Analysis Reports
VRGS produces analysis results in a lot of places — stereonet statistics, rose diagrams, attribute charts, DFN validation and percolation runs — and until now each of them ended up somewhere different: a corner of the 2D view, a line in the Messages panel, or an SVG file dropped next to the project. A report is where you collect them into one document you can hand to somebody.
A report is a flexible-layout WYSIWYG page. It takes figures captured live from the analyses you have open, images pasted from the 3D view or from outside VRGS, and text you write yourself or ask Athos to draft — and it exports to PDF.
The report editor is built on the same Microsoft Edge WebView2 runtime as the field guide editor and the Athos chat panel. New Report is greyed out if the runtime is not installed.
Where reports live
Reports are self-contained .htm files in a Reports folder inside the
project, with their figures in Reports\images\ and a generated stylesheet in
Reports\style\. That folder is the source of truth: the Reports branch at
the bottom of the Collections tree scans it directly, so it can never offer to
open a report that has been deleted outside VRGS.
Each report is also indexed in the project database, which is what lets Athos find your reports through its database queries.
Because the figures are files beside the report rather than embedded data, copy
the Reports folder and you copy the report intact. A report opened without its
images folder shows broken figures.
Creating and opening a report
| Action | How |
|---|---|
| New Report | Right-click the Reports branch in the Collections tree → New Report. The report opens in its own window with a dated shell. |
| Open in Editor | Right-click a report → Open in Editor. |
| Delete Report | Right-click a report → Delete Report. It is moved to the project's RECYCLING folder, not destroyed, so a mistake is recoverable. |
| Refresh | Re-scans the Reports folder — use it if you have added or removed a report outside VRGS. |
The tree labels each report with its first <h1>, falling back to the file
name. Rename the heading in the editor and the tree follows on the next refresh.
Save with Ctrl+S or the toolbar's 💾 button. A report is saved with the same protections as a field guide page: the content is taken before the file is opened for writing, and the previous version is kept, so a failure part-way through cannot destroy what you had.
The report toolbar
The editor's toolbar carries the usual text controls — font, size, colour, bold / italic / underline, headings, alignment, lists, formatting — plus four groups that belong to reports.
Figure
Each entry captures a live analysis and drops it into the document as an SVG figure with a caption you can edit.
| Figure | Captured from | If it is not available |
|---|---|---|
| Stereonet | The Charts panel's stereonet — the one you have been looking at, which is always present even when no stereonet window is open. | "There is nothing plotted on the stereonet to capture." |
| Rose Diagram | The same stereonet's rose diagram. | As above. |
| Chart / Histogram | The Charts panel's current plot. | "There is no chart to capture" — select an attribute so the panel has something to plot. |
| DFN Validation | The multi-panel validation figure produced by a DFN scoring run. | "There is no DFN validation figure yet" — run Score against traces on a DFN first. |
| 3D View Capture | The active 3D view, rendered off-screen at 1920×1080 where the renderer supports it (1280×720 on the OpenGL view, which reads its own framebuffer). | "Open a 3D view before inserting a view capture." |
| Image with Caption… / Image… | A file you pick. | — |
Figures come from the SVG writers the standalone exports already use, so the stereonet in your report and the stereonet you export from the 2D view's Export → SVG Document menu are the same drawing — not a screenshot of one.
A figure is written into the report's own images folder, which does not exist
until the report has a name. Inserting one into an unsaved report asks you to save
first.
Figures know where they came from
Every inserted figure carries a source key naming the analysis behind it —
stereonet:1042, histogram:7, and so on. A picture in a report that cannot say
what it was made from is not evidence, and the key is what lets a figure be traced
back (or regenerated) later.
The DFN validation figure is the one that cannot be recaptured on demand: it is the output of a scoring run against an outcrop, and the synthetic sample and ensemble spread that produced it are gone when the run finishes. The run stashes its figure for the session, and Insert → DFN Validation takes it from there. It is kept for the session only — a figure that outlived the run that made it would be a stale number in a report with nothing to say it was stale — and is dropped when the project closes.
