In Virtual Surveyor, a project typically consists of a .vspx project file along with associated terrain files and any other data you are using for your project. You can use the Project Files button to instantly open the file location of all your project files with a single click. The Copy Terrains button moves all your terrain data to the same folder location as your project file. In this article, we'll show you how these functions work and how you can pair them together to help organize, share, and move project files faster and more easily. The Project Files and Copy Terrains buttons can be found in the Project Folder section of the Export tab.

Overview

Open Project Files

Click the Project Files button to open file explorer directly to the folder that contains your project file.

Verify which files are stored in that file location.
Share or back up your folder to the cloud.
See upload or sync status to the cloud if saved to a cloud location (e.g., your OneDrive or Dropbox icons will show if files are still syncing).

Types of Project Files

.vspx	Virtual Surveyor project file.
.vspx.backup	Virtual Surveyor backup project file.
.vspx.lock	Locks your Virtual Surveyor project file while working on it so that two people cannot be in the same project at the same time. This prevents overriding or erasing someone else's work.
dsm.Ei.tif	Elevation Terrain file which is the equivalent to a Digital Surface Model (DSM) file.
ortho.li.tif	Image Terrain file which is the equivalent to a colored orthophoto/orthomosaic file.

Copy Terrains and Save As

You can use the Copy Terrains and Save As functions to consolidate your terrain files to a single project folder. Your .vspx project file may be stored in a separate location as your terrain data, so you can use either the Copy Terrains function or Save As to move your terrain data to the same location as your project file.

Copy Terrains. The Copy Terrains button will immediately create copies of any terrain data (including the ones stored in separate Timesteps) found in your project file and move the copies to the same location as your Virtual Surveyor project folder where the .vspx file is stored.

View Project Files to confirm the terrain data isn't in the same folder location (in the example illustration below, no terrain data is in the same folder location, even across Timesteps).
Click Copy Terrains to create terrain data copies in the same location as the project file.

Using Save As. You can also use the Save As function to save your project to a new location, which gives you some choices. After clicking File>Save As, the app will prompt you: “Do you want to copy all the terrain files used in this project to the saved location?”

From here, you can decide whether to keep your terrains bundled with the project file, or avoid duplicating large data sets (for example, when they’re already shared elsewhere).
If your project is huge — say 10 GB of terrain data — you can choose to skip copying the terrain data to save space.

Tips and Tricks

Store all project files locally. Calculations like stockpile volume, cut-and-fill (Virtual Surveyor app), and 3D photogrammetry rendering (Terrain Creator app) is done with zero latency when using your local files.
Sync your project files to the Cloud. Your cloud storage (OneDrive, SharePoint, Dropbox) keeps a synced copy of your project files in a local folder, allowing team members to access the same files from anywhere but still keep your files locally accessible. Read more about Cloud Locations and compatibility here.
Auto backup and versioning. Let your cloud service handle historical versions and restore points to avoid losing work.