CUCC Expedition Handbook: Surveying
Base Camp: from muddy book to Survex plot

The original notes and sketches should be filed in a clearly marked envelope - don't take them caving again and don't leave them lying around to be "Gössered" !

The notes (all of them, including dates, personnel, calibration, LRUD, station details, etc.) should be copied onto a fresh page of the Survey Book while everyone's memory is still fresh (this helps if something is only marginally legible). This should be proof checked by someone else. Current survey books are divided into "Kaninchenhöhle" (usually referred to as "KH Survey book") and "surface stuff and other caves" (usually referred to as "notKH survey book"). There should be an index page at the front, which you should also fill in so that people can find your survey again.

The data should be typed into whichever computer is being used for the survey, again including all the notes, including station details and passage names (and make a backup copy to a floppy or another machine). It is absolutely essential that you also fill in details of which survey book the notes are in, with page numbers.

Survex has its own documentation for the format of the data, though the template file and a look at someone else's data will quickly make this fairly clear. Survex has some very flexible data entry options, so there are a few extra guidelines to try to get some consistency in the way everyone uses it within this project.

• It will be easiest if you start from one of the existing template files, as these have lines to remind you to add various details - make sure you don't leave any blanks! Copy this to where you want to put your data before editing it (with any luck, the template should be on CD-ROM, so you can't trash it :-).
• Filenames: Because Survex is used on different sorts of computer, it is best to use filenames which won't get changed when the files are moved between systems. On a PC this means using xxxxxxxx.SVX, where "xxxxxxxx" is a name of letters, numbers and maybe the underscore character, with a maximum length of eight. On an Acorn machine, the equivalent filename is "xxxxxxxx/SVX", and should have a filetype of "Text". Note that this must be kept in an image filing system such as SparkFS (.ZIP), X-files or DOSFS (which is most logical) to avoid truncation. I know Windows lets you have long meaningful names, but these tend to get lost on DOS floppies, or when moved to other machines. For directories (=folders), use a maximum of eight characters with no extension.
• Where to put your data: If in doubt, ASK ! If it is a surface survey, it goes in the "Surface" directory. If it is a file of fixed points (like GPS fixes, or map coordinates), it goes in the "FixedPts" directory. If it is a new or minor cave on the plateau, it goes in "Plateau", if it is on the Vorderer Schwarzmooskogel above the Stellerweg system, or it is somewhere near 161 (but not connected to it), it goes in "VSKcaves". If it is downhill from Stellerweg (near the Stogerweg path), it goes in "Stoger". If it is underground survey which connects to the Stellerweg system, then it goes in "41.CUCC". There is a "41.Arge" folder for data we get from the Germans doing resurvey and new stuff in this cave, and a "78" folder which is for their Schwabenschacht stuff. "182" is for Puffball, and "161" is for the great mass of Kaninchenhöhle data.

  The KH data is split into areas in directories "136" (all of 136 and the Forbidden Land), "Chile" (everything from the start of 1999), "France" (all the vertical France stuff, and flat France up to approx French Revolution), "LHR" (all the left hand routes, and Ambidextrous), "North" (everything from Carrefour north, including Siberia), "PHumour" (all Puerile Humour, Iceland etc.), "RHR" (all the right hand routes, and through Knossos to Carrefour), "Top" (just stuff near 161a entrance) and "Triassic" (Triassic Park and all its side leads except Puerile Humour). If you really aren't sure where your data should go, there is nothing to stop you using a "New" directory.

  There is a complete index to all the existing surveys, which should enable you to find the data for any survey station, once you know its name. It's a fair bet that if your survey connects to a station in one directory, your survey data should go in that same directory.

• What to call your survey: all your data should be inside a begin/end pair with a meaningful name. There is nothing to stop you nesting these, so you might use the name "mysurvey" and put two lots of data from different trips in as "mysurvey.pt1" and "mysurvey.pt2". There is no restriction on the length of these names, but as they can be displayed in Caverot, it helps not to have anything too elaborate. Older versions of Survex required each prefix to be unique in its first eight characters, and this is not a bad guideline to follow. These names are not the same as the filename you used, since one file may contain a number of related surveys.
• Every station should have a number within your survey even if it is an existing station to which you have connected. Any survey stations which you think can reliably be found again should be listed at the start of your survey file. This includes the name (within your survey) of any existing points you linked into. I have used lines like
  ;*export mysurvey.pt1.0 ; 2nd bolt at head of new pitch
  this may or may not catch on as a standard.