Layout
| Command | Effect |
|---|---|
| Two Columns / Three Columns | Split the flow into columns — useful for a figure beside its description. |
| Page Break | Force the following content onto a new page in the PDF. |
| Horizontal Line | A rule across the column. |
Insert
Table, Callout, Link, Object Link (a link to an object in the project), Anchor Target, and Table of Contents built from the report's own headings.
Images can also be pasted straight in — including a 3D view copied to the
clipboard. A pasted image is written into the report's images folder rather than
inlined as a data URI, so a report with a few pasted screen captures stays a small
file instead of megabytes of base64.
Athos
Athos assists at three levels, and nothing is written into the document without you accepting it.
| Command | What it does |
|---|---|
| Check Spelling & Grammar | Rewrites the selection, correcting spelling and grammar only. |
| Improve Wording | Rewrites the selection more freely. |
| Shorten / Expand | Rewrites the selection shorter or longer. |
| Describe This Figure | Drafts a description of the figure the caret is in, from the statistics behind it rather than from the picture. |
| Review Whole Report | Reads the whole report and raises points in the Messages panel. Advisory only — nothing is changed. |
Each of the four selection rewrites shows you the suggestion and asks before replacing anything. Select the text first; without a selection Athos asks you to.
The review is deliberately narrow: it reports problems visible in the text itself — spelling, grammar, unclear sentences, inconsistent terminology or units, figures referred to but never described, structural gaps. It is instructed not to question the geology or the numbers, because it cannot see the data.
A request in flight blocks the next one ("Athos is still working on the last request"), so firing four rewrites at one selection cannot leave you with four overlapping replacements.
Report assistance goes through the same client as the Athos chat panel. If that panel is not signed in or has no model configured, the report commands report the same failure. See the Athos AI Assistant guide.
Athos can drive a report itself
Three tools let Athos build a report from the chat panel, so "write up the stereonet analysis for this outcrop" is a request it can act on:
| Tool | What it does |
|---|---|
| Create Analysis Report | Creates a new report and opens it. |
| Add Section to Report | Appends a heading and body text — a draft for you to edit. |
| Insert Figure into Report | Captures one of the analysis figures live and inserts it, with a caption. |
Each names the report to act on; without a name they act on the active one.
Exporting to PDF
Press ⎙ Export to PDF… on the toolbar, choose a file, and the report is written directly to PDF.
The report is saved first. The PDF is rendered from what the editor is showing, and a PDF that silently disagrees with the report it claims to be is worse than one that is merely out of date.
Page margins are ~20 mm, matching the report stylesheet, and page breaks you have inserted are honoured.
Direct PDF writing needs a reasonably recent WebView2 runtime. On an older one VRGS says so and opens the print dialog instead, where you can still choose Save as PDF as the printer. Print is also available on its own.
Reports and field guides are separate
The report editor and the field guide editor are the same editor in two modes, but a report is deliberately not a guide page:
- It lives in
Reports\, not in the guide folders, so opening one never re-points the Guide list or empties it. - Saving one never navigates the field-guide reader panel away from whatever guide you had open.
- It has its own stylesheet and print rules, and no guide reading column, menu bars or page navigation.
Everything else — the editor itself, drag-dropped images, the outline sidebar, the save machinery — is shared. A report opened in a guide window (or the reverse) still parses and round-trips; it simply does not offer the other mode's buttons.
Tips and troubleshooting
- "New Report" is greyed out. No project is open, or the WebView2 runtime is not installed.
- A figure command says there is nothing to capture. The figure is taken from a live analysis: plot something on the stereonet, choose an attribute in the Charts panel, or open a 3D view first.
- DFN validation says to run the score first. That figure only exists while the run's inputs do. Run Score against traces on the DFN, then insert.
- The figures are broken in a copied report. The
imagesfolder beside the report was left behind — copy the wholeReportsfolder. - The PDF is missing the last edit. It should not be: export saves first. If the save itself was refused, the editor says why — fix that and export again.
- Athos commands do nothing. Check the Athos chat panel is configured and signed in; report assistance uses the same client.
See also
- Virtual Field Guide Editor — the same editor, in guide mode.
- Athos AI Assistant — configuring the assistant.
- DFN — Validating Against Outcrop — the run that produces the validation figure.