Depth
A depth is a grouping of layers displayed at a pre-defined zoom factor. The depth allows you to navigate up and down through a graphic to view increasing levels of functional detail.
When you create a graphic, a layer and a depth are automatically generated and associated with the graphic. Though you must have at least one layer associated with a graphic, it is not necessary to have an associated depth; therefore, using the default depth is optional. Each time you create a new depth, a layer is created and associated with the new depth.
When a graphic or a graphic template is opened, the initial depth is selected as follows:
- If you open the graphic or graphic template, by clicking on a data point, the depth is determined by the primary selection of the point.
- If you open the graphic directly in the Graphics Viewer, the depth with the largest display size is selected.
- If you open the graphic in the Graphics Viewer by clicking on a manual viewport, the depth from the viewport is used. If the viewport has no depth associated with it, then the depth with the largest display size is selected.
- If you have a point associated with a manual viewport, the viewport has a higher priority for depth calculation.
The Depths view is where you create, delete, and rename depths, as well as select which existing layer to associate with a given depth. For each depth, you can also manually set the display size and the Symbol scale factor.
Planning Your Depths
When you create a new depth the current display size (based on the current zoom factor) is stored and displayed with the depth. If required, this display size can be manually modified.
When you select a depth from the Depths view, the layers belonging to the depth display and the zoom factor is set so that the current display size is defined in the active depth.
Depths and Automatic Viewports
When you save a graphic, the Graphics Editor automatically generates a viewport and for every system object referenced in the graphic the depth of a graphic is used to help define the size of the viewport.
For automatic viewports to display properly, the Auto Fit property of the Graphic must be deselected.
For every reference to a system object in a graphic you save, the following occurs:
- The depth associated to the layer where the system object is referenced is chosen.
- The depth is stored with the automatically calculated viewport. Therefore, when the viewport is displayed in the Graphics Viewer, it reads the depth and displays all the layers belonging to the associated depth.
- If the referenced system object has no siblings:
- The display size of the page defaults to the displayed zoom factor of its associated depth.
- The referenced system object is placed in the center of the viewport.
- If the referenced system object has siblings, meaning that there are other system objects that have the same parent node (or graphic):
- The viewport size is adjusted so that all siblings are visible in the graphic page.
- The viewport centers the referenced system object, group of siblings, in the middle of the viewport.
Related Topics
For related procedures, see Defining Depths.
For workspace overview, see Depths View.