Home

V6.60 Release Notes

1. Gradually all these pieces begin to show up in the organization s technology budget often second only in magnitude to the central database oriented IT budget In larger or ganizations the piecemeal activities gradually coalesce into separate service oriented remote sensing and GIS departments which begin to compete with corporate IT de partments for serious funds Eventually top management takes note of this especially when a merger takes place or during a recession when corporate or national budgets shrink When they finally critically review the cost of these operations versus their per ceived worth they are found wanting because they are expensive and not yet perceived as essential strategic or contributing to their profits Their decision is then simple and easy close down these groups and departments and outsource essential services of this type Typical examples of this process are the almost complete demise of the large oil companies remote sensing departments in the 1980s and the disappearance of the remote sensing and GIS departments from major mining companies starting in the mid 1990s and just running now to completion Alas there are still many organizations es pecially in governments and their militaries that are headed down this same path Un fortunately it is not easy to eliminate or even change these kinds of institutionalized ac MICROIMAGES MEMO 13 21 DECEMBER 2001 RELEASE OF V6 60 TNT PRODUCTS tivities e
2. When NIMA s ADRG Advanced Digital Raster Graphics files are imported a 2nd raster object containing an overview image is also created Now the georeference information for this reference image is also retained GeoSPOT The GeoSPOT image format can now be imported IDRISI32 The IDRISI32 raster format can now be imported for Clark University s IDRISI system ILWIS The MPR raster format is imported for the ILWIS package from ITC in Delft NTF DTM 2 0 The National Transfer Format for Digital Terrain Data NTF DTM 2 0 raster format can now be imported This is the Digital National Framework format in which the U K Ord nance Survey sells data ENVI ENVI image files may contain empty spectral bands When they represent missing hy perspectral images skipping them on import can cause complications in the TNTmips hyperspectral analysis processes Now deleting the empty bands is optional during im port ER Mapper If a new projection is encountered during the import of ER Mapper images you are now prompted to enter its defining parameters This happens when ER Mapper adds sup port for new projections TIFF The added information that expands a TIFF file into a GeoTIFF file can be ignored and it will be imported as a simple TIFF file MODIS NASA s MODIS HDF raster format can now be imported Vector Import Export ESRI s Shapefiles The import and export of shapefiles will now handle 3D coordinates If a
3. You are preparing progressively more complex legends for your maps which was improved in this version V6 60 Now you can easily apply borders and matte backgrounds to any group in a map such as a legend block and add a variety of neat lines around your map s content Competitive Status This is hard to judge as its more a matter of how easy it is to pre pare an acceptable map product than what it looks like TNTmips is used to finish large maps created in other products and the reverse is not reported However Adobe Illus trator is also used to finish more elaborate maps started in the TNT products Fast Display Boards The PC game industry has promoted the use of fast display boards with independent memory and bypasses most of the operating system using DirectX or OpenGL Open Graphics Language As the use of these features for games becomes standard in PCs your geospatial results can be presented in realistic simulations The most important aspect of your use of the simulations versus playing games or movies is their geo graphic control since they are using georeference materials V6 50 Large virtual displays were introduced by means of the X server permitting rapid views of any size at the specified scale This version also first introduced the standalone TNTsim3D product for use on Windows platforms It supported only DirectX for your display board V6 60 TNTsim3D for Windows now uses a new Landscape Builder process to buil
4. tact Microlmages by FAX phone or email to arrange to purchase this version When you have completed your purchase you will be provided with an authorization code Entering this authorization code while running the installation process lets you to com plete the installation of TNTmips 6 6 The prices for upgrades from earlier versions of TNTmips are outlined below Please remember that new features have been added to TNTmips with each new release Thus the older your current version of TNTmips relative to V6 60 the higher your up grade cost will be Within the NAFTA point of use area Canada U S and Mexico and with shipping by UPS ground 150 each means US 150 for each additional upgrade increment TNTmips Product Price to upgrade from TNTmips V6 00 V6 50 V6 40 V6 30 V6 20 V6 10 and earlier Windows Mac LINUX 500 750 950 1100 1250 150 each for 1 user floating 600 900 1140 1320 1500 180 each UNIX for 1 fixed license 800 1250 1650 2000 2250 200 each for 1 user floating 960 1500 1980 2220 2640 240 each For a point of use in all other nations with shipping by air express 150 each means US 150 for each additional upgrade increment TNTmips Product Price to upgrade from TNTmips V6 00 V6 50 V6 40 V6 30 V6 20 V6 10 and earlier Windows Mac LINUX 600 900 1150 1400 1600 150 each for 1 user floating 720 1080 1380 1680 1920 80 each UNIX for 1 fixed license 900 1400 1850 2200 2500 200 each for 1 user floating 1080 1680 2220
5. 4666 Rue Rothschild 66 FAX 4122 731 4665 Geneva 1202 Switzerland email info geomatics ch Taiwan Taipei contact Workvision Scientek Peter Hsieh voice 8862 2759 7575 Rm 5 9 FL No 236 Sec 2 FAX 8862 2759 1515 Fu Hsin South Road email wkvision ms55 hinet net Taipei Taiwan web www wkvision com tw Discontinued Dealers The following dealers are no longer authorized to sell Microlmages products Please do not contact them regarding support service or information Please contact Microl mages directly or one of the other Microlmages Authorized Dealers Bolivia GeoPlus s r l Hoffman Lijeron Arias located in Santa Cruz is discontinued GEOTEC s r l Jurgen Storl located in La Paz is discontinued India Electronic Corporation of India Ltd ECIL T V Subrahmanyam located in Hy derbad is discontinued Malaysia Dunco Sendirian Berhad Frederick Venantius located in Sabah is discontinued MICROIMAGES MEMO 81 21 DECEMBER 2001 RELEASE OF V6 60 TNT PRODUCTS Mexico Consultoria y Evaluaciones Geologicas Guanajuato S C Juan Dobarganes lo cated in Guanajuarto is discontinued Indonesia Citradata Intersystem PT Eko Rafia Iswantioro located in Jakarta is discontin ued Papers on Applications Turkey Taps Diverse Processing Tools to Build Frequency Management Center Kevin P Corbley EOM V 10 No 11 November 2001 pages 25 28 This article discusses and illustrates a product deve
6. A few of the most important booklets have recently been translated into Spanish Italian Finnish German French and Dutch Negotiations are underway for the possible translation of selected booklets into Chinese Arabic and Croatian You can determine which book lets are available in your language and obtain them from the Downloads listings at microimages com Operating Lanquages New The TNT products can now be operated in Tagalog and Hungarian Significant Improvements A new translator has been selected to improve and bring up to date the Arabic operation of the TNT products The Italian interface for the operation of the TNT products has been substantially im proved and updated Possible New Official translators for the TNT product interfaces have been selected for the following additional languages Farsi Serbian Croatian Bosnian and Slovenian Discussions are underway for the possible addition of Georgian and Icelandic Not Current The translation of the interface files for Indonesian operation can not currently be issued for V6 60 and a new official translator is needed MICROIMAGES MEMO 78 21 DECEMBER 2001 RELEASE OF V6 60 TNT PRODUCTS Microlmages Authorized Dealers The following 15 new dealers in 13 nations were authorized to sell Microlmages prod ucts during the past semester Bosnia and Herzegovina Novi Grad contact InfoMap Jasmin Babic Karadjordja Petrovica 33 79220 Novi Grad The
7. Files used in your atlas structure This will result in slower access to some formats such as linked shapefiles due to their simple structures Some formats such as ECW and MrSID will be just as fast as if they were imported into a raster object within a Project File due to their advanced structures Also Select and View any Supported Format TNTatlas can now also take advantage of the direct viewing in TNT of an increasing number of external geodata formats As a concession to those who wish to use TNTat las as a simple geodata viewer both versions of TNTatlas now support the navigation to selection of direct linking and immediate display of an internal object or external file but only 1 at a time and not as overlays Setup Wizard Use the Assembly Wizard process to check the continuity of your TNTatlas structure It now has an additional button to re validate so you can fix a problem and continue on You can now select the installation package for Windows to conform to the use of self contained installers for TNTatlas W or TNTatlas X The selection and naming of a atl file is now integrated so you don t have to open a separate window to define it Adding Installation Programs Installation programs for TNTatlas for X and TNTatlas for Windows are on the TNT product CD in the TNTatlas directory Use the atlas wizard to select either of these in stallation programs and it will be added to the set of files being prepared for your atla
8. Journal 65 1479 1486 2001 Abstract Intensification of tropical agricultural systems by increasing fertilizer input and technology is a current trend in developing regions Under intensive management ero sion impacts on crop productivity may not be detected in the short term However long term impacts are expected because erosion rates in tropical agroecosystems are usu ally greater than the rate of soil formation A temporal function of soil depth change was defined and named life time Conceptually soil s life time is the time until minimum soil depth needed for sustaining crop production is reached The life time function was ap plied to the Cereiro watershed 1990 ha located at the Southeastern part of Brazil and compared with sugarcane Saccharam officinarum L yield loss estimation Soil erosion prediction was made employing the Water Erosion Prediction Project The mean soil erosion rate for the area was 15 Mg ha yr and sugarcane showed the highest mean value of 31 Mg ha yr The half life time of the watershed i e the time until 50 of the area reach the minimum soil depth was estimated to 563 yr in relation to present time The estimated time for sugarcane s productivity to be reduced to 50 of the pre sent value half yield life time was 361 yr The life time function was similar to the es timated long term impacts of soil erosion on crop productivity Therefore the life time function was considered as an integrati
9. Republic of Srpska Bosnia and Herzegovina Canada Toronto contact Gizmotech Inc Zubbi Nwosu 18 3515 Havenwood Drive Mississauga ON L4X 2M6 Canada Egypt Cairo contact voice 3875 275 6397 FAX 3875 275 6397 email infomap prijedor com voice 905 624 9304 FAX 905 624 9304 email zubbi gizmo tech com www gizmo tech com Cairo Engineering amp Manufacturing Co Gamal Ibrahim 15 Ali elkassar St Cairo Egypt India Hyderabad contact Landends Solutions Praveen Ummadi 13 6 438 80 2nd Floor Satyanarayana Nagar Gudimalkapur Hyderabad 500028 India Maharashtra contact Micronet Solutions Dheeraj Mehra P B No 85 Bisesar House Opposite Board Office GPO Temple Road Civil Lines Nagpur 440001 India Ireland Dublin contact MICROIMAGES MEMO voice 202 589 3638 FAX 202 592 3425 email cem commnet com eg voice 9140 352 4949 FAX 9140 352 4849 email sit landends com www landends com voice 9171 252 1537 FAX 9171 254 7939 email micronet nagpur dot net in www micronetsolutions itgo com 79 21 DECEMBER 2001 RELEASE OF V6 60 TNT PRODUCTS Brown Projects Ltd Leslie Brown 88 Bushy Park Road Dublin Ireland Italy Palermo contact Nadir S n c Andrea Borruso Via G Di Giovanni 14 Palermo 90139 Italy Venice contact HeSc PTU amp GIS Markus M Hedorfer Via Ca Rossa 93 Venezia Mestre VE 30174 Italy Lebanon Beirut contact voi
10. Zoom In Update Now Update from Main On Demand only Auto by zoom Maxi mum Overview and Show Picture These choices all control how this reference view will relate to the main or principle view By default this view comes from the same at las as the main view However it is presented at a different relative scale set by the server manager For example it presents the same layers as the main view but lags its scale changes by a factor of 4X and 12X to provide a more macro view This scale rela tionship is set in the HTML script and thus can be changed The right button menu choices for the reference view change only the reference or left view as follows Update Now will redisplay the reference view to match the main view and it will not change until the main view changes by the preset relative scale factor Update from Main copies the image from the right or main view into the reference view On Demand only freezes the reference view as it is until changed via this menu Auto by zoom resets the default scale relationship between the reference and main views and redisplays the reference view Maximum Overview displays the full view the full extents of this atlas layout in the ref erence view Show Picture requests a redisplay of the image in the reference view in case it does not load correctly Outside of View Using the right mouse button on the browser frame presents its standard popin menu controlling it
11. and any other group can now have a variety of borders added around them of any width color and margin Choose from the following line styles for the frame for each of your groups solid double inset outset etched in etched out groove ridge or rounded The appearance of each of these frames is illustrated in the attached color plate entitled Matte Graphic Effects in Layouts Drop shadows can also be added to any frame or border The color width angle and a blending option can be controlled for the drop shadow You can even use CartoScripts to create scalloped curvilinear or irregular frames and borders Matte Fills Now that you can frame your legends and other groups you may want to add a back ground matte to highlight their interior For example a pastel matte will accent the background of the legend and its style and background elements on a white map back ground Or when a legend or group is inserted in a solid color area such as a blue ocean a plain white legend background can often be too glaring and stark and should be toned down by the use of a color matte Any color or gray hereafter referred to merely as color can be selected for the group s matte using the new Matte tab panel If 2 colors are selected the matte can spread shade or transition within the legend box between these 2 colors This is called a gra dient matte and can vary between these colors from 1 side of the group s area to the other or radially fr
12. and earlier Windows Mac LINUX 240 365 465 545 605 50 each for 1 user floating 288 438 558 654 726 60 each UNIX for 1 fixed license 350 550 700 800 850 50 each for 1 user floating 420 660 840 960 1020 60 each Installed Sizes Loading TNTview 6 6 processes onto your hard drive exclusive of any other products data sets illustrations documentation files requires the following storage space in megabytes for V6 50 for V6 60 PC using W95 W98 WME NT W2000 or XP 35 Mb 43 Mb PC using LINUX with Intel kernel 2 0 36 2 4 28 Mb 29 Mb Mac using Mac OS 8 x or 9 x 43 Mb 47 Mb SGI workstation via IRIX 34 Mb 34 Mb Sun workstation via Solaris 2 x 30 Mb 31 Mb IBM workstation via AIX 4 x with PPC 35 Mb 36 Mb TNTedit 6 6 Autolinking to Popular Formats The following external formats can now be directly used in TNTedit e ESRI s shapefile line work and table e MapInfo s TAB file line work tables and rasters e ER Mapper s ECW file Enhanced Compressed Wavelet e LizardTech s MrSID file wavelet compressed and e TIFF GeoTIFF file all types AutoTracing While adding an element to the active layer you can now add to it a continuous seg ment of vector elements traced in another vector layer in the view Simply toggle into the autotracing mode select the reference layer autotrace the desired portion of the ex isting elements and exit the tracing mode which inserts this as a new element or ap pends it
13. application regardless of your net work access rate Since this client is a local program it is not operating inside your general web browser This means that it and your modifications to it can automatically access and create lo cal files and run other programs For example your modifications to this standalone program can bypass a firewall bookmark a view save measurements and elements lo MICROIMAGES MEMO 39 21 DECEMBER 2001 RELEASE OF V6 60 TNT PRODUCTS cally and so on just as with any other program without changing your web browser s security HTML based Thin TNTclient This is a new facet of this client that is being incorporated to enable its possible future use via small screen devices such as Microsoft based Pocket PC hand held units In these applications the client should probably be stored locally as a standalone browser as the bandwidth of the device is limited by current cell phone access Since the units display screen is also small typically 200 by 320 pixels the user interface has to be much more serial in nature wherein user interactions require a results view and a se ries of overlay tool access and control views similar to the panels in the larger format client New Features The HTML based TNTclients have many new features These are easily tried by sim ply visiting microimages com The following is a brief summary of some of them Launch Queries via Forms The manager of a TNTserver can no
14. authors are subject to plenty of feedback But over the years self criticism and your feedback have resulted in many important im provements in the rendering and other uses of geodata such as raster tiling and tile compression raster pyramiding sampled histograms optimization of vector structures and others These are important strategies as objects become huge and are rendered over and over Some of you now import edit or create single vector objects with full topology of hun dreds of megabytes even approaching a gigabyte in size The TNT products recently introduced optimized vector structure makes large scale displays of your very large vec tor objects fast and relatively independent of their total size However further improve ment in performance is possible by analyzing examples of how these large vector ob jects with special characteristics perform in your actual projects For some time raster objects of any size have been rendered in seconds in the TNT products Recently some of you have been using single raster objects that are each many gigabytes Improvements in the mosaic process continued increased capacity in low price hard drives operation of TNTsim3D over large landscapes and other ena bling technologies mean more and even larger raster objects At the moment the most critical technical issue is how to move and backup these raster objects that greatly ex ceed CD capacity and saturate network resources when move
15. bars can be toggled on and off us ing View menu options The following status information is displayed and refreshed for each frame in the Position Status bar altitude pitch roll heading height above sur face and frame rate The map coordinates of the plane viewer position are also dis played at the left end of this bar Sky Color You can select any colors for the sky and background color Smoothing Texture smoothing anti aliasing is provided by DirectX and has important visual effects but little impact on frame rate as it is a hardware feature It will markedly smooth out the distinct blockiness that would normally show up for individually resolved foreground pix els from low resolution images such as Landsat or for any images if you get exception ally close to the ground It also significantly anti aliases the edges of features in the view Finally it drastically reduces background sparkle in distant portions of the scene Alas this smoothing function is not available in the standard V1 1 of OpenGL which is installed as part of Microsoft Windows Haze Fog or Pollution Fog or haze in any color can be added as a function of distance from the viewer Its dis tribution accumulation or opacity can be controlled to be linear or exponential with dis tance to each pixel in the scene In linear mode you specify the starting distance 0 and ending distance 100 while in the 2 exponential modes you set a single density facto
16. feature to auto trace and copy portions of lines and polygons from other layers into the editable layer The portion of the elements traced and added to the active layer has new start and end points and may simply be added as part of some new element in the active layer The traced portion common to the 2 lay ers has exactly the same vertices This new auto trace option is illustrated in the attached color plate entitled Auto Tracing Vector Line Segments It can be used at any time during a line or polygon edit opera tion For example if you are drawing a new line that you snap to a feature in another vector layer you can now simply continue on to add to your line by tracing part of the feature to which you have snapped To add a traced portion to a line enter the auto tracing mode by choosing the new Auto Trace icon in the Mode section of the Line Polygon Edit Controls dialog While in this mode simply click somewhere on the line in the reference layer and the tool will pick up that section of the line between the snap point or any previous click in the tool and extend the trace to the new position When you have finished tracing or picking up the portion of the feature of interest sim ply choose another edit mode and continue drawing or otherwise extending your new line or polygon feature You can toggle in and out of the tracing mode as many times as needed If you select a point to auto trace to that provides more
17. file can be directly used or imported into the TNT products However ECW images can be exported as well JPEG 2000 Planned A suitable general JPEG 2000 function library is now available for public use Micro Images will add JPEG 2000 wavelet compression support early in the evolution of V6 70 of the TNT products Please check with Microlmages support or at microimages com for the status of this important addition It appears that this library will permit the direct use of auto linked files multiple data types greater than 3 image bands and other im portant features and support its import and export to from raster objects of any size In addition to these expanded features it should provide the same compression as other wavelet based approaches free of legal entanglements It also will be widely used in many image oriented applications starting with video storage and transmission products MICROIMAGES MEMO 51 21 DECEMBER 2001 RELEASE OF V6 60 TNT PRODUCTS It is the agreed upon replacement for JPEG and has already been implemented in the first silicon chips for use in TVs recorders and other consumer equipment Faster Rendering To avoid criticism do nothing say nothing be nothing A quote from Elbert Hubbard an independent thinker and very prolific early 20th century American author who wrote more than 10 000 magazine articles and who died on the sinking Lusitania May 7 1915 It seems that prolific authors like software
18. formats or you can sell and protect your unique tools geodata content and even the operation of a specific MICROIMAGES MEMO 24 21 DECEMBER 2001 RELEASE OF V6 60 TNT PRODUCTS TNTatlas to 1 authorized user No other FREE geospatial product offers even an ap proximation of the capabilities of this completely free approach to your geomedia needs Easier Use Broader Appeal via Windows One of today s limitations in TNTatlas has been the decision of 10 years ago to give it cross platform geomedia capabilities It did and still does meet this criterion when the X server version TNTatlas X is used TNTatlas W with the release of parallel features for use directly with Windows operates in a similar fashion to other Windows products This Windows only version also autostarts installs and starts from an icon using famil iar Windows procedures Now you can produce and distribute a TNTatlas W that does not require any experimentation with its general operation Uses New Direct Linking This version of the TNTmips products introduces the direct use of MrSID ECW shape files TAB files and TIFF GeoTIFF files TNTatlas uses the same geospatial rendering engine as all the other TNT products and thus also uses the new direct linking option added to all TNT products Thus if you wish to leave your geodata exposed for use by other software any of the objects used in the atlas can be kept in these original formats and only linked to the Project
19. given database Note if you have a layer it s best to call DBEditorDestroy DBEditorDestroy Destroy a DBEditor handle created by DBEditorCreate New Classes SML scripts can now make use of arrays of classes To do this you just declare your class variable with a subscript like so Class POINT2D points 10 This would declare an array of 10 points Subscripts in SML always start at 1 MICROIMAGES MEMO 75 21 DECEMBER 2001 RELEASE OF V6 60 TNT PRODUCTS Import Export classes The following Import Export classes have been added to SML MieMrSID for the MrSID wavelet compressed raster format of Lizard Tech MieECW for the ECW wavelet compressed raster format of ERMapper MieHDFASTER for the Hierarchical Data Format ASTER MielDRISI32 for the IDRISI32 raster format MielLWISR for the ILWIS raster format MieSRTM for the SRTM elevation raster format MieNTFR for the NTF raster format of the British Ordinance Survey MieNTFV for the NTF vector format of the British Ordnance Survey MieCTG for the CTG raster format MAPPROJ Map Projection Parameters This class is not new but it now has methods for setting projection parameters This makes the class easier to use and more self documenting FFTID Linear Fast Fourier Transform FFT Forward do a forward FFT Inverse do an inverse FFT STRING Text String The STRING class is a more modern way to declare a string In the past the only way to d
20. image will illustrate that this is ac ceptable for direct visual use of the image but perhaps not for other more exacting ap plications MrSID has been designed to be a highly compressed lossy format for the convenient fi nal delivery of pretty pictures that are very large or where media space is limiting You will find as you acquire images in MrSID format that it is not designed as a transport or storage media for images destined for image processing It supports only 8 bit and 24 bit composite color images Furthermore these limited image types can be compressed so drastically that they are unsuitable for any computer analysis Also it is not possible to save MrSID images unless you license their expensive compressor and its application would be limited to saving only 8 and 24 bit images and not other rasters whose final results were for viewing only The one aspect of MrSID images that makes them popu lar is that they decompress fast and many products support viewing them ECW wavelet compression should be used with the same cautions as MrSID most im portant do not over compress However ECW is a product of ER Mapper that is well versed in image processing and thus an ECW file can act as a container for many dif ferent collections of 8 bit images For example a single ECW file may contain many 8 bit images It is important to note that each image in an ECW file is restricted to 8 bits per pixel All of the 8 bit images in an ECW
21. is important to remember that the Hough Transform is usually applied to an image that has first been subjected to careful filtering to retain edges of some sort Directional Analysis Directional analysis now provides for the display of reference layers and the rose dia gram defaults to showing and can be optionally hidden Mosaic Larger hard drives make it practical to use ever larger rasters Both images and eleva tion rasters are now widely mosaicked for use in map web servers such as TNTserver for large area simulations such as in TNTsim3D or simply city county or province wide projects Effective management and use of large rasters by the TNT Project File structure permit the visualization of large rasters just as fast as for small rasters The mosaic process has undergone an overhaul to support its expanding use to add various features you have requested and resolve minor errors that accumulated in it The attached color plated entitled Mosaic Gap Filling illustrates several of these new features Yes mosaic will directly use automatically linked compressed raster formats such as MrSID ECW and GeoTIFF The TNTmips Mosaic process is probably the only one that will directly ingest and mosaic mixed rasters imported linked or auto linked in one operation regardless of internal or external format cell size map projec tion Please remember as is true to a varying degree in many TNT processes read ing your source ra
22. minor cost component of the effort and money required to place a serious spatial data site online on the Internet or into your company via its intranet or virtual private network The real cost of going online depends on where you already are in the development of your geospatial materi als and the new technological skills required to make the next step If you already have a centralized GIS and image processing program well underway then you will know how to proceed If you do not then you probably need outside help from someone who can demonstrate that they can give you sound advice plans and realistic quotes Whose human and software resources will be used to go online If you are not familiar with ESRI s ArcIMS 3 0 and want to cut through the marketing hype see a critical review at http spatialnews geocomm com newsletter 2000 22 arcims html entitled ArcIMS 3 0 An Application Developer s Perspective by Andrew MICROIMAGES MEMO 37 21 DECEMBER 2001 RELEASE OF V6 60 TNT PRODUCTS Waxman Chief Technology Officer Telemorphic Inc 1 6 00 This review may con vince you that entering into the operation of a map server or an Internet GIS activity should not be undertaken casually and requires the availability of new technological skills This is also the subject of the enclosed Microlmages MEMO entitled Considera tions Before Buying a TNTserver dated 12 November 2001 Use this MEMO to deter mine if you are prepared to set up your own
