Path Profile Settings

The Path Profile Settings button brings up a dialog to control various settings of the Path Profile.

The Path Profile Settings button is found in the toolbar at the top of the path profile window.

General Settings

Elevation Display units control the units on the Path Profile elevation axis, as well as the other elevation settings used to control the elevation range in the path profile window.

Scale Start Distance determines the starting value of the x-axis (distance on the ground) of the Path Profile window. If set to 0 the distance will be determined automatically.

Custom Scale Spacing determines the spacing of the tick x-axis of the Path Profile window. Units in the drop down menu will change based on the path's distance relative to 1 km. Profiles smaller then 1 km can choose from units such as Meters and Feet, while profiles larger than 1 km will be able to choose between units such as Kilometers and Miles. If the Use Global Distance Unit option is chosen, or the profile line is shorter than the custom scale spacing, the spacing will revert to default Configuration settings for Distance Units. If set to 0 the distance will be determined automatically.

Elevation Corridor

The Elevation Corridor options specify the elevation corridor width and what values to use along the corridor (i.e. minimum, maximum, or average). If an elevation corridor is used, a dashed line will indicate the elevation exactly along the path of the profile line, while the regular red line with green fill will show the chosen sampling value (min., max., or avg.) along the elevation corridor. (These colors may also be customized from the right-click context menu).
The profile corridor samples elevations along a line perpendicular to each sample location, the length of which is set by the Distance from Path value in the options. The number of samples along the corridor is determined so that it captures the full resolution of the available elevation layers.

3D Display Options

The 3D Display options can render a terrain cutaway in the 3D viewer. These settings allow for cutting a cross-section into the 3D terrain display and showing the profile graph. This can be done with either a single cutaway or a four-way cutaway. The four-way cutaway uses the Max. distance from Path in the Elevation Corridor settings above to build the width of the cutaway. See more information here.

Additional Options

Display Location of Each Line Vertex - Shows the intermediate path vertices as yellow dots.

Draw Selected Line Path - When the path profile is generated from a 3D line feature, such as a flight line or pipeline, check this option to display the line on the profile window.

Draw Line/ Area Features that Cross Path - Displays line and area features that cross the path as points with vertical lines. These features are colored based on their style in the Main Map. This can be controlled from the Layer Options in the Control Center.

Draw 3D Point Features in Path Corridor - Displays 3D point features, such as control points, that fall within the Path Profile width specified in the Lidar Display Options of the Path Profile Settings. No points will display in a Path Profile using only gridded terrain data since the corridor width is not applicable with gridded data.

Draw Separate Line for Path from Each Terrain Layer - If there are multiple terrain layers and you check this option, you will see a separate path profile drawn for each terrain layer under the path (in addition to the main profile from the topmost layer at each location as before). Elevation Scale may also be set to match distance, and Interpolate Elevations to Fill No Data Regions may be disabled (it is on by default).

Draw Legend When Drawing Separate Layer Lines - Select this option to enable a legend when multiple terrain lines are drawn. This legend can be grabbed and dragged to place it around the path profile window. The terrain descriptions listed for the different layers are set by the Layer Description shown in the Control Center.

Draw Elevation Guide Lines - Turns on the dashed horizontal elevation guide lines.

Draw Start and Stop Position Labels - This setting will indicate coordinates of the beginning and end of the profile line at the top of the profile graph. These will show as 'From Pos:' and 'To Pos:'

Display From/To Coordinate in Selected View Projection - This options will show coordinates of the path profile based on the display projection. This is set in the Configuration menu on the Projection Tab.

Interpolate Elevation to Fill No Data Regions - This option will interpolate the elevation values from known location on the path (linear interpolation) to fill in missing data. It will also draw straight lines at the edge of the data based on the last measured elevation value. Unchecking this option sets the unknown elevation values to minimum elevation values in the Path Profile for any location along the path that contains No Data. No-data areas will be replaced with the minimum elevation along the profile.

Display Path Profile Cutaway Walls in 3D - When an alternate 3D display option is selected, this setting will display the profile cutaway with a solid vertical wall. For more information see Path Profile with 3D Cutaway

Perpendicular Profile settings

Perpendicular Profile options allow displaying a series of Profiles Perpendicular to the Path. The Perpendicular Sampling... button determines where along the path perpendicular profiles are measured.

Restrict Elevation Range Near Extracted Features - This option allows for restricting the path profile elevation range relative to features being extracted by Custom Feature Extraction. The elevation will be restricted to within some elevation distance of the min/max range of the feature elevations. So if you have a range of 2m and your features cover from 5-8m, the profile will show at most 3-10m. This makes it easy to digitize things with a very tight vertical range (like curbs) when you might have data showing a lot more, like trees and buildings along with the road features.

Elevation Range

Clamp Top Displayed Elevation to - This determines the maximum visible elevation value visible in the path profile viewer. The default maximum is determined automatically.

Clamp Bottom Displayed Elevation to - This determines the lowest elevation value visible in the path profile viewer. The default minimum is 0.

Elevation Scale

These options control the elevation values displayed on the vertical axis of the path profile window.

Use Default Elevation Scale - Enable this option to have Y axis spacing be determined automatically.

Use Custom Elevation Scale Spacing - This setting allows the user to specify the distance between lines on the Y-axis to a custom value. The value must be greater or equal to 0, and if set to 0 the distance will be determined automatically.

Match Elevation Scale to Distance Scale - This option allows you to scale the Y-axis (the elevation values) to match the scale of the X-axis (distance on the ground). The Enter Vertical Exaggeration dialog allows you to determine the scale factor of the elevation values to the distance values.

Lidar Display Options

These settings require an active Global Mapper Pro. They allow for rendering Lidar points within the Path Profile view and specifying a distance within which to include Lidar points near the path.

For more information see Using the Path Profile Tool with Lidar Data

Display Lidar Points Along and Near the Path - This option requires Global Mapper Pro.

Restore Defaults

This button will restore the default values and settings for the dialog. This is useful for resetting the dialog.