The Map Editor
You start your project by drawing the a map of the area the animals are contained in. To make drawing easier you there are two feature to help you. They can be used in both modes. To draw a straight line regardless of the exact mouse position hold down the Shift key while setting a point. If you check the Snap to grid box you can only set points on the crossing lines on a grid. This helps in setting the points more precise. The size of the grid can be changed in the General Options dialog in the File menu (or by pressing Ctrl+G). The grid is invisible by the way. You can change the size of the area by changing the values Width and Height on the top right of the window. On the bottom of the window in the statusbar you see three values if the mousepointer is in the drawing area. These are the x and y positions of the mousepointer and the scalefactor. If you zoomed in and your map is not completely visible anymore you can move the view of the map by moving the scrollbarhandles or by pressing the cursor keys. You can change this scalefactor to zoom in or out of the map. This can be done with the Page Up and Page Down keys or additionaly with the mousewheel if you use the MS Windows version. To increase the zoomfactor more rapidly press the Shift key while changing the scalefactor.
There are two drawing options:
Plan Here you can draw a map of the observed area. To draw a line click on the Draw Lines button and click on the drawing area to set a point. You will see a line following the mouse pointer. Click another time to fixate the point an to draw a line. If you are finished with one object (an object with consecutive lines) click on the right mouse button and the line following the mouse pointer disappears. The Draw Lines button is now released and the Delete Points button is pushed. To start drawing another object click on the right mouse button again and the Draw Lines button is pushed and you can set another starting point.
You can delete points if the Delete Points button is pushed. You can either push it directly or switch the modes with the right mouse button. Click on a point and the point should be deleted together with any lines leading to the point.
Areas The distance to other animals is only calculated if the animals are in the same area. The drawing of an area works like drawing the map. The only difference is that an area is always a closed polygon and every area has a number. The number is needed in the distancecalculation. You also can see right away if certain animals are in the same area.