager. The Blunder detection routines now have the option of finding the next worst blunder. This allows you find the worst blunders in sequence and focus on fixing the worst problems first. 15. Project Manager. The Blunder detection routines now save or print the loop stations along with the rest of the blunder analysis information. 16. Project Manager. Increased the number of fixed stations that can exist for a single data file to 500. 17. Project Manager. Made several improvements to the SEF import and export tools including exporting COMPASS flags. 18. Project Manager. The Compiler now allows you to break loops at the closing shot. This allows you to visually see the effect of loop errors. To make the closing station easier to see, the is enclosed in square brackets. 19. Project Manager. Fixed a problem in the Project Manager where the Copy Project option would try to copy survey names if the Project Tree was expanded to show surveys. 20. Project Manager. Improved the drag and drop capabilities of the Manipulate Survey option to make it match the standard Windows behaviour. 21. Project Manager. Fixed a bug where the Fixed Station option would not handle negative UTM zones in some cases. 22. Project Manager. The Project Manager has ability to directly rename project files and survey files directly. 23. Project Manager. Inserting exiting file does not leave "?" if you exit without selecting.

24. Viewer. The Viewer is now 20 times faster than the previous 16-bit version. This is due to the use of 32-bit code and new special optimizations. Currently I am get refresh rates of 12 fps on 106 miles of Lechuguilla Cave and the refresh rate is even faster as you zoom in. On top of this, CaveX is even faster. 25. Viewer. The Viewer now supports exporting Windows Metafiles. Metafiles have advantages over bitmaps because they can be resized without losing pixels or creating jagged lines. The Viewer can export both Regular and Enhanced metafiles. This makes it compatable with many different drawing and CAD programs that can import metafiles. Enhanced Metafiles produce very high quality printouts which are much better suited for publication. 26. Viewer. The Viewer will now save cave movies as Windows AVI. This allows them to be displayed on any movie viewer and they can also be converted to other formats like MP3 for display on the web. 27. Viewer. Added 64-bit numerical precision to station coordinates in order to handle large offsets generated by UTM coordinates. 28. Viewer. DXF files can now be exported in either feet or meters. 29. CaveX. CaveX now offers the option of creating a default passage size for those passages where the LRUDs are missing. The feature can be turned on or off and the default size is selectable. 30. CaveX. Menu system has been reorganized and simplified for easier use. 31. CaveX. CaveX now has the option of saving AVI movie files of your the 3D cave models. When you turn on the AVI mode, all movements and changes are saved to the movie. This means that you can fly through and around the cave and everything you see will be saved in the movie. You have complete control over the frame rate and you can set movie capture to stop after a certain number of frames or a certain time. 32. DEMReader. More and more DEM files are being distributed with file format defects. This usually renders the files unusable. However the COMPASS DEM reader will handle five different DEM file defects. This will allow you to use many DEM free and inexpensive files. The DEMReader will handle the following flaws. 1) Missing map-corner information. 2) Descrepancies between map corner locations and profile locations. 3) Modulo 1024 byte blocks terminated with CR/LFs. 5) Modulo 1024 byte blocks terminated early with LFs. 33. DEM Files. The USGS has turned all its data distributions over to a private company. The data is still available free and they have more complete coverage. However, the data is more difficult to find and download. For complete information, refer to the COMPASS web page.

(http://fountainware.com/compass). 34. DEMRead. You can now paste grid points into the DEM reader from the clipboard. This allows you to import elevation data from spreadsheets and databases. 35. DEMRead. You can now export the grid data as standard survey DAT file. This gives you another mechanism for creating a surface grid. 36. Editor. Fixed a bug where the Editor would not allow you to enter Inclinations of 100 Grads. Also fixed a bug where the Editor would not display the units label for Grads correctly. 38. Editor. Fixed a bug where the Editor would not use the date if it was entered from the "Survey Calendar." 39. Editor. Improve date handling. Converts two digits dates to 1900 or 2000 based dates depending on the current year. 40. Editor will now handle 500 shots per survey. 41. Viewer. The Viewer now has a special features that automatically captures movie frames each time the image changes. This allows you to capture movies on-the-fly as you pan and zoom through the cave. This makes it easy to create realistic movies. 42. Editor. There are now repair options for measurements that were entered as degrees but were actually depth gauge and vice versa. 43. Many other small changes, bug fixes and cosmetic improvements. =========================================================================== 3-15-2001 =========================================================================== 1. Compiler. The Compiler now produces five new statical measurements. These include, Surface Length, Surface Width, Surface Area, Enclosed Volume, and Volume Density. 2. Compiler. Fixed a bug where the statistics for each survey did not properly count suspended shots. 3. COMPASS CD. The COMPASS CD now has many more items including more DEMs and the Microsoft DirectX-7 installation package. 4. Editor. Fixed a problem where the Editor would not correctly handle Quad style compass values where the second direction was East. 5. Project Manager/Compiler. COMPASS now allows you to calculate the UTM Convergence Angle for a location and rotate the cave plot to match the UTM grid. A separate Convergence Angle can be applied to the data in different parts of the same Project to compensate for grid changes over distance.

