Release notes for n4ce v4.30a August 2021

New:

• A new tool has been added to the 3d viewer to automatically section a point cloud along an alignment. Further details can be found here.
• A new Image insertion option has been added to the Tools menu\tab in CAD.  Images can now be inserted by locking onto the bottom left and bottom right corners of a reference rectangle.  So if the image has been located in a 3rd party CAD system, and a rectangle placed around it.  That rectangle can then be used in n4ce to quickly reinsert and rotate the Image into the correct coordinate system.
• When inserting points into a Model, a new Insert into DTM option is available.  As long as a DTM already exists in that model, and the point is inside the extents of the DTM, then the new point will be inserted, and forced, if the Line part of the code is set to be forced in a DTM.
• A new Line filtering tool has been added to the Lines menu\tab in a Model called Simplify.  It reduces the number of points along a string, but tries to preserve the overall shape of the line feature.  The offset parameter defines how far a point needs to be offset from those before and after it, for it to be retained.  So points around curved sections will be preserved, over the straighter parts of the line.  Its intended for helping to make usable setting out data from overly complicated MX or Civil3d Designs. Like when there is a point every 0.1m for 3km!
• Background georeferenced imagery can now be displayed in a rotated viewport on a drawing. So where a viewport is rotated to make viewing the model data easier, and the model also contains an ECW image backcloth for example.  That rotation is kept when plotting or exporting a the paper space drawing.
• When digitising a new tick box has been added called "Camera Follow". This pans the view at the current zoom, to the location of the last digitised point.  Thereby making it easier to directly pick the next point, without needing to pan manually first.
• Lecia Icon Survey CSV reports can now be imported as raw survey data.  Just rename the file from a .CSV to .ICN and then drag and drop into the n4ce Project Manager.
• A new option called "Arc Fit" has been added to the Lines - Curve tools in a Model view.  This moves the indicated points onto a best fit arc\circle made up from the indicated points. The first and last points will not be moved, however. This could be used for example to tidy curved bay windows or any other structure where a clean arc fit is desirable.
• When digitising data from the point cloud.  A new option called "Attributes Required", will not let you proceed to digitise a new point, until any attributes such as Diameter, Species etc that have been defined on the code, are filled in.
  
• A new option has been added under the display mode of a point cloud called "Edge Enhance". This will enhance the features of dense cloud data.
• A new DXF export option specific to Leica MC1 Machine control has been added to Pro and Designer versions.  This exports just DTM Faces and 3d Linework.
  
• Custom input fields are now definable when setting up layouts.  These fields are then activated when the layout is generated. Any field starting ?? such as ??DrawnBy or fields with ?? in such as Scale: 1:??Scale is valid.  Also ??Date ??Scale and ??n4ceVersion will auto-populate.
  
• North Symbol and Scale Bar symbols can now be flagged in the Project Symbols dialog, so that they can be placed directly onto a layout.  n4ce reads the orientation and scale of the viewport to automatically rotate the north symbol and auto annotate the scale bar to suit.  See here for more details.
  
• A new CAD tool has been added to the Lines menu\tab called Apex Assert.  This will burn into an indicated polyline, any CAD points or Symbols that sit on the line but where there are no actual nodes there.  This seems to occur a lot with design data from Civil 3D.  A road centerline will have annotated points with levels.  But they are independent to the centerline which does not have noes at the locations a level changes.  This new tool allows the painstaking task of reconstructing Civil 3D alignments to be done in seconds rather than hours.
• When generating Points from CAD lines, if "Closest Text" is used, then a new option on the right is available to set that the text must be inside any closed strings.  This allows slabs for houses to be set to their correct FFL without needing to do each string manually.
  
• New options have been added to the DTM tab when exporting to AutoCAD.  These new settings allow for Grouped triangles to be exported on the Group layer, and to be dropped by the group depth.  All as long as "3D faces" as selected as the export mode.  Shading can also now be exported so that the individual bands of colour are exported on their own layer.  Where there the layer name will be the main layer they are on in n4ce + the title of the height band they occupy.
  

