Setting Advanced Options

Note

This section does not apply to users who are not administrators/staff. The functions described in this section are only accessible to administrators/staff.

To access the advanced options setup, the administrator users must login to the administration site.

Manage Company Data

In general, it is advisable to let users manage the projects, data, layers, etc. from the Pathfinder application. However, in some cases, if access is somehow impossible, the administrator can directly access the corresponding data objects.

In some cases, direct access to project and data properties is required to set some advanced options.

The MCDA (MultiCriteria Decision Analysis) section of the admin page contains links to manage the data objects (disabled links are only accessible to Gilytics staff):

Projects

Go to the Projects link to see the list of projects created by members of the company.

In this page, the administrator can see who is the owner of each project, and how many scenarios have been created within it (maybe by different users).

It is also possible to remove projects by selecting them with the checkbox and using the action “Delete selected Projects”:

By clicking on the project name we can access a page showing some of its properties, like the area and start/end points:

Some properties which may be useful to change are:

• The project owner. This user (or users) has full permissions to modify the project or remove it. The administrator can change who is the owner or add multiple owners.

• The project name.

• The project thumbnail, the small preview image that will be displayed in the Pathfinder project list page.

  

  Click on the “Choose File” button and browse for an appropriate image in your local disk, which you may have captured from the Pathfinder view. Note that the size of the thumbnail image can not be larger than 512x512 pixels.

When Gilytics activates for your company the per-project authorization mode, administrators can select here which users have access to it:

Don’t forget to click on “Save” to keep the changes.

Note

Do not remove or change properties like the project area or project points. Doing so may result in the project corruption.

Base Layers

Base Layers is the internal name for the base datasets which users can add to the company’s shared database.

WFS Base Layers are base layers added from a Web Feature Service, from which data is accessed remotely, not actually stored in the DB.

The configuration of base layers is accessible from the DB_Repository section of the admin page:

The Base Layers link opens a page listing all the uploaded datasets with their feature counts and owners:

As with other objects, we can select them and use the Delete action to remove them. However, this removal must be done carefully, because projects using removed base layers will fail to process layers created from them, for instance, if ring widths are changed.

Layers for each base layer

Administrators can now easily see which layers are using each base dataset and access their properties:

Download data source

An important addition in the base layer management is the possibility to download the original data used to create it, both for vector as well as raster datasets.

This option lets company administrators access and recover the data from Pathfinder in case the original has been lost.

Invisible base layers

Base layers also have now a flag that can be set to hide them from users. This is used by Pathfinder to make invisible “internal data” like the DEM and Slope maps generated automatically for each project, but it can also be used by company admins.

Invisible base layers will still work in existing projects using them, but users won’t be able to add them as layers into new projects.

WFS sources

The Base Layers WFS link opens a similar page listing the WFS-based base layers. The same limitations and recommendations apply to the management of this type of base layers.

This is how a typical WFS configuration looks like:

Note

Usually, it is not advisable to modify Base Layer properties. Both base datasets and base WFS data connections can be added from the Pathfinder user interface.

Layers

In the Layers link, the administrator can see the list of layers added to any of the company’s projects. In addition to the layer type and name, the category is shown.

Each layer has its own information page, showing the type, the base layer it has been created from, as well as its ring configuration and its filter in the case of vector data.

As mentioned regarding base layers, it is not advisable to modify these properties in the admin pages. These pages should be used mostly to access information, and only in exceptional cases to modify the configuration with advice from Gilytics technical support staff.

Scenarios

The Scenarios link provides access to the list of all scenarios defined in the company, indicating the project and user who owns each one. Remember that different users will have different scenarios defined in the same project.

Scenarios can be deleted here, if for some reason it is not possible to remove them from the Pathfinder application.

By clicking on each scenario’s name, the administrator can access its settings, the same fields shown in the Pathfinder scenario settings user interface in the Right Panel. This admin page can be used as an alternative way to edit these settings, but it is recommended to do so from the user interface, so that any side effect of these changes is handled properly.

Scenario Catalog

Users can save scenario configurations in the scenario catalog. Currently, the Pathfinder application does not include UI componentes to modify or remove the entries in this catalog, but this can be done in the administration pages.

In this section, we’ll see the list of all scenarios saved in our company catalog. We can select and remove those we don’t need any more.

In addition, we can select a specific catalog entry and check the list of layer configurations stored in it. We can also remove individual layer configurations from the catalog entry:

Pylons

The Pylons link provides access to the list of all pylon models available to use in the company scenarios.

Here, the properties of default pylons are visible, but can not be changed.

But the company admin can add custom pylons with the “Add Pylon” button.

In this page, these properties must be specified:

• Name of the new pylon, as it will be shown in Pathfinder

• Thumbnail image to be displayed in Pathfinder, no larger than 512x512 pixels

• Model 3D file in glTF/glb format

• Model JSON. Only needed for Augmented Reality applications

• Metadata. This is a JSON object containing some required properties

  • volt: voltage information to be displayed

  • lines: height and lateral position coordinates for all cables in meters from the center of the model’s base

  • wires: number of cables

  • height: pylon height to be displayed (the real world size of the model will be given by the 3D model file, which must use meter units)

  • sag_arc_radius: radius of the cable curve

  • minimum_distance_to_ground: in meters, for clash detection

If you need help creating custom pylons, let us know.

---

Disclaimer: the scenarios depicted in this manual do not represent actual customer projects or infrastructure proposals, and are presented for demonstration purposes only.

For more help, please use the help chat in the application, or contact Gilytics.