23. older Mac 8 x and 9 x If you are using V6 60 or V6 70 directly in Mac 8 x and 9 x you will be able to move your license and operation of the TNT products to Mac 10 1 There will be no change in your TNT product price or license However as noted above Mac 10 1 will require a change in the manufacturer and model of the USB software authorization key This key ex change will be at no charge for the new key for those using the current USB key with Mac 9 x Microlmages will ship this new key to you or your dealer in advance of the re turn of your current key with it authorized for 15 days of operation This limitation will be removed with a code number supplied by Microlmages when your original key is re MICROIMAGES MEMO 12 21 DECEMBER 2001 RELEASE OF V6 60 TNT PRODUCTS turned to Microlmages This overlap period will permit you to avoid gaps in your opera tion of the TNT products Editorial and Associated News by Dr Lee D Miller President Integrated Geospatial Analysis Versus Piecing It Together The Piecemeal Approach Any organization large or small that is seriously involved in time critical geospatial analysis and geodata mining is making a large commitment of time and money Over the past 20 to 30 years GIS remote sensing data mining computer cartography spa tial RDBMS Internet delivery personal computers and other components have been adopted piecemeal Today all these pieces of the technological puzzle are require
24. on that network It is now even possible for a Mac 10 1 station to host the FLEXIm license manager and the TNT soft ware authorization key associated with it Prices Prices for the TNT products for Mac 10 1 will be the same as for Windows Mac 9 x and other platforms Those who purchased a TNT product for use with Windows or Mac 9 x can subsequently change to a USB key that will permit their software authorization key and TNT product to be moved between Mac 10 x Windows and LINUX The charge for this key exchange will be 100 which includes shipment to you by DHL air express Mac 9 x V6 60 of the TNT products will operate in the 9 x classic mode under Mac OS X or di rectly in 9 x Be sure to use the latest Mac OS 9 2 1 if you are using the classic mode with Mac 10 1 Microlmages recommends booting directly into Mac OS 9 x to use V6 60 of the TNT products on a Mac OS X platform V6 60 will also operate if you are using a Mac equipped only with Mac 8 x or 9 x If you are using these versions we recommend updating to Mac 8 6 or Mac 9 2 1 V6 70 of the TNT products will be the last update released for Mac 8 x or 9 x Advances in the TNT products will be frozen for the older legacy versions of Mac with the release of V6 70 At that time Microlmages software development efforts will be fo cused upon operation of the TNT products directly in Mac 10 1 After that only V6 70 and corrections for the TNT products will be available for the
25. patent claims has been scheduled for January 22 2001 but the court struck the date three weeks before trial LizardTech filed a motion asking the court to certify its patent ruling for immediate appeal rather than waiting for final judgment on the non patent claims be fore appellate review of the non patent issues LizardTech also argued that it would be more efficient to resolve the patent appeal first so that if successful on it s appeal there would need be only a single trial on both the non patent and patent claims Microlmages Remains Neutral The courts take so long to settle technological disputes that their rulings are meaning less in each particular case in the face of technological advances The only merit to such suits is to set legal precedent for the next similar technological issue Further de lays waiting for the court to understand the pace of technological advancements is no longer warranted As a result V6 60 fully supports both LizardTech s MrSID and ER Mapper s ECW wavelet compression methodology as licensed by both these compa nies Supporting both approaches and one of the few that has done so has provided Microlmages with a basis for comparing their strengths weaknesses and similarities In general we find that their market objectives and approach are dissimilar MICROIMAGES MEMO 22 21 DECEMBER 2001 RELEASE OF V6 60 TNT PRODUCTS JPEG 2000 A suitable general JPEG 2000 function library is now avai
26. polygon features For ex ample a maximum reserved area of 1 square kilometer might be specified Under this condition all users must zoom in to view an area no larger than 1 km before they can get an area lock on that view and remotely enter elements for that area No one else can use that area while they have a lock on it so conflicts and duplication are not possi ble When they finish entering elements to that area it is released It is also automati cally released after a time increment set by the manager if no access to the server has been detected Caching Layouts Many new technical improvements have been added to TNTserver for its management and reliability Typical of these is layout caching on startup Prior to this addition the first client to access an atlas just restarted after maintenance would find their access to be slower than normal perhaps by a factor of 10 This was caused by the need of the server to read the entire layout for the atlas and cache it in memory before that atlas was used After the first use this layout remains in memory for all other uses of the at las Now when TNTserver is started layouts can be automatically cached before any remote use Managing Multiple Atlases Since multiple atlases can be published via a single TNTserver additional management tools are provided for controlling how each will behave For example TNTserver at startup now reads a designated text file that contains atl files an
27. potential order of 100 licenses This will take 18 months to accom plish but I thought you would like to know everything is a go am pushing to get a draft of our process comparison methodology published because of the innovative way we were able to compare apples to apples in the geospatial software selections Attached is a windows bitmap not included here of the two procedures the alternative TNT system s in the top section and the existing E amp E system in the bottom It is zoomed out intentionally to obscure the details The process model diagram is charac terized by colored horizontal swim lanes each representing a software product needed during map production Vertical dotted lines across the top represent phases or func tions of the production process such as feature extraction attribution map composition etc Notice that there are 10 phases for both workflows representing that the functional con cepts have remained identical However a count of the swim lanes reveals that alterna tive has 6 software packages vs 11 needed in the existing process E amp E system Next count the flowchart boxes and find 72 on the alternative TNT system but 87 flowchart boxes on the existing E amp E system That means the alternative process eliminated several steps and software packages in the new process But more significantly each flowchart box in the existing process E amp E system has a duration asso
28. press files of 3 megapixels or less typical for a digital camera you can download a free program from their site at www lizardtech com Microlmages has been informed by LizardTech that they do not have libraries that de velopers can license or any documentation of same to permit direct export into MrSID format Even if they did this would only result in an expensive optional module for this export only The only products we know of that appear to directly export into the MrSID formats are ERDAS Imagine and Adobe Photoshop and you must obtain an optional module from these developers to do this export ERDAS sells this option in 3 levels based upon input file sizes up to 50 Mb of pixels 50 Mb to 500 Mb of pixels and no pixel limit From this grading one might assume that the unlimited pixel conversion is expensive ER Mapper s ECW A single ECW file can contain any number of 8 bit integer images Thus an ECW file can contain a single grayscale image 3 coincident RGB images making up a color composite multiband images or any other set of images with a common extent cell size No other data types 16 bit real are supported Import ECW files can be imported into an internal raster object in a Project File even though TNTmips TNTedit TNTview TNTatlas and TNTserver can now directly use ECW files The detail in the imported raster object will be that which was specified when it was compressed into the ECW file but its size
29. professor board or sometimes its just ourselves as we plan our next step or make a final deci sion What good are all these analyses if others can not access and understand them Only recently have articles appeared that acknowledge that those involved in geospatial analysis are in the media business as we sell our results and ideas We may sell us ing PowerPoint presentations paper maps reports with plates CDs web sites or on screen simulations in 2D 3D static or 3D real time simulations GIS as media Daniel Z Sui and Michael F Goodchild Guest Editorial International Journal of Geographical Information Science 2001 Vol 15 No 5 pp 387 390 A reprint of this paper can be ordered in PDF format from http alidoro catchword com vl 317061 4 cl 15 nw 1 rpsv catchword tandf 13658816 v15n5 s1 p387 Forty years ago as a student member of the American Society of Photogrammetry now American Society of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing ASPRS was proud of the quality of their Photogrammetric Engineering publication now Photogrammetric En gineering and Remote Sensing However recall wondering why they put so much money into producing a high quality monthly publication relative to those of other pro fessional societies Gradually came to the awareness that this was because they had something to sell the content of the high quality images that made up this publication These editors realized that they were no
30. reconcile projections composite objects resample and perform similar computations it would take several seconds for each frame which would not provide a realistic simula tion The first compromise relative to the normal TNT display is to limit the acceptable MICROIMAGES MEMO 58 21 DECEMBER 2001 RELEASE OF V6 60 TNT PRODUCTS data types as noted above The terrain and texture objects differ slightly from other raster objects as they will automatically have their 2X pyramid subobject created adding 25 to their size This eliminates some resampling activity when they are used ina simulation Prior to V6 60 the first pyramid subobject was 4X because the 2X layer added 25 to a raster object s size Optional 2X pyramid support was added in V6 60 to all processes for other totally different objectives but as a result the surface and tex ture objects can still be used in all TNT processes Additional information with regard to the addition of the 2X pyramid layer is provided in the Full Binary Pyramid Layers sec tion above Flexibility It Permits The purpose of the Landscape Builder is to give you maximum flexibility to create the 3D simulation you want while automatically ensuring that the texture and terrain objects you produce meet the requirements noted above The full capabilities of the Geospatial Rendering Engine used throughout the TNT products are also available to you in the Landscape Builder to produce the texture layer for your si
31. spatial data server or need the help of a consultant or a Microlmages dealer Remote Geodata Entry TNTserver now permits the remote entry of points lines and polygons and their attrib ute records into a vector layer established in your atlas layout Each new view provided to any client by the TNTserver will show all the latest additions to this vector layer With this feature your clients can create multiple elements of mixed types and they can also save these elements locally for other uses This vector layer is included in the atlas lay out for this specific purpose and can be of any of the vector topologies supported in the TNT products polygonal planar or network with 2D or 3D coordinates As elements are added TNTserver maintains the specified topology for that layer This remote geodata entry capability has been added to allow public or local office entry of vector elements such as lease boundaries easement boundaries observed point events and so on This new feature has not yet been extended to provide remote edit ing of this vector object TNTedit is much more appropriate for editing complex vector objects It is possible that 2 remote clients will attempt to enter elements from this vector layer at the same time TNTserver now supports the concept of area locking to manage this situation The manager of the TNTserver sets up a maximum spatial area that can be used for reference in a view used for creating point line or
32. subsection Newcomers should use this table of contents approach to become familiar with how the TNT products are organized and to browse this material and read sections in the man ual Experienced users of TNTmips and other geospatial analysis products who are familiar with the terminology can now search for and jump directly to the pages of inter est using the new global document searching introduced in V6 60 Printed Copy You can use your Reader to print and bind a physical shelf reference copy of this TNT Reference manual on your color printer You no longer need to obtain the separate Word version from Microlmages for this purpose When printed via Reader the man ual s appearance is attractive and quite similar in layout and structure to that printed previously from the separate Word version The following are the page counts for a sin gle spaced printing of the sections in the V6 60 manual e Basic System Operations 249 pages Display 684 pages e Edit 282 pages e Process 1087 pages e Support 98 pages e Appendices 20 pages e Glossary 93 pages 2513 total Global Searching Objective A review article of popular desktop image processing systems published in GeoWorld contained the following comments regarding the TNTmips documentation Extracted from Image Processing Software System Selection Depends on User Needs by Fredrick Limp The documentation maximalist award winner was TNTmips a small fork lift dropped off two lar
33. to the element being created Reference Views Additional 2D and 3D GeoLocked reference views can be opened to consult while edit ing in the primary view These additional views could present other color combinations and enhancements images of some other date a topographic map or any other geo referenced or arbitrarily locked materials MICROIMAGES MEMO 44 21 DECEMBER 2001 RELEASE OF V6 60 TNT PRODUCTS Inherited New Features The following general improvements in all TNT product operations were automatically added to TNTedit 6 6 These improvements are detailed below in the major section on New Features for TNTmips and include e familiar Windows installation using InstallShield with improved license configura tion e use autoscaling to numeric scale active layer and pixel size with the virtual desk top e conduct global searches of reference manual and all tutorial booklets e faster vector rendering of labels and polygon fills of islands e faster raster rendering at some important scales by using full binary pyramiding e import MrSID ECW GeoSPOT IDRISI32 NTF vectors and rasters and others e export to ECW NTF vectors and rasters and others e for increased Z resolution use DEMs of any data type including real numbers e make more attractive layouts using color mattes borders and neat lines and e use a full suite of import and export functions in SML scripts Upgrading If you did not order V6 60 of TNTedit in adv
34. vector objects fast and the time for this close up display relatively independent of their total size Faster Labels HAT Microlmages dealer in Turkey provided a new sample atlas illustrated in the at tached color plate entitled New Sample Web Atlases Turkey for experimental use on microimages com Upon installation on TNTserver it was noted that the street map of Istanbul it contained took 45 seconds to render a close up view of several city blocks At this scale the view shows a few city streets identified by several street name labels from about 100 000 street lines and 26 600 labels in that vector object Since TNTserver uses the same Geographical Rendering Engine GRE as the other TNT products it was analyzed in the Quantify program This pinpointed a section of code that was inefficient when used repetitively but not problematic in smaller data sets or in the smaller scale views of this atlas where most of the labels were suppressed by scale control anyway Improving this code section improved performance for this kind of op eration in all the TNT products including TNTatlas TNTserver TNTmips by a factor of 20 The rendering of points including nodes as points in all cases is increased by a factor of 2 Furthermore it has led to a design not yet implemented to index point elements in vector objects to decrease the time needed to retrieve the selected points for most operations in all processes Faster Polygon Filling This
35. will be larger Any raster created by a TNT procedure using ECW files whether imported or not will be saved as an internal raster object Export ER Mapper provides a library without charge for the compression into a single ECW file of rasters totaling up to 500 megapixels in size before ECW compression This library has been incorporated into TNTmips and TNTedit to export an ECW formatted file Appropriate raster objects 8 bit per pixel can be exported into a single ECW file For example a 24 bit color composite raster object can be exported in a single operation since it is actually 8 bit RGB images Options are also provided to export contrast ta bles and color palettes if they are available This 500 megapixels size limits by counting the total pixels of all the uncompressed TNT raster objects exported to a single ECW file For example If you export separate RGB rasters of 1 byte per pixel then each must be less than 500 3 megabytes If you export a single 8 bit DEM raster object it must be no bigger than 500 megacells To compress raster objects greater than 500 megapixels requires the use of ER Mapper s commercial image processing product MICROIMAGES MEMO 65 21 DECEMBER 2001 RELEASE OF V6 60 TNT PRODUCTS JPEG 2000 Planned A suitable general JPEG 2000 function library is now available for public use Microl mages will add JPEG 2000 wavelet compression support early in the evolution of V6 70 of the TNT products Please c
36. 2640 3000 240 each Installed Sizes Loading TNTmips 6 6 processes onto your hard drive exclusive of any other products data sets illustrations and so on requires the following storage space in megabytes for V6 50 for V6 60 PC using W95 W98 WME NT W2000 or XP 80 Mb 82 Mb MICROIMAGES MEMO 77 21 DECEMBER 2001 RELEASE OF V6 60 TNT PRODUCTS PC using LINUX with Intel kernel 2 0 36 to 2 4 107 Mb 114 Mb Mac using Mac OS 8 x or 9 x 84 Mb 90 Mb SGI workstation via IRIX 141 Mb 153 Mb Sun workstation via Solaris 2 x 116Mb 125 Mb IBM workstation via AIX 4 x with PPC 164Mb 176 Mb V6 60 of the Online Reference Manual in PDF including illustrations requires 52 Mb Installing all the sample geodata sets for TNTIite and TNTmips requires 202 Mb The 65 Getting Started booklets require a total of 126 Mb The sample TNTsim3D land scape files require a total of 69 Mb Internationalization and Localization Translation of Booklets Various experienced Microlmages clients are now participating in a program to do the initial translations of the Getting Started booklets available to their nations The at tached color plate entitled Translated Getting Started Tutorials illustrates the covers of typical translations There are currently 21 TNT languages and 65 booklets so this is a major effort However many of the booklets have already been translated previously in complete or in abridged form into Japanese Turkish Thai and Korean
37. 50 The advent of compressed MPEG and AVI video formats and free viewers provided the opportunity for TNT products to turn static 3D views into movies These movies are geospatial in nature and provide a more realistic means to present your project results For example a movie might orbit a particular landscape feature to focus viewer attention on it V6 50 added these movie frame orientation and creation functions to SML This provided you with the opportunity and with sample scripts designed to follow a specified path through your geodata and to collect input as you proceed that alters each frame of the movie The simplest application is to read time and geoencoded database records and add pinmap features into each frame At least one advanced SML application has used these functions to alter the content of the frames as external sensors read by the SML script collect real time measurements Today geodata and its analysis can be used as the basis for real time 3D simulations This requirement differs from the many video games that gave rise to current display MICROIMAGES MEMO 26 21 DECEMBER 2001 RELEASE OF V6 60 TNT PRODUCTS boards and the direct access function libraries encoded into them Many games have modes where interactive 3D activities can be tracked in 2D map like form The most important difference is that these games are prepared for mass consumption and cost millions of dollars to create Illustrating the results of geospatial ana
38. AVI movies from your geodata Applications include the collection of external data from sensors or changing databases for use in controlling what will ap pear in a frame and how it will appear V6 60 Large rasters primarily images are being distributed in MrSID and ECW format Even compressed GeoTIFF images are getting large To avoid duplicating these mate rials within a Project File they can now be directly viewed and used in TNT products and processes Only a few second time penalty occurs the first time a raster in this for mat is viewed Very large geographical data sets are also being created in TNT or elsewhere and thus ESRI s shapefiles and MapInfo TAB files can now also be directly viewed and used However due to the simple structures of these files under some cir cumstances their direct viewing in their source product s format or as linked in the TNT products can be very slow MICROIMAGES MEMO 18 21 DECEMBER 2001 RELEASE OF V6 60 TNT PRODUCTS Competitive Status The TNT products provide more import export capabilities than any other general purpose product Now widely used formats can even be directly used However at least 1 other product directly uses more external formats Large Format Printers Most of you now have access to a large format color printer in your office on your net work or via a service bureau It has become commonplace to bring geodata into TNTmips to produce large maps in your language V6 50
39. IMAGES MEMO 35 21 DECEMBER 2001 RELEASE OF V6 60 TNT PRODUCTS tion that is platform OS independent At this time it is available up to V2 0 for most UNIX LINUX and Mac platforms V2 0 is shipped with the Mac OS 10 1 Only OpenGL 1 1 is installed as part of most Microsoft Windows installations TNTsim3D uses V1 1 for this reason and has not yet needed more advanced functions As usual Microsoft wants to make it difficult to use OpenGL over its own DirectX Since V1 3 for Windows is widely available for download it will probably be used in fu ture TNTsim3D releases and will be installed from the TNT products CD Some of the obvious advantages of OpenGL are that it is available on many platforms it has many extensions from the worldwide community source code is available for modi fication and it can be easily extended by adding new functions Just as with DirectX you want to check the web site of the manufacturer of your display board to see if you have the latest version of their driver and if your board supports OpenGL functions in hardware Recommended Display Board Microlmages still recommends the Matrox display board for all around flexibility and per formance hardware support of both OpenGL and DirectX 8 0 and direct display on dual monitors via its 2 video connectors The latest model of this board is the US 125 G550 which can be reviewed at matrox com mga products The G550 uses DDR Double Data Rate memory The G450 also u
40. Landscape Builder Current video board and main processor computer power are not yet sufficient to allow the same flexibility provided in the TNT non real time 2D and 3D views of combinations of many objects and linked ob jects of various types At this time TNTsim3D must trade off video frame rate against features Thus some of the flexibility in the general use geodata in Project Files must be omitted from a Project File used to simulate a landscape Computing this specialized Project File in the Landscape Builder on a fast machine is reasonable for example a minute for a 20 Mb landscape file or less than an hour for a 600 Mb landscape file However once you have computed a Landscape Project File you can start it up in TNTsim3D in less than 15 seconds regardless of its size and fly anywhere in this land scape with a reasonable frame rate Within TNTsim3D you can then select delete simu lation features that may increase decrease your frame rate for example smoothing and anti aliasing rate of change in pitch roll and other viewer orientations scene quality and size velocity and acceleration and so on What Does It Do The Landscape Builder will create a normal Project File but with the identifying exten sion of sim and containing 2 raster objects that meet a specialized set of criteria for their use in a rapid simulation in TNTsim3D Giving this Project File the extension sim instead of the usual rvc extension permits it to b
41. Legal Issues Revisited False Start on Legal Settlement The Microlmages MEMO accompanying V6 50 reported that the legal contest between LizardTech MrSID compression and Earth Resource Mapper ECW compression was settled The following is a portion of a report on this topic ERM LizardTech Sum mary Judgment as reported in Geospatial Solutions January 2001 page 12 The legal wrangling between Earth Resource Mapping www ermapper com came to an abrupt end in December when a federal court issued a partial summary judgment rul MICROIMAGES MEMO 21 21 DECEMBER 2001 RELEASE OF V6 60 TNT PRODUCTS ing that Earth Resource Mapping s Enhanced Compression Wavelet ECW technology does not infringe on LizardTech s MrSID multiresolution seamless image database patent The United States District Court for the Western District in Seattle Washington granted ERM s motion for the ruling The ruling follows the October issuing of a Notice of Allow ance an indication of patent approval for ECW technology by the United States Pat ent and Trademark Office LizardTech Appeals LizardTech was not satisfied with this judgment and is appealing the decision The fol lowing was extracted from a press release on LizardTech versus Earth Resource Map ping wavelet compression issues published in Photogrammetric Engineering amp Remote Sensing Industry News June 2001 V67 N6 page 673 On April 18 2001 the U S Di
42. One advantage of these HASP keys is that they come with improved design and software drivers which would provide the basis for better cross platform movement of your TNT products Furthermore Rainbow is consistently slow and late in providing drivers to support new developments in hardware and operating systems such as Mac OS X via its underlying UNIX base or for USB on LINUX To maintain backward com patibility Microlmages will add support for the new keys in parallel to that which is used for the current keys However if these new keys perform as advertised it will be possi ble to move your TNT professional products freely between Windows Mac OS X and LINUX platforms using a USB key and with a parallel key between Windows and LINUX the legacy parallel port is not available on Macs Since the price of the TNT products is the same for all these platforms Microlmages is planning to implement this flexibility for you Mac OS X Mac 10 1 Direct Support V6 60 of the TNT products will be released for Mac 10 1 platforms in January 2002 The Competitive Situation No major image processing or GIS product is available for use with Mac OS X Kodak alias ENVI has announced that the IDL language is not being ported to Mac OS X see http www rsinc com pr lettertomac asp Since IDL is the cross platform support for the ENVI product this means that ENVI will not be available for Mac OS X except when run in the Classic 9 x mode With the exi
43. RELEASE OF V6 60 TNT PRODUCTS Table of Contents Introduction Installation for Windows 6 7 Product Licenses 8 Types Available 8 License Configuration 8 Possible New Keys 10 Mac OS X 10 Mac 10 1 Direct Support 10 Mac 9 x 12 Editorial and Associated News by Dr Lee D Miller President 13 Integrated Geospatial Analysis Versus Piecing It Together 13 Geomedia 16 Too Frequent Upgrades 20 Naivet 21 Wavelet Compression 21 JPEG 2000 23 Almost 5 Meter Imagery 23 X Server alias MI X 23 TNTlite 6 6 23 Increasing Activity 23 Image Analysis in Geology 23 Toggling Between TNTpro and TNTlite Products 23 TNTatlas 6 6 for Windows and X 24 Windows Version Complete 24 Not Just a Viewer A FREE Geospatial Analysis Product 24 Easier Use Broader Appeal via Windows 25 Uses New Direct Linking 25 Also Select and View any Supported Format 25 Setup Wizard 25 Adding Installation Programs 25 Published Atlases 25 TNTsim3D for Windows 26 Games for Grownups 26 Evolution of Geospatial Visualization Requirements 26 New Features 27 Input Controls 29 Preparing a Landscape 30 Getting Underway 33 Technical Considerations Tuning the Engine 34 TNTserver 3 0 36 Are You Ready to Go Online 36 Remote Geodata Entry 38 Caching Layouts 38 Managing Multiple Atlases 38 TNTclients 39 MICROIMAGES MEMO 3 21 DECEMBER 2001 RELEASE OF V6 60 TNT PRODUCTS New Features 40 TNTview 6 6 43 Planned Windows Version 43 Aut