6. Project Manager. The Geographic Calculator now allows you to select West, East, North and South buttons to specify the direction of Longitude and Latitude. In the past, you had to specify plus or minus to do this. This makes Longitude and Latitude settings more logical and easier. 7. Viewer. The Viewer now has a simple and more logical method of setting colors and fonts. The colors and fonts appear in a list with a more detailed description of what they are for. There is also a sample of the color or font nearby. This makes it more intuitive to set these options. 8. Viewer. The Viewer now puts a grid in the background of the Shadow Box showing the dimensions of the box. You can turn off the box leaving the grid alone for geographically gridded and labeled maps. You have complete control of the color, font, line and background of the grid. 9. Editor. Repaired a problem with the international comma decimal point and and header values. 10. Compiler. Fixed a bug where the last survey would not be displayed in the Sorted Survey List in Statistics. 11. Viewer. Fixed a bug where the Edit option in the Find Dialog would not edit the correct file. 12. Compiler. Fixed a bug where the survey statistics would be offset by one survey. 13. Viewer. There is now a 32 bit version of the Viewer which is about 10 times faster than the 16 bit version. It will also export bitmap images that have about three times more resolution. 14. Viewer. The DXF export option now allows you scale the exported image. This is useful with drawing programs that have limited scaling capabilites. 15. Web Page. There are new links to DEM files, with more complete coverage of the United States. The cost for downloading 7.5 degree version DEM is only $5.00. 16. Viewer. The Viewer now allows you to set the "exact" Pitch and Yawl rotation values for the cave. This is in addition to the other "exact" scale values. This means that you can set all parameter for recreating a specific view of the cave. 17. CaveX. Fixed a problem where the program failed to run properly with some installations of DirectX. The fix also improve the lighting and fog effects. 18. CaveX. In the past CaveX would not display caves that required more than 64,000 polygons to display the passage walls. The program now allows meshes of unlimited size. This will allow you to view extremely large caves such as Lechuguilla.

19. CaveX. Improved CaveX so that it can be as much as 10 faster. Currently I'm able to render all 108 miles of Lechuguilla Cave with full passage modeling, Gourad shading and limestone textured passage walls at 20 frames per second. This is a drawing rate of over 2,000,000 polygons per second. 20. CaveX. Improved the way that CaveX deals with installed device drivers which allows you to select individual drivers and test which one works best. 21. CaveX. Changed the initial scaling so you can get closer to the cave without moving through the walls. 22. Viewer. Fixed a problem where when the "Water Direction" feature of the Rose Diagram was enabled, clicking on the diagram would not highlight or count the correct passages. 23. CaveX. Improved the color rendering in 8 bit graphics modes. 24. Project Manager. Made it easier to enter Fixed Stations and Links in the grid. You can now move from cell to cell using the Enter key or the Tab key. 25. Editor. The survey header comments had been increased to 80 characters. 26. Editor. The Editor now has the option of setting flags for multiple blocks of surveys simultaneously. You have the option of Inserting, Replacing or Removing specific survey flags. 27. Project Manager. In the past when the Project Manager was running one of the COMPASS subprograms, it would monitor the subprogram waiting for it to terminate. This wasted lots of CPU cycles and would sometimes slow down other programs. The program now uses very few CPU cycles to monitor the subprogram and when the subprogram terminates, the Project Manager is returned to center-screen. 28. Web Page. There is now a document posted on the web page that describes the use of Canvas (a drawing) program for the generation of digital cave maps. 29. CaveX. CaveX now supports color by depth options similiar to those available in the COMPASS Viewer. 30. CaveX. CaveX now support the ability to simulate various "materials" when displaying the passage walls. Material range from highly reflective surfaces such as platistic or polished metal, to dull surfaces like paper or wood. 31. Viewer. Fixed a problem with the DXF export. When Profile Mode was used, the passage model was incorrect. Since the Profile Mode is a 2D mode, only the Up and Down tick marks are now exported. 32. Project Manager. Fixed problem where empty comments could corrupt the exported file.

