Tool for Tuesday: Point File Format – Setting Limits

Because too much of anything can cause problems. :)

Today’s post deals with Points.  Lots and lots of Points.

Specifically the process of importing these Points into your model via. an ASCII file.  If you are like me, this is something you have done literally hundreds of times.  Having said this, the world of data collection is changing and these once timid ASCII files can now contain hundreds of thousands of points or more. 

Knowing this, just specifying a Point file format and clicking OK during the import may not be enough.  (No one want’s to dump 300,000 points into their model unless they are prepared for it. :) )

Wouldn’t it be nice if we could control or limit the number of points imported during the insert Points from ASCII file command?  If for no other reason than to get a quick glimpse of what is contained in the ASCII file before we commit to importing the entire contents.

The good news is that we can!  (And it is really easy to do)

In short, this can be accomplished by creating a custom Point File Format.  Contained within the Point File Format are a couple of settings that will enable us to:

1.  Limit the total number of points that will be imported
2.  Specify a Point sample rate for the ASCII file.

Check out the video below to see how it works.

-Jerry

Comments

[Brian Strandberg]

I used this feature once when modeling 420 KM of a river in Indonesia. We had millions of bathymetry points, and this was the only way to narrow down the data to a manageable amount. Good post.