Thanks everybody for your input. You have come up with some interesting solution that I didn't know about. Here are few comments:

> I can import DXF through Autocad, but it is not scaled

> correctly, thus if I add survey and update, I will have to

> redo scaling again and again.

The DXF data is exported from Compass un-scaled. In other words, if a shot is 100 feet long, the line in the DXF file says it is 100 units long. The basic concept of Autocad is that it is used to for Computer aided design and so the original measurements are always retained in the DXF file.

Compass does have a scaling option for the DXF output that allows you to change the DXF file measurements by a certain percentage. For example, if you set the scaling to 50%, the 100-foot shot would be exported as 50-feet.

> My best option so far has been to convert the datafile to

> walls, and use its export funtion, which will export a

> scaled WMF, but the fonts are flaky...

Compass can export the data as WMF or EMF. The option is under "Files" then "Save Screen Image" in the Viewer. There is also an option to scale the WMF/EMF files. I don't know how well it works compared to Walls, but it seemed to work fine with all the programs I tried.

> I would love to see something like Jims plug in, but he is

> out of the business (I hear he has to pedal a generator 2

> miles just to read his e-mail) Any help or updates?

I haven’t heard anything from Jim Wilson for months and Caver's Digest seems to have vanished. Even his web site hasn’t been updated for a long time. I assume that means that Jim has moved on to other things.

> Hopefully Larry can find a way to update the DXF export in

> Compass or switch over to supporting something like SVG

> since Adobe is heavily invested in that technology.

Working with the DXF file format over the years has been frustrating. The DXF format was developed by Autocad for their programs and I have always used Autocad as the standard for testing my DXF exports. The frustrating part is that other programs like Corel and Adobe Illustrator change the standard to suit their needs. This forces me to spend a lot of time figuring out what they are doing different and often times what they are doing is completely incompatible with the Autocad standard. It also forces me to buy a lot of this very expensive software just to be sure I maintain compatibility.

In general, I plan to support SVG in the near future. Right now, I am spending most of my time reworking the 3D modeling aspects of Compass. For the last 10 years, I have been using the DirectX "Retained Mode" to display 3D passages. With the release of Vista, Microsoft completely dropped support for "Retained Mode" and so I was forced to go a different route.

I have chosen to go with OpenGL, which is a cross platform solution that is widely supported. OpenGL doesn't have a "Retained Mode" system, so I have been forced to write my own, which is a major programming task (6-months.) I have made a lot of progress and I have an OpenGL version of CaveX up and running that duplicates most of the functions of the DirectX version. However, there is still a lot more to do to make my "Retained-Mode OpenGl” implementation as flexible and useful as the original. Ultimately, my goal is to integrate the 2D and 3D graphics into the same program instead of having two separate programs with different human interfaces.

Thanks again for all your input.

Larry.