Help:Glossary

This page contains a glossary of terms commonly used in XMS. Many of these terms have usage specific to XMS and may or may not coincide with how these terms are used elsewhere.

Typically the definition should correlate to the USGS definition.

A

annotations

model used to add notes or references to world or screen coordinates.

arc

sequences of line segments or edges, which are grouped together as a single "polyline" entity.

arc group

multiple arcs that have been grouped together so they can be selected at once.

B

borehole

a deep, narrow hole made in the ground, especially to locate water. Can contain either stratigraphy data or sample data or both.

boundary condition

a differential equation together with a set of additional constraint. Often abbreviated as BC.

breakline

a series of edges to which the mesh or scatter triangles should conform.

C

centerline

arc that represents the direction of a river from upstream to downstream.

compass plot

plot representing temporally varying vector data.

contour

a curve along which the function has a constant value.

coverage

groups of feature objects in the Map module.

cross section

arcs used to extract elevations in SMS and WMS. In GMS, cross sections are flat surfaces used to visualize the subsurface.

culvert

a structure that allows water to flow under a road, railroad, trail, or similar obstruction.

D

DEM

a digital elevation model is a representation of a terrain's surface created from terrain elevation data.

dialog

a window that pops up after a command is executed. May also be called a window, tool, or editor.

E

element

used to describe the area to be modeled. Elements are formed by joining nodes. May be 1D, triangular, or quadratic.

F

feature object

patterned after Geographic Information Systems (GIS) objects and include points, nodes, arcs, and polygons.

flow trace

animation technique used to visualize vector fields.

G

graphics window

the main portion of the XMS program that gives a visual representation of the project.

groin

a rigid hydraulic structure built from an ocean shore (in coastal engineering) or from a bank (in rivers) that interrupts water flow and limits the movement of sediment.

H

hydrograph

a graph showing the rate of flow (discharge) versus time past a specific point in a river, or other channel or conduit carrying flow.

I

isosurface

a surface of constant value extracted from a 3D dataset.

J

jetty

a structure that projects from the land out into water.

M

macro

button that executes a commonly used command.

menu

a list of commands. Can be found at the top of the XMS interface or by right-clicking on items.

N

node

define the beginning and ending XY locations of an arc.

nodestring

a collection of nodes.

O

observation

display the variation of one or more scalar datasets associated with a mesh or grid.

P

plot axes

a set of ruled lines oriented in either the world coordinate system or the grid coordinate system.

point

XY locations that are not attached to an arc.

polygon

a group of connected arcs that form a closed loop.

project explorer

the portion of the interface that lists datasets and components of the project.

Q

quadtree

a two-dimensional space partitioned by recursively subdividing it into four quadrants or regions.

R

raster

data (usually elevation) stored in pixels.

raster catalog

a table that allows assigning attributes to rasters.

S

segment

the portion of an arc between two vertices or a node and a vertices.

size dataset

defines the desired spacing of nodes in a spatial fashion.

spectral energy

represents energy densities at discrete values over a range of angles and a range of frequencies for a given wave condition.

T

time series

a series of values of a quantity obtained at successive times.

TIN

a triangulated irregular network that is a digital data structure used in a geographic information system (GIS) for the representation of a surface.

U

UGrid

a module that uses an unstructured grid.

V

vertex

XY locations along arcs in between the beginning and ending nodes.

W

weir

a barrier across a river designed to alter its flow characteristics.

X

xy series

curve defined by a list of x and y coordinates.

Z

zpts

A point with elevation, or vertical geometry, data attached to it. Also sometimes zpt.