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A RockWorks15 user recently asked: It seems whatever we choose for the width of a column, say for example lithology, it ends up with a different width each time we start a new project. This makes it difficult to export the plot to CAD as the vertical/horizontal scale must be intact. Do you have any suggestions? What exactly does the width setting for the column represent? We saved an RCL-file with our settings for 2D plots where the width of all columns are set to 0.3 and left margin 0.1. When starting a new project, importing boreholes and importing our RCL-file, the resulting striplog has columns 3.2 meters wide. Next project columns are 17.96 meters wide. It seems I'm missing out on something important here? This is a really good question. The column width is defined as a percentage of the diagonal extents of your project. If you view the project statistics (checking Show Advanced Options at the top of the project dimensions pane) you'll see that the program has computed the 3D diagonal extents of your project. A log column with a width of "1" should be 1% of that number. This sizing scheme is shared by almost everything in RockWorks: log column widths, contour label text sizes, lithology legend heights, etc. We've scaled our graphic items in this way so that a cross section extending across a large project area will scale the same, relatively, as a cross section extending across a small project area. Your contour map labels for big-project maps will scale the same, relatively, as those for small projects. Your 3D logs will scale the same, relatively, between big and small projects. And so on. Most of the diagrams created in RockWorks are project-sized, so this works well. Where the complication occurs is for individual striplogs. Striplog size settings are shared between logs-in-sections and single logs. But in single logs, since they are individual diagrams whose diagram extents are not in the context of the size of the project, then a lithology column with width = 1 will be much fatter in a log from a big project than a small one. For this reason, we've added an override to the program. In the Tools | General Preferences menu there is a Diagram Scaling heading. There, you can set the scaling to be "Based on XYZ Coordinates" (the 3D diagonal, default), "Based on XY Coordinates" (the 2D diagonal - not taking project depth into account), or "User Defined". You can try using the latter item for all of your projects, to define the constant upon which all of the diagram size settings will be based. For example, if your lithology logs at a width of 0.3 look great for Project-A whose 3D Diagonal extent is "5000", then try using that as the user defined constant in another project. Just be warned that while this works great for keeping single striplogs consistent in size between projects, you may need to change it back to variable-sizing for project-size diagrams such as maps and cross sections, 3D scenes, etc. If you are using a lot of RCL scripts, you could include this DIAGRAM_UNIT_SCHEME variable in your scripts, to adjust the scaling scheme between logs and all the other diagrams. Molly Mayfield RockWare Inc.

We had a customer recently inquire: For Rockworks15: When creating a New Field in borehole manager during an import (Location with optional fields) from Excel, I left "Field type" as "String". I could not figure out a way to change it (to Floating Point or Integer or Date...) after it was done. I ended re-creating a project and re-importing and CAREFULLY remembering to change the Field type during the set up for optional fields. Is there a way to change the type of "Field Type" on an existing field? There is no way to edit the field type in RockWorks. However, you can certainly change the field type by editing the borehole database (.MDB file) in Access and updating the data dictionaries in RockWorks. Here are the steps you would need to take: 1. In RockWorks use Project / Backup Database to create a backup snapshot of the data, as-is. 2. Close RockWorks. 3. Open Microsoft Access. 4. Open the project MDB file. 5. Open the Location table, and choose View / Design View to access the table settings. 6. Locate the name of the new field, and click in the Data Type column. 7. Change the data type from String to Number, and choose Double or Integer as appropriate. 8. Save and close Access. 9. This is important: Use Windows Explorer to browse to your project folder, and rename the "System" folder inside of it, to "System_original". This will tell RockWorks to rebuild the data dictionaries based on the database settings (e.g. with the new field type). RockWorks relies on the data dictionaries, as well as the MDB structure, to build the database in the Borehole Manager. 10. Restart RockWorks. The program should rebuild the "System" sub-folder based on the edited database, and load the project database into the Borehole Manager. 11. If you don't see your new field displayed automatically, right-click on the Location table and select Choose Optional Fields. Be sure the new field has a check-mark next to it. 12. It is sometimes necessary to run the Project / Check Database Integrity. Note that if there already is data in the new field, and if that data does not comply to a Double or Integer number format, then there is no guarantee what will happen when Access makes the field type modification. Note also that the project folder's menu settings for RockWorks are stored in a file named "menus.ini". Once the new System folder is rebuilt (as described in step 10, above) you can close RockWorks, copy "menus.ini" from the "System_original" folder to the new "System" folder, and all of your menu settings for that project will be reloaded the next time the program is launched. Molly Mayfield RockWare Inc.