XPAC Release notes

Version 7.14
RungePincockMinarco software products
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Contents

1 Version 7.14 1
1.1 New Features and Enhancements
............................................................................................................................................. 1
1.2 Minor Enhancements
............................................................................................................................................. 6
1.3 Bug Fixes
............................................................................................................................................. 7
1.4 Upgrade Implications
............................................................................................................................................. 8

COMPANY CONFIDENTIAL AND PROPRIETARY INFORMATION ii

1 Version 7.14
This document details the new features, enhancements, important notes and bug fixes in XPAC 7.14 and is
intended to be a useful resource. We welcome your feedback.
Please email info@rpmglobal.com if you have any comments or suggestions.

1.1 New Features and Enhancements

Export to 3D PDF
There is now the option to export spatial data plots to a 3D PDF document. This allows the generation of a
small, portable copy of a spatial data plot that can be distributed to users without access to XPAC.

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 To access this function:
1. Open a spatial data plot.
2. Select File | Export | Image.
3. Select Adobe 3D PDF File (*.pdf) from the Save as type combo. The resultant file will include the
contents of the current plot, including shading information and a default view for the current camera
orientation, plus views for the predefined orientations in XPAC. Additionally, if a field selection is active
within the plot, the values for the included fields will be exported to the PDF as metadata for each record.

The following items will not currently appear in the exported file:

Textures / hatching

Annotation
Dependency arrows

Point entities from feature layers (poly-lines and tri-surfaces will appear)

In addition to this, the Export Settings dialog has been removed, and the export settings for exporting DXF
files, images and animations have been split into separate dialogs that are presented during the export

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 process, to allow easier customisation of the result.
When exporting animations, the option to export to an AVI file has been removed. The Windows Media Video
(WMV) format is a superior format, delivering a much smaller, higher quality result in significantly less time.

The 3D data in 3D PDF files is not supported by most PDF viewers. RungePincockMinarco
recommends using Adobe Reader, available for free from http://get.adobe.com/reader/.

Spatial Data Simplification

A new tool for simplifying and repairing tri-surfaces is now included in both the Spatial Data Set view and the
Feature Layers view. This gives the ability to reduce the triangle count of tri-surfaces without significantly
affecting the appearance of the tri-surface or affecting the actual volume or surface area. This in turn reduces
memory requirements when displaying spatial data plots, reduces load time of plots, increases the
responsiveness of the 3D view, and can dramatically improve the performance of stage plans. Additionally,
there are options for repairing common problems such as self-intersecting triangles and attempting to close
open solids, as well as removing low volume solids.
For the Spatial Data Set view, the dialog is accessible from either the View menu or the context menu in
the record tree. Before displaying, a dialog will appear allowing the selection of one or more activities to
process. The dialog will then be displayed with the spatial data for the selected activities and the record
selected in the record tree, plus all its decedents.

For the Feature Layers view, the dialog is accessible from the Simplify Tri-Surfaces button when an
individual layer is selected that contains tri-surfaces.

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 Additionally, the Feature Layer view has been updated to give priority to the preview of the feature layer, with
the statistics information now contained in a separate dialog.

Import / Export Spatial Data Templates

Multiple mapping templates can now be created for importing and exporting spatial data sets to and from
AutoCAD DXF and Vulcan binary tri-surface files. On the first page of the import and export wizards, a new
Load Template button has been added, allowing the selection of a saved template.

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 On the preview page of the import and export wizards, a Save Template button has been added, allowing the
current wizard configuration to be saved to a template. Additionally, the settings of each wizard are
automatically saved to a ‘last used’ template when the wizard finishes.

COMPANY CONFIDENTIAL AND PROPRIETARY INFORMATION 5

 Additionally, the Export Spatial Data wizard has been improved slightly to include an example of the types
of expressions that can be entered. Additionally, the validation of file paths for exporting spatial data has been
improved, and will now give more specific errors when files paths are too long or contain invalid characters.

Maximum File Size

The maximum file size for an XPAC project (XPK file) has been increased from 1 GB to 2 GB. This allows
significantly more data to be included in an XPAC project without risking the file reaching the limit.
There have also been a number of additional checks added to warn the user when the database file size
exceeds the threshold in Global Options. When that threshold is reached, the user is now given the option to
immediately close and compact the model. If the model is not using Large Model Support, the user is given
the option to convert to use Large Model Support.
An option has also been added to Global Options to automatically back up the project when it is closed.

