2.5.8. Drawing tab

The Drawing tab inside each alignment tab is a full ICAD CAD canvas running the unified TAECC drawing model. The alignment, GRD points, TIN surface and contours all live as TAECC entities on a single canvas with the standard ICAD interactions: pan, zoom, object selection, inspector, command line, layer manager, linetype manager, style managers.

Compared to the legacy bespoke renderer, the new drawing engine gives you:

  • Exact ICAD parity — the same drawing primitives as IQCAD / TunnelCAD;

  • Per-entity Style + Statistics in the object inspector (TAECC_ALIGNMENT, TAECC_SURFACE);

  • Layers + Linetypes managers (Tools menu); modal opt-in so the manager dialogs stay on top of the application window;

  • Layered AEC entities — the alignment is one entity, GRD-imported points are individual AEC points, the TIN is a TAECC_SURFACE.

2.5.8.1. Toolbar

The Drawing tab’s local toolbar:

  • Draw — clears the canvas and redraws only the alignment. Useful after importing additional GRD points (which leaves them on the canvas).

  • Zoom Extents — fit all entities in view.

  • Zoom Window — drag a rectangle to zoom in.

  • Track Chainage — toggle live chainage / offset readout in the status bar as you move the cursor over the alignment (see below).

2.5.8.2. Live chainage readout

With Track Chainage on, the bottom status bar follows the cursor and reports:

X: 101 754.883   Y: 104 707.720   Ch: 11+100.000   Off: 1.000
Elev: 134.365

— values formatted in the active linear / angular / station units. Internally this is Engine.MeasureOffset(wpt.X, wpt.Y, 0) called on each OnMouseMove, with the result fed through the Units converter. In 3D mode the plan cursor is stationed from its plan position, and the profile readout shows the 3D chainage (see 3D mode and vertical shafts). A phantom offset line is drawn from the cursor to its foot on the alignment so you can see the perpendicular visually.

Outside the alignment range the readout appends (extrapolated) to flag that the chainage is past the start or end station.

2.5.8.3. Recent files menu

File ▸ Recent Files holds the most-recently-opened alignments (up to 10), with Clear at the bottom of the submenu. The list is persisted to ~/.config/AlignmentSolver/recent.lst (or the Windows equivalent).

2.5.8.4. Style managers

Tools menu exposes the standard ICAD style dialogs:

  • Alignment Style… — TAECC_ALIGNMENT style (line, label, colour, station-tick interval).

  • Surface Style Editor… — TAECC_SURFACE style (TIN line, fill, contour visibility / colours / labels).

  • Point Style Editor… — TAECC_POINT style (glyph, colour, label).

All three open as modal dialogs (LayersFormModal / LinetypesFormModal opt-in is used internally for the manager dialogs so they don’t fall behind the main window).

2.5.8.5. ICAD inspector / command line

The Drawing tab’s left panel is wired to:

  • Object Inspector — pick an entity, see its properties including Style and (for surfaces) Statistics: triangle count, point count, area, bounds. UInspCivilEntities is force-linked in AlignSolver.lpr so TAECC_ALIGNMENT / TAECC_SURFACE get their civil-aware proxies (otherwise only the base proxy appears).

  • Command line — type ICAD commands (ZOOM E, DIST, OFFSET, etc.). The integrated TCADCommandLineHelper wires command output to the prompt and OnCommand to the registry.