The Compose Surface window allows you to order datasets by metadata values and preview your ordered datasets as a single, seamless surface.
Once you have added your previewed surface to the Table Of Contents window, you can add or remove surface rules to change the display order of the datasets. Your updates are automatically displayed in the compose surface preview.
Composing surface preview
By updating the preview in real time to reflect surface rules being applied, or to reflect manual resorting of the datasets in the list, the compose surface preview helps you understand how these rules will affect the seamless mosaicked surface.
To update the Compose Surface Preview mosaic layer, follow these steps:
- Click the Compose Surface button on the Bathymetry toolbar to open the Compose Surface window.
- Click the Add Datasets from the Explore Bathymetry Window button to add your filtered datasets from the Explore Bathymetry window.
- Click the Preview button .
The Compose Surface Preview and Bathymetry Data Index mosaic layers are added to the Table Of Contents window.
- Optionally check the Image sublayer of the Compose Surface Preview layer.
The datasets are displayed on screen.
- Load any rule file or manually apply any surface rule of your choice.
As you update the ordered list, the Compose Surface Preview mosaic layer updates in real time to reflect how the applied ordering will affect the seamless, mosaicked surface.
Selecting datasets
Once the Compose Surface Preview mosaic layer has been added to the Table Of Contents window, the ability to select dataset footprints from the Footprint sublayer becomes available. As you select dataset footprints on the map or in the table view, the equivalent datasets in the Compose Surface Preview Sorted Datasets list are automatically selected. This also works conversely: as datasets from the Sorted Datasets list are selected, their equivalent footprints in the Compose Surface Preview mosaic layer are automatically selected. This synchronous selection is useful when establishing which dataset in the list corresponds with which dataset on the map, or vice versa. This synchronous selection may also prove particularly useful when manually reordering datasets in the Sorted Datasets list and will help you to immediately understand the effect of that reordering.
- Add the Compose Surface Preview layer to the Table Of Contents window.
- Select a dataset from your Sorted Datasets list.
The dataset footprint is selected on the map.
- Click the Select Features button to make a new selection of the datasets on the map.
The datasets you selected on the map are also selected in the Sorted Datasets list.
- Right-click the Footprint sublayer in the Table Of Contents window and click Open Attribute Table from the context menu.
Only the records that are selected in the Sorted Datasets list are selected in the Attribute Table that opens.
- Select a different dataset from the Attribute Table.
The selections in the Attribute Table are automatically synchronized with the selections in the Sorted Datasets list.
- To view all datasets returned by the applied filters in the Sorted Datasets list, click the Show All Datasets button . Alternatively click the Show Selected Datasets button to only view datasets whose footprints are currently selected in the Compose Surface Preview layer.