CloudCompare forum

Hi,

I'm looking to map some joints and am trying to use the trace tool in the Compass plugin. Once I trace and accept the feature I can't seen to find where the orientation of the new plane is or how to export them.
Sorry for the novice question, I'm new to the program.

Thank you!

Hi 12olc,

Compass doesn't fit-planes to traces by default, as this can get annoying when tracing things like contacts (that might not be planar). To make the plugin fit a plane you need to either:
(1) Press "Shift+Enter" rather than "Enter" when accepting the trace, or;
(2) Activate "Fit Planes" in the trace menu (next to the undo button).

Once a fit-planes has been computed it should appear in the DB Tree as a Plane object who's name gives the dip and dip-direction. After you've finished digitizing your joints, you can then export all the planes in the workspace to a friendly .csv format using the export button in Compass (save icon).

Finally, it is worth noting that Compass will refuse to fit a plane to a trace that is close to co-linear (as this can give very misleading results). When this happens a warning will appear in the console - though if you are certain that you want to compute a best fit plane then you can select the trace and fit a plane using Edit->Plane->Fit. Just beware that the trace may not contain enough 3D information to actually constrain the 3D orientation of your structure!

Hope this helps,
Sam

That's exactly what I was looking for, Thanks Sam!