TPL Compression
With XPAC projects getting larger and larger, the files produced when exporting data to the TPL format are
growing. XPAC 7.14 now compresses the contents of the TPL files to dramatically decrease the size of the
files, making them easier to transfer between users and computers.

Users who transfer data between XPAC 7 and XACT will need to ensure they upgrade to XACT
1.8.4 (available at the same time as XPAC 7.14). Earlier release of XACT will not read the TPL
files generated by XPAC 7.14, nor will XPAC 7.14 read the TPL files generated by earlier
releases of XACT.

1.2 Minor Enhancements

The following minor enhancements have been included in XPAC 7.14:

Work Functional Description

Item Area

69754 Spatial Data It is now possible to navigate to a record in a spatial data plot. The
Plots Navigate To context menu item now includes Spatial Data Plot; this will
select the record in the first open spatial data plot; if no plots are open,
the user will be prompted for a plot to open.

70623 Spatial Data The Record Tree View filter options no longer apply if the Record Tree
Plots View is closed.

57661 Spatial Data Both the left and right arrow keys and the mouse scroll wheel now have
Plots fine-grained control over the slider in the animation control bar.
Additionally, the skip backwards and skip forward buttons now move back
and forward by one day, allowing better control when stepping through
an animation.

14609, Scheduling A Scanning Level can now be specified for a proximity constraint.
46155 Previously, proximity constraints always applied to the lowest level

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 Work Functional Description
Item Area

records within the range. Now with the addition of the Scanning Level
setting, a proximity constraint can be applied to an upper level.

For example, setting the scanning level of a proximity constraint to the

“Pit” level would allow the number of resources that are allowed to
operate simultaneously in the same “Pit” level record to be controlled.

70810 Stage Plans If the selected spatial data set does not contain valid 3D solids, the
warning message that results has been updated to include information on
converting polygons to solids.

1.3 Bug Fixes

The following is a list of all bug fixes addressed in XPAC 7.14:

Work Functional Description

Item Area

62908 Scripting The UltraEdit syntax and colouring files have been updated to include all
scripting functions.

67134 Scripting An issue with the scripting function GetResourceADF not returning the
accumulation data field for newly-created resources has been resolved.

67135 Scripting The scripting function GetPeriodRangeForResource now correctly

returns an error if the specified resource does not exist.

47221 Scripting WriteBaseValue and DBWriteValue now accept instances of dates when
setting the value of a date field.

69923 Scripting An issue creating tri-surfaces from polygons sometimes producing an

unexpected tri-surface was resolved.

67648 Spatial Annotations in plots will display the correct value for upper-level records
Data Plots where only some of the child records exist in the current range.

68084 Spatial Fixed crash when loading a spatial data plot with a completely empty
Data Plots feature layer.

61394 Spatial A reference to Runge was updated to RungePincockMinarco.

Data Plots

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 Work Functional Description
Item Area

60220 Spatial An issue with scrolling in the Dependency Rule view was resolved.
Data Plots

61506 Spatial A problem with using the right arrow key to advance the animation scroll
Data Plots bar has been resolved.

72713 Spatial Fixed saving and reloading camera orientations. Orientations must be
Data Plots manually re-saved for this to take effect.

43238 Spatial Loading a feature layer containing text into an already-loaded plot was
Data Plots resulting in incorrectly-scaled text.

70217 Edit Spatial The Spatial Data Generation Wizard would fail silently if a polygon had less
Data than three points; it will now ignore any polygons with less than three
points, and when an error is encountered will log it to the XPAC event log
and continue processing.

71362 Internation An issue with database names created on a Windows machine with one
alisation language for non-Unicode programs setting unable to be opened on a
different Windows machine with a different language for non-Unicode
programs setting was resolved.

48603 Documenta The steps for configuring syntax highlighting in UltraEdit have been updated.
tion

62906 Documenta An error in the GetTriSurfaceCrossSection was corrected.

tion

1.4 Upgrade Implications

Models from earlier versions of XPAC will need to be upgraded before being opened in XPAC 7.14. The
upgrade will happen as part of opening the model for the first time in XPAC 7.14. Customers are strongly
encouraged to allow XPAC to take a backup of the model prior to the upgrade. Once upgraded, models cannot
be opened in an older version of XPAC.

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