44. RI ERDAS this contractor and a workflow management package with 7 minor specialized software products from other vendors The proposed system referred to here as the TNT system uses 6 software products made up of 3 primary software components consisting of TNTmips this contractor s components and the workflow management package with 3 minor spe cialized software products from other vendors In both approaches the minor software products are for such activities as writing out a CD network software and data man agement MICROIMAGES MEMO 14 21 DECEMBER 2001 RELEASE OF V6 60 TNT PRODUCTS Full text of email from a TNTmips client dated 1 December 2001 It appears that our process model efforts to compare the production workflow using ERDAS Imagine and ESRI Arcinfo vs TNTmips is paying off We have won support from key government personnel who were impressed with our ability to create vector with attributes maps In the past all digital maps were annotated graphics with no at tribute information nor actual vector data in real world coordinates We were able to show the customer not only an improvement in the production process but also an ad vancement in data delivery paragraph related only to quantity of units and timing omitted here The results of our efforts and recent confirmations should be an actual order for TNTmips from our company with a corresponding deployment order to replace all E amp E systems a
45. ad to find and alter the appropriate line in your tnthost ini file to start your TNT products in lite mode Then later when the key was re attached you would have to edit the tnthost ini file again All this was very inconvenient Now you can simply use this new License Configuration window to toggle on the Free TNTlite license option and from that time onward you can start any TNT product in lite mode whether the key remains attached or is removed To switch back to starting up into your professional TNT product simply reopen this License Configuration window and select the option that identifies the port where your software authorization key is at tached Setting Up a Fixed License If you are setting up a Windows platform with a fixed license use either the License key on parallel LPT or USB port or the License key on serial port options depending upon the kind of software authorization key you have chosen This program detects which COM ports are active COM1 COM2 COM3 and presents them in a list for your selection Remember the recommended USB key can be moved between Win dows and Mac 9 x platforms and simply selected in this panel to immediately convert the TNTlite version of a product to run in the TNTpro mode Using this new program and options a fixed license and a USB key makes it very easy to move a TNT professional product around in a classroom equipped with many TNTlites for routine practice Setting U
46. al Transfer Format vector format NTF VECT 2 0 can now be imported This is the Digital National Framework vector format in which the U K Ordnance Survey sells data CAD Import Export AutoCAD DXF Internationalization AutoCAD DXF import will now correctly determine the code pages the document was saved in and convert the string information it contains to Unicode so that the original language used in the DXF file is preserved in the TNT CAD object It will also automati cally assign the Arial Unicode MS font to the style information for this CAD object so that the database tables and text labels show up correctly in the original language This Arial Unicode font contains characters for almost every language AutoCAD DXF export will now allow the selection of a character encoding for the DXF file The setting for the character encoding is placed into the DXF file during its export Database information and text elements are converted and saved in the selected encod ing In this fashion CAD objects created or used in a TNT product in your language can be transferred to AutoCAD in your language Surface Modeling The name of the option Optimize TIN structure available in the TIN generation process was Changed to Simplify TIN Structure This minor change was made so that it is clear that this option removes some extraneous points from the TIN object that it created Transfer Attributes The attributes of source lines selected by a
47. al factor V6 70 will probably make the creation of this 2 by 2 layer the default condition Application in Large Area Processing Recently those conducting large area geologic applications pointed out that their visual interpretations of satellite images were repeated over and over and at varying scales Since large rasters are involved it is convenient to view them at a pixel scale less than 1 1 but not as small as 16 1 the first 4 by 4 pyramid layer available in V6 50 The view ing scale range varying around a 2 by 2 pyramid layer ranging from 1 1 5 to approxi mately 1 10 was commonly called for and ideal Without the 2 by 2 pyramid layer viewing at these intermediate scales required reading sampling averaging from the full 1 by 1 raster object and this was slower than necessary Application in TNTsim3D TNTsim3D loads only the specific tiles it needs as your viewpoint moves forward or changes It does not use the tiles from the 1 by 1 raster object if the pixels on the screen represent large indistinct distant cells on the ground It automatically uses tiles from the pyramid layer containing cells of a size required by the ground size of the pixel viewed at that distance in that position in the view In other words it uses the tile from the pyramid layer whose cells will fill the pixel at that position in the 3D view All the bi nary pyramid tiers and tiles are needed in this application especially the 2 by 2 pyramid layer and th
48. ancaster County including Lincoln Nebraska where Microl mages is located The texture layer is part of a mosaic of 1 meter resolution black and white orthophotos The terrain layer was extracted from a mosaic of the 30 meter reso lution DEMs used to produce the original 7 5 quadrangle ortho images Try landing at the Lincoln Airport or locating the Sharp Tower Purgat2 sim 24 Mb from microimages com This sample uses all of the first sample 30 meter DEM from the Shuttle RADAR Topog raphy Mission SRTM The area in southern Colorado reaches from the Spanish Peaks along the Rocky Mountain front in the southwest across the high plains to the east The incised canyon network of the Purgatoire River dominates the northeastern part of the scene The texture layer was created in the Landscape Builder by merging the elevation raster color coded by elevation and displayed with partial transparency with an underly ing relief shaded view of the terrain Although all data in the simulation were derived from the DEM the combination of color coding shading and 3D display provides a very effective and realistic view of the terrain in TNTsim3D Additional SRTM DEMs should soon be available A security hold had been placed on the data following the September 11 attacks but this hold has recently been lifted for data acquired over the United States As of this writing data for areas outside of the United States are still restricted and unavailable for se
49. ance and wish to do so now please contact Microlmages by FAX phone or email to arrange to purchase this version When you have completed your purchase you will be provided an authorization code Entering this authorization code while running the installation process allows you to complete the installation of TNTedit 6 6 The prices for upgrades from earlier versions of TNTedit are outlined below Please remember that new features have been added to TNTedit with each new release Thus the older your current version of TNTedit relative to V6 60 the higher your up grade cost will be Within the NAFTA point of use area Canada U S and Mexico and with shipping by UPS ground 50 each means US 50 for each additional upgrade increment TNTedit Product Price to upgrade from TNTedit V6 00 V6 50 V6 40 V6 30 V6 20 V6 10 and earlier Windows Mac LINUX 350 550 700 800 875 50 each for 1 user floating 420 660 840 960 1050 60 each UNIX for 1 fixed license 650 1000 1350 1600 1750 50 each for 1 user floating 780 1200 1620 1920 2100 60 each For a point of use in all other nations with shipping by air express 50 each means US 50 for each additional upgrade increment TNTedit Product Price to upgrade from TNTedit V6 00 V6 50 V6 40 V6 30 V6 20 V6 10 and earlier Windows Mac LINUX 500 750 950 1100 1200 50 each for 1 user floating 600 900 1140 1320 1440 60 each UNIX for 1 fixed license 750 1200 1550 1850 2000 50 each for 1 user flo
50. and use with a minimum of scenic impact the ex posure of the point versus land use Many other modifications could be made to easily extend the use of this simple Tool Script for interactive analysis combining layers in the view with other raster and vector objects with a common extent The simplest extension would be to add multiple color lines derived from other layers to the profile graph For example this script can be quickly modified to show a solid color profile line for several raster layers elevation slope and a segmented vertical color bar for each vegetation polygon in a vector layer with the colors matching the polygon colors This provides a simple means of visually comparing vegetation land use and other attributes along any transect created with the line For those who want more than simple graphical results complex statistical and geospa tial analyses can be implemented in the script for the interactively selected position of the line This kind of extension to the script can act on multiple variable profiles easily extracted from the layers in the view or other raster vector CAD or TIN objects and their associated attributes To include objects not in the view at the start up of this Tool Script you would add the SML subsection needed to navigate to and select objects from Project Files This subsection of SML script can be found in other sample scripts Use this to select objects that are not viewed but are to be
51. ar as bright white patches Green irrigated fields can be seen in parts of the Owens and Fish Lake valleys in the western half of the scene YuccaMtn sim 46 Mb from microimages com This simulation illustrates the power of the Geospatial Rendering Engine used in the Landscape Builder to create complex texture images The texture combines a geologic map with a relief shaded raster image of the terrain a desert region in southwest Ne vada The texture actually combines four different display layers which from bottom to top were 1 the shading raster created from the terrain raster but with subsequent bi linear resampling to a smaller cell size to produce a smoother image 2 a vector layer with the map polygons and text labels with each fill color set partially transparent so the colors merge visually with the underlying terrain shading 3 a vector layer with black map unit contact lines with different line styles indicating the degree of certainty in the contact location 4 a vector layer with red lines showing the numerous fault traces with different line styles again indicating certainty in location The Landscape Builder ren dered these display layers into the single texture raster used in the simulation MtDiablo sim 12 Mb on CD and from microimages com At 3849 feet above sea level Mount Diablo is the highest point in the region surrounding the San Francisco Bay in California This simulation covers an area east of the bay abou
52. arted and loads only those tiles needed for the first frame and some predicted frames The terrain raster is small and is automatically loaded entirely into real memory Virtual memory will be automatically used for the terrain by Windows if real memory is insufficient and you will MICROIMAGES MEMO 33 21 DECEMBER 2001 RELEASE OF V6 60 TNT PRODUCTS not get acceptable frame rates If this happens close other competing applications However it will be hard to find detailed terrain rasters as big as 8000 by 8000 cells that will exceed even 64 Mb when loaded Memory is very inexpensive and 512 megabytes of real memory is commonly available on professional computers Under any circum stance it is a good practice to close other applications to run TNTsim3D as they will steal processor time and thus frame rates Another reason for closing other concurrent applications is that OpenGL and DirectX can operate directly with the processor and graphics chip at a lower level than the operating system Thus any game or program such as TNTsim3D that use them can hang the computer and its tasks causing a real crash Defaults Nearly all parameters defining the operation of TNTsim3D are now stored in the tntproc ini file just as with other TNT applications These include almost everything from window size and position to control device assignments to special effects settings For example the default position for the start of the simulation is always a vi
53. ating 900 1440 1860 2220 2400 60 each MICROIMAGES MEMO 45 21 DECEMBER 2001 RELEASE OF V6 60 TNT PRODUCTS Installed Sizes Loading TNTedit 6 6 processes onto your hard drive exclusive of any other products data sets illustrations Word files and so on requires the following storage space in megabytes for V6 50 for V6 60 PC using W95 W98 WME NT W2000 or XP 53Mb 55 Mb PC using LINUX with Intel kernel 2 0 36 to 2 4 50 Mb 52Mb Mac using Mac OS 8 x or 9 x 57 Mb 61 Mb SGI workstation via IRIX 63Mb 68 Mb Sun workstation via Solaris 2 x 54 Mb 57 Mb IBM workstation via AIX 4 x with PPC 68 Mb 72 Mb Free Training The free training sessions have been of considerable value to those who have attended The Microlmages staff has enjoyed meeting a variety of clients during these sessions One free training session has been scheduled for the beginning of 2002 14 18 January A color flier is enclosed to describe this free training and includes a registration form You can find the contents of this flier and the registration form at http www microimages com announce freetrain htm NOTE Microlmages has no further free training sessions scheduled beyond this January 2002 If any other free training is offered in 2002 it will be publicized months in advance on microimages com QuickGuides 9 new 1 page QuickGuides listed below are enclosed with V6 60 bringing to 35 the number provided in printed form with each new TNTmip
54. ation kit contains all the various past and present DLLs and other required modifications for various versions of Windows When Microlmages use this kit to pre pare the TNT products for installation it determines which versions of DLLs and other upgrades have been used and adds them to the CD Subsequently when you install the TNT products or any other product with InstallShield it first scans your system to see which DLLs and other upgrades are required and automatically makes these modifi cations InstallShield relies upon Microsoft to insure that all these modifications are backward compatible with all the other applications you have previously installed Product Licenses Types Available A new Microlmages MEMO entitled TNT Licenses and dated 1 December 2001 is en closed to describe the types of licenses available for the operation of Microlmages commercial TNT geospatial analysis products TNTmips TNTedit and TNTview At tached to that MEMO to clarify how these licenses operate and are controlled are the 5 color diagrams entitled Your Complete Geomedia Solution FIXED LICENSE for 1 direct user FLOATING LICENSE for 1 concurrent user FLOATING LICENSE for 5 concurrent users and FLOATING LICENSE for UNLIMITED concurrent users As always prices for Microlmages products can be checked at microimages com Please note that a floating license is not and will not become available for the TNTserver product TNTserver require
55. atlas for Windows and X Be Creative with SML New Sample Web Atlases RANGES Electronic Atlas New Features in TNTsim3D TNTsim3D Effects and Extras Landscape Builder for TNTsim3D TNTclient Launch Queries TNTclient Query Builder TNTclient Remote Data Entry TNTclient Reference View New Getting Started Tutorials Expanded Getting Started Tutorials Translated Getting Started Tutorials Reference Manual Online Online Search Capabilities Inverse Hough Transform Mosaic Gap Filling Point Density Rasters Matte Graphic Effects in Layouts Auto Tracing Vector Line Segments Sample SML Tool Script Select Point Sample SML Tool Script Raster Profile MICROIMAGES MEMO 5 21 DECEMBER 2001 RELEASE OF V6 60 TNT PRODUCTS Introduction Microlmages is pleased to distribute V6 60 of the TNT products which is the 51st re lease of TNTmips It provides new capabilities for direct use of external files in views and other analyses building landscape files for real time 3D viewing and mapping point densities into a raster TNTatlas for Windows has been completed TNTsim3D for Windows and the Mosaic process have had major additions and 193 new feature re quests submitted by clients and Microlmages staff were implemented A summary of the new capabilities provided in V6 60 are listed below e Automatically Use External Files Directly select and use without conversion shapefiles TAB MrSID ECW TIFF or GeoTIFF external files as layers in a com posite v
56. ce 3531 490 3366 FAX 3531 490 3251 email elaineb eircom net voice 3909 158 0305 FAX 3909 1612 4646 email nadir spaziogis it www spaziogis it voice 3904 1266 8833 FAX 3904 1266 8833 email info hesc it www hesc it Infrastructure Management amp Information Technology s a r I Richard G Hanna Mobil Top Building Dekwaneh Beirut Lebanon Netherlands Klundert contact eX Qte Hans van der Maarel Sint Janspad 1 Klundert 4791 HJ The Netherlands Nigeria Lagos contact Business Systems Solutions James O Emadoye 6 Johnson Street P O Box 5644 Off Coker Road Llupeju Lagos Nigeria Paraguay Asuncion contact MICROIMAGES MEMO voice 961 168 6755 FAX 961 168 6754 email rhanna imitco com www imitco com voice 3116 840 5932 FAX 3116 840 5935 email hans exqte nl www exqte nl voice 2341 493 8435 FAX 2341 497 9309 email bssl cyberspace net ng 80 21 DECEMBER 2001 RELEASE OF V6 60 TNT PRODUCTS Paraguay Online S R L Maria Gloria Petters voice 5952 142 6400 Capitan Aranda 1021 FAX 5952 142 6403 casi Testanova email microimages pol com py Barrio Sajonia web www paraguayonline com Asuncion Paraguay Peru Lima contact G D Sistemas S R L Gabino Alva voice 511 241 0396 Avenue Jose Larco 743 501 FAX 511 444 2702 Lima 18 Peru email gdsistemas terra com pe Switzerland Geneva contact GeoMatics Isabella Pacchiani voice 4122 731
57. ciated with it documented from actual cartographers experience and thus we are able to compare how long each flowchart step takes to complete By simulating the process model and running several thousand simulations we can see if the normal distribution of our simu lated process roughly matched the experience of the map makers With the existing production simulated we turned to prototyping the alternative and re corded the amount of time needed for each flowchart step We were able to focus on real bottlenecks to production and recommend alternatives that produced huge reduc tions in map production time This writer has verbally noted that the existing process required 1100 work hours while the streamlined process requires 110 work hours These comparisons were the first time the customer has looked at how they make maps and how the software choice they make affects their production and delivery ability The method of comparison was so radical many did not believe our comparison Others are trying to shoot down the comparison because of the embarrassing realty that the exist ing process was never really engineered It was just made up by cartographers with skills in the existing software MICROIMAGES MEMO 15 21 DECEMBER 2001 RELEASE OF V6 60 TNT PRODUCTS There are limitations to the depth of our comparison but we have successfully demon strated for the first time in over several years of my involvement that engineering analy sis wh
58. curity reasons CraterLk sim 14 Mb on CD and from microimages com This sample for the area of Crater Lake National Park in Oregon illustrates the use of additional display features in the Landscape Builder to create effective texture layers in this case involving the creative use of null value cells The basic data is a DEM for the area that includes surface elevations for the lake floor as well as the surrounding land area Like the Purgat2 simulation the Crater Lake texture merges color coded and re lief shaded renderings of this terrain but you will see that separate color schemes are used for land areas earth tones and the lake floor blue water tones Two new ver sions of the DEM were created for use in building the texture layer one with elevations for the land area but null values for the lake floor with an earth tone color palette and the other with elevations for the lake floor and null values for all other cells with a blue tone color palette These two rasters were overlaid in the Landscape Builder with the nulls in each transparent to create the combined color coded elevations Both rasters were displayed with partial transparency over a third shading raster created from the original DEM to produce the complete color shaded view MICROIMAGES MEMO 32 21 DECEMBER 2001 RELEASE OF V6 60 TNT PRODUCTS CrLkMap sim 14 Mb on CD and from microimages com The second Crater Lake area simulation uses a terrain raster that shows
59. d a texture layer and a surface layer These layers are loaded by TNTsim3D and you can fly over them using your board s DirectX or OpenGL support This Landscape Builder uses the same powerful TNT Geospatial Rendering Engine GRE and thus provides all the features you already use in constructing your 2D or static 3D views all objects projection reconciliation resampling contrast improvement queries on vector elements Competitive Status Large virtual displays appear to be unique to the TNT products Alas we are behind others in preparing simulations However TNTsim3D is not an ex pensive option and is included as a standard component of every TNTmips TNTedit and TNTview The new Landscape Builder provides powerful efficient access to the geodata used since it is based upon the TNT Geospatial Rendering Engine High Speed Internet Web Sites Access to the Internet using a connection faster than a modem is gradually becoming common in urban areas around the world This means that publishing your geospatial materials on your own web site is another geomedia option MICROIMAGES MEMO 19 21 DECEMBER 2001 RELEASE OF V6 60 TNT PRODUCTS V6 60 TNTserver 3 0 now provides support for remote clients to draw point line and polygon features on any view and complete the database record associated with them These elements are added by TNTserver to the vector object associated with them Competitive Status There are excellent competing comm
60. d around The available media capacity is the only thing that places a practical limit on the size of a raster object used in the TNT products Again however slower performance detected in special cases and applications have occurred and have been resolved Quantitative Analysis Careful quantitative analysis of the performance of the TNTatlases and other sample geodata you provide has led to further significant improvement in their rendering Micro Images can repeat your application on your large geodata set while concurrently running as another task a special commercial package called Quantify from Rational Software Corporation This software reports how much time is used to complete each step within the concurrently running TNT process For example it reports step by step timing of the operations needed to render vector layers into a view Microlmages can review this re port to pinpoint activities that are slow and then devise optimizations to continue to im prove performance The time to complete all the TNT code subsections in a particular TNT process may be quite acceptable in the general case A slow code section may not show up or even be used for typical vector objects but becomes a problem under special conditions when used or simply used very repetitively For example a vector object is described below that has many polygons with many islands Having more islands than basic polygons and filling them is not a typical condition Careful
61. d ina successful program As a result almost all organizations are using systems that were not engineered into place they were assembled piecemeal often by various individual s initiative skills or alas only by their authority A good review of how this happed in one organization can be found in the following scientific paper This paper critically reviews the piecemeal evolution of the management of geospatial analysis systems using New South Wales Department of Natural Resources as a model Long Term Management of a Corporate GIS Tai O Chan and lan P Williamson International Journal of Geographical Information Science 2000 Vol 14 No 3 pp 283 303 Abstract The GIS literature abounds with strategies to guide the development of a cor porate GIS as a single project but lacks discussion on the long term management of the GIS This paper documents a recent study into GIS development in a state department over an 18 year period It applies the productional perspective of GIS to model long term GIS development diagrammatically and identifies five patterns of GIS development The outcomes reveal some long term characteristics of a corporate GIS based on which a three stage approach is developed to guide the long term development of an ideal cor porate GIS A reprint of this paper can be ordered in PDF format from http rosina catchword com vl 29983727 cl 50 nw 1 rpsv catchword tandf 1 365881 6 v14n3 s5 p283 The Risk in Continuing It
62. d maintain them In many cases this is also a political expense as these databases belong to other departments or government agencies Will they cooperate especially when you begin to expose their problems first internally and then to the pub lic A recent example of the magnitude of this problem for a single prosperous city was re cently posted on the Internet from ethan cityoforlando net I thought this would be of interest to many of you that work in the State of Florida Florida Department of Revenue wants all cites and counties to update the DOR s communication tax address database In Orlando we found 1 000 mistakes and I have heard of much larger ones The databases maintained by an organization s IT staff can be full of errors which may be tolerated for the internal policy and record keeping of an organization When these databases are exposed publicly via a spatial data server errors take on a whole new meaning For example if a public user of a site can not find his house or street then they are quite unhappy will let you know and will not come again or support your effort Spatial data servers are designed to be tolerant of such errors but their users are not What does geoserver software cost Prices for various vendor s geoserver oriented software products vary but average around 5000 However it is totally unrealistic to simply compare the prices of geoserver products from various vendors This software is a
63. d or directories which MICROIMAGES MEMO 38 21 DECEMBER 2001 RELEASE OF V6 60 TNT PRODUCTS in turn contain the atl files or directly searches a designated directory Each of these atl files is set up by the atlas designer and is used by TNTserver to determine where the layout for that atlas is stored what title to give to it whether to automatically cache the layout if the atlas should be included in the published list of available atlases for use by any standalone TNTbrowser and so on TNTclients At the present time there are 5 different TNT sample clients available for use with TNTserver 3 0 or as models and source code for your client 2 use Java and 3 use HTML Java Clients The Java based TNTclient and the Java based TNTbrowser use a common set of code in Java 1 1 and are stable and relatively unchanged and do not provide the remote geodata entry panel As of this date the penalty assignment judge in the Microsoft anti trust case is being lobbied to force them to continue to support Java in addition to their NET approach Perhaps this will lead to the release of at least Java 1 x if not Java 2 x as part of Windows XP and Internet Explorer Mac OS X and the LINUX and UNIX plat forms now all install and support Java 2 x HTML Clients There are now 3 different modes of operation of the HTML based client which are summarized below All 3 use a single code base with options built into it to determine which of these m
64. ded in its master index At present many of the color plates used in these MEMOs to introduce new features have been reviewed revised and organized into a feature illustration gal lery in PDF format Including these in the master index and thus in the search path was impossible as they total hundreds of megabytes and will not fit on the TNT products CD Eventually they can be indexed and included in your global search which then opens your browser to view a color plate stored at microimages com As an alternative you could download all the plates once after each new release for direct local use Reli able procedures for the use of these materials are the next goal in this global indexing strategy New TNTmips Features Paragraphs or main sections preceded by the asterisk symbol introduce significant new processes or features in existing processes released for the first time in TNTmips 6 6 MICROIMAGES MEMO 49 21 DECEMBER 2001 RELEASE OF V6 60 TNT PRODUCTS System Level Changes Auto Linking to Other Formats In V6 50 and earlier TNT products you could first make a link to and then use other ex ternal geodata file formats for example TIFF and GeoTIFF files In V6 60 when you select a supported external geodata file in any process these links are now automati cally made You simply navigate to the external file using the Object Selection dialogs and then display edit and analyze the geodata in that original format just a
