Drawing Groups - [EBPEdit Help Contents]
A Drawing Group is a collection of drawings often of a particular type in a particular area, for example, a certain river, or of a group of mileposts Drawing Groups are used to easily identify to EBP areas affected by events such as floods and storms.
CREATE DRAWING GROUP
Before you can create a drawing group, such as a river, you must create that drawing on the map. Then perform the following steps:
1) right click on one end of the drawing (for example, the source of a river) and in the pop-up menu choose Set endpoint 1
2) right click on the other end of the drawing (for example, the mouth of the river) and in the pop-up menu choose Set endpoint 2
3) choose the Draw, Create Drawing Group pull down menu to open the Edit Drawing Group window
4) assign a unique and descriptive name to the Drawing Group; this name will be displayed on event cards
TYPE TO TRACE
If it is not already set, use the drop down to specify the type of drawing to include in the group. For groups of mileposts or for items that are in a specific location and will not be traced, such as Volcanoes, choose Other.
TRACE METHOD
Trace method specifies how EBP will scan a range of drawing path dots. To include all branches of a river, use the Recursive method.
....Normal - from start to an endpoint
....Reverse - from finish to an endpoint
....Recursive - from start to finish and along any connection
....None - no tracing, such as for Volcanoes
DOTS IN GROUP
In this box you list the names of dots to include in the group. Each drawing location has a coordinate name, such as EA25; to learn a drawing location's name, point the mouse to it and look in the box near the lower left corner of the map. Case is not significant: EBP handles EA25 and ea25 the same way.
There are several ways you can specify the dots
1) list all the dots in the group (in the their desired drawing order) separated by commas, for example: EA25,EA26,EA27,EA28; this can be tedious if there are many dots
2) easier: specify a range and let EBP automatically trace the route between; use a hyphen as in this example: EA25-EA28
3) easiest: specify a starting point and let EBP automatically trace to the end; use a hyphen as in this example: EA25-
4) easiest for mileposts: if you making a group of a certain milepost type (rather than elements between mileposts such as rivers, etc.), select a desired milepost type from the Get Mps drop down; this creates a list of matching mileposts from within the selection area you previously chose on the map
When you are creating a new Drawing Group via the "set endpoint" steps described further above, EBPEdit automatically fills in the Dots in Group box with a range. Lines that start with an apostrophe are considered comments and are ignored for processing.
VIEW TRACE
To verify that the Dots have been correctly specified, and that EBPEdit is able to trace the proper route, click the View Trace button. View Trace reveals what EBP will include in the group.
CORRECTING PROBLEMS
Due to branching of the route, when you View Trace you might see that EBPEdit is having trouble finding the complete route. Retry the trace after changing the Trace Method. The drawing group is not useful until View Trace includes what you want.
If the trace goes past the endpoint, try changing the endpoint slightly. Simply moving it to an adjacent dot usually fixes the problem. In rare cases you might need to erase a tiny segment of the drawing (i.e. make a small gap in it) to convince the trace to stop.
If you get a "does not match trace type" message, it means the dot indicated does not contain the drawing you selected in "Type to Trace". Either the dot name or trace type is wrong.
EXCLUDING MILEPOSTS
If a tracing for an event (for example, storm along the coast) ends up including a small number of mileposts against your wishes, you can exclude those mileposts by listing each in the Dots in Group box on a line of their own surrounded by parentheses. For example, your Dots in Group box might resemble
dj65-kb106
(cw42)
(fa146)
which tells EBP to not include in the group mileposts cw42 and fa146 even if the trace from dot dj65 to kb106 would normally include it. Note this feature is not available with Trace Type Other.
WINMUST
When creating a group of cities and/or mileposts, such as for WinMust purposes (the AOC West Virginia map has an example), in the Dots in Group field enter the desired mileposts separated by commas. Also, set Type to Trace to Other, and set Trace Method to None.
GET MPs?
The Get MPs feature gathers mileposts for you. For example, if you want a list of all mountain mileposts in a certain area, first drag your mouse over that area on the map to highlight it, then open the Drawing Group window, and from the Get MPs menu choose Mountains. If you do not first highlight an area, EBPEdit will gather all such mileposts on the map. Whatever mileposts are gathered will be appended to the Dots in Group box, which you can then edit if you wish.
EDIT DRAWING GROUP
To edit an existing Drawing Group, choose the Edit, Drawing Groups pull down menu. To delete a Drawing Group, erase its name.