You do everything from the TPC Desktop - everything!
To get the most out of TPC Desktop,
open just the views you use. If you don’t use Point Codes, don’t open it. This
keeps the desktop streamlined and efficient. You can also group views together
using tabs. This frees up other areas of the desktop for other things. In the
example below, we’ve left lots of room for our drawing.
As you enter or edit survey data in
one view, the changes are reflected in every other view. So go ahead, add a
point to a traverse and it shows up automatically in the drawing and the
Points Manager. Or update the position of a point with one of the
COGO tools and watch
the line labels in the drawing update auotomatically to refelect the change.
You can think of the TPC Desktop as
your survey manager. Everything you do here is part of the current survey or job
you are working on. Add a new drawing. Edit a surface. Import field data. Write
a legal description. It’s all part of the current survey.
TPC uses the term survey to refer to a survey job. Surveys consist of traverses, points, drawings, surfaces, reports, adjustments and files. TPC Desktop works with one survey at a time. Open the survey you want or start a new one, add traverses and points, compute some coordinates, create a drawing or report then save the changes you’ve made back to the survey file. The next time you open the survey you can pick up right where you left off.
The desktop menu and toolbars (located at the top of the desktop) perform survey operations. This is where you will save the survey you are working on, import and export data, do coordinate conversions or adjust a network using Least Squares.
The TPC Desktop also provides Obvious Navigation, allowing you to easily access the data you want when you want it. Besides the desktop navigation toolbar, you also find that tabs and tab groups are great way to organize your survey data.
When you create a survey, you can enter information about the client, job, location and your own survey company. The Tasks Manager displays this information, helping you identify this survey when you open it in the future. This is a great way to make sure you have the correct survey.
This same information can also be included as variables in your drawing templates. The variable gets the information from the survey and displays it in the drawing automatically for you. You never have to add a job number or filename to a drawing again.
Choose Tools | Program Settings to customize the way TPC Desktop looks and works. Press [F1] on any tab to learn what a particular setting does.
Think of these as general settings. You’ll find more specific settings in the individual views themselves.
Personal, Premium, Professional