65. der for TNTsim3D illustrates its basic operation TNTsim3D was first introduced in V6 50 and used input texture and surface raster ob jects that had to meet specific requirements You had to create these texture and sur face rasters separately using various processes color compositing extraction resam pling to create the desired texture image while ensuring that both rasters had the same orientation and geographic extents and the required raster types Now the Land scape Builder in TNTmips automates the preprocessing of texture and terrain rasters allowing you much greater ease and flexibility in building simulated landscapes used in the separate TNTsim3D for Windows TNTsim3D runs separately from any other TNT product as it bypasses many specific operating system limitations by using DirectX or OpenGL These call and use special high speed graphics functions executed directly in the graphics chip on your display board For example polygon rendering and texture buffering are built into modern graphics chips and are often used to compare their value These display boards also provide separate high speed memory to buffer and render 3D images at high frame rates Since these activities are key ingredients in the PC video game industry the most powerful boards are available at low cost Combining the TNT product s unmatched capabilities for preparing and rendering views and the low cost direct display technologies driven by the game indust
66. e Add a neat line or border around the whole map layout Use CartoScripts to draw custom borders e HTML based TNTclient This client now provides an interface panel through which end users can draw points lines or polygons on a view complete a form for their at tributes save them locally and insert them into a vector layer in the atlas being used by the TNTserver e TNTserver TNTserver is now V3 00 which accepts and manages the remote en try of elements and attributes into a vector object e Easy Windows Installation All TNT products for Windows except TNTserver now use the familiar InstallShield wizard product e Global Searching The Online Reference Manual and all the Getting Started Book lets have a composite index and can all be globally searched and then accessed from the Help menu using Adobe Acrobat Reader e QuickGuides 9 new QuickGuides are available e Getting Started Booklets 7 new Getting Started Booklets are available as well as expanded versions of 5 existing booklets e Mac OS X TNTmips TNTedit and TNTview are supported for Mac OS 10 1 using Apple s Aqua interface and will be shipped in January as V6 60 when software au thorization key support is implemented Installation for Windows Microlmages has licensed and now uses InstallShield for the installation of V6 60 for all TNT products on Windows based platforms all TNT X server and Windows versions ex cept TNTserver Installation via InstallSh
67. e Landscape Builder described below automatically creates them Application in Direct Linked Files Some external file types such as MrSID and ECW already contain all binary pyramid layers including the 2 by 2 layer Since this pyramid layer is already included in the size requirements of these external files it is available via the direct link and no pyramid lay ers occur in the small linked Project File If these files are imported into a raster object for some reason all binary pyramid layers will be created If external files are selected in the Landscape Builder all these pyramid layers are extracted and used Exporting any suitable raster object into one of these formats will create all the required pyramids including the 2 by 2 pyramid layer MICROIMAGES MEMO 53 21 DECEMBER 2001 RELEASE OF V6 60 TNT PRODUCTS Sampled Histograms Some of you download new prototypes of the TNT products weekly to track and evalu ate new features and to guide their development This requires a lot of patience on your part as features come and go and can change detrimentally even affecting other areas of the product However your feedback is especially useful in helping Microlmages get it practical and right By this activity you become part of the development team and have significant impact on what is done Those who participate in this way often do so as they have application needs and problems to solve in the area being worked on The direct lin
68. e associated uniquely with and to automatically start TNTsim3D when any sim file is selected with the mouse Although these are special purpose raster objects they are still valid raster objects from the view point of any other TNT process In all other TNT processes you can simply select and navigate into the sim file just as you would any rvc Project File For example these raster can be viewed in 2D or 3D While they can also be used in other TNT processes saving any changes to them may prevent their proper use by TNTsim3D One of these raster objects represents the vertical dimension in the simulation and is re ferred to as the terrain raster object or simply the terrain It will be a 16 bit signed raster object The second raster object contains the composite of the images vectors pins and other features to be draped over this surface and is called the texture raster object or simply the texture It will be a 24 bit or 16 bit color composite raster object if color is part of the input objects selected It will be an 8 bit raster object if only a grayscale im age is available for example you are using a black and white orthoimage for the tex ture Limitations It Enforces A fixed set of relationships between the terrain and texture objects is required for their fast use in TNTsim3D These properties and relationships are created by the Land scape Builder and provide the basis for achieving high frame rates If TNTsim3D had to
69. e of the simulator introducing pauses in the moving image at higher flight speeds Modifications since V6 60 CDs Since the CDs were mastered the Landscape Builder has been modified in several ways to better handle no data areas in terrain objects and to correct minor errors MICROIMAGES MEMO 60 21 DECEMBER 2001 RELEASE OF V6 60 TNT PRODUCTS If your terrain data does not cover the full extents you select for the simulation the re lease version of the Landscape Builder assigned a null value for the no data areas in the output terrain raster These null value areas cause significant rendering problems when the simulation is run in TNTsim3D The Landscape Builder has now been modified to fill terrain no data areas with the minimum real value from the terrain The resulting simulation may show a step down to this minimum area at the original edge of the ter rain but the texture overlay will render smoothly over the entire area This change also would allow you to create a simulation from an image of an island with the surrounding sea and an elevation model covering only the island area In TNTsim3D the island would appear to rise from the flat ocean surface the ocean areas of the image rendered over the flat minimum value areas of the output terrain raster In both the release and current versions of the Landscape Builder if the texture data does not cover the full simulation extents the no data areas are assigned a null value i
70. e the results of your geospatial analysis It is often the quality of your geomedia presentation that distinguishes your results from those of others Your access to these new and improved technologies has prompted Microlmages to try to satisfy your expectations for their operation in the TNT products As a result a significant portion of our current efforts is focused upon satisfying your re quirements for superior media distribution of your Superior project results The realization that Microlmages and you are in the geomedia business and the need to show the relationships that exist in the several fine TNT products are illustrated in the diagram entitled Your Complete Geomedia Solution which is attached to the enclosed Microlmages MEMO entitled TNT Licenses This diagram illustrates the current relation ships between the TNT geospatial analysis and geomedia products Perhaps this dia gram will help you review the many excellent free end user media options that are available for the publication of your results Satisfying This Need Earlier versions of the TNT products addressed your geomedia publishing needs by moving the results of your geospatial analysis into other media by exporting your results for example export to PDF Illustrator TIFF GIF VRML formats and the creation of MPEG and AVI movies and other standard media formats Let us review the progress over the last year in V6 50 and V6 60 toward directly meeting your special g
71. eclare a string was to end the variable name with a dollar sign This was a convention lifted from the old BASIC language that much of the original SML syntax was based on Variables of both types may be passed to functions that require strings but the new class has some added benefits First since it is a class you can declare arrays of class STRING String variables declared the old way do not allow for arrays of strings due to the way their internal storage is implemented Second as a class it can have members and methods It has the following members and methods that mimic the JavaScript String class Length Returns the length of the string charAt n Returns the nth character in a string charCodeAt n Return the Unicode value of the nth character in a string indexOf substr start Return the 0 based index of a substring within a string 1 if not found MICROIMAGES MEMO 76 21 DECEMBER 2001 RELEASE OF V6 60 TNT PRODUCTS lastIndexOf substr start Return the 0 based index of a substring within a string starting at the end 1 if not found toLowercase Returns a copy of the string in all lowercase The string itself is not changed toUppercase Returns a copy of the string in all uppercase The string itself is not changed slice start end Returns a part of a string substr start end Returns a part of a string Upgrading If you did not order V6 60 of TNTmips in advance and wish to do so now please con
72. ect the nearest point in a view how to draw a line and how to plot a profile of information associated with the line in any layer Each of these and other new samples represent SML script segments that are common and for which help has been requested by some user learning how to MICROIMAGES MEMO 72 21 DECEMBER 2001 RELEASE OF V6 60 TNT PRODUCTS create a script containing these common operations Tool Scripts permit you to create a script and add it as an icon to provide a special interactive tool or set of tools unique to your profession and needs Typical Tool Script components are illustrated by the sam ple scripts introduced below Microlmages is willing to provide similar public generic SML sample scripts for commonly used operations for those who are capable of incor porating them in their own custom applications Sample Scripts Select Nearest Point included on CD A typical custom SML tool will often start by providing for the interactive selection of a vector element and or its attributes from the active layer and then use it to act on some other layer s associated with it Since this is a Tool Script it will appear as an icon on the toolbar of the View window An example of this kind of script is illustrated in the at tached color plate entitled Sample SML Tool Script Select Point As a Tool Script it becomes an integral part of the view Thus all of the powerful TNT visualization tech niques become part of your tool as the
73. ectX and OpenGL Graphics chips are very competitive and changing Intel NVidia and now ATI all pro vide their chips to many other firms who assemble the logic board memory configura tion and driver Matrox is one of the remaining small volume vendors still in the compe tition who use their own chips on their boards and with their own drivers Microsoft s Xbox uses a standard NVidia graphics chip and DirectX Nintendo s GameCube re leased in November 2001 uses the latest Intel graphics chip As a result of all this vola tility DirectX and OpenGL are in a constant state of flux It will require effort on your part to tune your system for good frame rate performance with TNTsim3D DirectX 8 For your convenience this section is reproduced here in part from the V6 50 memo When you install a recent Windows operating system DirectX is automatically installed However it may not be DirectX 8 which was first released earlier in 2001 If your ma chine is 2 to 3 years old you probably have DirectX 7 If you do not have version 8 in stalled TNTsim3D will detect this and notify you If you need to get DirectX 8 go to mi crosoft com and download and install it You may then need to go to the manufacturer of your video card or microsoft com and get a revised driver for the card that supports DirectX 8 Microlmages has found that most current video board manufacturers who supported DirectX 7 now have new drivers available to support versi
74. ed the systems level control procedures for the activity and the design of future improved solutions The contractor is concerned with all aspects of the process but since this is a complex mission critical program their focus is more on the time than the cost Also important is the reduction of the complexity of the process as this has a serious indirect cost in the availability of skilled operators the time to train them their re tention and the quality of their products all of which significantly impact on the ability of this agency who directly employs the analysts to react to changes in demand by scal ing the production up or down The contractor conducting the review below already uses its own specialized image processing software modules in the existing workflows which require software from 10 additional outside commercial software vendors The results of their system analysis of the existing workflow shows that without changing their modules an improved workflow has been achieved and additional products produced using only 5 software products from other vendors have used bracketed changes changes to make this review anonymous and to add my clarifications Also to maintain the sources anonymity it is not possible to include the color workflow diagram referred to in this communication As noted the existing system referred to here as the E amp E system uses 11 software products made up of 4 primary software collections from ES
75. ems ESRI has also been forced to adopt this same policy primarily to manage errors Posted on a public list server on 26 July 2001 MICROIMAGES MEMO 20 21 DECEMBER 2001 RELEASE OF V6 60 TNT PRODUCTS At the ESRI conference a few weeks ago Jack announced that ESRI is going to be of fering service packs every 3 months or so for download and then when they have re leased 4 SP s they will bundle them up and do a new software version release So the first service pack is available for download From ArcOnline at arconline esri co arconline download ao SP1 cfm ArcGIS Service Pack 1 Posted July 3 2001 Service Pack 1 is an optional upgrade to ArcGIS 8 1 It addresses specific issues that were discovered in ArcGIS Desktop 8 1 ArcView Arcinfo and ArcEditor Arcinfo Workstation 8 1 and ArcSDE 8 1 The service pack contains performance improve ments maintenance fixes and a few new features ESRI highly recommends that customers download and install Service Pack 1 at their earliest convenience For a complete list of the issues addressed for Service Pack 1 please review the List of Updates Get Service Pack 1 now There are two ways to get Service Pack 1 You can download it directly from this web site or you can order the CD s you need for nominal fee Click on the link below to find out more information about each available Service Pack download Naivete Many years ago those of us who started Microlmages had the naive ou
76. en done fairly and openly produces compelling indications that the biggest brand name software doesn t mean you have the best process It has been shown that many of the customers so called map making gurus are simply exceptionally skilled GIS types whose breadth of experience is really limited by the col lection of software tools at their disposal Their attempts at processes may or may not be engineered well By designing process models that can directly compare identical functional phases against software steps needed to complete it we are able to take an apples to apples look at judging software This analysis provides a clear example of the benefits that result from replacing a loosely assembled multi vendor collection of software with an integrated geospatial analysis product supplemented by special purpose software In this example each product set will be produced in 3 weeks by 1 operator 110 hours instead of 10 opera tors 1100 hours This will produce an order of magnitude increase in production or a major reduction in costs The number of software products involved is reduced by 1 2 thus correspondingly increasing the reliability of the system while decreasing system in stallation maintenance and operator training time Geomedia What Is It All our efforts in geospatial analysis are eventually focused upon the production of ge omedia We all have some end user to reach such as a client supervisor
77. ensions suitable for the simulator Each dimension of the texture raster in cells is maintained as a power of 2 multiple of 256 for example 256 512 1024 2048 This restriction is related to the special texture tiling scheme used in TNTsim3D s texture server which uses tiles that are 256 by 256 cells in size The dimensions of the terrain raster are computed as the texture dimen sion divided by the selected size ratio plus 1 cell For example with output texture di mensions of 1024 by 4096 and a texture terrain ratio of 4 the terrain raster will be as signed dimensions of 257 by 1025 You can also choose the color depth of the output texture image 24 bit 16 bit or 8 bit with color palette Minimizing File Size When building a simulation keep in mind that your choices for cell sizes texture terrain size ratio and raster sizes will impact the appearance of the simulation and the per formance of the simulator A highly detailed terrain layer is not required for a realistic looking simulation so consider using a relatively high texture terrain size ratio and hold ing the texture cell size constant producing a smaller coarser terrain raster This strategy will maximize the detail of your texture layer while maintaining smaller sizes for both objects Using a high ratio and holding the terrain cell size constant introduces no additional detail in the texture layer but may increase the object sizes enough to impact the performanc
78. ent TNTserver 3 0 Are You Ready to Go Online The real expense in money and effort to implement a spatial data server a geoserver depends on the answer to many complex questions For Microlmages clients TNTat MICROIMAGES MEMO 36 21 DECEMBER 2001 RELEASE OF V6 60 TNT PRODUCTS las is a good technology benchmark to use to answer questions regarding the state of preparation of your materials for use with TNTserver If you have prepared a FREE TNTatlas on CD from your materials then you are prepared to assemble a small or very large spatial data server You already know the effort involved in preparing all your map image document and database materials for use on the intranet or Internet via TNTserver Newcomers beginners or those just considering going online must care fully calculate the costs associated with answering yes to the following questions Are your maps images and documents ready Are all your geodata and paper documents in a digital format suitable for direct use in a spatial data server If the answer is no you are going to spend big money to scan im port convert edit export and otherwise handle 10s of thousands of files Are your databases ready Merely determining that ODBC link or Spatial Oracle can be used is meaningless Are your associated relational databases clean and ready for use Are you ready to expose your databases to public access If not are you ready to spend the money to clean them up an
79. eomedia re quirements as a function of the desktop devices that enable each opportunity Language Support You have limited or no geomedia options if your language can not be used in your ge omedia By its very nature media is for public consumption and requires the use of your public s language V6 50 All TNT products were converted to use TrueType This provided for your ac cess to the widest selection of fonts in your language for the operation of the TNT prod ucts for TNTatlas distribution and for map production V6 60 Provides continous incremental improvements in the support of your language and adds new languages Competitive Status The TNT products support more languages at_no extra cost than any other similar product in any price range MICROIMAGES MEMO 17 21 DECEMBER 2001 RELEASE OF V6 60 TNT PRODUCTS CDRW Drives CDs are the principal media by which large geodata sets can be created for distribution TNTatlas is unique in that without cost it provides an organized structure for distribution of geodata together with quantitative geospatial analysis tools V6 50 You were first introduced to TNTatlas for Windows as a standalone prototype no X server required Since this is a free geomedia product it can be prepared for dis tribution using TNTmips on any platform You created and distributed various prototype atlases with this product V6 60 TNTatlas for Windows is now fully featured and can be used to create o
80. ercial and public domain products that are widely used Key features of TNTserver are that it is based upon ma terials produced in the TNT products data is introduced in the same TNTatlas structure and the price is lower than competing commercial products Low Speed Public Access Worldwide public access continues to expand but often uses low speed modems De livering geomedia views to everyone requires careful crafting of the client software they must use V6 60 The new HTML based TNTclient and standalone HTML based TNTbrowser provide the same features as their Java based TNT equivalents However they are much smaller and thus download in an acceptable period via a modem or cell phone device Furthermore for security reasons many organizations will not permit their staff to access the network using Java or other network protocols They restrict their users to simple HTML access Users from these sites can now access and use TNTserver sites with the new HTML based TNTclient or TNTbrowser Competitive Status There are a myriad of clients tools approaches and strategies available on the Internet so comparisons are difficult who is the client what kind of network access do they have how patient are they and on and on However keeping a map client simple in appearance while providing many features is the challenge HTML is familiar to everyone and all standard browsers and firewalls Our HTML based TNTclient and TNTbrowser can be eas
81. ew from above the upper left corner looking to the center of the landscape The linear velocity defaults to the value that will take 120 seconds to cross the maximum extent of the terrain Eve rything else has similar defaults stored or computed If you want to change these pa rameters you can do so at any time as you use a landscape file in TNTsim3D For ex ample your velocity and rotation rate can be set on the Options dialog and will be re tained and used at the next start of the TNTsim3D This will be fine if the landscape has the same ground cell size but these and other parameters must be changed for a landscape of a significantly different scale From the above you will note that at this time you do not have much control over how TNTsim3D will start up with landscape files that vary widely in size scale and orienta tion In the future the Landscape Builder will help you set up a sim file that via a new subobject supplies the appropriate default values for these aspects of its use If any of these are changed during its use in TNTsim3D you will have the option of saving them to replace the original defaults in any future use of that landscape file These will in clude the starting viewpoint the starting window size the starting velocity your control settings if desired and other defaults that should be associated with each unique land scape file Technical Considerations Tuning the Engine OpenGL or DirectX Both of these c
82. for that cell Those cells with a radius containing no input points can optionally be filled with O or with a null value Some of the considerations needed when using this procedure are outlined in more de tail in the color plate entitled Point Density Rasters Some point surface modeling pro cedures weight the value of each point by its distance from the raster cell being created This point density function merely counts the points that meet the query criteria Further modifications of this point density function could be made to permit the value returned to be weighted by the distance from the point within the radius to control its contribution to the density In other words distant points contribute less according to the inverse of their distance from the cell center the inverse square or other options Layouts More Attractive Legends V6 50 provided new features for making layouts to assist you in managing the contents of groups especially legend text and structure V6 60 follows this up by providing new controls to frame and matte groups and to more conveniently add neat lines and other borders to your layouts These new layout options are provided on a new Matte tab panel on the Group Settings window for internal groups and under Layout Options for the whole layout A color plate entitled Matte Graphic Effects in Layouts is attached to illustrate these controls and some of these new border and matte features Borders Legend blocks
83. for the possible transla tion of selected booklets into Chinese Arabic and Croatian You can determine which booklets are available in your language and obtain them from the Downloads listings at microimages com Online Reference Manual Now in PDF Format The TNT reference manual is written in Microsoft Word but is now converted to PDF format and installed in that format for use in Adobe Acrobat Reader The PDF online presentation of the manual in the TNT products is more attractive than the previous HTML presentation The latest version of your browser is automatically equipped to view PDF documents over the Internet Thus this manual can even be accessed and used directly from microimages com just as if it was locally available Conversion of this manual to PDF format matches its format to that used for the Getting Started tutorials MICROIMAGES MEMO 47 21 DECEMBER 2001 RELEASE OF V6 60 TNT PRODUCTS and permits all these written materials to be searched at once as outlined in the section below Direct Topic Links When you access the Online Reference Manual directly from the menu it opens up to the Volume Index page illustrated on the attached color plate entitled Reference Manual Online From this title page you can select a chapter of interest and its table of contents will be found on the Bookmarks tab in Acrobat Reader Each entry in this table is a bookmark link and when selected Reader will jump to the beginning of that
84. ge boxes of information One box contained three large three ring binders with an estimated 3 000 pages of text and three small three ring binders with an es timated 900 pages of documentation now 1700 I say estimated because each sec tion of the manuals has its own numbering and table of contents but there s no overall index or pagination Users however can access and search the online versions The larger manuals serve as the user s manual providing specifics on each aspect of operation The three smaller manuals explain concepts and process sequences In ad dition there are excellent color images that show operation results The TNTmips documentation is thorough and would be excellent if it weren t so difficult to find things there are no indexes The online versions make global searching and discovery somewhat easier Since this was a valid criticism an indexing approach was sought to remedy this situa tion The task is non trivial as the TNT written document base now contains MICROIMAGES MEMO 48 21 DECEMBER 2001 RELEASE OF V6 60 TNT PRODUCTS e 2500 pages in the 7 volumes of the Reference Manual e 1700 pages in 65 separate Getting Started and related booklets e 1000s of pages of technical reference material in the Microlmages MEMOs e 400 color plates that accompanied the Microlmages MEMOs and e a small collection of new single page Quick Guides Added to this are the other pages of materials crea
85. h these control points apply to only a portion of the mosaicked area Now the best fit transformation parameters are computed from the entire set of input control points for all input rasters and these results are saved in the georeference subobject created for the mosaic raster Individual control points are NOT transferred to the mosaic s georefer ence subobject Improved Contrast Enhancement Set Same for All Input A single automatic contrast enhancement can be applied to all input rasters using the Set Contrast All Layers icon button on the Input panel This button opens a dropdown menu with all standard automatic enhancement methods Auto Linear Auto Normalize val Make Linear Contrast Table for Output Earlier versions of mosaic provided several procedures that transfer contrast enhanced values into the mosaic contrast matching to an ideal Equalize or Normalize histogram or using the Apply Contrast toggle button These operations transform the cell values in the individual input rasters to new adjusted cell values in the mosaicked raster object Now when you use any of these procedures a new Linear contrast table is automati cally created for these altered values in mosaic to insure that the applied contrast is cor MICROIMAGES MEMO 63 21 DECEMBER 2001 RELEASE OF V6 60 TNT PRODUCTS rectly displayed This new contrast table is saved and used as the default when the mosaic is displayed in the Mosaic Result window the TNTm
86. heck with Microlmages support or at microimages com for the status of this important addition It appears that this library for JPEG 2000 will permit the direct use of auto linked files multiple data types greater than 3 image bands and other important features and support its import and export to from raster ob jects of any size In addition to these expanded features JPEG 2000 should provide the same compression as other wavelet based approaches free of legal entanglements It will also be widely used in many image oriented applications starting with video stor age and transmission products It is the agreed upon replacement for JPEG and has al ready been implemented in the first silicon chips for use in TVs recorders and other consumer equipment SML When an SML script is used to import any supported raster format the raster object it creates can now be compressed using the TNT supported compression methods All SML import functions now have parameters to use to control compression or no com pression DEMs and SDTS in Particular Previously TNT applications using Digital Elevation Models DEMs were limited to 8 bit integer raster objects with an offset or 16 bit signed integer rasters The signed 16 bit version permitted any real earth surface elevation or ocean depth to be preserved with out offset to the nearest 1 foot or meter relative to mean sea level Other TNT proc esses that operated upon rasters containing only elevatio