Improvements: 

• A change to Tunnel sections has been made so that it can deal with the new Automatic sectioning tool the 3d viewer can generate.  Further info can be found here.
• Cross Section data can be edited in a Section Preview now, to remove outliners from Point Cloud generated sections.
• When generating Arcs tangent to two lines, the resulting Arc is previewed before accepting the parameters. Works in normal CAD and Alignment views.
• Extruded Arcs are now converted into 3d polylines on import from DWG files.
• When SHIFT is held down when Inserting Points that draw a line.  The cursor will snap in 45 degree increments, after the first segment is drawn.
• Hz Alignments can now be generated purely from a curve fitted polyline, as long as Bi Arc Fitting is enabled in the Project Settings. 
• When designing Hz Curves Tangential to lines, the arc is previewed in realtime so the arc can be checked with out needing to undo and redo a few times to get the desired results.
• A Trend DTM can now be generated from a given Point, Direction and Slope.
• Nr Neighbor commands can now reference points in a backcloth.
• A new 4pt Rectangle shape has been added.  So the 4pt point is used to set the level of the 4th point, rather than interpolating from the previous three.
• A new GeoSite.ini file has been added to the Settings folder.  This is used to perform a search and replace when importing GeoSite configured data into n4ce, and the code import convention in the codetable is set to GeoSite.
• When digitising from point clouds in the 3d Viewer, the \ / keys can invoke the 2pt height mode on the fly. So the first point sets the plan position, but the level comes from the second click.
• Options for annotating Cut\Fill or Fill\Cut can be automatically added to Heat Map Keys
• The Project to DTM tool has been improved in the Point Cloud engine so that it can now compare a point cloud to a Design Model.  This link explains more. https://help.appsincadd.co.uk/hc/en-us/articles/360019463397-Using-Point-Clouds-to-Determine-Deviation-From-Design
• The import of 3d Faces or PolyFace mesh data from DWG/DXF files has been improved. Now when dragging a DWG or DXF that has 3d mesh data onto the Models folder in the Project manager, a new dialog will appear.
  
  If the Mesh is a DTM then Duplicates should be filtered out, and Duplicate Triangles should also be checked for.  If however, the data is a 3d Model of some kind.  Then all the checks can be bypassed to speed uploading.  Just Group by Layer would really be valid in this case.
• Tables and Layouts can now be previewed before use. Use the title box text check box to trigger the population of any user-defined fields.
  
• A new option has been added to the properties of a viewport to set Normal aligned Text and 1pt symbols to be rotated square to the viewport.  So normal aligned text in a rotated viewport is still square to the screen in n4ce, and when plotting.  It can not be carried forward into a DWG export though.
  
• List boxes in the Properties pane of all RB graphical view now respond to mouse wheel selection.
• The placing of point blocks now allows the height of the points in the block to be set by indicating CAD text.
• The Point - Scale tool in a model view allows for OS scale to either be automatically reported or inverted to remove SF from the points in the model.
• DTM Triangles can now be exported on their Groups Layer, rather than the DTM layer.
• Importing of Solid fills and Hatches from DWG\DXF files now also imports the boundary of the object and converts it to a polyline.
• The ROUNDS flag is automatically recognised now in Trimble JXL files so that all readings in that section are identified as control shots.
• New option when generating points from CAD to trace over a series of separate Lines and Arcs so that one continuous feature results.  As long as those elements are all on the same layer.
• When plotting tables of Points\Stations plus Group and Shading keys, a preview is now drawn so that the look of the table can be checked before plotting it.
• When trying to pick through multiple overlapping viewports on a Drawing. The TAB key can now be used to cycle between them.
• Solid fills and Solid hatching are now exported to AutoCAD as SOLID OBJECTS rather than HATCHES.  This seems to work much better in AutoCAD as files are smaller and open much faster in AutoCAD than they did before.
• CAD Layers can now be Copied to the clipboard by using new tools to Copy the Layer by clicking an Object on that layer.  No need to go into the Layer Dialog to find the Layer now.
• In Pro and Designer, the Batter tool will Batter all CLOSED strings that are in the LIST.  So multiple strings can all be battered at the same time.  E.g. Housing slabs.  FYI The Parallel tool had this functionality already. 
• TIFF to ECW conversions now has an option to not include the transparency channel.  This is needed so that packages that do not handle transparency, such as AutoCAD and Civil3d do not render the ECW with a yellow tint.

Bug Fixes:

• Some complex CAD solid fill boundaries were not drawn correctly.
• Curved polylines and survey features reported their areas as if all segments were straight.
• Last Station would not be annotated properly when displaying Station properties.
• The Main point cloud is now remembered when the 3d view is closed if multiple scans are being used in the 3d View and the main cloud is being changed.
• When digitising, or when updating the 3d View based on changes in the model, the view could have zoomed out.
• The rotation control of a clipping box did not respond to input correctly.
• Clicking the button with three dots to select a model to interpolate onto for Point Insert would have caused a crash.
• Fonts may have been drawn the wrong size as only the first font in the list of Text styles was used to define all text metrics.  Some font however differ slightly, so an export to AutoCAD would have resulted in some text possibly changing size.