33. Editor. The Repair option now allows you to work on fore and backsight values separately. This makes it possible to repair large blocks of data where only one measurement is bad. 34. CaveX. CaveX now has "Look At" button that causes the viewer to smoothly pan and rotate until it is looking directly at the center of the scene. It also rotates the images so the top of the object is aligned with the top of the screen. This is useful when you have panned, zoomed or flown to position where you can't find the cave. Also, there is a button on the Joystick which does the same thing. 35. Viewer. The Passage Model Dialog now has a "View" button that allows you to see any changes before exiting. 36. CaveX. CaveX now has the option of copying the images to the clipboard. 37. All Programs. COMPASS now gives you the choice of using the International Foot or the US Survey Foot when displaying or converting data. While the International Foot is used for most measurements, the US Survey Foot is widely used for maps, surveys and benchmarks. 38. Compiler. Fixed a problem where the statistic would report the station count to smaller than was actually in the cave. =========================================================================== 11-5-2000 =========================================================================== 1. Viewer. The Viewer now allows you to mark the passage walls from the orientation of the TO station. 2. CaveBase. CaveBase now has an option that allows you to encode a date as a part of the query. 3. Compiler. The Compiler now list the overall average STD for all the loops in the file. This gives you a single number that rates the overall quality of all the loops in the cave. 4. All Programs. Fixed a problem that caused small errors when converting feet to meters and vice versa. The problem was caused by the fact that both the "International Foot" and the "US Survey Foot" were used to do meter conversions. The difference between these two conversions is very small (.000000609601), however when you are converting very large numbers like the UTM coordinates it is enough to accumulate one digit of error in the result. 5. Viewer. Fixed a bug where the Set Scale, Magnifcation and Rotation did not reset if you hit cancel when the meters scaling options were enabled. 6. Viewer. Fixed a bug where a database query with only one hit could cause problems if plotted with using a range of symbol sizes.

7. Editor. Made small improvements to the way the Cutting, Copying and Pasting works with rows of data. 8. CaveBase. Fixed a problem where CaveBase would not correctly handle certain date values when transmitting them to the Viewer. 9. All Programs. Increased the accuracy of the data stored by all COMPASS programs to at least two digits past the decimal point. In the past the data stored gave an accurracy of about 0.6 inch or 15mm. Now the accurracy is at least 0.06 inch or 1.5 mm. 10. Editor. Fixed a bug where the Backsight Validation feature would not correctly validate a file unless at least one survey had been read into the editor. 11. Editor. Added a option that puts the highlight on the From Station whenever a new shot is created. This makes it easy to override the Automatic Station Sequencing feature and enter a different Station Name. 12. Viewer. Fixed a problem with the DXF exporter which occurred if a survey name had an asterix "*" in it. The DXF exporter converted the survey name to a layer name and AutoCad would not accept the asterix "*". 13. Viewer. Added features to the DXF export feature that allows more parts of the drawing to be exported as separate layers. You can now associate the Passage Wall modeling and the Station Labels with each Survey layer. This enables you to turn off all the layers except for one or two surveys and see all the labels and passage walls associated with those surveys. You can also have a separate Passage Wall layer and Station Label for each survey. This way you have complete control of the color and can individually and separately turn on and off stations, passage walls, and surveys. 14. Viewer. The Viewer now supports displaying database values as numerical values as well as varying symbol sizes. Numbers can be in fixed or scientific notation format, with complete control over the number of digits. 15. Editor. The Editor now uses Tabs as the delimiter when it Copys, Cuts, or Pastes to and from the Windows Clipboard. This makes it more compatable with external Windows programs like Excel. 16. Compiler. There are four new statistics presented in the Compiler. The first is cave volume which is calculated based on passage diameter and shot length. The second is Average Passage Diameter. This is a measure of the size of the passage in the cave. The third statistic is Average Inclination. This gives a general estimate of how vertical the cave is. The final statistic is Difficulty. It combines the Average Passage Diameter and Inclination to give an estimate of difficult it is to move through the cave. 17. Compiler. There are now options in the Blunder Detection tools that allow you to search for stations, shots, and

