12. Saving and exporting

12.1. SPIERSview compact and presurfaced files (.spv)

When viewing an ‘spv’ format file, the Save Changes command (Ctrl-V) on the SPIERSview menu will save the file in whatever format (compact or presurfaced) it was opened in. SPIERSview will also ask if you want to save changes before exiting; this also will use the format the file was opened in. The Save Compact As… or Save Presurfaced As… commands on the SPIERSview menu are also provided – these force the file to save in whichever of these two formats you specify, and can hence be used to convert between the two

12.2. SPIERSview finalised files (.spvf)

The Export Finalised… command on the SPIERSview menu saves a copy of the current ‘.spv’ file in Finalised format (see above), for rapid view-only loading. As finalised format is internally implemented using VAXML, a few restrictions apply and are checked at save-time. The most significant of these is that all groups must have unique names; if this is not true you will receive a warning, and the file will not be written.

If the Export Hidden Objects item on the SPIERSview menu is ticked, all objects are exported. If it is not ticked, the visibility of each object is used to determine whether or not it is exported. Note that this is simply the presence of absence of the ‘eye’ icon next to the object in the Objects panel; an object might be set to visible (and hence be exported) but not appear onscreen in SPIERSview because the group it belongs to is hidden.

Groups are always exported, whether hidden or not.

12.3. VAXML/STL datasets

The Export VAXML/STL… command on the SPIERSview menu exports the current ‘.spv’ file as a VAXML file, plus associated STL files (SPIERSview cannot export PLY files). One STL file is created per object, and these are placed in a subdirectory called <filename>_stl where <filename> is the supplied name for the VAXML file. There is no option to export STL files without also creating a VAXML file (although the latter can of course be manually deleted if it is not required).

The Export Hidden Objects item on the SPIERSview menu works in the same way as for SPIERSview finalised files.

12.4. DXF files

The Export DXF… command on the SPIERSview menu exports the current ‘.spv’ file as a DXF triangle mesh. Objects are exported with their correct names, but neither groups nor colours are preserved.

The Export Hidden Objects item on the SPIERSview menu works in the same way as for SPIERSview finalised files.

12.5. Screen Capture

The Screen Capture… command on the SPIERSview menu exports the current Main view windows as either a JPEG (.jpg), Windows Bitmap (.bmp), Portable Network Graphic (.png) or Tagged Image File Format (.tiff) file. The exact image visible (at the resolution visible) is used – for best quality remove all panels and maximise the SPIERSview window to obtain a large view window, and use Anti-aliasing (see previous section).