FAQ

1. Can I directly view visualisations on the AusGeol website?

No, not at this stage. All visualisations are provided as files for download and subsequent display using third party software. If you are using specific models for a teaching exercise, we suggest that they should be downloaded and stored on a local file server to avoid delays with file download.

2. What browser would you recommend to view the AusGeol website?

The website has primarily been tested on PC's using Google Chrome, with some degree of testing on Mac's using Safari and on smart phones. There are known issues with Internet Explorer which we are currently working on. 

3. What is the best download format for 3D photogrammetric models?

The low resolution PDF is usually the smallest file and it provides a reasonable view of the geological features. We suggest you download this file first to review the visualisation then select one of the full resolution files. Photoscan project files are the largest files but potentially provide the highest quality visualisation. Full resolution PDF files have the same resolution as Photoscan projects but visualisation in Adobe Acrobat is not as sharp as Photoscan.  Google KMZ format is fully georeferenced and is the file format used for the GeoPlanes structural analysis application. Details of all file formats are provided on the File Formats tab  http://www.ausgeol.org/file formats.

4. Downloaded Photoscan projects do not contain the original photographs and hence cannot be reprocessed. Why is this?

We have deliberately removed the photos from the Photoscan projects as they are only intended for display. Students cannot inadvertently reinitialise the model or alter model characteristics on these files. If you have a specific need for a full Photoscan project file, please contact us and we can provide it to you.

5. When I download a Full Spherical Panorama it is just a distorted jpeg image. How do I view these visualisations in 3D?

There are a number of free panorama viewers but we recommend that you download and install FSP Viewer (http://www.fsoft.it/FSPViewer/download/) to view these files.

6. When I download a file from the AusGeol website my browser warns me that two files are being downloaded. Why is this and should I allow this download?

When you download a file from the website, a metadata record (information about the visualisation) is automatically generated from the database and stored in an html (text) file. This very small file is downloaded in addition to the visualisation file. If you receive a warning from your browser, please accept the option to download multiple files from the AusGeol site.

7. When there are many visualisations in a small area they appear as a cluster at the maximum zoom level. Is there any way to display the visualisations as separate features?

In principle, if you could zoom in far enough then these clustered sites would appear as separate dots on the map. However, the maximum zoom level is currently controlled by the web map servers that provide the background imagery. We are currently investigating options to get around this limitation.

8. If I zoom in while viewing the site atlas with the Geoscience Australia geology layer displayed, the geology disappears before I have zoomed in to a suitable scale for selection of features. Why is this, and is there any way to fix it?

The maximum zoom level for the geological background layer is set by Geoscience Australia based on the scale of map production and the data is not provided by the Geoscience Australia map server when the zoom level exceeds this threshold. Unless Geoscience Australia alter their policy relating to data access, this cannot be altered. In the future the atlas display will include the option to link to an external web map server so that alternate geological layers from other repositories (State Geological Surveys etc) can be visualised as background layers.