SMS:Generate Contour Breaklines

Breaklines in scatter sets can greatly improve the representation of a physical surface. The Generate Contour Breaklines tool is used to create breaklines following specified dataset values. This option was designed to work on scatter data that has been digitized to follow features.

The following dialog is brought up by right-clicking on the scatter set and selecting Generate Contour Breaklines...

• Min. Scalar Value – The minimum of the range to be used for autogenerating breaklines (defaulted to the minimum scalar value of the scatter data)
• Max. Scalar Value – The maximum of the range to be used for autogenerating breaklines (defaulted to the maximum scalar value of the scatter data)
• Max. Spacing – The maximum distance allowed between two adjacent vertices in a breakline
• Number of Intervals – The number of dataset intervals from which the breaklines will be created
• Interval Size – The size of each interval (this is equal to the entire range; defined by the min. and max. scalar values; divided by the number of intervals)
• Auto-compute Tolerance – SMS will automatically compute the tolerance such that all datasets falling within an interval will be included in the breakline generation. The auto-computed tolerance is equal to half of the interval size. This value can be overridden.

SMS creates the breaklines for each contour interval by gathering all vertices in the scatterset that are within the specified tolerance. Starting with the first vertex, SMS will search for the next closest vertex in the scatterset that is also within the specified tolerance. If the closest vertex is within the specified maximum spacing, it becomes the next vertex in the breakline. SMS continues adding vertices to the breakline until it cannot find a vertex within the spacing limit. At this point, SMS will end the breakline and begin to create another breakline using the same method.