Plan sheets

A plan sheet is a plan drawn to a mapping standard over one of your apps: its sheet size, scale, coordinate grid, title block and conventional signs, set up once and kept, so it can be opened, changed and printed again at any time. Studio → Plan sheets lists them with their app, standard and the date they last changed.

#Standards

A standard brings together everything a plan of a given kind must follow: the coordinate systems and scales it allows, the way the grid is drawn, the title block and its fields, the sheet layouts and the conventional signs. The standards available in your workspace — for example a topographic plan or an engineering-geological plan — are those set up for your region. Your organisation's own standard, title block or sign set can be added on request through Contact us.

#Making one

Under the list, New plan sheet asks for a Name, the App whose layers the plan draws, and the Standard. The standard fills in everything else to begin with: the sheet, the scale, the coordinate system, the grid, and the title block and its language.

#Setting it up

The sheet opens on the app's map with the plan's map frame drawn over it at the chosen scale. Move the map under the frame: the frame is what the paper will hold. Fit the frame brings the plan's layers into it.

• Sheet — the paper size and orientation.
• Scale and Coordinate system — a value outside the standard is allowed, with a warning.
• Sheet language — the language of the title block's captions.
• Under the plan — White paper (the default, as plans are usually printed) or one of the app's basemaps.
• Title block — its fields, filled in once: document designation, object, drawing title, organisation, stage, sheet number, and who drew, checked and approved the plan, with the dates.
• Layers — which of the app's layers the plan shows.

Save keeps the sheet. If someone else saved it after you opened it, Cartema tells you and keeps your changes on screen until you reload.

#Labels

On a plan every label is drawn; none is hidden because it touches another. Click a label to pick it up (Shift-click to pick several), then:

• drag it to move it — a leader line ties it to its feature when it is moved away;
• [ and ] turn it, or type its Angle °;
• Text on this sheet changes its wording on this sheet only, not in the data;
• Delete or Hide removes it from the sheet; Hidden labels lists them, to Show again;
• Put back returns it to its default place, and Ctrl+Z (⌘Z on a Mac) undoes.

The sheet keeps only the labels you changed, so features added later are labelled automatically.

#Printing and DXF

Print PDF makes the sheet. The map is drawn from the full-precision coordinates, so a ruler on the paper agrees with the scale. The PDF is a GeoPDF, which GIS software places on the ground, and the sources of the layers shown are credited on the sheet.

Download DXF (as saved) gives the same plan for CAD software, in its coordinate system and at ground scale: a CAD layer for each class of each layer, points as blocks, labels where you placed them, and the frame, grid and title block. Save the sheet first: the DXF is made from the saved version.

#Signs and hatching

How each feature appears on the plan comes from its style. In Studio's style editor, a layer — or one class of it — can take one of the standard's signs, and areas can take a Hatching pattern (sand, clay, limestone, orchards, marsh and more), drawn at its true size in millimetres at every scale. The legend then uses the standard's names. See Styles and print layouts.

Contour lines from an elevation model are made in Studio → Datasets; see Your data.