December 2020 n4ce v4.30...

New:  

• PDF files can now be imported. Either as an Image or as CAD elements if the detail in the PDF is stored as vectors. Upon dragging and dropping the file into the Project Manager a new dialog will appear. Here you can select the page, nominate the scale, DPI (for images) and any rotation that should be applied. For more information please see the following link.
  
  
• Large Geo TIFF files can now be converted to ECW files.  Dramatically reducing the necessary file size and improving performance when trying to work with multi-gigabyte files. For instance, a 5GB Tiff can result in a 300MB ECW with no loss of data and instant screen redraw. 20% is the standard target compression which is usually a good place to start. You will be asked to choose either ECW Version 2 or Version 3. For compatibility reasons Version 2 is default however Version 3 Allows Transparency within the image. https://help.appsincadd.co.uk/hc/en-us/articles/360016556377   
• To help locate CAD and Image data, new tools are available under the Tools menu in a CAD view.  These allow for detail to be more easily transformed to the correct coordinate system, including rotating images which we could not do before this update. For more information please see the following link.
  
  
• Magnet XML is now supported for importing Total Station and GNSS data.
  
  
• A new V-shaped channel option is now available in the automatic feature extraction bolt-on.

  The most important settings have been highlighted in yellow.  Obviously, the sizes below will need to be altered if the channel being extracted is significantly narrower or steeper than this example.   Basically, the Hz & Dz tolls need to be large enough so that a significant portion of the channel can be tested.   The Height Tol Max and Min describe loosely the degree of the V within the Hz Tol.   The Dz Change Search Radius defines the max-width of the V to test for the Dz change.   Most importantly the Edge Mode (formally Wall Mode) is now set to “V Channel” so that the new V detection algorithm is used.

   
• A new option to automatically bend drop lines when plotting sections is now available.

Under the Drop lines tab, set the AutoBend to Minimum to start bending at the lowest height of the section, or Halfway which bends between the lowest height, and the lowest datum value for the section. For more information please see the following link.

• 4pt and 5pt Chevron shapes have been added to the shape types in the Code table.  They are available to be used on-site via normal survey methods, or in the Point Cloud engine for digitising purposes. 4pt assumes the chevron is symmetrical, the 5pt allows each trailing edge to be individually tailored to fit the exact chevron being recorded. For more information please see the following link.

  5pt Chevron	4pt Chevron

• A new option called Closest has been added to the Design\Compare option in a Model view. To conduct an asbuilt comparison between two models, by comparing the closest points.  There is no need now to match Code and\or Point Number in both models.
  
  
• When in a 2D Camera mode, a new Sync option lets the 3D View sync with the 2D Model view. So a pan or zoom in one view, will result in the other panning or zooming in as well. Note: You must be in the 2D camera mode to see this option.
• New Feature Extraction tools: The following videos explain the theory and practical applications of the new tools.  The first video that focuses on road markings should be viewed before the others, as it goes into more detail on what all the settings do. n4ce 4.20 will erase these settings if you open the 3d Viewer in that version. So once extraction settings are working, please use the Export Tools to save the extraction settings to a file. That way they can be reloaded at any time. 
  
  Breaklines - https://youtu.be/OZ-51bCBnx0
  
  FloorPlans - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0LGhgXmuGI8

         Lane Markings - https://lnkd.in/dH8riht
         Crash Barriers\Walls - https://lnkd.in/dfpM9mY
         Kerbs - https://lnkd.in/dBrYWnT
         Cables & Wires - https://lnkd.in/d8prXbG

• New Customisable Toolbar. Please see this article for more details. https://help.appsincadd.co.uk/hc/en-us/articles/360012417557-Customising-Controls-in-the-User-Definable-Toolbar
  
  
• The ability to create any number of custom cameras has been added.  These are intended to help plan CCTV and Security camera positions. Under the Camera Tab is a new check box called Show. Then that is clicked, the new camera tools appear down the right of the screen. Click on the Pick camera to place the new Camera, and then where it needs to look at.  The cameras properties will then be available to edit.
  
  
• Under Tools\ Place 3D Model, Further support for OBJ and 3DS files has been added, so that objects such as cars and people can be added to the 3d View.  This is mainly to work in conjunction with the new Camera tools so that the cameras can be adjusted to see peoples heads or when an object obstructs a view etc...
  
