2.4. Adding drawing features
The Drawing Toolbar is used to place geographic features on the plot; features which are geographically fixed. In general, when you create them, their corners must be specified. To do this, click on the button, then double-click on the plot to set the point (Don't worry, it's in the future plan to allow you do "draw" the item onto the plot).
2.4.1. Buoyfield
Debrief provides a builder dialog to assist in the creation of buoyfields. The creation of buoyfields is covered later in Handling Buoyfields.
2.4.2. Label
The Label drawing item allows you to place a labelled symbol on the plot. Typically this may be used to annotate events on the plot, or to add an extra feature which did not warrant its own Debrief file. Like all annotations Labels have time start and end properties. Because of this they can be placed on the Tote and used in analysis, as you will learn later.
Try adding a Label to the plot. When you press the Label button, a properties window will open, showing you the variety of editable properties of a Label. These range from the label's appearance (Color, Font, Visible), the label's content (Label, SymbolType, SymbolSize), through to data describing the label (Location, TimeStart, Time_End). Experiment with changing the formatting on a label.
 | Be sure to experiment with setting the Location of the Label. A custom editor is supplied (see below) for editing locations of data items, it is used frequently in Debrief. Clicking on the button labelled will allow you to type in the exact location of the label (useful when you have received the location in printed form), but clicking on button will let you double-click on the chart to set the Label location. |
2.4.3. Ellipse
The Ellipse shape works in much the same way as a Label, except an ellipse is drawn on the plot instead of the labelled symbol. The size of the ellipse is dictated by the Maxima and Minima values which specify the lengths of its semi-major and semi-minor axes, expressed in kiloyards. These values are the distances from the centre of the ellipse to the furthest and closest points on it's perimeter, respectively. The direction of the ellipse is specified by the orientation, expressed in degrees. Debrief does not check that the maxima is larger that the minima, it merely plots an ellipse oriented about the semi-major axis.
| If you find you have forgotten the units used to express any of the data values used in Debrief property editors, just hover your mouse over the name of the property. The tooltip which appears will indicate the units. |
2.4.4. Polygon
The Polygon drawing feature allows more varied shapes to be plotted within Debrief. A series of points (called a Path) are added to a Shape which are the connected up to create a Polygon. The points in the path may be typed in, double-clicked, or dragged to produce the correct polygon.
When a new polygon is created, its editor panel will open as shown below:
The properties shown are similar to those shown for most other shapes, with the exception of the actual location of the polygon. Instead of being able to directly edit the points in the polygon, an indication of the number of points is provided, together with a button which will take you to the Path editor. The Path editor is shown below:
When it opens, the Path editor contains a single point (incidentally, this point it is placed a the centre of the current dataset). The four buttons at the top-right of the panel allow you to move the points up and down, create a new point, and delete a point.
To edit a point, first single-click on it, it will then be shown in the lower panel. You may then click on the Edit or Select Point buttons to either type-in the location of the point or to double-click the new location for the point. Additionally you may click on the Drag button to enter Drag mode. In Drag mode any point may be picked up with the mouse and dragged around the plot.
 | In the Path editor it is a copy of the polygon which is being edited, and not the actual polygon. This is why it is sometimes possible to see both the yellow polygon being edited and as the original one. The original polygon only gets updated when the is pressed. |
2.4.5. Rectangle, Circle, Line
The Rectangle, Circle and Line shapes work in the same way as the others described here, the Location Editor described above being used to set the corners, centre, or ends as required. Experiment with adding them to the plot.
| Some of the more basic drawing items have a single DTG parameter instead of TimeStart and Time_End properties. Where there is a single time, the time-analytical features of Debrief (such as Snail mode) treat the feature as alive for three minutes either side of the time value. |
| To draw a line created from an origin with values of range and bearing, first create the line, and put the start point of the line at the origin. Now switch the mouse mode to Range/Bearing ( |
2.4.6. General
Try adding a few more features to the plot. To edit an existing annotation right-click on it on the plot and select . Alternatively an item may be edited by navigating to it using the Layer Manager (you'll learn about that very soon), and right-click on it there, selecting from the list provided.