Easy Trace Group

One often faces with the dilemma at data extraction from imagery (vectorizing of roads, etc.). Road lines have long straight segments as a rule as well as some points of inflection. On the one hand, these bends are better seen "from afar". On the other hand, vector lines should coincide with the center of raster lines, i.e. you need to "move the image near". As a result, vectorizing of roads either turns into a tiresome sequence of zooming in and out or gives numerous unnecessary vertices in straight line parts.

Automatic zoom at vertex placing is a solving of this problem. It resembles dynamic scaling at point insertion provided for the Point tool. Specify an approximate position of the next vertex? Press the mouse left button but do nor release it. Easy Trace automatically zooms in the working window. Move the cursor to the exact position of the vertex and release the button there. The vertex will be added and the scale restored automatically.

You may fix this temporary zoom with the Ctrl + Shift combination, input a series of vertices (a road bend) and then press Ctrl + Shift again to restore the scale, i.e. to "move the image away".

Some innovations introduced in the Rectangle tool made it more effective at building decoding during address plan making.

• Address plans often contain numerous buildings of the same size and orientation relative the street line. Vectorize one such rectangle, then click the mouse right button inside it to capture the sample and start cloning. One left click is sufficient now to place the next object (rectangle).
• Neighboring buildings are often perpendicular to each other. When in the cloning mode, a right click inside an existing rectangle or on a linear object causes orientation of the next clone at right angles to the specified object. Subsequent right clicks rotate the clone cyclically by 90 degrees. Thus, any preexisting object may be used for quick orientation of the next rectangle (building).
• You may also start clone rotation and input a rectangle at an angle different from 90 degrees. It will take two clicks to specify position of the rectangle corner and to fix its slope angle.
• To change dimensions of the next clone, use the mouse wheel at Ctrl (for the long edge) or Shift (for the short edge) key pressed.
• You may specify temporary guides at input of the first rectangle in a group and to align all the following objects along them - new-added rectangles will be pulled to the guides automatically. This feature makes input of aligned one-type building contours even faster.

Tool control is very simple - the Ctrl + Shift combination activates cyclically the modes: "Cloning" - "Clone rotation" - "Guide forming". Capture of new patterns and size change with the mouse wheel (at Shift or Ctrl pressed) are accessible in any of the modes.

This mode is intended for quick and accurate forming of complex curves. It is useful when you vectorize boundaries of natural or complex artificial objects in space imageries.

Interface of the tool differs markedly from one of similar tools in other applications. It is characterized by simple and univocal line form control with the help of mouse cursor move. The tracer creates a curve corresponding to the form of an object in the image rather than an abstract smooth curve through specified points.

Spline mode is a submode of semiautomatic tracing that may be started when necessary. For example, you may begin semiautomatic vectorizing of a curve, then create a long straight segment manually and complete the operation by forming of a complex curve in the spline mode. Final result is a common polyline.

Tracing control in the spline mode differs a little from usual but remains simple. The first click in this mode defines a point the curve should pass through (usually, it is the vertex of a curve bend) and the second fixes the line part. Move of the cursor forms the bend. In difficult cases press Ctrl and use the mouse wheel to form it more precisely.

It is also possible to create Custom tools that would start the Curvilinear tracer in the spline mode from the beginning.

Some features of the Editor are improved and new functions are added:

• "Orthogonal" move is provided for adjacent edges of ortho-objects at capture and relocation of the vertex between them. For example, move of building corner changes position of all adjacent walls. Keep the Shift key pressed at capture of an "orthogonal" vertex for arbitrary move of this vertex only.
• Click + drag inside any closed polyline or polygon causes automatic capture of the object and starts the Move mode after cursor displacement for about 5 screen pixels. This small lag protects from an accidental shift. Release the button to complete the operation and return to editing of polyline vertices.
• Line joining by a double left click in the gap between them is supplemented with quick line closing by a double left click between its first and last vertex. Effect of the "Join with a smooth curve" option is organized more logical. Default way of joining (a straight line or a smooth curve) depends now on status of the corresponding option specified in the Project Properties dialog box whereas alternative way becomes current when you hold the Shift key pressed. The same is true at line closing by the hot key.
• Hot keys may be now specified for the mode of polyline edge moving (Edit edge) as well as moving and rotation of the selected object.

The algorithm of search for line ends suitable for double-click joining is modified. Joining failures are eliminated for all vector tools supporting this method of quick line joining.

Temporary tool change for Eraser happens now not only at cursor positioning on the line but also at simultaneous stroke of the Ctrl and Shift keys.

Spline mode of line form optimization is added to options of the tool operation in semiautomatic mode. This filter is much less inclined to cutting of sharp bends in winding lines.

Gaps in raster lines are really numerous sometimes. For example, roads in the "black" subject layer extracted from a color map are mercilessly chopped by grid lines. The tool is intended for such materials as it traces the line applying its VECTOR fragments generated by automatic vectorizing. It enables quick processing of extremely noisy materials with plentiful crossing lines (1: 500 maps, forest management charts, special elements of relief, road and communication networks).

Tool functioning at start and finish of the editing mode is improved. Similar to other tracers, it captures now uncompleted line when you return to tracing.

Polyline joining by a smooth curve proved to be more in use than joining by a straight segment. That's why this way of line joining is on by default when you run the program for the first time. But those who do not like the idea may remain everything "as it was".

The "Merge and close polylines with smooth curve by default" option is added to the View and Editing page of the Project Properties dialog box. The program joins polylines by a smooth curve when this option is on and by a straight line when it is off. Hold the Shift key pressed for occasional use of non-default joining. The option has an effect on all joining methods ("double click", Editor, "Close polyline" command of Tracers).

It is enough to click the icon in the "image" window to start image adding to the opened project. If several projects are opened, the program will suggest you to select one for the operation.

If the color image you want to binarize (i.e. to extract a black-and-white subject layer from it) is not added to the project yet, the program suggests you to add the resulting image to the current project. If it is opened for editing from the project window, the black-and-white subject layer inherits positioning of the source image.

Controls of the Polygonal Cropping tool are now similar to ones of Polygonal Shares. Specifying and correction of the cropping contour is simplified.

Pop-up descriptions of all options appear at the bottom of the dialog box. Tips in the Status bar are revised – now they clearly specify the necessary sequence of operations.

Search for line types at adding, editing, export, and import is improved. Occurrence of different line types with the same name in one project is forbidden.

The bug is corrected: the program did not generate a warning message at deletion of a line type used in the project.

Loading of TIFF-files saved in tiles is corrected. Previously, "dirt" could remain at the end of every line of the loaded image.

The bug is corrected: the tracer "did not see" individual dots sometimes but detected dots in thin dotted lines.

The bug is corrected, which could cause an abnormal termination if the operator tried to scroll or zoom the current area of the project field before completion of contour drawing.

The bug is corrected, which could cause an abnormal termination at subproject cutting out in the background mode (i.e. when the operator began to work in another windows before completion of the process).

The bug is corrected: the program changed image palette rather than pixel color in grayscale images. It means that grayscale images do not become color ones any more.

The bug is corrected: the program could ignore reference points of the first process at use of Hyperthreading processors.

The bug is corrected: the program rounded Z-values of source 2D-polylines up to integral values.

The bug is corrected: wrong calculation of maximal brightness could cause darkening or brightening of individual channels.

Loading of images better than 8 bits per channel, 32-bit RGB images,*.BMP files with channel masking and some other raster files is corrected.