  
• Custom Sub Folders: - See this article for more detail. https://help.appsincadd.co.uk/hc/en-us/articles/360012412558-Custom-Folders-in-the-Project-Manager
  
  
• The Ribbon Bar views now also have a properties pane down the left-hand side of the screen so that common tools and settings can be accessed or changed at any time. For more information please see the following link.
  
  
• Exports to Leica DBX and Topcon TN3\LN3 file formats are now available under the File Menu on a Model View. Or via the Other button in the RB interface under the Export section of the View tab.
  
  
• Items in backcloths can now be moved back and forth to change their draw order.
  
  
• Snakegrid transformations have now been implemented in both CAD and Models. https://help.appsincadd.co.uk/hc/en-us/articles/360013426537
  
  
• Reporting the perpendicular Dz to other surfaces has been added to the Design menu.  The height of the point can then be set to that value to allow heat maps to be plotted.
  
  
• Text macros now work when plotting Section Droplines.  e.g. PZ-D for plotting invert depths for manholes.
  
  
• Points can now be imported and exported via the Clipboard. For more information please see the following link: https://help.appsincadd.co.uk/hc/en-us/articles/360016220637
   
• DTM's can now be extended by adding the new points to the List and selecting DTM Extend. https://help.appsincadd.co.uk/hc/en-us/articles/360016460798 

Improvements:  

• Drawings can now be copy and paste between projects
  
  
• Block attribute text can now be imported in a DWG if the block it's attached to has no elements.  Previously if this were the case, the annotation would have been ignored.
  
  
• Frozen layers are now imported from a DWG\DXF.
  
  
• Options under Design\Align Points to aid tidying up chevrons and helping to make them uniform and aligned. For more information please see the following link.
  
  
• If ! is found as an attribute value when importing Trimble or Leica XML, the attribute is ignored.
  
  
• Measurements in the 3d View can now be deleted.
  
  
• OBJ and 3DS objects can be loaded into the scene and placed multiple times.
  
  
• Speed of Grouping points by distance to a feature has been dramatically improved by multithreading the tool. 
  
  
• Memory usage with regards to handling point clouds with a large number of individual scans has been substantially improved. Memory usage may be reduced by as much as 400%.
  
  
• A button has been added to any dialog that needs to reference a surface.  Before in v4.30, you needed to double click the field, now the button makes it more obvious what to do.  
• New custom folders are not automatically set to be the Current folder in the Project Manager.
  
  
• The main Model or CAD folders can be set to be the Main folders, by right-clicking a custom folder and unchecking the Current tick.
  
  
• When using the Feature Extraction tools in the 3D View, if the point interval is set to 0. Then the Douglas Peucker simplified line output is used instead.  This allows the points to be thinned out along the straights but kept around the curves.

  Regular Points...

  Simplified Points...

    
• The heights of tops and bottoms of edge points have been made more reliable. In certain situations, they could be a few cm out.
  
  
• When Auto extracting features, to help give more fine control over the interpolated heights of points, a new option called “Histogram Width” is available to set the radius about each extracted point that is used to build a histogram of levels about that point. Dense scans can be set to say 0.02, whereas UAV generated surfaces may need to be increased to 0.1 or more.
  
  
• Debug information is now available when designing and testing Extraction Presets.
  
  
• In Pro and Designer editions, 3D Feature lines in a Model can now be Mirrored to aid digitising elevations from Point Clouds.

Bugs:

• A bug importing a multi setup E57 has been resolved.  Would have resulted in the scan taking much longer to import or it may have hung entirely.
  
  
• Some codes were missed when importing from a Trimble FXL file.
  
  
• When displaying mathematical text macros, values displayed even if one of the dimensions not there.
  
  
• When exported framed text to DWG files, the size of the frame that was exported was too large.
  
  
• When carrying out visibility analysis, some models would not calculate the correct intersection points.
  
  
• Features Densify did not work in certain situations.
  
  
• Lidar grids copied from external projects into Custom folders could have caused a crash.
  
  
• The display of Lidar grids was not always updated in Custom folders when copying and pasting in the same project.
  
  
• Files were missing from the installation that prevented the KML and Snakegrid tools from functioning properly.
  
  
• The tool that generated a simplified surface from the Gridded DTM in the 3D Viewer was making a surface sat on a 45-degree plane.
  
  
• Overlapping Scan filtering in the 3D Viewer had stopped working.
  
  
• Adding a Gridded DTM to a Custom Folder in the Project Manager caused a crash.

Please Note: To view the full release notes please see the attached file below.