closing shots in the loops. You can also find the worst loop in the survey. 18. All Programs. The Survey Name fields has been increased from 8 to 12 characters. 19. Compiler. The Compiler statistics now includes a list of each survey in the cave and the length, number of shots and average shot length for for each survey. 20. Cave Editor. The Editor allows you to search through a survey file for the surveys where a specific station is found. You can now double click on any of the surveys that are found and the program will automatically highlight the specific survey. This makes it easy to find and edit that survey. 21. Viewer. The Viewer now saves all the Quad Map settings with the "Views" information. This means that you can set up any number of quad map patterns and save them for later recall. 22. Compiler. The Compiler now allows you to search for any string in the Statistics section. This makes it easier to find loops, stations, shots, and surveys in the statistics. 23. Project Manager. In the past, you had to use a DOS program to import or export COMPASS files. The Project Manager now supports import and export to SEF file. 24. Project Manager. The Geographic Reference part of the Project Manager now supports 24 goedetic datum formats. The accuracy and precision of the numbers displayed have also been improved. =========================================================================== 7-15-2000 =========================================================================== 1. Editor. I fixed a problem where the Editor would do multiple replaces on the same cell, if the cell was on the edge of the display and the search string contained the same characters as the replacement string. 2. Viewer. The Azimuth Rose, Inclination Rose and the Depth Histogram now have the option of spacing the grid lines on even multiples. 3. Editor. The Editor now checks for embedded spaces in station names. 4. Viewer. In the complex plotting option, the symbols are now centered on the lower left corner of the of the character. This means that there is no longer an empty space between the character and the target station. 5. Project Manager/ Editor. Fixed a bug where these two programs would lock up if they tried read certain defective COMPASS files. Specifically, if would lock up if the file was missing a form feed.

6. Viewer. The Viewer now saves the refresh mode as a part of the user defaults. This means that you can select a default refresh mode and the program will come up in that mode. 7. Compiler. Fixed a problem that could cause the computer to lock up if a survey file is missing a form feed. 8. CaveX. There are many changes to CaveX including improved rending and editing features. The scene diagram is easier to access. The program can now render the cave image in profile mode. This makes the cave images more compatable with standard 3D editing programs. 9. CaveX. Now makes it easier to save the images to DirectX files. Internal textures can be saved with the X files. 10. Viewer. There have several and Depth graphs. You now have band thickness. Also, vertical Rose diagrams. This created an shots. improvements in the the Rose more precise control over the shots were included in Azimuth inordinate number of 90 degree

11. Viewer. There is now a new feature that allows the Viewer to use a rainbow spectrum of 24 colors for coloring by depth, date etc. 12. DEM Reader. The DEM reader has been completely rewritten using 32 bit code. This allows you view and edit DEM files at twice the resolutions as before. It also means that DEM Reader is a 32 bit program and will not run under Win3.1. If anyone is still using Win3.1, send me email and I can post the old version. 13. Loop Closer. The Loop Closer can now close loops across multiple files. This enables you to close large cave systems while still maintaining the data is smaller more manageable files. 14. Project Manager. The Project Manager now has feature that allows you to copy projects to other directories, drives or floppy disks. This make it easy make copies of the project and share your data with other people. 15. All Programs. The various search features in the Editor, Project Manager, and Viewer have been improved so they are easier to use. 16. Viewer. The "Find Stations/Surveys" tool now operates so that all parts are synchronized. This means that when you locate a station, the corresponding survey and sections are shown. This makes it easy to find which stations, surveys and file belong together. 17. Viewer. The Viewer now has the ability to select a survey or section of the cave and go directly to the Editor to view or edit the corresponding raw survey data. 18. Project Manager. The Project Manager now makes it easier to insert or delete links with a single button click.

