In some cases it could be useful to have multiple shorelines within one map. Example: I just made a map over three small lakes boardering to eachother. The lakes (more like ponds, mapped with a belly-boat) are small enough to be covered within one project, and making the map with the three of them would be easier if I could have all three in just one project instead of three.

I agree with you. This feature would be helpful in some cases.

I just tried today something in the following way:
- generated two lakes in separate steps.
- then opened one of the two *_polys.shp files with QGIS and manually made a new rectangle border, which covered both lakes.
- put all *majors- *minors- and all other manually made, like POI.shp markerlines.shp with only the changed *_polys.shp in one directory and processed with IMC.

The only problem with this is that the water did not get a blue surface. I think, i made a mistake creating my new *_polys.shp.

In a second test right now I simply merged the two *polys.shp files with QGIS without any changes. This works fine creating one *polys.shp and handle the one polys.shp with all other files created of these waters in one pass with IMC. But I have no testdata with overlapping rectangles.

But I also know the way with DrDepth, that worked: There you only had to create single water in *.mp format and merge these files together as one *.lcm

At last:
A third test merging the two *_polys.shp files and stretching the end knots of each rectangle in the way that they match as one bigger rectangle should work. In the screenshot I made a mistake and stretched only one rectangle to match the whole size, so it looks not perfect. without mistakes this should work, but now I am tired ;)

Maybe I only have to delete one line in the attribute table in QGIS?

Second test (one at5 file)



Third test (one at5 file)

would be better to cut and paste the geometry from one polygon to the other. You can do that with ArcGIS...I don't know if you can with other applications.

Other possibility e. g. for QGIS:
- merge shapes
- delete both background quadrangles (lines in attribute table)
- create one new, greater background quadrangle, also possible as seperate shape
- set/observe right LAYER value - this must be Your problem

Best wishes
fjordfisher

Haven't tested this but it should work with one RM workspace, with one project per lake. Export the projects to a single common user map and export that to shapefile. Doesn't that work?

Regards,

/Martin

Yes, but the question/the problem is the background in defined color.

Raster background or vector background?

I belief Hubert has create vector backgrounds. For raster would be give other problems.

Having more than one shoreline within a single project might be a bit of a pain technically - I'll take a look to see exactly how much of a pain. If you do have multiple shorelines within the same bounding area, then there are a few issues with exporting - take a look at this post for how to do it.

Essentially you have to do as Martin suggested, and add the contours to a single user map before export. This ensures that the correct land outline polygon is created. As fjordfisher alluded to, you will have a problem with the rasters in that the depth colour range will be calculated for each individual body of water, so colours across the different lakes will refer to different depths (unless the lakes have exactly the same depth range, of course!).

Matt

The biggest problem with allowing multiples is where people stop adding new shorelines and if those shorelines are very far apart.

Perhaps you can get around this by maintaining clipped regions. For example, maintain a number of 1000X1000 dimension blocks internally within the system based on some arbitrary 0 point.

000000
0XX000
00X0X0
000XX0
000000

Map each one of these to a pointer.

map<pair<int, int>, tBaseStructure*>

Each block, based on it's current location would know where it's neighbors are.

You'd have the potential to have (dimension - 1) extra rows/columns on each side of the structure but it'd get around any issues with memory fragmentation.

fjordfisher wrote:
Right, it is for vector backgrounds. If you only use raster background, just leave away the two (or more) *_polys.shp files and use all other *.shp files with IMC to build the bathymetric lines, markerlines, pois ...

Then create with Global Mapper, QGIS or any appropriate gis software a background raster, insert the shadings of your waters and create your raster at5 with IMC.

Having a bit of sleep, helps finding easy ways ;)

Although creating a 'large' shoreline with QGIS or similar programs should work, the easiest way for me is, as described by matt in this thread.

For this step it is not neccessyry to build up complete water including depth lines. It works, if shorelines and islands are present. So you get a perfect xyz_polys.shp file. The major and minor contours you could create in separate steps for each water. Insight Map Creator can handle multiple majors, minors, markerlines and POI shapefiles with the one polys.shp in one step to build up a correct area, including multiple waters.

Because changes in the shorelines and islands should occur less frequently, the outer line / polys.shp should not be renewed as often. For changes in the log files you have to make only the files of that water new.