We all have our limits

Note that I am trying a new method of posting code, hope it works better but of course the original code itself can always be downloaded from the website where it is stored.

Quite often when writing some sort of import function I would like to limit the data imported to certain physical constraints. I started out asking the user if they want to only act on coordinate values that fall within a bounding box, then if they said yes, prompt them to ID the bounding line. This works great as far as it goes, as part of the ID function I would set a flag (in this case BoundrySet) to 1 then later in the program if BoundrySet was true the IsPointInside method of the Line class could be called. Something like....

if BoundrySet :
if BoundingLine.IsPointInside (X,Y): Do something

But then I got thinking, there are several easy ways to check for bounding areas without having a line already digitized. How about using the screen boundaries, or digitizing a rectangle based on the lower left and upper right corners, or for that matter just start digitizing points and create a line in memory on the fly. Well it turns out that I already had the snippets I needed in other functions so just copied them out, cleaned them up a bit (and I do mean a bit, it still isn't particularly pretty, but it works) and created a basic function that I can paste into any program where spatial filtering is helpful.

There are a couple of caveats. Using the rectangle select mode requires that you select the lower left point first, then the upper right based on the screen orientation. I'll probably clean this up some day and allow for more flexibility but it falls into the "quick hack for some purpose, and I know how it acts" category of code that gets the job done but isn't as attractive as it should be. Using the "Digitize" mode allows the user to start clicking on positions and builds the boundary line on the fly, if it would be helpful it would be just as easy to record the line for future interaction but for now I just throw it on the screen. The nice thing about this dialog is that it behaves just the way you expect so if the focus is in the drop down and you hit an 'r' rectangle mode will be activated and so on.

print 'SetBoundary.py modified 8:00 AM 5/15/2009'
# Set spatial bounding for processing
'''
Copyright 2009 Dennis Shimer, M.A.N. Mapping Services Inc.
No warranties as to safety or usability expressed or implied.
Free to use, copy, modify, distribute with author credit.

Really just a container for the code snippet that would do spatial
filtering as part of a larger program. Just written as working code
here for testing purposes.

Variables of interest:
None
'''
import math

BoundingLine=PyVrLine()
Gr=PyVrGr ()
Gui=PyVrGui()
BoundrySet=0

PromBox = VrPromBox ("Set Boundry", 30, 1)
PromBox.AddCombo ('Boundry', 5, 0, 0)
PromBox.AddComboItem ('Line')
PromBox.AddComboItem ('Screen')
PromBox.AddComboItem ('Rectangle')
PromBox.AddComboItem ('Digitize Points')
PromBox.AddComboItem ('None (whole file)')
PromBox.SetFocus()
if PromBox.Display(1)==0:
BoundryType=PromBox.GetComboByPrompt ('Boundry')
if BoundryType==0:
   BoundingLine.Id()
   BoundrySet=1
elif BoundryType==1:
   for corner in range(4):
       x,y,z=Gr.GetWinCorner (corner,0)
       BoundingLine.AddPoint(x,y,z)
   BoundrySet=1
elif BoundryType==2:
   Stat,llx,lly,z=Gui.GetCoord('Boundry')
   Gr.DrawMode (1,-1)
   Gr.PenNum (1)
   Gr.DrawMarker (llx,lly,z,MARK_CROSS,Gr.GetWinScale ()*.2,-1)
   Stat,urx,ury,z=Gui.GetCoord('Boundry')
   Gr.EraseMarker ()
   ScreenAngle=Gr.GetWinRot()[2]
   Angle=math.atan((ury-lly)/(urx-llx))-Gr.GetWinRot()[2]
   Diagonal=PyVrGeom().Dist(llx,lly,urx,ury)
   Height=math.sin(Angle)*Diagonal
   if Height < 0.0: Height=Height*-1.0
   Width=math.cos(Angle)*Diagonal
   if Width < 0.0: Width=Width*-1.0
   BoundingLine.AddPoint(llx,lly,z)
   lrx=llx+(Width*math.cos(ScreenAngle))
   lry=lly+(Width*math.sin(ScreenAngle))
   BoundingLine.AddPoint(lrx,lry,z)
   urx=lrx-(Height*math.sin(ScreenAngle))
   ury=lry+(Height*math.cos(ScreenAngle))
   BoundingLine.AddPoint(urx,ury,z)
   ulx=urx-(Width*math.cos(ScreenAngle))
   uly=ury-(Width*math.sin(ScreenAngle))
   BoundingLine.AddPoint(ulx,uly,z)
   BoundingLine.AddPoint(llx,lly,z)
   BoundingLine.Plot()
   BoundrySet=1
elif BoundryType==3:
   Stat=0
   while Stat==0:
       Stat,x,y,z=PyVrGui().GetCoord('Dig Boundry')
       BoundingLine.AddPoint (x,y,0.0)
       BoundingLine.Plot()
   BoundingLine.Close(2)
   BoundingLine.Plot()
   BoundrySet=1