19. Loop Closer. The Loop Closer has improved capabilities in dealing with fixed stations. Several problems were fixed where certain combinations of fixed stations caused incorrect closure. 20. Editor. The Editor can now validate backsights for all the surveys in a file as well as a single survey. =========================================================================== 2-6-2000 =========================================================================== 1. CaveBase. Repaired a bug where CaveBase would not correctly transfer data to the Viewer, if the Regional Windows settings used commas as the decimal separator. 2. CaveBase. CaveBase now saves the last five files you used in the file menu. This makes it easy to open recently used files. 3. CaveBase. The Query Builder in CaveBase now has an option box that allows to enter "Target" values with a click of a single button. 4. Viewer. The Viewer now has the option of exporting DXF files without putting each survey on a separate layer. This is useful for drawing programs that don't handle layers properly. 5. Viewer. The Viewer now has the option of exporting "Tick Marks" at the LRUD points instead of the full polygon models. There are also several options for the way the marks are displayed. 6. CaveX. CaveX now supports the use of joysticks. This allows you to fly in realtime around and through the cave passages. 7. Viewer. The Viewer now allows you to export a scale bar and north arrow with DXF file. 8. Viewer. The Viewer has improved "Views" capability, including simplier editing, and saving. 9. Cavedit. The "Block Survey Modify" feature now allows you to change the the Units settings for large blocks of surveys. 10. Viewer. The Viewer now supports modulo depth bar ticks. This means that the depth bar ticks can be placed so that they occur at even intervals like 10, 20, 30, or 25, 50, 100, etc. 11. Compiler. The Compiler now keeps track and displays the longest and shortest shots in the cave. 12. Viewer. The Viewer now supports a profile mode for DXF export. This is useful for 2D drawing programs that cannot rotate the drawing in 3D.

13. Viewer. The Viewer can now transfer selected surveys from the "Find Survey" tool to the "Complex Plotting" options. This enables to quickly find and selectively color surveys. 14. Viewer. The Viewer now has extensive support for graphing Azimuth and Inclination "Rose" Diagrams. It also has the ability to create Depth Histograms. You have complete control over the graphs including, the number of bands, band thickness, the colors and fonts. The graphs can be resized to virtually any size or shape. You can graph by frequency or total passage length. You can set a minimum passage length, which allows you to filter out the effects short passages and more clearly see dominate patterns. You can also focus on specific depths, which allows you to find different fracture patterns in different rock straita. You can produce 90, 180, and 360 degree diagrams. The 360 degree roses can use the passage slope to show water flow direction. You can click on any of the graphs to highlight all the passages in the cave that match mouse position on the graph. You can move the mouse accross any of the graphs to get exact angle, magnitude and depths. All graphs can be copied to the clipboard or saved to a file. =========================================================================== 10-23-99 =========================================================================== 1. CaveX. CaveX has improved rotation and pan controls. There are now pan and rotations buttons on the tool bar. There are also improved frame pan and rotation, including object and camera referenced rotations. 2. CaveX. CaveX now has a one step texturing proceedure. The program now has a built-in limestone texture that gives a rock-like appearance to the passages. 3. Compiler. The Compiler now allows you to print the list of errors that appears in the error log. 4. Viewer. The Viewer now has the ability to save movie files to disk. There is now much more extensive ability to edit the movie frames. 5. Compiler. The Compiler can now save a set of default settings. This means that you can set the Compiler to run with a specific set of value each time it runs, without manually setting the options. 6. Compiler. I fixed a problem where the Compiler produced incorrect passage wall dimensions when when the LRUDs were associated with To station and the shot was a backsight. 7. CaveX. CaveX now has the capability of flying around and through the cave image using simple mouse movements. I am currently getting solid modeling speeds of 20 frames per second and 2 million polygons per second on 20 mile long caves. With Gouraud shading and limestone photo texturing, the frame rate is still 10 frames per second and 600 thousand polygons per second.