At this stage, you have done enough to get a centre line for drawing up. If you aren't completely confident about the structure of the Austria data, it may be best not to try to link your survey to everything else so skip the next bit and read on from here.

However, if you need to see your survey in relation to the rest of the cave:

• Don't put any *equate directives to other surveys into your file (or any survey legs which quote station names from other survey files). Instead, go to the file which *includes the other files in the same area. For example, if you have created a file Trivial.svx in the PHumour directory, go to the file AllPH/svx, where you will find *include lines for each of the files, together with the *equate lines to connect them together. Add an include for your file, and *equate lines for each of your survey stations which is the same as one in another survey. If your survey connects to points in surveys in files in more than one directory then the *equates should go in the All161/svx file, but at this stage it is probably worth enlisting the help of someone who knows the structure of the data inside-out !
• Make a note in the history file of the changes you made to the controlling file (in this case AllPH/svx), and the fact that you added a new file.
• You should now find that if you run Survex on one of the master files (Just161.svx, JustSurf.svx, AllCaves.svx, etc.) which includes the area of your new survey, it is linked in and will show up when you use the resultant .3d file in CaveRot. Using Just161.svx should give info on how long and how deep the cave is now.

To make that all a bit more concrete, here is a fictitious example of a survey off Triassic Park. Lets say that you went to explore a lead from the QM list numbered 98-23, that the nearest survey station was listed as Triassic.pt2.45 and you found it successfully. You surveyed back from a bolt at the end of your new passage where exploration has stopped for the time being, and it took 37 survey legs to get back to Triassic Park:

; > Triassic.Wibble : Wibbled by Gösser off Triassic Park


*begin Wibble
; Locn: Loser Plateau, Austria, Kataster Gruppe 1623
; Cave: Kaninchenhohle, 1623/161

; ====== stations refindable to link to other surveys: ======

;*export pt1.37 ; CM in Triassic Park II on L wall just past way to Wibble

; ====== links between surveys making up the Wibble survey: ======

*equate pt1.0 pt2.23

*begin pt1

; Cave: Kaninchenhohle, 1623/161
; Survey Name:  Wibbled by Gösser - passage from QM 98-23
; Date: 2000.08.03
; By:   Inst:   M I Opic
;       Notes:  D S Lexic
;       Pics:   DSL
;       Tape:   Both
; Instruments:  Compass # 873542, Clino # 923473, 30m fibron tape
; Calibration:  at 161d
;       A->B    214, -09
;       B->A    035, +08
; ref.: 2000 KH survey book pp 21-26

; ====== stations refindable to link to other surveys: ======

;*export 0      ; 2nd bolt at head of new pitch
;*export 37     ; CM in Triassic Park II on L wall just past way to Wibble

; Tape was 20cm too short (snapped on first pitch on way down)-:
*calibrate tape  +0.20
*calibrate clino -0.5

;From   to      Tape    Compass Clino
0       1       16.35   007     -32
2       1        4.22   195     +03  ; legs from 1 to 13 are in Zipfer Rift
; etc.
36      37       3.12   037     -47

;station details
;name   L       R       U       D       E       details
;0      0       1.1     3.2     pitch   ?       2nd bolt
;1      1.2     0.3     4.1     0.6             thread: start traverse line
; etc.
;36     0.2     0.2     1.0     2.5             in squeeze - widest point
;37     1.4     0.8     6.2     1.3             existing station in TP2

*end pt1

*begin pt2

; etc. for part two survey

*end pt2
*end Wibble

That lot would be typed by copying template/161.svx to 161/triassic/wibble.svx and then filling in the blanks and adding your data. If you are linking to the rest of the survey then in the file 161/triassic/alltri.svx add the lines:

; 2000 surveys:
*equate Wibble.pt1.37 Triassic.pt2.45
*include Wibble

If you are entering a surface survey, copy from template/surf.svx and for underground survey other than Kaninchenhöhle, use template/ug.svx Remember not to put surface data and underground data in the same file, even if they are part of one continuous survey. You need to create two files, with a defined station for the entrance, and a suitable equate in the file which includes both surface stuff and underground stuff.

Once you have your data typed in and checked, it must be run through the survey software (which on expo will be Survex) and a centre line printed, both for plan and for extended elevation. Measure the print out to check that it really has printed at the scale you wanted (typically 1:500), as this has sometimes caused problems in the past.

Now see the "Drawing it up" page.