A product that has not yet been released doesn't generate a lot of user questions.  But in support of you pioneers who are beta testing our product, we offer the following "Frequently Anticipated Questions":

Q.  I had a number of surfaces already loaded, and when I loaded a new surface (from the same map series) the old ones vanished.

A.  Was the new surface west of all the old surfaces?  Was it east of all of them?  If either is true, you probably crossed a UTM zone boundary.  This normally requires a different projection.  If you wish to simultaneously display maps from adjacent UTM zones in a UTM projection, go to the File menu, choose Coordinate System, and under "Force use of current system:" click the When map series is unchanged button.  Now all large scale and intermediate scale surfaces will be displayed as if they belonged to the UTM zone first loaded (assuming that they are either in that zone or an adjacent zone.)
 

Q.  When using Go GNIS to load a surface for a named location, how do I specify which map series I want to see?

A.  Currently you cannot.  Go GNIS always loads the same map series as is currently displayed.  The suggested work-around is to load a surface of the desired map series before using Go GNIS.  This extra step will be eliminated in a future release of XViewSDTS.
 

Q.  How do I tell XViewSDTS which projection I want to see?

A.  XViewSDTS normally chooses the projection based on the coordinate system used by the SDTS files.  You cannot directly specify a projection.  But you can lock-in the current coordinate system.  So, if you wanted to see a small scale map projected as UTM, you could first load a large scale map from the same area, go to the File Menu, choose Coordinate System, and under "Force use of current system:" click the Whenever Reasonable button.  Now all surfaces, including small scale, will be projected as UTM.  (Well, as the button said, "whenever reasonable."  If you load a surface for a place that is not within the current or an adjacent UTM zone, XViewSDTS will consider that "unreasonable" and revert to the native coordinate system of the surface being loaded.)
 
 

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