Project Properties

The Project Properties panel collects per‑project settings — naming and coordinate system, how and when the project is saved, mesh storage, the map panel, interaction preferences, the 3D renderer, and the in‑situ stress field used by geomechanics tools.

Open it by selecting the project at the top of the project tree (its settings appear in the Properties pane). Settings are grouped into collapsible categories; expand a category to see its options. Hover any row for a tooltip.

note

Most settings are saved with the project. A few are application‑wide (saved per user): Verbose Debugging and Use Vulkan Renderer.

General

Setting	What it does
Name	The display name of this project.
EPSG Code	The project's coordinate reference system (the EPSG projection code). Determines how coordinates are interpreted and reprojected. See Setting the coordinate system.
Vertical Datum Transforms	Turn the vertical datum correction below on or off.
Vertical Datum	The geoid model used to convert between ellipsoidal heights (what GPS and the ellipsoid give you) and orthometric heights (height above mean sea level) — None, EGM2008 (EPSG:3855), EGM96 (EPSG:5773), or ODN - Newlyn (EPSG:5701).

Vertical datum and orthometric height

Heights in a project are ellipsoidal unless you set a vertical datum: measured from the reference ellipsoid, not from sea level. The two differ by the geoid separation, which is around 45–55 m across the UK and varies globally — so this matters whenever a height has to agree with a map, a survey, or a levelling datum.

Setting a Vertical Datum and enabling Vertical Datum Transforms makes VRGS convert heights through a geoid model:

Option	Use it for
EGM2008 (EPSG:3855)	Global orthometric heights. The usual choice outside a national datum.
EGM96 (EPSG:5773)	Global, older and coarser. Choose it when matching data already referenced to EGM96.
ODN - Newlyn (EPSG:5701)	United Kingdom. Ordnance Datum Newlyn — the datum Ordnance Survey heights and UK levelling are quoted against. Pair it with British National Grid (EPSG:27700).

The conversion needs a geoid grid file, which VRGS downloads from cdn.proj.org the first time it is required and then caches locally. See Online & Connectivity for the access this needs.

A missing geoid grid is silent

If the geoid grid cannot be found or downloaded, the transform is still built but performs no vertical correction — heights pass through as ellipsoidal while the project still reports the datum as set. There is no on-screen warning. If orthometric heights look wrong by roughly the geoid separation for your area (tens of metres), check that VRGS was able to reach cdn.proj.org at least once, then reopen the project.

Vertical only

A vertical datum changes heights, not horizontal position. Choosing ODN does not by itself put your data on British National Grid — set the EPSG Code to 27700 for that.

Saving & Backup

Setting	What it does
Enable Auto Save	Automatically save the project at the Autosave interval.
Autosave interval	Time between automatic saves, in minutes.
Backup On Save	Keep a backup copy of the existing project file each time you save.
Backup Interval	How often a backup copy is retained when Backup On Save is enabled — Always, Hourly, Daily, Weekly, Monthly, Yearly or Never.
Vacuum On Next Reload	Compact the project database the next time the project loads — removes deleted items and reclaims disk space. The flag clears itself after it runs.

tip

On large projects, leave Backup Interval at Daily (or longer) so saves stay fast, and run Vacuum On Next Reload occasionally to keep the database compact after lots of edits/deletions.

Meshes & Performance

Setting	What it does
Compressed Meshes	Store meshes in the compressed V3 format for smaller project files.
Optimise For Speed	Optimise meshes for fast loading and editing rather than smallest size. Turn off if you'd rather minimise on‑disk size.

Map Panel

Setting	What it does
Default URL	Map service used by the 2D map panel — Bing Maps, Google Maps or Google Earth.
Map Default Zoom	Default zoom level for the map panel (1–20).

Startup & Interaction

Setting	What it does
Reload last scene	Reopen the scene that was active when the project was last closed.
Reverse mouse wheel	Reverse the direction the mouse wheel moves the model.

Advanced & Diagnostics

Setting	What it does
Use Vulkan Renderer	Render the 3D view with Vulkan instead of OpenGL. Vulkan is the default from 3.4 and is required for VR; clear this box only to fall back to OpenGL for a comparison. Takes effect after restarting VRGS — toggling it does not switch the view you are looking at.
Verbose Debugging	Write detailed diagnostic messages to the log. Useful for troubleshooting; may slow the application.
Python Path	Folder containing the Python 3.13 runtime used for scripting and the machine‑learning tools.

Use Vulkan Renderer is restart‑to‑apply

Changing the renderer takes effect the next time VRGS starts — it does not switch the live 3D view. You can also set it from the command line with -vulkan or -opengl; see the VR User Guide.

Stratigraphy

The age window the stratigraphic column opens at.

Setting	What it does
Set Age Range	Open the column at the range below instead of working it out from whatever stratigraphy the visible model carries.
Top Age (Ma)	The younger end of the range, in millions of years before present.
Base Age (Ma)	The older end.

It is a starting view, not a limit

A Book Cliffs project is Top 66, Base 100.5. The mouse wheel over the column can still take you outside the range you set; switching the column off clears the zoom and returns it to this range.

GNSS Data

Shown only while a GPS/GNSS receiver is connected — live, read‑only telemetry with nothing to edit.

Row	What it shows
Solution	The current fix quality — GPS, DGPS, RTK float or RTK fixed.
Satellites used	Satellites contributing to the fix, out of those visible.
RTK corrections	The NTRIP correction stream's state, when one is configured.
(per satellite)	Each tracked satellite by constellation and PRN, with its azimuth, elevation and signal‑to‑noise ratio, marked (in fix) where it contributes.

See GNSS Field Navigation.

Stress Field

The in‑situ principal stresses used by geomechanics / DFN tools. Each principal stress has a magnitude and an orientation (dip / dip‑direction):

Setting	What it does
Sigma 1	Major principal stress magnitude, with its orientation.
Sigma 2	Intermediate (median) principal stress magnitude, with its orientation.
Sigma 3	Minor principal stress magnitude, with its orientation.

note

Set these to your interpreted or measured stress state before running stress‑dependent analyses (e.g. fracture aperture / permeability in the Discrete Fracture Network tools).