Pre Geolgy File Creation in ArcGIS

Pre Geology File Creation in EVS

NOTE: Most applications that use pregeology files are only available when running EVS-PRO or MVS.

The following section will show you how to build an EVS Pregeology file (.pgf) with the extension. To see the format for a PGF file or a tutorial on how to use the Pre-Geology Module click here: $image\shortcut.jpg$ Pre Geology File Format

Choose Create Pregeology File and this initial window will open:

$image\pgf_initial.jpg$

From this menu, you select the layers and features from which you want to extract pre-geology data, which can also be thought of as raw 3D boring logs. You can also choose whether to include all features of a layer or only the selected features. Let’s accept the current setting of the borings layer and all features. Hit Next to proceed and the "Setup Fields for Pre-Geology File:" window will appear. Before we can proceed we must choose "Related PreGeology Data" as our Related Table on the left frame. You should then see:

$image\pgf_gis.jpg$

At this point, you specify the fields of your data source that will be used to create a Pre-Geology file. If your fields are named reasonably, the process of specifying the fields can be very simple because the extension does so much for you automatically. In the example above, the fields of our data source that correspond to x and y coordinates by default are assigned to the x & y coordinates of the points in the shapefile. However, if you wish to use x and/or y coordinates (or Northings or Eastings) from the associated tables, you may do so.

The remaining fields will be automatically filled in according to some rather straightforward rules. In the discussion of these rules, all field names are case insensitive and an asterisk "*" refers to one or more wildcard characters.

The Z coordinate will use the LAST field with any of the following names: "Z*", "elev*", or "depth*".

Boring will use the LAST field with any of the following names: "bor*" or "well*".

Finally, the Geologic Unit will be automatically selected as the LAST field of all remaining fields except that all of the following names will be ignored: "id*", "objectid*", "oid*", "fid*", "key*", "pr*key", "<Measure from Point>", "bot*", "sym*", "X*", "east*", "Y*", and "north*".

Just because a field is automatically selected (or not selected) does not imply that you cannot change these choices. You should always review the automatic selections to see that they make sense for your project. However, the wizard will usually save a great deal of time and if you choose your field names (e.g. field naming during the creation of queries).

In this example our Boring_ID is "Boring", Z Coordinates are Elevation, and the Geologic Unit field is named MaterialID.

When you hit Finish, the file browser will appear. Save the file in the ctech\data\pregeology folder as evs-test.pgf:

$image\pgf_file1.jpg$

The example file we’ve created above is a very small simplistic pre-geology file. Let’s load an existing pre-geology file to create a more interesting example for the workbook.

Start by clicking on the View EVS Data button in the ArcMap window. When you do so, the following window will appear showing the file we just created as the Pre-Geology file.

$image\view_evs_data2.jpg$

Click on the Load Existing .PGF File button and select the file 5_material_complex_geology.pgf in the ctech\data\pregeology folder.

$image\choose_pgf.jpg$

When you do so, the window will show the selected Pre-Geology file.

$image\view_evs_data3.jpg$

At this point you can select "Launch EVS" (or continue to select or create other data files such as .CSV, .GMF, or .PGF). When you select "Launch EVS" it will only show you those applications that are available to you based on the data files that you have specified or created. When we do it now, we will only have one PGF application that is only available if we choose EVS-PRO or MVS as the "Version to Run". This application is not visible and will not run with EVS for ArcView. (Remember that this entire product consists of an ArcView and ArcGIS extension that is compatible with all versions of EVS and MVS, but provides enhanced functionality for the higher versions.

Note: If we were to select the geology multi-file 5_material_complex_geology.gmf, there would be two additional applications that utilize .pgf files to perform geologic indicator kriging. These applications require both a .pgf and a .geo or .gmf file so that the material information is kriged into a grid that conforms to ground surface.

$image\app_launch_pgf.jpg$

The center window (showing your selected application) will be blank until you select an application from the list on the right. (Remember that this entire product consists of an ArcView extension that is compatible with all versions of EVS and MVS. EVS-Pro and MVS users will see more application choices.)

You should see the following in the Viewer window after selecting Az El and clicking the 210 button in the bottom right hand corner of the Az El panel and change scale factor to 0.8:

$image\app_view_pgf.jpg$

At this point, you could use make_geo_hierarchy to construct a hierarchical model and save the resulting .GEO or .GMF file.