87. his approach for programs you obtain via the Internet Changing a License Modifying your software authorization key fixed or floating uses the License Configura tion window Use it when you have ordered any of the following changes e updating to a new version of a TNT product MICROIMAGES MEMO 9 21 DECEMBER 2001 RELEASE OF V6 60 TNT PRODUCTS e adding optional large format printer support e converting from TNTview to TNTedit or TNTedit to TNTmips and e increasing the number of concurrent users on a floating license Simply select Apply feature option code from this window which will present the Apply option code window where you can fill in the authorization code provided by Microl mages The program will then use this code to program your software authorization key to permit the operation of your new features or products IMPORTANT If you order upgrades of any TNT product except TNTserver before the CDs are mastered for that version do not request an authorization code The CD for that version will automatically reprogram your key when you install from it Possible New Keys Microlmages is evaluating new HASP parallel and USB software authorization keys from Aladdin see illustrations at ealaddin com for all TNT products These keys look similar to the parallel and USB keys currently purchased from Rainbow Technologies rain bow com They would also be used and supported in the same fashion as the current keys
88. ical eric Rule based Integration of Remotely sensed Data and GIS for Land Cover Mapping in NE Costa Rica by Kenneth L Driese William A Reiners and Robert C Thurton Dept of Botany Univ of Wyoming Laramie WY 92071 3165 Geocarto International V 16 No 1 March 2001 pages 35 44 email kdriese uwyo edu Abstract A classification method was developed for mapping land cover in NE Costa Rica at a regional scale for spatial input to a biogeochemical model CENTURY To distinguish heterogeneous cover types unsupervised classifications of Landsat The matic Mapper data were combined with ancillary and derived data in an iterative proc ess Spectral classes corresponding to ground cover types were segregated into a storage raster while ambiguous pixels were passed through a set of rules to the next stage of processing Feature sets were used at each step to help sort spectral classes into land cover classes The process enabled different feature sets to be used for dif ferent types while recognizing that spectral classification alone was not sufficient for separating cover types that were defined by heterogeneity Spectral data included TNT MICROIMAGES MEMO 82 21 DECEMBER 2001 RELEASE OF V6 60 TNT PRODUCTS reflective bands principle components and the NDVI Ancillary data included GIS cov erages of swamp extents banana plantation boundaries and river courses Derived data included neighborhood varieties and majority measures that capt
89. ield is commonly used for most products for any version of Microsoft Windows Some of the advantages of this new procedure are e installation uses the common and familiar wizard procedures e TNT components are automatically installed into the Microsoft approved locations e uninstall via the Add Remove Programs icon on the Control Panel and e Microsoft libraries DLLs required by the TNT products are updated automatically From a technical viewpoint the DLL management issue is very important In 2 prior TNT releases difficulties were experienced on older versions of Windows that resulted from Microlmages assumption that your system DLLs would be current In one case every single person at Microlmages at home and elsewhere who tested the prerelease soft ware used a system that also had the latest version of Microsoft Internet Explorer in stalled Installing this version of Explorer updated system DLLs that were used in the preparation of that release and were required to operate it Alas some clients were not using Explorer were not keeping it current and were using an older version of Win MICROIMAGES MEMO 7 21 DECEMBER 2001 RELEASE OF V6 60 TNT PRODUCTS dows As a result these clients could not run that version of the TNT products until they obtained the revised DLL and used it to patch their version of Microsoft Windows InstallShield is closely coupled with the operation of all versions of Windows Its installa tion prepar
90. iew as input to an analysis process or for import Intermix these external geodata files in these activities with objects from a Project File Large Display Windows Select that the large virtual view window should auto matically scale to the maximum extent of all layers or the active layer or that it should scale 1 1 to show every pixel in the active layer Faster Views A 2 by 2 pyramid layer for rasters can now be created to accelerate views that will select this layer All processes now optimize vector objects for zoomed in views Optimization has been extended to accelerate label location in zoomed in views Filling islands is much faster Real Time 3D Simulation TNTsim3D for Windows can be used with DirectX or OpenGL It is now much more robust and individual frames are equal in quality to static 3D views and better than movies Image smoothing can be used to smooth big pixels in the foreground Smoothing and the application of fog and haze reduce sparkle at the horizon Use keys to toggle view from pilot forward to passenger left and right bombardier nadir or straight down or rear gunner rear views 3D compass provides orientation Landscape Builder A new TNTmips process to produce a Project File optimized for real time use in TNTsim3D Choose any raster object of any data type for the surface or terrain raster object Choose any combination of raster vector CAD TIN and supported external files for combination into the
91. ily modified by those familiar with HTML Our TNTclients leave no cookies or other alterations on the client s computer They are small and download quickly via a modem Too Frequent Upgrades Occasionally Microlmages has been criticized for providing too frequent upgrades Some believe this leads to too little checking and too many errors There is some rela tionship between errors and the frequency of releases but not much There are a mil lion possible paths through TNTmips and it is only possible to check the major ones Adding features or correcting existing errors that change many subsystems causes er rors Thus longer intervals between software updates and releases do not necessarily equate to fewer errors Adding fewer features to a product in a given time interval will reduce errors However few of you are willing to forego your particular new require ments your favorite platform and Microlmages must also react to changes in competi tive technology After 16 years of frequent Microlmages upgrades other software developers are being forced to adopt a similar strategy for similar purposes Microsoft offers periodic service packs NT has 6 and upgrades such as with Internet Explorer Now they plan to auto matically patch XP and their other products when your unpatched versions are detected via the Internet Closer to home ERDAS has issued at least 6 upgrades to their V8 x since it was released Now as outlined in the following it
92. in Simplified Chinese Traditional Chinese Hangul Korean Finnish Norwegian Swedish French German Italian Dutch and Spanish Since Adobe Acrobat Reader 5 is also available for Mac 10 1 the Getting Started Booklets the Online Reference Man ual and the new indexes to them will also automatically be available in English The use of the available translated versions of the Getting Started Booklets via Acrobat Reader has not yet been investigated Software Authorization Key Aladdin s HASP USB key has been selected for use with the Mac 10 1 product see il lustrations at ealaddin com It can be programmed to control TNT operations on Micro MICROIMAGES MEMO 11 21 DECEMBER 2001 RELEASE OF V6 60 TNT PRODUCTS soft Windows and LINUX platforms Thus this single USB key permits the interchange and operation of your TNT product on Mac OS 10 1 Windows and LINUX Floating License Available Microlmages floating license like almost every other floating license uses a FLEXIm li cense manager purchased from GLOBEtrotter software FLEXIm was never made available for Mac 9 x or earlier Mac systems as it operates in the background on multi tasking systems which these were not Thus Microlmages floating license does not permit a concurrent user to work from Mac 9 x stations Mac OS X is a multi tasking UNIX based operating system and is fully supported by FLEXIm As a result a TNT floating license can be used from a Mac 10 1 platform
93. ips Spatial Data Display process or other processes that use the display interface The existence of this new Linear contrast table prevents displays of this mosaic raster from applying an additional automatic enhancement such as Auto Normalize that might alter the intended appear ance of the mosaic Set Contrast with a Reference Raster If you contrast match to a reference raster that has a contrast table and choose not to apply a new contrast the reference contrast table is copied automatically to the mosaic insuring proper contrast enhanced display of the mosaic More Tie Point Options Manual Positioning Mosaic can combine rasters that are not georeferenced Improvements have been made to assist you in properly placing tie points in the overlap area of each input raster For example you can now manually enter or edit the line and column positions of the points you select in the Tie Points window Snap to Cell Center An option is now available to automatically snap each tie point to the center of the cell in which it falls Use the Snap Tie Points to Cell Center toggle on the Options panel of the Tie Points window Saving RMS Adjustments The Root Mean Square RMS errors computed during the bundle adjustment of tie points and georeference control points can be optionally saved to a text file for further analysis Snapshot Option An option has been added to the View menu to save a snapshot of the View window Import Ex
94. istogram should accu rate statistics be required Faster Queries In V6 50 each time a query was evaluated one per element it had to read the record related to the element and compare the field value In V6 60 if the field is indexed the query uses the index which is usually in real memory to determine which records match the query which eliminates the need to read the records Thus any query involv ing a database field that is indexed is evaluated much faster If there is no index the query will still read the record for each element In situations where the same query is evaluated over and over such as in a TNTserver or any frequently used selection operation indexing has a dramatic effect on perform ance Any field you expect to be used frequently in a query should be indexed To in dex a field open the table in the Database Editor window Use Table Edit Definition and select the field and the Indexed toggle button Once a field is marked as indexed in this fashion its index will be maintained even if the database table is edited Faster Vector Operations Universal Vector Optimization The optimized element structure introduced in V6 40 of the TNT products is now auto matically created and maintained by all processes in V6 60 For example vector vali date will now automatically optimize the vector object This structure makes large scale MICROIMAGES MEMO 54 21 DECEMBER 2001 RELEASE OF V6 60 TNT PRODUCTS views of
95. ith a profile of that line In this example the interactive line is created the map coordinates of the positions it crosses are determined and values determined from a coincident raster are plotted in a graphical profile window A similar interactive profile tool is already provided in the TNT GeoToolbox however its use and properties are simple and fixed This sample SML Tool Script is available to provide the basis for your implementation of profile analyses that are either more specialized to your needs or more complex The client who requested this sample tool has already refined this script for use in a mili tary communication application requiring information about terrain clearance between 2 points Their expanded tool provides additional profile data and displays it in a graphical window mimicking the layout and data provided by some other program already in use for this purpose but that is not as interactive or flexible In their modified version of this script other characteristics of the profile of an elevation raster are computed and dis played These include such path information as maximum minimum minimum clear MICROIMAGES MEMO 73 21 DECEMBER 2001 RELEASE OF V6 60 TNT PRODUCTS ance of the terrain between the end points and other line of sight characteristics These address questions related to the reliability of radio laser and other communica tions between the end points selected for the line Since this Tool Script is s
96. king to MrSID and ECW files was first released several months ago Micro Images then claimed that a direct link could be made in a couple of seconds Several clients tried this direct link approach and reported that it was quite slow on their files Neither of these qualitative image formats included a histogram Since their file sizes were large it was taking too long to decompress while auto linking in order to compute a histogram for every pixel This histogram is computed and saved in the small raster ob ject associated with this external file to make it available to subsequent TNT processing of this linked file Their feedback resulted in modifications to the TNT processes to use a pyramid layer to compute the histogram for large raster objects or linked rasters that have pyramids such as MrSID and ECW This reduced the time needed for computing and storing the histogram during the direct link to 1 to 2 seconds for any size of large raster Using this same sampling approach throughout the TNT processes provides the same improvements in performance when you create import or analyze a large raster object It can also decrease the time for viewing a raster created in a GeoFormula or other interactive raster creation Some special applications require viewing a full histogram with every cell included The new histogram display uses the sampled histogram and shows the sampling interval An option is available to compute and display the unsampled full h
97. lable for public use Micro Images will add JPEG 2000 wavelet compression support in V6 70 of the TNT products Almost 5 Meter Imagery Earth Watch has changed its name to Digital Globe It is rumored that this change was made as others already had all the Internet names associated with terms related to Earth Watch This points out that it is your web name that you are known by and its rep resentation and availability must receive careful consideration it may even be the de termining factor if you wish to be easily located in the global market QuickBird 2 reached its proper orbit in good health and most recently responded to its check out by removing its lens cover Imagery from this platform is expected to become available early in 2002 X Server alias MI X There were no significant changes in the X server having any impact on its use in the TNT products A series of minor improvements in the standalone version sold sepa rately by Microlmages under the name MI X have raised its version number to 3 09 These changes are all related to improvements in handling the installation and protec tion of this product for trial use and purchase TNTlite 6 6 Increasing Activity Approximately 400 different individuals around the world complete the online form each month and attempt to download TNTlite from microimages com Their success varies as a TNTlite download ranges in size from 37 Mb for the TNTmips TNTedit TNT view software up to a c
98. loped in Turkey using the TNTsdk Software Develop Kit by the Communications and Spectrum Management Research Center at Bilkent University in Ankara This product integrates geospatial analysis with Oracle and Sybase for managing and monitoring frequency spectrum allocation and compliance The complete text of this article can be found at http www eomonline com Common currentissues Nov01 corbley htm but for some rea son the useful illustrations are omitted from their online articles silly but perhaps they can not afford the drive space Rates of Clearing of Native Woody Vegetation 1997 2000 prepared for New South Wales Department of Land and Water Conservation prepared by Environmental Re search and Information Consortium ERIC Canberra Australia March 2001 33 pages including color plates Rates of Clearing of Native Woody Vegetation 1995 1997 prepared for New South Wales Department of Land and Water Conservation prepared by Environmental Re search and Information Consortium ERIC Canberra Australia December 1997 50 pages including color plates Rates of Clearing of Native Woody Vegetation 1995 2000 prepared for New South Wales Department of Land and Water Conservation Centre for Natural Resources prepared by Environmental Research and Information Consortium ERIC Canberra Australia May 2001 11 page summary report including color plates these reports can be found at http Avww dlwc nsw gov au care veg techn
99. ly such as a CD or a read only network source then the link file will be created in the cache directory on your local drive The following external formats can now be transparently linked and used in TNTmips TNTedit TNTview TNTatlas and TNTserver e ESRI s shapefile line work and table e MapInfo s TAB file line work tables and rasters e ER Mapper s ECW file Enhanced Compressed Wavelet e Lizard Tech s MrSID file wavelet compressed and e TIFF GeoTIFF file all types Now that this procedure is in place other supported external geodata formats with ap propriate structures could be added ERDAS img NITF 2 x CADRG and so on Cautions Wavelet as well as other technologies can compress your images to very small sizes but with significant losses in detail Care should be used in applying these approaches to images that require further processing and interpretation However when you reach your geomedia production step these quality losses may be quite acceptable Your TNT products can use many kinds of rasters and also provide different kinds of compression and formats and care should be used in their selection Special caution should be used with rasters that are not images For example DEMs might be acceptable in wavelet compressed format if the loss of some surface detail is acceptable Categorical rasters containing solid polygons should not use lossy compression but can be greatly com pressed by run leng
100. lysis requires accu rate quantitative control of a simulation that will often only be used once Simulations with unique geodata are gradually becoming actual analysis tools much like games where one tries to navigate through a series of constraints with a minimum of cost Mili tary organizations already use these concepts in training where a flight path is interac tively selected with a minimum exposure to known risks TNTmips TNTview and TNTedit are now providing you these capabilities at no additional cost by adapting game technology and effective management of the geodata linked to or in your Project Files New Features A selection of these new features is illustrated in the attached color plates entitled New Features in TNTsim3D and TNTsim3D Effects and Extras Degrees of Freedom You can control movement in V6 60 of TNTsim3D in many more ways The application now defines and maintains 3D positions for the center of the view and the plane carry ing the viewer but also allows different attitudes orientations for the plane and viewer Assign your input devices see Input Controls section below to control all these new motions during any simulation as follows with respect to the current position of the plane move it e forward or backward e left or right up or down perpendicular to the flight line and e altitude up or down with respect to the current attitude of the plane rotate around the local axes e pitch up or do
101. mulation The texture you create can be as simple as a rendered image of the terrain itself with color map or relief shading or a complex view using any type of raster image grayscale RGB RGBI with any number of overlays other raster or vector layers with or without transparency pinmaps As in other processes texture layers with differing map projections are automatically registered and reprojected for display and processing The Landscape Builder s View window displays the texture image and allows you to make any neces sary adjustments to refine the image contrast enhancement color palettes vector styles When you run the process the Landscape Builder merges all of the layers in the View just as you see them into a single texture raster for use in TNTsim3D The objects you select for texture and terrain do not have to have matching extents and map projections The Landscape Builder allows you to reconcile differing extents orien tations and cell sizes for your candidate terrain and texture objects You can automati cally orient and clip the simulation objects based on the input data or reorient all objects to any map projection and perform manual clipping in either case Using lt Designing the Terrain To use the Landscape Builder to prepare a sim Project File begin by selecting a raster object to represent the vertical dimension terrain surface for the simulation In most cases you would choose a raster
102. n the output texture raster In the release version of TNTsim3D these texture nulls were displayed in black but the simulator has since been modified to make texture null areas transparent Nothing is rendered in these areas except your selected background color In the release version of the Landscape Builder the cell value designated as null for the output texture raster is the minimum value for the raster type R 0 G 0 B 0 for 16 bit and 24 bit texture rasters But this meant that areas of pure black color in any of the layers used to create the texture object in the Landscape Builder would inadvertently end up with the same texture cell value that had been designated as null These valid black areas would now appear transparent in TNTsim3D To avoid this situation the Landscape Builder now makes a slight adjustment to the color of any black texture ar eas so that they are assigned a texture cell value that is different than the null value Other recent modifications to the Landscape Builder correct problems in converting floating point values for terrain rasters rendering transparency effects to 16 bit texture rasters and in rendering the output extents box in the View window Map Projections and Coordinate Systems A 3 degree Gauss Kruger system is commonly used in Europe and is now supported This coordinate system should not be confused with the 6 degree Gauss Kruger system previously and still available The 3 degree system co
103. n models for example 3D perspective views or GeoToolbox region operations expected them to be only in these integer formats and rejected any other data types Rasters containing DEMs are increasing in accuracy due to more accurate GPS signals LIDAR mapping laser and other custom mapping operations in individual agricultural fields and other operations Recently several different rasters were encountered that contained real mean sea level elevation values in decimeters and as decimals of feet and meters For example a revised SDTS format for USGS recorded elevations in decimeters and a locally produced DEM made to model microdrainage in a single crop field claimed accuracy to the nearest inch Now the processes that import DEMs and the SDTS import in particular determine and use the appropriate numerical data type for the DEM raster object being created including floating point Processes used only with elevation raster objects were also modified to accept and process these expanded DEM data types ESRI s BIL BIP During import a separate Arc World file will be automatically located if available and used to provide georeference information when this information can not be lo cated within the header for the BIL BIP file ERS 2 ERS 2 Raster format European RADAR Satellite 2 raster format can now be imported MICROIMAGES MEMO 66 21 DECEMBER 2001 RELEASE OF V6 60 TNT PRODUCTS ADRG Save Georeference for Overview Image
104. nates of any point selected by the mouse in the simulation This has just been added see section below entitled Modifications since V6 60 CDs Evolution of Geospatial Visualization Requirements Nearly a decade ago versions of TNTmips provided the capability on your desktop to produce multiple 2D views of various landscape features made up of composites of geodata in raster vector CAD TIN and database structures An innovation of 7 or 8 years ago only now being matched in other systems provided automatic reconciliation of map projections conversion of geodata types GeoLocking between views and many other time saving features Now your desktop computer is fast and the display of views from massive composite geodata sets routinely takes only seconds In fact they typi cally take more time to set up for the first time than to display due to the many variables involved Surface modeling and the availability of digital elevation models provided the basis for the TNT products to incorporate these same innovative features into static 3D views of all these composite layers You now interactively set up a viewpoint and produce a simulated view of your project s results in perspective view This activity may simulate a realistic view of the area or illustrate the results of some classification or other mapping operation Gradually more representations of geospatial materials have been added to these views such as stalked pinmaps introduced in V6
105. ndary select drawing mode and snap to end of river trace draw south edge select road layer snap to road select trace mode trace road to north starting point and close the polygon Multiple Reference Views The Editor can now open additional GeoLocked reference views of the area being ed ited These views are for reference only and are automatically GeoLocked by default to the edit view for the same scale and center point However a reference view can pro vide some other arrangement of the layers in the edit view or other layers for the same area for example other images that are not drawn in the edit window These views are for reference purposes only and can not be used for editing However any time a feature is added by editing the reference views can be redrawn and that new feature will be added to the reference view if it shows the edited layer The purpose of additional reference views in the Spatial Data Editor is to provide more information or to clarify the results of an editing operation The partial color plate enti tled GeoLocked Views in the Editor illustrates how a reference view can simplify the re sults of using multiple vector editing steps including tracing to assemble a land parcel from a multiple layered composite view In this example the reference view presents only the new vector layer being created Thus it can be used to carefully inspect the parcel outlines that are being assembled in this new layer before pr
106. ne or many CDs containing your FREE TNTatlas for Windows You or your user can run these in a familiar Windows fashion completely from the CD use the familiar Windows installation procedure to install the TNTatlas program only or install everything the program and geodata to a hard drive Competitive Status TNTatlas is not a geodata viewer but a FREE quantitative GIS and image interpretation product that is relatively easily used in your language There is no other product with which TNTatlas can even be compared CD Drives Fast CD readers are now required standard equipment so that anyone with a computer can use your TNTatlas V6 60 The new TNTatlas for Windows can be operated completely from your CD with out any installation Simply select its icon on the CD to start it up from the CD Competitive Status You do not even have to install TNTatlas for Windows to use it from the CD Larger and Larger Hard Drives Viewing ever larger geodata sets is the most basic geomedia application Many now build up very large geodata sets so they can provide any view anywhere anytime Ef ficiently handling such massive geodata has long been a TNT specialty since our prod ucts were originally designed for high performance on limited desktop computers V6 50 Video recording has recently become the driving force in the development of larger low cost hard drives SML now permits the frame by frame production of the content of MPEG and
107. nsists of 8 overlapping zones at 3 degree spacing based on the Gauss Kruger projection Zone 1 is centered at East 3 degrees and zone numbers increase in an eastward direction Zones are 4 degrees wide providing a 1 degree overlap between adjacent zones For Austria the Lambert coordinate system is supported for nationwide mapping Local coordinate zones M28 M31 and M34 are also supported The Ghana National Grid coordinate system is supported Japan 19 Plane Orthogonal coordinate system is supported Swiss Conformal Cylindrical projection and Swiss LV03 LV95 coordinates are sup ported Amersfoort The Netherlands datum parameters have been updated Raster Correlation Histogram This histogram now uses all numeric data types including signed integer and floating point raster objects MICROIMAGES MEMO 61 21 DECEMBER 2001 RELEASE OF V6 60 TNT PRODUCTS Georeferencing Now saves elevation values when control points are saved as text Hough Transform A new Inverse Hough Transform option is provided that uses the raster created by the Hough Transform to produce raster and vector objects containing the dominant lines de tected in the input raster A global threshold can be set to control the number of lines detected or a graphic tool can be used to identify specific local Hough raster maxima corresponding to individual lines The attached color plate entitled Inverse Hough Transform illustrates the operation of this process It
