Rotating Planes about a Line

RockWorks | Utilities | Planes | Rotate Planes

Use this program to rotate 3D features (planes or 3D lineations) by a specified amount, and to list the resulting strike and dip (or dip direction, dip angle) values in two new columns of your data sheet.  The input data can be entered using the right-hand rule or as dip direction, dip angle.

Menu Options
Step-by-Step Summary

Menu Options

• Input Columns: The prompts along the left side of the window tell RockWorks which columns in the input datasheet contain what data.
  Click on an existing name to select a different name from the drop-down list.
  • Direction: Select the datasheet column that contains the strike bearing or dip direction. 
    ! Be sure you correctly identify the input data type under Data Type, below.  
  • Dip: Select the column that lists the dip angle, in degrees, where 0 = horizontal and 90 = vertical, downward. 
• Output Columns: Use these prompts to define the names of the columns where the rotated data are to be recorded.
  ! Any existing data listed in these columns will be overwritten.
  • Direction: Select the datasheet column where you want the rotated bearings to be recorded. 
    
  • Dip: Select the column where you want the rotated dip angle to be listed. 
• Input Format: Specify the format in which your source data is listed by clicking in the appropriate radio button in the middle pane of the program window.
  • Right Hand Rule: Planar data are entered as strike bearing and dip angle, with the dip direction being 90 degrees clockwise from the strike azimuth bearing.
  • Dip Direction:  The data are entered as dip direction and dip angle.
• Output Format: Select the format in which you want the rotated data to be recorded.
• Rotational Axis Bearing: Enter here the azimuth bearing (0 - 360) of the axis around which each data item will be rotated.
• Rotational Axis Plunge: Enter here the plunge angle of the axis around which the data will be rotated, with horizontal = 0 and vertical (downward) = 90.
• Rotation Amount: Enter here the number of degrees around the rotational axis that the data is to be rotated. A positive value (0 to 360) will rotate the data clockwise and a negative value (0 to –360) will rotate the data counter-clockwise.

Step-by-Step Summary

1. Access the Utilities program tab.
2. Create a new datasheet and enter/import your strike and dip data (dip direction/dip angle) into the datasheet.
   Or, open one of the sample files and replace that data with your own. (In the Samples folder, an example file = "\RockWorks17 Data\ Samples\Strike_and_Dip_Map_01.rwDat".)
3. Choose the Utilities | Planes | Rotate Planes option.
4. Enter the requested menu options, described above.
5. Click the Process button to continue.

The program will read the input measurements, rotate them by the indicated amount, and store the new measurements in the indicated columns.

  Back to Planes Menu Summary

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