Cross-sections

A cross-section is a scaled drawing of the ground along a line across your site. You draw the line on the map, GIMLabs works out which locations fall near it, and each one is placed at its true distance along the line and its true level, drawn from your own section log template.

Open Sections in the map's side panel to start.

The line and its buffer#

Draw the section line across the map. It can be a straight line or a series of segments; the drawing runs along it from one end to the other.

Around the line sits a buffer - a distance either side, in metres, that decides which locations are captured. A hole inside the buffer is projected onto the line and drawn at that point; a hole outside it is ignored. Widen the buffer to pull in more of the site, narrow it to keep the drawing to the holes that genuinely sit on the line.

Chainage origin sets the distance the line starts at. Leave it at 0 for a line that starts at zero, or set it to carry on the chainage of a neighbouring section.

Which locations are drawn#

Locations shows how many of the captured holes are included - 5/6 means one has been left out. Open it to tick and untick individual holes.

Two reasons to exclude one: it is inside the buffer but not really on the line, or it is so close to a neighbour that the two strips overlap. Excluding a hole changes only the drawing - the location, its data and every other section are untouched.

Scales#

A section has a horizontal and a vertical scale, each stated as the N in 1:N.

Leave either blank and it is set to Fit - the largest drawing that fits the space available. Name a scale and the drawing is made at that scale instead, which is how you pin a section to a round number like 1:100 or 1:250 for issue.

Giving the two axes different scales is vertical exaggeration, and is normal on a section where the site is far wider than it is deep.

Extent#

Extent decides how much of the captured ground is drawn, without changing the line or which holes were captured:

• Drawn from and Drawn to crop the drawing to a stretch of chainage.
• Top and Base crop it to a range of level, in mAOD. Leave either on Fit to take it from the data.

Cropping is presentation only. Moving the line to crop a drawing would change which holes it captures and therefore the geology on it, which is why the two are kept apart.

Hatching#

Hatching decides how the geology bands are filled:

• Main soil type only groups each band by its main soil type, so every variety of clay is drawn as CLAY with one hatch and one key entry. This is the default and it is what keeps the key readable.
• Full geology code draws every code exactly as logged, so Sandy gravelly CLAY gets its own hatch and its own key entry.

Both draw from your configuration's geology legend, so a section matches the logs beside it. See the geology legend for how patterns, colour fills and main types are set up.

Producing the PDF#

Pick the Section sheet - the page the drawing is placed on - and the Section log - how each hole is drawn as a strip. Both come from Template, and every configuration ships with a standard set.

Generate, and you get a PDF at the scales stated on it.

One line, many drawings#

A saved section line is an alignment, not a drawing. You can produce several sections from the same line - one at 1:100 for the report and another at 1:20 for a detail, or the same line cropped to different stretches of chainage - and they all keep the one set of geometry. Move the line and every drawing of it follows, rather than the copies quietly drifting apart.

Schematic sections#

A schematic is not a scaled section. There is no line and no projection: you pick the holes, set the order they appear in and the spacing between them, and they are drawn side by side. Use one to compare logs where the true geography is not the point.