108. ntitled Remote Geodata Entry outlined the use of the TNTserver 3 0 to permit an end user to add elements to an atlas layer created for this purpose A new panel provides the user access to the features needed to create and submit these elements or save them locally The attached color plate entitled TNTclient Remote Data Entry illustrates this panel and its operation Drawing Elements This new panel and the measurement tools panel both use HTML and JavaScript to create vector elements Creating these tools in HTML still seems to be a unique capa bility Other products use Java for drawing tools which means delays in downloading a Java client Java based drawing can be more sophisticated but also means slower cli MICROIMAGES MEMO 40 21 DECEMBER 2001 RELEASE OF V6 60 TNT PRODUCTS ent access via modems Elements and measurements of them can be saved to a file for local use An HTML data entry form is part of the remote geodata entry process This form can use defaults pick lists constraints and other control features Select Drawing Color Often it is difficult to see where you are drawing on color computer views This new panel provides a selection of colors to use for its drawing operation If you still have trouble seeing the line you are drawing the color view can be toggled in and out of gray scale using the menu presented by the right mouse button on the color view Split Screen Reference View Panel A new split screen tab panel no
109. ny input device The attached color plate entitled New Features in TNTsim9D illustrates the con tents of this window and which controls have been assigned during a particular simula tion to each of the following input devices Learn to Fly with a Joystick Serious real time flyby applications require the use of a joystick TNTsim3D permits you to assign a wide variety of joystick controls to manage simulation options You will not be satisfied with operating TNTsim3D with the simplest cheapest joystick you can find with only a few buttons There are too many degrees of freedom involved The follow ing are good joysticks for use with TNTsim3D Logitech Wingman Extreme Digital 3D 40 Logitech Wingman Force 3D 70 Microsoft SideWinder 30 Microsoft SideWinder Precision 2 50 Microsoft SideWinder Force Feedback 2 100 These models all come with a choice of input connectors Be sure to buy one with a USB connector so it can be easily moved between your portable and other computers Based upon trials with them Microlmages strongly recommends the use of either of the Logitech joysticks For example both provide a rotating stick action that can be used to easily turn the view The entry level Microsoft SideWinder does not provide for this and requires aircraft like banking to turn the view Keyboard Control All the inputs to TNTsim3D can be assigned to keys Good first results can be achieved with a keyboard only however dodging down can
110. ny method in a vector object can optionally be automatically transferred to all lines in the destination vector object that fall within a specified distance of each source line The default is to transfer attributes from the source line only to the nearest destination line CAD to Vector Conversion During conversion of a CAD object to a vector object by default the vector object s structure is optimized Merge Vector Objects When multiple vector objects are merged by default the new vector object is optimized MICROIMAGES MEMO 68 21 DECEMBER 2001 RELEASE OF V6 60 TNT PRODUCTS Point Density Mapping a prototype process Not Surface Fitting Surface fitting is applied to georeferenced swarms of irregularly spaced points to convert a value associated with them to a raster object The Z value of the selected points or any other value associated with them that is selected from their attribute record can be used This converts them to a regularly spaced grid of points the value of the raster cells that best preserves the position and value of the original points and interpolates values for every other cell in the grid However in all cases the value of the points se lected to be fit with the surface is assumed to be at least relative That is to say all val ues used will lie somewhere along a common numeric scale Typical examples of these would be Z values collected to represent elevations or fields in attribute records such as gros
111. object containing a Digital Elevation Model but any raster depicting a spatially varying quantity chemical concentration annual precipita tion temperature population density can be used to create the terrain layer Simply navigate to and preview the available raster objects of any data type in any Project File or any linked raster object for example GeoTIFF The Landscape Builder automati cally converts the selected surface data to 16 bit signed integer format for use as the terrain object in TNTsim3D Your selected raster is loaded as a surface layer in the ac companying geospatial view The raster is not displayed but a rectangular box outlines its extents Designing the Texture Continue to build your simulation by selecting any combination of objects to create the texture overlay All of these objects are displayed in full in the View window just as they would be in the Spatial Data Display process and all of the usual display control and MICROIMAGES MEMO 59 21 DECEMBER 2001 RELEASE OF V6 60 TNT PRODUCTS enhancement tools are available to allow you to refine the image The sample land scape files that have been prepared by Microlmages which were described in an earlier section illustrate some of the range of possibilities for creating dynamic data rich tex tures for 3D simulations Relating Texture and Terrain Once you have the candidate terrain and texture layers loaded and refined you can de termine the orien
112. oceeding or using undo Another approach would be to present some other airphoto or reference image in a reference view to aid in identifying features being interpreted from the edit view An even simpler application would be to use a grayscale version of a color image in the edit view while the reference view presents the identical color image It is always hard to see what you are drawing on a color image so edit on the grayscale version while de ciding what boundaries to create which means what things are using the matching color image in the reference view Spatial Manipulation Lanquage SML New SML Reference Booklet The attached color plate entitled Be Creative with SML summarizes the kinds of scripts you can create to extend the functionality of your TNT product for special applications The SML reference booklet entitled Getting Started Writing Scripts with SML has also been revised and updated Sample scripts are reviewed in this booklet and illustrate each of these approaches to extending TNTmips TNTedit TNTview and TNTatlas Some of these are complete scripts with a specific purpose and some are merely ex amples of how to approach various tasks in your script However they all provide sam ple script templates with approaches and segments that you can modify and or incorpo rate into your unique script For example new sample scripts are provided to show how to set up an interface for selecting objects how to interactively sel
113. odes the client should operate in This causes minor bloating of this client but is well worth it to minimize the effort to keep them all concurrent This client uses only Dynamic HTML and JavaScript and is much smaller to download than the Java based clients The alteration of this client by the site manager is also easier as HTML and JavaScript are more commonly used for web clients HTML based TNTclient This TNTclient was introduced in the V6 50 MEMO It has now been modified to be compliant with TNTserver 3 0 and is also used as a base for the HTML based TNTbrowsers These additions include providing the new Remote Data Entry panel and the Reference panel and their associated features Many additional enhancements have been added some of which are discussed in the sections below HTML based TNTbrowser This is a standalone browser which can be downloaded from a TNTserver site and started up as a local application It will connect to any TNTserver that has published a list of atlases see the Managing Multiple Atlases section above Since it is the same code as the HTML based TNTclient it is small as it uses many components from the DLLs required for the operation of your web browser It takes about the same amount of time to download this standalone browser as to start the HTML based TNTclient if it is not already in your local cache However for any additional use it takes only a couple of seconds to start it from your hard drive as a local
114. oduce a color shaded relief texture with blue toned bathymetry and earth toned land elevations Getting Underway Installation Options TNTsim3D is a separate program that is installed automatically with your other TNT products using InstallShield However to operate it requires a V6 60 software authori zation key for TNTmips TNTedit or TNTview to be attached to the computer or access to a virtual key from a floating license If you use a Mac you can prepare your land scape files on the Mac and move them to a Windows computer attach your V6 60 au thorized USB key install TNTsim3D and use it If you have a TNT product for a LINUX or UNIX platform you can use your V6 60 software authorization key or virtual key in a similar fashion Cranking the Engine A TNTsim3D simulation can be started in the same ways as any other Windows appli cation Simply find a landscape file sim and double click it with the mouse You can also start TNTsim3D from its icon or from the Start Programs menu and then use File Open to navigate to and select the landscape file Microlmages has used TNTsim3D without problems or frame rate degradations with sim files located on a file server on the network The menu also provides the option to select from the most re cently used landscape files Warming Up TNTsim3D starts up fast and a landscape file loads rapidly usually in less than 15 sec onds regardless of its size The texture server it provides is st
115. of TNTatlas W Microlmages has now begun the implementation of a native version of TNTview for Windows with the same features as TNTview for X for release in V6 70 of the TNT products Those authorized to operate V6 70 of TNTview X will also be able to use TNTview W Autolinking to Popular Formats The following external formats can now be directly used in TNTview e ESRI s shapefile line work and table e MapInfo s TAB file line work tables and rasters e ER Mapper s ECW file Enhanced Compressed Wavelet e LizardTech s MrSID file wavelet compressed and e TIFF GeoTIFF file all types Inherited New Features The following general improvements in all TNT product operations were automatically added to TNTview 6 6 These improvements are detailed below in the major section on New Features for TNTmips and include e familiar Windows installation using InstallShield with improved license configu ration e use autoscaling to numeric scale active layer and pixel size with the virtual desktop e conduct global searches of reference manual and all tutorial booklets e faster vector rendering of labels and polygon fills of islands e faster raster rendering at some important scales by using full binary pyramiding e import MrSID ECW GeoSPOT IDRISI32 NTF vectors and rasters e for increased Z resolution use DEMs of any data type including real numbers e make more attractive layouts using color mattes borders and neat line
116. olinking to Popular Formats 43 Inherited New Features 43 Upgrading 43 Installed Sizes 44 TNTedit 6 6 44 Autolinking to Popular Formats 44 AutoTracing 44 Reference Views 44 Inherited New Features 45 Upgrading 45 Installed Sizes 46 Free Training 46 QuickGuides 46 Getting Started Booklets 46 New Booklets Available 47 Expanded Booklets 47 Translated Booklets 47 Online Reference Manual 47 Global Searching 48 New TNTmips Features 49 System Level Changes 50 Geospatial Display 56 Landscape Builder a prototype process 57 Map Projections and Coordinate Systems 61 Raster Correlation Histogram 61 Georeferencing 62 Hough Transform 62 Directional Analysis 62 Mosaic 62 Import Export 64 Surface Modeling 68 Transfer Attributes 68 CAD to Vector Conversion 68 Merge Vector Objects 68 Point Density Mapping a prototype process 69 Layouts 70 Spatial Data Editor 71 Spatial Manipulation Language SML 72 Upgrading 77 Installed Sizes 77 Internationalization and Localization 78 Translation of Booklets 78 Operating Languages 78 Microlmages Authorized Dealers 79 MICROIMAGES MEMO 4 21 DECEMBER 2001 RELEASE OF V6 60 TNT PRODUCTS Bosnia and Herzegovina Canada Egypt India Ireland Italy Lebanon Netherlands Nigeria Paraguay Peru Switzerland Taiwan Discontinued Dealers Bolivia India Malaysia Mexico Indonesia Papers on Applications Appendix Abbreviations Attached Color Plates TNT
117. om the center outward to the edge For a regular gradient you merely specify the angle 0 to 360 degrees of the gradient and this will automatically choose the most extreme positions in the legend box at this angle as the starting point MICROIMAGES MEMO 70 21 DECEMBER 2001 RELEASE OF V6 60 TNT PRODUCTS for color 1 and the ending point for color 2 When a radial gradient is selected color 1 will occur in the center of the legend box and color 2 will be used at the corner Choose from the following color models to control how color 1 will transition to color 2 in your gradient RGB HIS Clockwise HBS Clockwise and HBS Counterclockwise The at tached color plate entitled Matte Graphic Effects in Layouts illustrates a variety of mattes including gradient and radial Neat Lines Neat lines and other kinds of borders can now be drawn around the entire layout The layout can also have a matte fill background for any area not contained in an embedded group As noted above these groups can have their own borders and matte fills or can be transparent showing the overall layout s matte Spatial Data Editor Tracing Elements Between Layers V6 50 provided the ability to snap new lines being created in the active layer so that they terminate exactly on lines in some other layer for example to insure that property lines of a parcel terminated on a river or polygons already existing in some other layer V6 60 provides a complementary important
118. ome irrigated cropland is found near the Owens River The scene principally illustrates geologic fea tures such as the glacially sculpted Sierra crest with partial snow cover and broad al luvial fans stretching eastward from the mountain front Recent basalt lava flows and cinder cones dark gray to red tones cover parts of the down faulted Owens valley The large cinder cone just south of Big Pine Crater Mountain is cut by two fault scarps visible as dark lines or color changes The western fault line stretches southward marked on its upslope side by patches of dark green vegetation to the smaller cinder cone Red Mountain at the center of the scene Eureka sim 184 Mb from microimages com This sample covers an area of about 22 000 square kilometers in eastern California and southwestern Nevada including the area of the Big Pine simulation near the southwest corner Like that simulation the texture layer is a Landsat 7 RGBI image that uses the 15 meter panchromatic band 8 to sharpen a 30 meter natural color image bands 3 2 1 The area stretches from the Sierra Nevada mountain crest and Owens Valley in the southwest across the White Inyo Mountains to the basin and range topography of western Nevada northeast half of the scene Eureka Valley lies just southwest of the center of the scene and northern Death Valley is in the southeast corner This is a rug ged desert landscape with many salt encrusted dry lake basins playas which appe
119. omplete package of 267 Mb including all programs reference manual tutorials and SML scripts Another group of more than 400 start a download without completing the visitor s form At this time a total of 60 to 70 gigabytes of TNTlite and the associated tutorials and sample geodata are downloaded each month from microimages com Image Analysis in Geology The 3rd edition of Dr Steve Drury s popular hardcover book entitled Image Interpreta tion in Geology was finally published by Nelson Thornes V6 40 of TNTlite is included on a CD in a pocket in this book along with the sample geodata used by the special geo logic exercises used in the book The complete table of contents and extensive other in formation about the contents of this book can be reviewed at http www microimages com documentation drury htm This textbook can be ordered from Blackwells via blackwell com for 30 Barnes and Noble via bn com for 75 or Amazon from amazon com for 75 Make sure that you clearly specify the 3rd edition and a 2001 publication date as some vendors are still trying to clear inventories of the older 2nd edition Toggling Between TNTpro and TNTlite Products For various reasons you may occasionally want to start up the TNTlite version of your professional TNT product For example if you are preparing geodata for someone else MICROIMAGES MEMO 23 21 DECEMBER 2001 RELEASE OF V6 60 TNT PRODUCTS to use in TNTlite you will want to check to see ho
120. on 8 These new drivers use the display hardware to implement most of the DirectX 8 functions in the graphics chip providing a good response NOTE When you download DirectX 8 you will get a program called the Capability Viewer Run it and it will list each of the DirectX 8 capabilities of your display board Send this file to Microlmages software support if you are having difficulties TNTsim3D will produce frame rates of 15 to 30 fps frames per second with average video cards and processors of at least 500 MHz With a new game card or the dual dis play Matrox G400 and G450 and the latest computers the frame rate can be as high as 60 fps If your display card does not support DirectX 8 then Microsoft s software emula tion of the missing hardware functions will automatically be used and the frame rate will be unacceptably slow As you fly DirectX converts your elevation raster to a triangular network more or less a TIN It then drapes the texture layer over it Your board and its DirectX 8 support will control the level of detail you can use in a flyby by setting an upper limit on the number of triangles it can process to represent the surface view at any given time OpenGL OpenGL first started 20 years ago a library and special graphics chips and functions used by SGI in its custom built UNIX based simulators Gradually SGI has promoted and supported its evolution into an open source public approach for high speed simula MICRO
121. onsist of low level libraries that bypass most operating system functional ities In some ways they define a kind of new operating system and function library mo bilizing and optimizing all system resources for high speed real time frame rendering DirectX 8 1 and a beta version of DirectX 9 0 is a Microsoft product OpenGL V1 1 to 2 0 and higher experimental versions are Open Source developments and available for many platforms including most UNIX and LINUX Mac OS 9 x and 10 1 and Windows through OpenGL V1 3 TNTsim3D at present only requires DirectX 8 x or OpenGL V1 1 If you ask several young game players which is best DirectX or OpenGL you will get strong but mixed answers depending upon what display board they have and which works best with the games they prefer As a result Microlmages has no clear opinion on this and has supported both in TNTsim3D Obviously the one that works best for MICROIMAGES MEMO 34 21 DECEMBER 2001 RELEASE OF V6 60 TNT PRODUCTS you will be the one that has the best implementation for your display board hardware driver and auxiliary library Thus when starting TNTsim3D you are presented a win dow to choose the graphic system you wish to use After experimenting you can settle on the one that works best on your platform and set the default in this window to start in that mode for any future startup of TNTsim3D At any time during your simulation you can still use a menu option to toggle between Dir
122. p a Client for a Floating License Use this new License Configuration window to set up a networked Windows platform to run the TNT products as a concurrent user of a floating license First install the TNT products from the V6 60 CD onto the local machine Then use this window on the local machine to specify the name of the network server that is dispensing the virtual software license keys for the TNT products see virtual key concept on the color plates attached to the Microlmages MEMO entitled TNT Licenses When a TNT product is started it will then connect to the floating license server to obtain a virtual key Since the TNT software has been installed locally if no virtual key is available the machine can use this same panel as described above to switch to lite mode to run the product More advanced automated network approaches can be set up to bypass the need to use a CD to install the TNT products on a client machine via a concurrent license A network administrator can set up copies of the TNT products for each platform Win dows LINUX UNIX and soon Mac OS X When it is decided to install or update the TNT products on a client machine the appropriate version for that platform can be downloaded and installed locally The advantages of this approach are that all types of platforms can be more easily served you don t have to hunt around for the appropriate CD and upgrades can be much more easily handled You are already familiar with t
123. port Raster Import Export LizardTech s MrSID A MrSID file can contain either an 8 bit grayscale image or a 24 bit color composite RGB image No other data types or multiband images are supported Please under stand that these limitations on data types and the associated wavelet compression strategy limits its use to the compression movement and storage of pictures Import MrSID files can be imported into an internal raster object in a Project File even though TNTmips TNTedit TNTview TNTatlas and TNTserver can now directly use MrSID files The detail in the imported raster object will be that which was specified when it was compressed into the MrSID file but its size will be larger Any raster created by a TNT procedure using MrSID files whether imported or not will be saved as an internal raster object and can not be exported to MrSID MICROIMAGES MEMO 64 21 DECEMBER 2001 RELEASE OF V6 60 TNT PRODUCTS Export LizardTech the developer of MrSID image compression format provides licenses and libraries without charge for other software developers to use to incorporate into their products the capability of reading files in the MrSID formats They make their money by charging for their compressor software to compress raster files into MrSID format from GeoTIFF and several other public domain formats You must license the compression software for these raster formats directly from LizardTech and it is expensive To com
124. projection file prj accompanies the shapefile shp the projection information it contains will be imported When a TNT vector object is exported to a shapefile a projection file prj is automati cally created with the associated projection information When setting up the import of a shapefile you are provided an option to explode the multi part elements If this option is used each multi part element will be converted in the TNT CAD object into multiple single part elements A typical multipart element in a shapefile would be multiple polygons of the same identical type Using this new option for importing them would separate these polygons in the CAD object into separate poly gons with the same attributes This would permit their separate selection and editing within the Spatial Data Editor where a typical activity would be to change or add to their MICROIMAGES MEMO 67 21 DECEMBER 2001 RELEASE OF V6 60 TNT PRODUCTS attributes to update or otherwise separate them For example to change the land cover identity of a polygon whose use has been found to be altered from an orthophoto upon which it is overlaid At the conclusion of the import of a shapefile you will be warned if the number of ele ments does not equal the number of database records ESRI s Coverage A new and more intuitive directory selection procedure is provided for the creation of a coverage and the export of files into it NTF VECT 2 0 The Nation
125. puted field in any TNT query By using computed fields parametric values associated with each point in their attribute record can be combined and used in a query to determine if a point is to be used For example suppose you only want to include stores that have sales of a particular product but only sales of that product in a narrow range of values per square foot of total floor space However the sales of that product and the total floor space are provided as separate fields Rather than manipulate the attributes to form new fields simply define a computed or virtual field for the sales of that product by square foot and select the points based upon the desired range of this computed field This same kind of result could also be accomplished from these attributes by a properly structured query Once computed fields are defined they are available for all processes and can sometimes be easier to construct than complicated queries Defining the Output Raster Once the input points have been defined the location and the cell size of the output raster object and its data type are specified The extent of the new raster object will MICROIMAGES MEMO 69 21 DECEMBER 2001 RELEASE OF V6 60 TNT PRODUCTS match that of the source vector object You then select a radius that will specify how far to search around the center of each raster cell to count input points That value repre senting the density of the input points at that position is then recorded
126. r Adding a light gray fog to a scene adds realism and also mitigates the last ves tiges of pixel sparkle still present in the most distant areas of the scene after anti aliasing and other improvements are added 3D Compass A small colored compass like 3D skyball gadget can be inserted into the simulation It will point parallel in each frame to the column axis of the DEM input for the Landscape Builder process It is being modified now to use the georeference information in the landscape file to point to the north regardless of the orientation of the orginal DEM Its orientation also provides an indication of the orientation of the plane of the view with re spect to horizontal The points on the compass always lie in the horizontal plane and they and the central sphere are shaded as if illuminated from above lighter on top darker on the bottom This shading helps to indicate whether the attitude of the plane is pitched down or up from the horizontal Minimum Altitude A no crash option is available that when the minimum altitude you set is reached will stop any further decrease in altitude If the altitude is not increased the plane will con tinue on at that fixed height above the surface This will prevent passing through the surface but can cause a bumpy ride if the altitude is not increased from this minimum You can also set a maximum altitude for the flight Multiple Views You can open more than 1 TNTsim3D process at a
127. rate preview of the reprojected orientation of the mosaic In the simplest case input rasters with control point georeference to the same map coordinate system are now automatically displayed oriented to that map coordinate system rather than with raster lines horizontal and raster columns vertical Set Preview Projection As before if the input rasters are georeferenced to different map coordinate sys tems all these coordinate systems are listed on the Output Projection menu Output panel You can select any of these input coordinate systems and now the preview of the mosaic in the View window as well as the mosaicked raster object will be in this projection DataTips Added As an option you can now see a DataTip in the View window for each pixel of your mo saic Set Cell Size with Reference Raster A new Auto Update menu for cell size allows you to select any input raster as a refer ence raster to define the cell size in the mosaic Unless this reference raster is speci fied the default cell size for the mosaic is the minimum cell size for the set of input rasters As before you can also select any other new cell size for your mosaicked raster object Improved Georeferencing The method for saving georeference information for the mosaic has changed for in stances in which input objects already have control point georeferencing Previously the control point information for the first object was copied to the mosaic even thoug
128. review of each slow operation on an object is a particularly important strategy as objects become huge and are rendered over and over in large scale zoomed in views As previously noted this has led to the MICROIMAGES MEMO 52 21 DECEMBER 2001 RELEASE OF V6 60 TNT PRODUCTS development of many important approaches in rendering and using geodata such as raster tiling and tile compression raster pyramiding sample histograms vector structure optimization and others The most critical demands are now being encountered in ren dering from TNT objects in TNTsim3D where new views are automatically rendered and frame rate is important The strategy for this will be discussed in the section below enti tled Landscape Builder Faster Raster Operations Full Binary Pyramid Layers As an option in V6 60 a TNT raster object or the Project File linked to an external raster now contains every pyramid tier starting at a 2 by 2 averaged sample and ranging in bi nary steps 2 by 2 4 by 4 8 by 8 until a tier is created that is less than 64 cells in 1 dimension By default V6 50 of the TNT products omitted the 2 by 2 sampled and aver aged pyramid layer from a raster object as it contributed to a 25 increase in file size above the base raster size This was important when hard drive capacity was expen sive Now TNT applications are emerging that need this 2 by 2 layer for faster displays and processing Since hard drive space is no longer a critic
