Supported map files

Supported map file types are:

• AutoCAD (ASCII) files (.dxf)
• ESRI Shapefiles (.shp)
• Alignment files (.rxl)
• Trimble roads (.rxl)
• LandXML files (.xml)
• GENIO roads
• Surfaces or digital terrain models (.dtm .ttm .xml)
• Surpac files (.str) – typically used in Mines
• Background images from georeferenced image files

Points, lines, and arcs in the current job database appear in black.

Active points in map files appear in blue. Lines and arcs appear in the colors defined in the file.

Feature code processing colors appear in the color defined in the feature library, except line features that are coded as white are drawn in black. See Trimble Business Center feature libraries.

Features that are visible and selectable can be used to:

• Navigate to a point
• Stakeout
• Create nodes
• Perform some Cogo calculations
• Create a surface
• Key in an alignment (only available from General Survey).
• Define a Trimble road (only available from the Roads application).
• Define a tunnel (only available from the Tunnels application).
• Auto stake a mine (only available from the Mines application).

To make features visible and selectable, see Active map layers.

For Shapefiles, DXF and STR files a name is generated for every selectable feature in the file. For Shapefiles, the name is the first five characters of the Shapefile name, followed by a file index number, then a space and then the line number in the Shapefile where this feature is defined. For DXF files, the name is the first 8 characters of the layer name, followed by a space and then the line number of the feature in the DXF file. For DXF files from Trimble Business Center the entity name, where present, is used. For Surpac (.str) files, points and polylines are placed in layers based on their string numbers. Polylines are named with their counter within the string layer.

A code can be generated for every selectable feature within a map file. This is derived from the attributes stored in the DXF file; often, it is the name, code, and attributes of features in the original file. For Surpac (.str) files, if points have codes they are respected.

You can review a selectable feature in the map to find the file and layer name.

DXF files

Displayable and selectable DXF entities:

• ARC, CIRCLE, INSERT, LINE, POINT, POLYLINE, LWPOLYLINE.

Display only DXF entities:

• 3D FACE, SPLINE, SOLID, ATTRIB, TEXT, MTEXT.
• Control characters: C – diameter symbol, D – degree symbol, P – plus/minus symbol, % – percentage symbol.

Extrusion arcs contained in a DXF file are displayed correctly in the map, but cannot be made active. Extrusion arcs form an ellipse in plan view and the staking of ellipses is not supported.

Shapefiles

Supported Shapefile entities:

• Null shape, Point, PolyLine, Polygon, MultiPoint, PointZ, PolyLineZ, PolygonZ, MultiPointZ, PointM, PolyLineM, PolygonM, MultiPointM, MultiPatch, Hatching.

LandXML files

Supported LandXML entities:

• Points (CgPoint elements), Lines (Parcel and PlanFeature elements), Surfaces
• Only points, lines, surfaces, and alignments that are contained in elements directly under the primary LandXML element are supported.

If there are overlapping surfaces on the map, the interpolated elevation will be that of the first surface returning a non‑null elevation (the surface with the first name alphabetically).

Only grid coordinates are displayed. If you have not defined a projection, only points stored as grid coordinates appear.

Grid (local) coordinates cannot be displayed if the input transformation was not defined. See Transformations.

If the Grid coords field in the Cogo settings screen is set to Increase South‑West or Increase South‑East, the map display is rotated by 180° such that increasing south coordinates are displayed up the screen.

Some applications use a value such as ‑9999.999 to represent null. For the Trimble Access software to correctly treat this value as null, tap Options in the Active map screen and correctly define the DXF null elevation field.

Values are considered to be null if they are less than or equal to the null elevation value. For example, if the null elevation is ‑9999, then ‑9999.999 is also considered to be null.

The following image file types and associated world files are supported:

TIFF files are generally much more efficient in their use of program memory than other background image formats such as BMP, JPG or PNG. This makes it possible to load TIFF files with file sizes of 100 MB or more, while using only a few MB of program memory. However, if the TIFF file is one large tile then this means the entire file will be loaded into the program memory which will affect controller performance.