8. Viewer. The Viewer can now export DXF files compatabile with AutoCad versions 12, 13 and 14. The files can include passage wall models, station labels and surveys as separate layers. You even have control over each the layer's colors. 9. Viewer. The Viewer now has features that allow you to "fly" around and through the cave using simple mouse movements. It also now supports "live" tracking of the 3D Compass to give even smoother and more realistic rotations. =========================================================================== 7-25-99 =========================================================================== 1. Viewer. Improved the color rendering of the background bitmap images. This results in more accurate color rendering of topographic maps as backgrounds to the line plots. 2. Compiler. Improved the error reporting for MAK files. Bad link stations are now reported with correct subfile. 3. Project Manager. Fixed several problems that occurred when working with projects that had some files in one directory and some in another. This occurred where surveys were linked in using the "Full Path" option. 4. Project Manager. Improved the file opening dialog box so the user has a choice of All Cave Files, Make Files and Data Files. 5. Cave Editor. Fixed several problems that can occur when illegal characters are entered into the cave name, survey name, survey comment, survey team and shot comments fields. This usually occurred when someone copied strings from the clipboard that had carriage returns embedded in them. 6. Viewer. The progam can now reconfigure itself when the user changes screen resolution. This featue may not work under Windows 3.1. 7. Viewer. Fixed a problem where the Shadow Box menus ceased to work. 8. Viewer. The Viewer now has the ability to vertically magnify the plot. This is useful where you are working with a relatively flat cave or cave that is broad. Increasing the vertical magnification allows you to see the subtle vertical features in the cave. 9. Viewer. The Viewer now has the ability to set a exact rotations in the same way it sets exact scales. 10. Cave Editor. The Cave Editor has been improved so that it takes advantage of the higher resolution displays and larger monitors. The program allows the window to expand to full size and the various editing screens expand with it. In other words more rows and columns from the survey are visible on the screen. This means, for example, on a 1024 by 768 resolution display, 20 lines of survey and all columns are visible without scrolling.

11. Cave Editor. Fixed a problem where the editor could not save a new file if the new survey name had a period in it. For example, the survey name "109.6" would cause a problem. The problem was caused by the program creating a filename with two periods in it ("109.6.DAT") and Windows rejects this name without giving an error. The program now substitutes dashes "-" for periods. =========================================================================== 2-15-99 =========================================================================== 1. Viewer. Fixed a problem with "Views" feature where it would not work properly in countries where a comma is used as a decimal point. I always seem to forget to deal with the decimal point problem. 2. Cave Editor. Fixed a bug where Page Up, Page Down, Home and End would lose a partially entered value. 3. Cave Editor. Fixed a bug where various repair options would not work correctly with missing data. 4. Editor, Project Manager, and Viewer. All three programs now save the last five files you used in the file menu. This makes it easy to open recently used files. 5. Cave Compiler. Cleaned up the statistics display so that the columns line up, the number of stations is more accurate, and the headings are correct. 6. Cave Compiler. Fixed a bug where the Compiler would not correctly compile a file where all the shots in the last survey were excluded. This caused the cave to disappear if you tried to zoom in from the Viewer. 7. DEM Reader. Fixed several bugs in the DEM Reader. Fixed a problem where the bottom part of some 7.5 minute DEMs were cut off. Fixed several problems that occurred in countries where comma is used as the decimal point. 8. Project Manager. The Manipulate Survey has option has been simplified so there is less risk of losing surveys. Originally, the Manipulate Surveys option allowed you to open two data files and copy and move between them. With two files open, it was easy to lose track of surveys and accidently delete surveys. The current version only allows one source and one destination file. Only the destination can be modified. 9. DEM Reader. Sometimes the area you are working with is near the edge of a DEM files. The DEM Reader is now capable of merging two DEM files. This allows you to center your terrain models on any location. Files can be merged east-west or north-south. A pan factor setting allows you to center your merged file location in the two files. You can also center on corner by first merging east-west files, then north-south.

10. Project Manager. Fixed a bug where the Project Manager didn't properly enable and disable buttons if you deleted the last file in a project. 11. Viewer. Fixed a Zoomed Mode, zoomed to back to Overview selection box would bug that occurred if you switched to further into the cave and then switched Mode. The result would be that the be the wrong size.

12. Viewer. The Viewer now has the ability to color cave passages according to the size and shape of the passage. The program analyzes the height, width, and cross sectional area and can color passages that fit into categories. The catagories include: Crawlway, Stoopway, Walking, Fissure, Canyon, Tube, Borehole and Climbs/Pits. Coloring specific passage types allows you to analyze the geology, and speologenesis. For example, you can easily see areas where there are vadose canyons or phreatic tubes. You can also pick routes through a cave that avoid crawlways, climbs or pits. 13. CaveX. There is now a new COMPASS program for viewing caves called CaveX. CaveX uses Mircrosoft DirectX technology to creates very realistic three-dimensional models of a cave. The capabilities include full three-dimension models with smooth rounded walls, shadowing with moveable light sources, face coloring, background images and many other features. The passages can be textured with photographs limestone giving very realistic, rock-like passages. Because of the speed and power of DirectX, the models can moved and animated in realtime.