Tips for improving display speed
 

Large map files can be awkward to work with because of their slow screen redraw speed. Here is several ways to speed things up.

 -Turning off Label display in the View - Plan Options menu can speed up the display by a factor of 3.

-Use the Escape key when the cursor is in the Plan window to stop drawing. This will allow you to select menus etc. without waiting for the screen drawing to complete.

-Turn off the display of all features except those which are required. You can turn them back on prior to output. We will illustrate this.

It is common in large digital maps to save themes on different layers. E.g. Roads in one layer, property boundaries in another etc. If a layering scheme has been used, it is very easy to turn off the display of all features in a layer. To see if the map file has layering click on a feature to select it and look at its name (displayed in the lower right corner of the screen). If the file has layering, the feature name will be the layer name followed by the sub-id number. For example, all contours might be in the form 37-xxx where 37 is the contour layer and xxx is the sub-id. 

Figure: Contour layer is indicated by a 37 prefix in each contour feature

 In this case, to turn off the display of all contours, select menu Edit - Select Features by Name - then click on Un-Select All - choose Advanced. Choose matching name 37<space> and press the Select button. Press OK and then select menu Edit - Modify Selected Features - Properties. Turn off the display property. Save the terrain file.  

Figure: Select Features by Name Dialog box.