129. rsion The attached color plate entitled TNTatlas for Windows and X emphasizes the features in the completed TNTatlas for Windows Not Just a Viewer A FREE Geospatial Analysis Product TNTatlas is a unique FREE geospatial analysis product that has been available for many years Yes other companies have gradually released free viewers such as Arc Explorer from ESRI TNTatlas is not designed to be a free viewer TNTatlas is a quantitative analysis tool and can be used for complex feature measure ments and region analysis It can be used to perform the same complex geospatial que ries as any TNT product It supports direct input and use of GPS units It can be used in the field or office to create point line or polygon features and identify them with at tached database records If your geodata is stored as objects within Project Files and you are using it from a fast CD hard drive or network connection you get fast displays not likely in most viewers And using SML Tool Scripts you can extend all these ca pabilities in your atlas for free or for sale by adding your own interactive tools unique to your profession or application You can also expand the analysis capabilities of TNTat las using other kinds of SML scripts The attached color plate entitled Be Creative with SML summarizes the types and objectives of SML scripts you can create for use in your TNTatlas You can freely distribute your atlas and its contents in a variety of
130. ry provides the basis for powerful new geospatial viewing tools This 2 part strategy means that any additions to the conventional 2D and 3D TNT viewing via the Geospatial Rendering En gine GRE that are appropriate can be passed through for use in TNTsim3D Already many of the powerful features of the TNT GRE are immediately available in the Land scape Builder such as e selection and direct use of other file formats MrSID ECW GeoTIFF shape files projection reconciliation using rasters of any numerical data type e combining raster vector CAD and RDBM features into a raster e contrast enhancement and management e irregularly shaped objects with different extents and so on These and many other features used to define a 2D or 3D view can already be used in preparing the landscape to be used in TNTsim3D However some features such as polygon extrusion and scale controlled pin mapping are not yet supported by TNTsim3D and thus are not yet used in the Landscape Builder However as soon MICROIMAGES MEMO 57 21 DECEMBER 2001 RELEASE OF V6 60 TNT PRODUCTS as TNTsim3D is modified to recreate these features the Landscape Builder will be modified to present these options and controls What Is It Effective use of a simulation in geospatial analysis requires a convenient and familiar means of using all your current geodata available in or linked to Project Files while re taining its geo nature this is the
131. s Published Atlases Two color plates are attached to illustrate some of the new TNTatlases prepared on CD and also posted on microimages com The color plate entitled New Sample Web Atlas es illustrates examples from dealers in Turkey and Paraguay The color plate entitled RANGES Electronic Atlas presents a sample of how range management data derived MICROIMAGES MEMO 25 21 DECEMBER 2001 RELEASE OF V6 60 TNT PRODUCTS from Landsat 7 satellite images can be provided in a timely fashion to remote ranch sites This atlas is the product of a client participating in a project sponsored by NASA TNTsim3D for Windows Games for Grownups This new process at first might appear to be just another of the Games for Grownups However simulation in geospatial analysis is focused upon recreating an existing land scape or creating one that does not yet exist so that decisions can be made More real istic and flexible presentations of your results increase your perception of the content of your geodata and help you present it to others As TNTsim3D evolves and expands it will not be another qualitative flight or 3D simulator but a quantitative analysis tool It will provide the special tools for preparing quantitatively oriented simulations of and about GIS and image analyses and their visualization Since all the geodata presented in the 3D view is georeferenced the simplest example of a quantitative tool is the readout of the ground coordi
132. s and e use a full suite of import functions in SML scripts Upgrading If you did not order V6 60 of TNTview in advance and wish to do so now please con tact Microlmages by FAX phone or email to arrange to purchase this version When you have completed your purchase you will be provided an authorization code Enter ing this authorization code while running the installation process allows you to complete the installation of TNTview 6 6 The prices for upgrades from earlier versions of TNTview are outlined below Please remember that new features have been added to TNTview with each new release Thus the older your current version of TNTview relative to V6 60 the higher your up grade cost will be Within the NAFTA point of use area Canada U S and Mexico and with shipping by UPS ground 50 each means US 50 for each additional upgrade increment TNTview Product Price to upgrade from TNTview V6 00 V6 50 V6 40 V6 30 V6 20 V6 10 and earlier MICROIMAGES MEMO 43 21 DECEMBER 2001 RELEASE OF V6 60 TNT PRODUCTS Windows Mac LINUX 175 275 400 500 555 50 each for 1 user floating 210 330 480 600 667 60 each UNIX for 1 fixed license 300 475 600 675 725 50 each for 1 user floating 360 570 720 810 870 60 each For a point of use in all other nations with shipping by air express 50 each means US 50 for each additional upgrade increment TNTview Product Price to upgrade from TNTview V6 00 V6 50 V6 40 V6 30 V6 20 V6 10
133. s a software authorization key to be attached di rectly to the Windows platform upon which it is operating Microlmages now uses InstallShield to automatically install an additional small License Configuration program for the management of any licenses to all the TNT products on Windows based platforms all TNT X server and Windows versions except TNTserver This program appears on the same Windows menu as your TNT product see Start Programs Microlmages TNT Products 6 6 License Configuration This program will open the TNT Products License Configuration window providing the following op tions for selecting the control device for the license you are using e Free TNTlite license e License key on parallel LPT or USB port e License key on serial port choose your COM e Floating license from FLEXIm server specify your server name and e Apply feature option codes Toggle Between TNTpro and TNTlite Products For various reasons you may occasionally want to start up the TNTlite version of your professional TNT product For example if you are preparing geodata for someone else MICROIMAGES MEMO 8 21 DECEMBER 2001 RELEASE OF V6 60 TNT PRODUCTS to use in TNTlite you will want to check to see how it operates Or you have removed your software authorization license key to take it home or elsewhere Prior to V6 60 removing the key would simply produce an error message when you attempted to start the lite version of your products You h
134. s features Using the right mouse button inside the browser frame but out side the views will present a menu of TNTclient oriented utility functions such as Save Background As Set As Background Copy Background Set as Desktop Item Select All Paste Create Shortcut Add to Favorites View Source Encoding Print Refresh Neo Trace It and Properties For example NeoTrace is a shareware program that if it is installed on the local machine can be started from this menu to trace and display all the Internet links and their bandwidths from the computer running the TNTclient to microimages com Hot Key Controls Keyboard controls or hot keys can now be used to control the main or right view in the HTML based TNTclient and TNTbrowser as follows 7 full view zoom in zoom out 0 zooms to full resolution 2 thru 9 accelerated zooms toward center of view h or F1 show help The following Arrow and Page keys control panning within the same atlas When a lay out edge is reached these controls will automatically navigate to adjacent layouts in the direction selected up arrow north down arrow south right arrow east left arrow west page up go back to last view page down go forward to next view if any backup was performed MICROIMAGES MEMO 42 21 DECEMBER 2001 RELEASE OF V6 60 TNT PRODUCTS home return to atlas entry point TNTview 6 6 Planned Windows Version With the completion
135. s product If you have sugges tions for QuickGuides that might help you or others as quick references to special fea tures please let us know GeoToolbox Color Scale Range Legends e Tool Scripts e Macro Scripts e Profile Views e Line Style Libraries Custom Toolbars e Automatic Projection Reconciliation e Database Constraints All 35 QuickGuides can be downloaded in Adobe Acrobat Reader PDF form from http www microimages com didyouknow Getting Started Booklets There are now 65 Getting Started Booklets These tutorial and reference booklets provide 1700 pages and over 3700 color illustrations They are up to date with the features in V6 60 of the TNT products Remember that each new professional TNTmips now comes with 2 thick notebooks containing a color printed copy of every booklet Those of you receiving your V6 60 upgrade on CD can view and refer to any booklet using Adobe Acrobat Reader If you install all these booklets as part of any TNTmips product you can directly access these booklets via Help Getting Started MICROIMAGES MEMO 46 21 DECEMBER 2001 RELEASE OF V6 60 TNT PRODUCTS An online searchable cross index covering all the booklets and online documenta tion is now available from the Help menu See the section below entitled Global Searching for more details New Booklets Available 7 new GSBs are being released for the first time with TNT V6 60 and are shown in the attached color plate entitled New Get
136. s sales Mapping Occurrence Only Many kinds of surveys conducted with a GPS unit result in swarms of georeferenced points that have no Z value or it is of no significance to the spatial analysis proposed If the points have records attached the records may have fields of interest that have no relative value and contain only nonparametric information In the simplest case you may have only the X Y locations of events such as a disease occurrence a plant occur rence or a store location Many kinds of useful additional true false or categorical in formation may occur in the attribute record such as the presence of a pottery shard the presence of a particular plant species a store that sells a particular brand or the kind of dwelling in which a disease occurred These kinds of nonparametric values can also be converted into surfaces that can then be included in spatial analysis such as multiple stepwise linear regression to determine the cause of their presence or absence from other spatial variables Selecting Input Points A new point density process is provided to convert non parametric values associated with georeferenced points in a vector object into a raster object The attached color plate entitled Point Density Rasters illustrates the application of this new process A query of their attributes can be used to select the specific points to be used from all the points in the selected vector object Also remember that you can use a com
137. s you would any other object in a TNT Project File Projection datum data type histograms and other on the fly changes will also be handled transparently just as for a TNT object con tained entirely within a Project File When you select one of the supported external geodata files for direct use in this fashion for the first time the TNT process being used will automatically create a stub or link Project File for it The original external file is not altered in any way and still maintains its name extension original structure and location The link Project File contains all the other things that the TNT products need to make direct use of the external file For ex ample if the external file is a raster then the pyramid layers histogram georeference and other subobjects will be created for it as necessary Creating this Project File to define the link when you select the external geodata file for the first time usually takes only a few seconds Thus using an external file in a TNT process is a transparent operation The next time you use the file in any process it finds and uses the previously created Project File that defines the link This link file is a Project File that is saved in the same directory as the external geodata file It will have the same name as the external file but with the extension rlk for RVC link instead of the usual Project File extension of rvc If the media containing the external file is read on
138. same Turkish atlas has an Istanbul map vector layer with 30 000 polygons almost all containing islands some with many This resulted from converting the original Istan bul vector object of the center lines of streets to a new vector object of the 2 street edges using the buffer zones process This yielded many large grid like polygon struc tures containing many interior street blocks as islands The attached color plate entitled New Sample Web Atlases Turkey illustrates this city block island like street pattern This unusual condition with many blocks as islands also pointed out code inefficiencies in rendering a view of this vector layer Improving this code section in the GRE im proved island filling by a factor of 6 throughout the TNT products The Vector Challenge Periodically you report upon how long it takes to display a vector data set in a competi tive product and how much faster it displays in your TNT product after importing it into a vector object Based on these reports Microlmages believes that the TNT rendering of topological vector objects is faster than any other product using the same object for the same purpose If this is not what you find then identify the condition and it will be our next challenge GeoTool Box 3D Surface Measurements V6 50 reported various 3D surface properties for any raster layer in a composite view for the area inscribed by a polygon or region you drew or selected Usually you would choose
139. se of Mac 10 1 the Darwin Open Source X server has matured into a free reliable X server that has been compiled and tested for use with the TNT products It is free and can be given away for use with TNTlite which was another important consideration Since its source is available and Microlmages is familiar with coding X servers it can be maintained and even modified in the future if necessary Window Manager An attractive window manager called OroborOSX is also available as Open Source and presents each X window and dialog including each in the TNT interface as a separate window Using this window manager the TNT interface automatically looks and oper ates as if it is a native Mac 10 1 application directly using the native Aqua window man ager In other words even though an X server is being used the TNT user interface looks and functions like a native Mac 10 1 application Also the Mac OS X is now multi tasking and can run the TNT products at the same time as other applications As a re sult the operation of the TNT products can be concurrent with other applications and all these products system and interface components intermixed and accessed as ex pected Language Support Mac OS X uses Unicode encoded fonts Thus the TNT products for Mac OS 10 1 used in your language will automatically use the same resource files as the Windows plat forms to convert the TNT interface into your language So far Apple has released Mac 10 1
140. ses DDR but not the original G400 Its AGP bus connection is the newer 4X The G450 is also 4X but not the original G400 The G550 is supposed to come in a special model that has 2 digital connectors for the support of dual digital not analog flat panel monitors So far we have not been able to locate this special model Modifications since V6 60 CDs The following new features are being added at this time to TNTsim3D Vertical Exaggerations This is an option to control vertical exaggeration while operating TNTsim3D completed Real Time Positions While flying point anywhere in the simulation window with the mouse and read the map coordinates of and the distance to that point on the surface These values will change dynamically as you continue to fly completed Additional in formation about this ground position is being added such as the elevation of the posi tion and the relative accuracy of its coordinates since it will decrease with increasing dis tance Multiple Views Open a 2 daughter simulation window such as the passenger s view of the point selected in the pilots view by the mouse cursor underway To get these and other new features as they are added go to the TNTsim3D page at microimages com and download the latest version New additions to TNTsim3D will be announced on this page as they become available Periodically a new Landscape Builder may also be needed to rebuild the landscape files for some future enhancem
141. sters from 1 physical hard drive and writing your output raster your mosaic to a different physical drive will improve performance Gap Filling When a mosaic is created from non overlapping raster objects gaps seams with no image content may be embedded in the mosaic These seams can cause undesirable effects in subsequent applications You can now minimize the impact of such seams by using the new gap filling option It interpolates new values for any narrow strips or clus ters of null cells left within the interior of a mosaic because of non overlapping input rasters null cells around the outer edges are ignored You have the choice of using the average of the neighboring 4 or 8 raster cells to fill the gap excluding other null cells If the gaps consist of small clusters of isolated cells along the seam they disap pear as shown in the attached color plate entitled Mosaic Gap Filling For more con tinuous gaps of 1 or 2 columns or rows of cells an image mismatch may still be visible along the seam but its impact will be much less than if null values were left in the mo saic The gap filling option is activated when you choose to set a null value for the mo saic MICROIMAGES MEMO 62 21 DECEMBER 2001 RELEASE OF V6 60 TNT PRODUCTS Preview in Desired Projection The View window used in mosaic now automatically reprojects input rasters if nec essary to the selected output coordinate system As a result this view provides an accu
142. strict Court in Seattle granted LizardTech s request for an immediate appeal of the court s December 11 2000 ruling that Earth Resource Map ping s ECW technology does not infringe LizardTech will now appeal the patent ruling to the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington D C While the appeal is pending all other claims in the litigation between LizardTech and Earth Resource Map ping ERM are stayed The appeal can be expected to take a year or more Lizard Tech had initially filed suit against ERM in October 1999 for breach of contract main taining ERM failed to abide by the terms of a software licensing agreement between ERM and LizardTech copyright infringement maintaining ERM included computer code owned by LizardTech in ERM s products in the absence of any right or license to do so trademark infringement maintaining ERM used LizardTech trademarks as meta tags and keywords on its Web site false advertising maintaining ERM published a white paper containing false statements about MrSID products and patent infringement maintaining that ERM s ECW compression technology infringes LizardTech s licensed patent for MrSID US Patent No 5 710 835 On December 11 2000 without a hearing the court ruled that ECW did not infringe the MrSID patent LizardTech maintains that the court applied an incorrect legal standard and reached an erroneous conclusion in this ruling Trial on the remaining non
143. t 30 km on a side with Mount Diablo in the north central portion The texture layer is a Landsat 7 RGBI pan sharpened image from July 7 1999 showing natural colors The area includes extensive urban suburban development in the broad valley floors brown grasslands covering the surrounding hills and greener chaparral and forest on the higher more rugged slopes The city of Concord merges southward into Walnut Creek in the northwest corner with development continuing southeastward down the valley through Danville to Dublin at the southern edge of the simulation The northeast corner includes the southern part of the town of Antioch MICROIMAGES MEMO 31 21 DECEMBER 2001 RELEASE OF V6 60 TNT PRODUCTS Yosemite sim 15 Mb on CD and from microimages com Yosemite National Park in California is the focus for this sample simulation The texture image is a natural color RGB combination of Landsat TM bands Yosemite Valley proper along the Merced River is in the southwest corner of the scene The large lake in the west center is Hetch Hetchy Reservoir in the canyon of the Tuolumne River The bare granite and snow of the Sierra Nevada mountain crest stretch from the northwest to the southeast corners of the scene Dark coniferous forest mantles the lower slopes on the southwest side of the crest while the northeast corner reveals a patch of the high desert east of the range Lancaster sim 220 Mb from microimages com Covers most of central L
144. t going to convince anyone of the usefulness of photo interpretation by publishing low quality reproductions of the images that accompa nied their articles It has taken the first 15 years of the operation of Microlmages to realize that we are ul timately in the business of producing tools that put you into the media business Initially MICROIMAGES MEMO 16 21 DECEMBER 2001 RELEASE OF V6 60 TNT PRODUCTS we and still some of our new buyers of today focused upon the implementation of low cost desktop image interpretation GIS and map production tools Gradually these evolved into a broad based comprehensive package for geospatial analysis As TNT technical applications and implementation strategies improved you by your requests for new features defined the media aspects of the TNT products Certainly you still ask for a wide variety of specific analysis features and improved performance but your com mon theme is for improved support for the production of geomedia Many new media components have been added to your desktop computer environment and provide new opportunities for the distribution of our geomedia These include large format printers fast display boards dual multiple displays huge drives ubiquitous fast CD units coupled with personal CD writers high speed Internet access projectors All of these are now readily available worldwide at low cost Many of you now use several or all of these media technologies to distribut
145. t of ENVI no other vendor of the major compo nents of geospatial analysis currently offers support of the Mac OS X platform As a re sult when released in January the TNT products will be the only complete geospatial analysis product available for use with Mac OS X MICROIMAGES MEMO 10 21 DECEMBER 2001 RELEASE OF V6 60 TNT PRODUCTS Why the Delay When Mac OS X V10 0 was released Microlmages was able with minor modifica tions to compile all the TNT library and processing functions This posed no special re quirements as Mac OS X is built on a UNIX base as are the TNT products Unfortu nately Mac 10 0 was not complete robust fast or sufficiently widely installed to warrant the release of the TNT products for direct operation in this new operating system Fur thermore an earlier release would have necessitated that Microlmages devote software engineering time to creating an X server for this purpose when it was clear that several other X server development efforts were underway including 1 from the Open Source community Finally Rainbow the manufacturer of USB software authorization key used with the TNT products still has not released the required UNIX LINUX support of their USB key X Server The underlying UNIX derivation of Mac OS X implied that good X servers would be much more important than for use with Mac 9 x and would probably be created in the public domain by the Open Source community Concurrent with the relea
146. tarted from an icon in a View window multiple GeoLocked views can be open one with the terrain as shown in the plate and one with a vegetation map Their script could then be modi fied to create and maintain the line in each view This would allow the user to interac tively position the end points for suitable terrain clearance while placing them in an ap propriate concealing vegetative cover This script could next be extended so that for any position of the line push buttons in the profile window or some other dialog would use the viewshed functions in SML to compute the viewshed and exposure of the current end points of the line The script could then plot the view or exposure in color for example in red and blue around each end of the line in the elevation raster and the vegetation raster to determine their suit ability for use as observation points With these additions the Tool Script could be used in cell tower network extension where one end of the line is fixed by an existing tower location and the next tower outward should be sited for maximum coverage and mini mum visual impact In this application the viewshed and exposure for the new tower could be plotted in the 2nd window showing current land use and zoning instead of vegetation Moving one end of the line around in the tool would interactively evaluate available potential high elevation positions that maximize present and future coverage the viewshed of the position versus l
147. tation and extents of the output landscape layers Push buttons on the Landscape Builder window allow you to automatically orient and clip the objects to the selected terrain object or to the active layer in the View of the texture layers set in the Landscape Builder Layer Controls window You can also use standard dialogs to reori ent all objects to any map projection with the results shown automatically in the View You can use the Output Extents graphic tool to resize the extents box to include exactly the desired area in the simulation Determine the relative sizes of output texture and terrain objects by setting the Tex ture Terrain Raster Size Ratio 1 2 4 8 16 32 or 64 You can also specify which cell size should be held constant when the ratio setting is changed and the method used to resample cell values to create the output terrain object Nearest Neighbor Bilinear In terpolation or Cubic Convolution Currently the texture raster is created using only Nearest Neighbor resampling but future versions will allow bilinear resampling as well This change will allow you to hold the terrain cell size constant and use interpolation to resample the texture to a much smaller cell size producing a smoother texture image You can manually edit the output line and column dimensions and cell sizes but values you enter are automatically adjusted to maintain the selected ratio and to ensure that the output texture and terrain objects have dim
148. ted specifically for access only from microimages com Approach Fortunately the new version 5 of Adobe Acrobat introduced the capability for automati cally cross indexing many PDF files Accompanying this is the capability in V5 of the FREE Adobe Acrobat Reader to search for a term in a composite index of all docu ments It then opens a window showing the title of each document that contains that term arranged in the order of their relevancy ranking which depends on the number of its occurrences proximity of its occurrences and other control settings If you select any of these document titles from this window Reader will open that document to the first page that contains the term and highlight all its occurrences You can then toggle through each occurrence of the term in the document using the Next Highlight button or pick another document from the list in the window More details on this new global search feature can be found on the attached color plated entitled Online Search Capa bilities You can open the search window in your Reader from within the TNT products using the Search option on the Help menu Future Scope Microlmages will expand the scope of this PDF indexing searching to cover all Micro Images MEMOs and the color plates attached to them to illustrate new TNT features The Microlmages MEMOs have already been converted to PDF format and are avail able on microimages com However they are not yet on the V6 60 CD or inclu
149. texture or drape raster object This process uses the familiar selection query symbol style projection rec onciliation attributes and other powerful geospatial management features in similar fashion to those in the static 3D viewer TNTatlas for Windows FREE TNTatlas for Windows is now equivalent in function ality to TNTatlas for X An installation program is provided using the familiar Install Shield Improved Mosaicking Automatically cosmetically repair narrow under lapping seams or small holes gap filling Use a reference raster to set the cell size con trast and georeferencing Georeferencing and control of contrast are improved e Tracing while Editing When vector elements are being drawn or edited they can be extended by tracing portions of elements from other layers e Reference Views while Editing Open additional GeoLocked views in the Spatial Data Editor for reference purposes MICROIMAGES MEMO 6 21 DECEMBER 2001 RELEASE OF V6 60 TNT PRODUCTS e Hough Transform Application of the Hough Transform and its inverse are now much more interactive and include viewing the results over a reference raster e Point Density Mapping This new process maps the occurrence of all points or points selected by query from a vector object into a continuous raster object of their density distribution e Mattes Select many different border types and colors for a group such as a legend group Fill these boxes with a color matt
150. th encoding and other lossless compression schemes For many MICROIMAGES MEMO 50 21 DECEMBER 2001 RELEASE OF V6 60 TNT PRODUCTS years Microlmages refused to support lossy compression in the Project Files for fear that such rasters would be misused in most image processing applications However your pressure and evolving geomedia needs forced support of these formats Now Mi crolmages must rely upon you to know when to use compression which to use and when to avoid it When you get images in a highly compressed format you have little choice but to use them Unfortunately the tendency of those supplying images in wavelet compressed formats is to make it easy on themselves by compressing the image to a small size Make sure that you understand the impact of using these compression formats at high compression ratios on the images you acquire Often when the owner of the very large images is asked for a copy they will for their convenience choose to deliver it in MrSID format For example it has become common for state agencies to meet their public ac cess regulations by making their black and white 7 5 orthophotos available for download or on CD in MrSID format Typically they will compress a single 7 5 orthoimage from 40 Mb to 2 to 3 Mb This is convenient for them in terms of web storage and for the party acquiring copies of these free images in terms of bandwidth requirements However a comparison of the original image to the compressed
