Thread View: net.rec.caves
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Started by nose
Tue, 13 Dec 1983 17:34
Cave Mapping Programs
Author: nose
Date: Tue, 13 Dec 1983 17:34
Date: Tue, 13 Dec 1983 17:34
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I'm interested in obtaining information about programs for storage
and plotting of cave survey data. I am particularly interested in
anything that would run on an Apple. Programs that run under UNIX
are also of interest to me. If anyone has any info, it would be greatly
appreciated!
-Steve Dunn
UUCP: {allegra,ucbvax,amd70,hao}!nbires!nose
Re: Cave Mapping Programs
Author: Prentiss Riddle
Date: Mon, 19 Dec 1983 22:42
Date: Mon, 19 Dec 1983 22:42
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You may already know about this, but a former boss of mine, Dave McKenzie,
is the author of what is reputedly the state-of-the-art cave surveying
program. The main thing that makes it unique is Dave's algorithm for
closing loops and minimizing survey errors in three-space. The algorithm
was the fruit of Dave's master's thesis in math. In addition, of course,
the program has the plotting features you'd expect -- arbitrary scaling,
rotation in three-space, and also the nice ability to fake an approximate
sketch of tunnel walls given only skeletal survey data plus occasional
estimates of tunnel width. (Does that last sentence make any sense? My
knowledge of caving survey lingo is almost nil.)
I've been out of touch with Dave for about two years now. When I still
worked for him, the program was written in aged and creaky fortran and ran
on the University of Texas's cybers. Since then, Dave has started a private
consulting firm writing business software for micros and has reputedly
rewritten the program in pascal to run under CPM.
According to the Austin phone book, Dave can be reached at:
David W. McKenzie
8503 Shenandoah
Austin, TX 787??
(512)-836-8133
At last report, Dave was still an enthusiastic caver and regularly provided
computing support to the various Mexican caving projects operating out of
Texas. He's a very helpful fellow and will probably be glad to answer your
questions. If you write him, tell him "hi" from me.
----
Prentiss Riddle
{ihnp4,seismo,ctvax}!ut-sally!riddle
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