151. than 1 route through the refer ence vector object it will not proceed for example around both sides of a polygon or bubble in the line You will then have to select a new shorter segment that specifies the desired route in other words click on the leg you wish to take around the polygon and click again on the far side of the polygon Sometimes you will think that auto trace is not working as it will not proceed across a node to the point you have selected on the line on the far side If you zoom up on this node you will find that it is actually a polygon or bubble in the line and the trace is waiting for you to click on one route through it in your zoomed in view before it can proceed The attached color plate illustrates how in a single sequence of operations a parcel which means a polygon can be created in a new vector layer using drawing together with snapping and tracing from a second layer In this example the north and south MICROIMAGES MEMO 71 21 DECEMBER 2001 RELEASE OF V6 60 TNT PRODUCTS boundaries of the property are drawn in perhaps along visual boundaries in a reference orthophoto The east and west edges are auto traced and copied from a road layer and a river layer This entire new polygon can be created in 1 continuous sequence of steps that go something like this select drawing mode select road layer snap starting point to road draw north edge select river layer and snap to it select trace mode and trace river bou
152. the active layer is a raster and will fit your workspace at the numbers presented Miscellaneous View in View When the view in view tool is selected it now automatically shows a visi ble box in the center of the view This makes it obvious that the tool is active and what it does GeoLocking Views with arbitrary user defined georeference can now be locked Ge oLocking 2 such views assumes that their contents use the same coordinate system axes scale You can not lock a georeferenced view to an arbitrary view MICROIMAGES MEMO 56 21 DECEMBER 2001 RELEASE OF V6 60 TNT PRODUCTS Landscape Builder a prototype process A Display Process At first glance it may seem strange to find a new process by this name available as a type of TNT display process However this new process is built using the same Geo spatial Rendering Engine GRE and permits you to choose objects in any Project Files as well as to specify how they are modified controlled composited and displayed Like many TNT processes it can render 2D displays based upon your selections and set tings These views permit you to preview the results of the application of the Landscape Builder just as in many other TNT processes However the specific purpose of this new process is to provide all the familiar display controls to setup and create the geospatial objects used for an entirely new display namely TNTsim3D The attached color plate entitled Landscape Buil
153. the download section at microimages com as ideas occur and as the Landscape Builder and TNTsim3D evolve Remember a sim file is a Project File so you can view its rasters in any TNT process However these landscape rasters have a special tiling and pyramid structure so modifying them editing filtering resampling in another TNT process will adversely affect their use in TNTsim3D Several sample sim files are on the TNT products V6 6 CD but they are not included in the installation procedures You must locate these files on the CD in a root level di rectory simdata and copy them to your local drive Running simulations directly from the CD will produce slower performance in TNTsim3D These and other larger files can be downloaded from microimages com BigPine sim 14 Mb on CD a higher resolution version BigPine2 sim 46 Mb is available at microimages com Covers an area of about 940 square kilometers centered on the Owens Valley of east ern California with the town of Big Pine at the northern top edge The rugged crest of the Sierra Nevada Mountains flanks the valley on the southwest and the Inyo Moun tains lie along the eastern edge The texture layer is a Landsat 7 RGBI image that uses MICROIMAGES MEMO 30 21 DECEMBER 2001 RELEASE OF V6 60 TNT PRODUCTS the 15 meter panchromatic band 8 to sharpen a 30 meter natural color image bands 3 2 1 This is a desert landscape with only sparse natural vegetation s
154. the elevation as the surface while drawing the polygon on an overlaying image layer V6 60 now also displays the actual surface area for the raster inside the polygon in addition to its flat projected area It is now easy to determine the true surface area and its ratio to the flat area MICROIMAGES MEMO 55 21 DECEMBER 2001 RELEASE OF V6 60 TNT PRODUCTS Tools now report true maximum minimum and other Z values for the selected surface after automatically applying any scale and offset value associated with the data values in that raster object All Z coordinate values also default to the same units selected for the view Geospatial Display Big Display Windows If you are using the large virtual display window in V6 50 you can now take advantage of the following new supporting features Scale to Maximum Extent Enter a scale and choose the check box Entire Extent at Scale and the display window will resize to fit the extent of all the layers at the scale shown The largest scale you can enter is the default value smallest base number for the representative fraction It is the scale of your view if the View window fills your entire large workspace If you enter a smaller number than this to obtain a larger display window it will be rejected and the smallest allowed number will be shown If you enter a smaller scale a larger number that can be accommodated it will be accepted and when you enter OK the display win dow will resi
155. the flat lake surface and a texture layer derived from a scanned tourist map of the park downloaded from the National Park Service This 8 bit scan showed all of the color line work against a white background so it was first edited to fill the lake surface area with blue In the Landscape Builder the color palette for the map raster was edited to turn the re maining white map background yellow and this color alone was made partially trans parent The map raster with semi transparent background was displayed over a relief shaded view of the DEM resulting in solid color line work and labels appearing against a relief shaded color background Although the lines and labels are not in a vector over lay though they could be note that the line and label edges are nicely anti aliased if the texture smoothing option for DirectX is turned on MonBay4 sim 28 Mb on CD and from microimages com This sample covers Monterey Bay and the adjacent California coastline It was created from an elevation model that included both topography and submarine bathymetry The texture layer was created in a similar fashion to the first Crater Lake simulation Two versions of the elevation model were created one for the land area and one for the bathymetry with nulls for the remaining area with different color palettes In the Land scape Builder these two layers were overlaid with partial transparency over a relief shaded view of the original elevation model to pr
156. time for multiple views Each will be a separate application and can use the same or a different landscape file Your control device s will provide input only to that application simulation window that currently has MICROIMAGES MEMO 28 21 DECEMBER 2001 RELEASE OF V6 60 TNT PRODUCTS the focus selected by the mouse At this time these 2 TNTsim3D applications sepa rate windows will not communicate so only one moves with the controls unless the other has been set up for some automatic activity such as flying in a straight line A fu ture version of TNTsim3D will provide for multiple views from the same plane position of different or the same landscape files Views that are locked could each use the same input to permit tandem control for an image and map view for 2D moving map and 3D flight views pilot and observer views and so on Input Controls Since this is a Windows application the standard Microsoft game control utility and win dow are used to assign the controls provided in TNTsim3D to your joystick keyboard and or mouse If you have set up Microsoft Flight Simulator or other games you will al ready be familiar with its operation You can mix control devices Your current control settings can be checked at any time for reference while you are flying by exposing the TNTsim3D Controls window from View Show Controls on the menu This window also provides a reference list of all the input controls that are available to assign to a
157. ting Started Tutorials They are e Using TNTatlas for Windows e Using TNTatlas for X Windows e Analyzing Terrain and Surfaces e Geospatial Analysis in Precision Farming e Modeling Watershed Geomorphology e Translating Tutorials and e Using TNTsim3D for Windows not on CD please download Expanded Booklets 5 GSBs have had significant upgrades or additions for use with V6 60 of the TNT prod ucts and are shown in the attached color plate entitled Expanded Getting Started Tuto rials They are e Writing Scripts with SML major revisions e Managing Geoattributes updated and 4 new pages e Analyzing Hyperspectral Images updated and 4 new pages e Designing Electronic Atlases updated and 4 new pages and e Creating a Tutorial updated Translated Booklets Various experienced Microlmages clients are now participating in a program to make ini tial translations of the Getting Started booklets available to their nations The attached color plate entitled Translated Getting Started Tutorials illustrates the covers of typical translations There are currently 21 TNT languages and 65 booklets so this is a major effort However many of the booklets have already been translated during previous years in complete or in abridged form into Japanese Turkish Thai and Korean A few of the most important booklets have recently been translated into Spanish Italian Fin nish German French and Dutch Negotiations are underway
158. tlook that our in novative windows approach to desktop software made written documentation superflu ous This was in the days of CPM and the Z80 chip DOS and the Intel 8080 chip and the introduction of the Mac when any software that used a few windows seemed vastly easier to learn and use This is still true for the simple single purpose software that dis plays an image or controls a scanner For example most users of a web browser do not consult any documentation However complex broad scope products such as TNTmips must continually advance and introduce new ideas It requires extensive writ ten materials to explain these new objectives guide their operation and illustrate poten tial applications As more and more capabilities are added this written information base grows larger and larger Far from those expectations of no documentation the profes sional version of TNTmips comes with 4200 pages of references and tutorials Fur thermore have written 1000s of pages in 51 of these MEMOs with almost 400 accom panying illustrations from others to introduce these changes Microlmage s web site contains literally over 10 000 pages of materials While it is all written down somewhere finding specific materials can be difficult V6 60 introduces the first cross document in dexing of the Online Reference Manual and all the Getting Started tutorials to help you locate materials on any TNT topic Wavelet Compression MrSID versus ECW
159. uilding Landscape Files The Landscape Builder is a new process It prepares a special landscape or simula tion Project File with a sim extension for use in TNTsim3D It uses the same dialogs as the other TNT display processes to permit you to select the objects it processes for use in TNTsim3D Use its familiar controls and features to select the elevation terrain layer and to select and composite together multiple objects for the image texture layer Just as with 2D 3D and the Spatial Data Editor this process uses the same TNT Graphical Rending Engine GRE It uses the same Project File geodata as any other TNT display process You can navigate to and select any combination of objects and data types for computation into the raster objects to be used for the terrain and the tex ture overlay in your simulation The Landscape Builder is included as a conventional TNT process in every TNTmips This new process is described in more detail in the Landscape Builder subsection below as part of the New Features section for TNTmips Some aspects of it are also illustrated in the attached color plate entitled Landscape Builder for TNTsim3D Sample Landscape Files A small initial collection of landscape sim files is available for your maiden flights until you can get your own files built using the Landscape Builder These simulations have been assembled from geodata that Microlmages had on hand More and improved ver sions will be added to
160. ured texture The final map depicts 18 land cover types and captures the general patterns found in the re gion Some confusion still exists between closely related types such as pasture with dif ferent amounts of tree cover Extraction from section on methods Although the scene was largely cloud free signifi cant areas of cloud 5 5 existed in the west central and northern part of the area A cloud and cloud shadow mask was developed using both TNTmips Microlmages Lin coln Nebraska and Arc Info ESRI Redlands California The TNTmips Feature Map ping process and all reflective TM bands to automatically map the central portions of clouds with manually selected sample points as input The cloud raster was converted to a polygon coverage Arc Info and cloud polygons were buffered with a 57 m dis tance 2 pixels to capture the cloud fringes The resulting buffered cloud coverage and an offset coverage for cloud shadows was hand edited to insure complete cloud and cloud shadow masking Specific processing steps are outlined in Table 2 and are listed by cover type in Table 3 All unsupervised classification was accomplished using TNTmips and all subsequent sorting of resulting spectral classes was performed using the Grid module in Arc Info Using old version of TNTmips before GIS capabilities were completed Temporal Erosion Induced Soil Degradation and Yield Loss by Gerd Sparovek and Ewald Schnug Soil Science Society of America
161. used in your profile analysis Modifications since V6 60 CDs The Select Nearest Point script described above has been modified to show how to se lect the nearest point nearest line and or a polygon This revised Select Nearest Ele ment script can be downloaded from microimages com New Functions The 13 new functions and 12 new classes outlined below have been added to both SML X and SML W MICROIMAGES MEMO 74 21 DECEMBER 2001 RELEASE OF V6 60 TNT PRODUCTS Raster functions 1 RasterApplyContrast2 Applies a contrast table to a raster Georeference functions 1 CreateControlPointGeorefDefaultAccuracy Same as CreatedControlPointGeoref but without accuracy parameters CAD functions 2 CreateCAD Create a CAD object OpenCAD Open a CAD object given a filename and object name TIN functions 1 CloseTIN Close an open TIN object Geodata Display View functions 1 ViewRedrawDirect Draw view directly with draw flags Geodata Display functions 4 DispQuickAddCADVar Quick add a CAD object to a display window given a CAD variable DispQuickAddTINVar Quick add TIN object to a display window given a TIN variable GroupQuickAddCADVar Quick add a CAD layer to a group given a CAD variable GroupQuickAddTINVar Quick add a TIN layer to a group given a TIN variable Database functions 1 TableAddField Append a field to a table Database Editor functions 2 DBEditorCreate Creates a DBEDITOR handle for a
162. ve indicator for agricultural sustainability useful for land use planning and for the definition of tolerable soil erosion This project made extensive use of TNTmips for data reduction organization surface modeling and illustration Appendix Abbreviations For simplicity the following abbreviations were used in this MEMO W95 Microsoft Windows 95 MICROIMAGES MEMO 83 21 DECEMBER 2001 RELEASE OF V6 60 TNT PRODUCTS W98 Microsoft Windows 98 WME Windows Millennium Edition NT or NT4 Microsoft NT 4 0 versions 3 1 and 3 5 are error prone and thus the TNT products require the use of NT4 0 and its subsequent Service Packs NT4 now has a Service Pack 6a available Windows 2000 now has Service Pack 1 available but is not recommended unless you are having problems with your installation W2000 Microsoft Windows 2000 XP Microsoft Windows XP Mac 9 x Apple Macintosh using the PowerPC G3 or G4 processors and Mac OS 9 x Mac 10 1 Apple Macintosh using Mac X version 10 1 MI X Microlmages X Server for Mac and PC microcomputer platforms and operating systems GRE Microlmages Geospatial Rendering Engine that is at the heart of most Microl mages products The current GRE will respond and render for requests from either X Motif or Windows MICROIMAGES MEMO 84 21 DECEMBER 2001
163. ven if they are clearly proven to be ineffective and inefficient For example have had numerous accurate reports of national government mapping organizations that have had major commitments to computer map production programs for 20 years and have never produced a single map or serious computer mapping project The value of these programs is easy to judge System Review Shows All The effectiveness of groups who are producing geospatial products can also be sys tematically examined to determine their efficiency and cost effectiveness These pro grams should be well aware that in a future time of financial duress or reorganization they may be subjected to careful analysis from the outside They would benefit as would those contemplating involvement in geospatial analysis for the first time from per forming a careful systems analysis of the most cost effective approach Unfortunately due to the many special interests involved a fair analysis is difficult to conduct if done internally or even if contracted out What follows is a report based upon a careful system analysis review of the software procedures of a government agency already heavily involved in the time critical produc tion of paper maps and beginning to produce companion CD products This study was conducted by a major international engineering contractor to that agency This contrac tor is responsible for the assembly of the Windows based systems and software cur rently being us
164. ver are available the contents of these right mouse button menus will auto matically vary to reflect these choices For example if the atlas designer does not use navigation levels then the navigation tool will not appear in the client or on a right button menu Main or Principle View right view The right mouse button typically presents these options on the main or right view Zoom Out Re center Zoom In Full View Full Resolution Get InfoTip Navigate Home Last View Next View Add to Favorites Copy Shortcut Copy URL Grayscale Restore Color Relief Shaded Show Picture and View Image The purpose of most of these operations is clear from their use elsewhere in the client but some are only available via this menu For example toggling the view into grayscale and back to color is a local client operation and is useful when elements drawn on a color view are hard to see even though you can select the drawing color Relief shading is a local client operation which demonstrates that raster and image processing operations can be provided by a JavaScript embedded in the HTML client Reference View left view The menu presented for a panel by the right mouse button is associated with the panel and thus can vary with the panel When the panel providing the reference view is ex MICROIMAGES MEMO 41 21 DECEMBER 2001 RELEASE OF V6 60 TNT PRODUCTS posed using the right mouse button it typically presents these options Zoom Out
165. w it operates Or you have removed your software authorization license key to take it home or elsewhere Prior to V6 60 removing the key would simply produce an error message when you attempted to start the lite version of your products You had to find and alter the appropriate line in your tnthost ini file to start your TNT products in lite mode Then later when the key was re attached you would have to edit the tnthost ini file again All this was very inconvenient Now you can simply use the new License Configuration window to toggle on the Free TNTlite license option and from that time onward you can start any TNT product in lite mode whether the key remains attached or is removed To switch back to starting up into your professional TNT product simply reopen this License Configuration window and select the option that identifies the port where your software authorization key is at tached For more details see the earlier Licenses section NOTE TNTlite and corresponding supporting materials provided for downloading is the official release version and is not changed or updated between releases Interim upgrades for TNTlite can be obtaining in the identical fashion as for the TNTpro products TNTatlas 6 6 for Windows and X Windows Version Complete TNTatlas is now available for both native Windows TNTatlas W and X TNTatlas X with similar features When you build a TNTatlas it can now be used and distributed with either ve
166. w provides for dual related views Its use is illustrated in the attached color plate entitled TNTclient Reference View Selecting it converts the en tire panel area at the left into a reference view for the main or principle view at the right The entire panel area and thus the area of the reference view can be enlarged or re duced by using the mouse to grab the separating boundary or the icon provided for this purpose and move the boundary left or right The relationship between what is shown in the reference view and the right view can be controlled by the end user by the right mouse button as described below The area or extent of the main or right view is shown by a red box outline on the reference view This is a zoom box that can be enlarged or repositioned and will automatically request a new view for the right view Right Mouse Button Controls The right mouse button can be used at any time to pop in menus to gain quick and con venient access to commonly used client operations Some of these right button menus are illustrated in the attached color plate entitled TNTclient Reference View These op erations can be the same as presented elsewhere in the client using icons drop down menus and other more formal interface components They can also be accessed by this approach simply for convenience However unique functions can also be found on these menus Since the site manager and the atlas designer both control which aspects of atlas ser
167. w use HTML and the TNT query language to cre ate forms that the end client simply fills in to retrieve a specific view from a TNTatlas Your form for a launch query can control how the end user completes the query using defaults constraints pick lists derived from the atlas s attributes or use no input all Your design of the HTML of the web site hosting the TNTserver can provide access to many different custom atlas launch queries Each form presented by this host site can call a different query to retrieve views from 1 TNTserver and 1 TNTatlas or different TNTatlases Microlmages sample Nebraska Statewide atlas at microimages com illus trates the use of 7 different forms and associated launch queries to retrieve specific re sults by address ZIP code township and range city latitude and longitude state capitol building and county name The entry form for each of these is illustrated on the at tached color plated entitled TNTclient Launch Queries Enhanced Query Builder Panel TNTserver is also being used on intranet sites in an application similar to data mining where very large geodata bases are queried to locate views with specific characteristics These clients construct their own queries which are often used only once within the query building panel of the TNTclient Some of the recent enhancements to this panel are illustrated in the attached color plate entitled TNTclient Query Builder Remote Data Entry Panel The section above e
168. wn e roll left or right roll O relevels wings and e turn left or right Throttle up and throttle down controls let you set and adjust a sustained forward or backward velocity and a throttle 0 control lets you instantly stop An altitude lock input control acts as an on off toggle to lock the plane at the current altitude while maintaining freedom to move in other directions The normal viewing direction is in the direction of the flight but Look controls show the view in a specific direction down up left right relative to the current plane attitude as long as the control is pressed Thus you can move in one direction while viewing in an other It is helpful to lock the altitude control when doing this Finally when you get lost in the hills or sky you can use the View menu options to Recenter the landscape while maintaining your current position or Restore Initial Viewpoint which jumps the viewer position and orientation back to the starting point Readouts By default a Position Status bar is shown at the bottom of the screen It can be pulled off with the mouse and docked at the top left or right of the scene or dragged entirely out of the view to create its own separate window A Status bar is also presented at the bottom of the view by default to show the current program status and to provide descrip MICROIMAGES MEMO 27 21 DECEMBER 2001 RELEASE OF V6 60 TNT PRODUCTS tions of any highlighted menu options Both of these
169. y can be used to create the composite multiple layer view and active layer that this tool will operate upon when selected This sample script will find the nearest point element in the active layer if that layer is a vector object with points This short sample script merely locates and highlights the selected point element Your extension of this script would use the geoposition of this interactively selected point to continue on to perform your custom operation for that point This might be anything you wish to do with this point its attributes any other data at this position in another layer in the view or a layer not in the view For example you could save or display information about the point move the point delete it edit its attributes average raster values about this position in a raster layer in the view or one that is not displayed and many many other special operations This sample script can also be very easily modified to allow in teractive selection of the nearest line element and the nearest or the enclosing polygon Display a Raster Profile included on CD Another typical operation at the startup of a Tool Script operation is to interactively draw a line on the view Once this line has been created in the Tool Script it can continue on to use the line in a wide variety of operations The attached color plate entitled Sample SML Tool Script Raster Profile illustrates a tool that creates a line and uses it to open a window w
170. yons and over hills a la Star Wars is not as easy or smooth Even with a fully featured joystick some actions must be as signed to keys simply because there are too many options and in some cases because it makes more sense to use both hands For example keys are conveniently used to switch the view to look 90 degrees left right or to the nadir as you fly forward with the joystick You might also use keys with your free hand to toggle to lock to a fixed altitude above sea level then hold down another key to look straight down to see the aerial cam era or bombardier s eyeview For example when the view you select is not in the direc tion of flight locking the altitude to maintain level flight makes flying easier MICROIMAGES MEMO 29 21 DECEMBER 2001 RELEASE OF V6 60 TNT PRODUCTS Mouse Control Most control functions can also be assigned to the mouse However it has a limited number of inputs so it is best used by the hand not on the joystick to handle special ef fects The cursor and its position are shown on the moving simulation Thus the mouse can also be used in your other hand to point out features in the simulation Spe cial GIS uses of this cursor position are planned For example the simplest would be to report the coordinates of the cursor s position on the surface Another would be to point and hold the view oriented to its position on the surface while flying around it with the joystick Preparing a Landscape B
171. ze and redisplay your composite view at that scale and it will contain all the extents of all layers in your composite view Scale to Active Layer Enter a scale and choose the check box Active Layer At Scale and the display window will resize to fit the extent of the active layer at the scale shown The largest scale you can enter smallest base number for the representative fraction is the scale of your view if the View window fills your entire large workspace If you enter a smaller number than this to obtain a larger display window it will be rejected and the smallest allowed num ber will be shown If you enter a smaller scale a larger number that can be accommo dated it will be accepted and when you enter OK the display window will resize and redisplay your composite view at that scale and it will contain all the extent of the active layer in the composite view Scale to Active Layer s Pixel Size The Active Layer At option provides some convenient choices for resizing your display window relative to the pixel size of the active layer when it s a raster Typical choices are 1X 2X 1 2X 1 3X and 1 4X Choosing 1X will zoom the active raster layer 1 to 1 1 cell per display pixel Choosing 2X will zoom the display so that each cell in the ac tive raster layer becomes 2 by 2 display pixels Choosing 1 4X dezooms the display window to a 4 by 4 sampling of the cells in the raster layer These number options can only be selected if

V6.60 Release Notes

Contents

Download Pdf Manuals

Related Search

Related Contents