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Release of V4.90 TNT products| Product Code | Price to upgrade from TNTmips: | MIPS: | ||||
| V4.80 | V4.70 | V4.6 | V4.51 | V4.40 | any version | |
| D30 to D60 (Cds) | $250 | 450 | 600 | 700 | 750 | 750 |
| D30 to D60 (floppies) | $300 | 560 | 750 | 875 | 940 | 940 |
| D80 | $375 | 675 | 900 | 1050 | 1125 | 1125 |
| M50 (replaces U45) | $250 | 450 | 600 | 700 | 750 | 750 |
| U100 | $450 | 800 | 1000 | 1200 | 1300 | |
| U200 | $780 | 1400 | 1875 | 2200 | 2350 | |
| U300 | $1030 | 1850 | 2475 | 2900 | 3100 | |
For all other nations:
| Product Code | Price to upgrade from TNTmips: | MIPS: | ||||
| V4.80 | V4.70 | V4.6 | V4.51 | V4.40 | any version | |
| D30 to D60 (Cds) | $300 | 560 | 750 | 875 | 940 | 940 |
| D30 to D60 (floppies) | $350 | 600 | 800 | 925 | 990 | 990 |
| D80 | $425 | 800 | 1050 | 1225 | 1300 | 1300 |
| M50 (replaces U45) | $300 | 560 | 750 | 875 | 940 | 940 |
| U100 | $500 | 850 | 1050 | 1250 | 1350 | |
| U200 | $830 | 1450 | 1925 | 2250 | 2400 | |
| U300 | $1080 | 1900 | 2525 | 2950 | 3150 | |
M50 is the new product code for the Apple Macintosh Mac OS 7.x versions and replaces their older designation as U45 for the Mac using A/UX.
Loading a full installation of TNTmips 4.9 onto your PC hard drive for MSW3.11 will require 87 megabytes with an additional 14 megabytes for the illustrations. The full install of the TNTmips 4.9 processes onto your PC hard drive for MSNT-I (Intel) will require 110 megabytes with an additional 14 megabytes for the illustrations. The full install of the TNTmips 4.9 processes onto your hard drive for MSNT-A (Alpha) will require just more than 124 megabytes with an additional 14 megabytes for the illustrations.
The full installation size, including illustrations, will vary for workstations depending upon the platform type as follows: Data General = 89 mb; Hewlett-Packard = 92 mb; Sun SPARCstation with Solaris 1.x = 82 mb; Sun SPARCstation with Solaris 2.x = 73 mb; SGI = 120 mb; DEC ULTRIX = 90 mb; DEC OSF/1 = 90 mb; and IBM RS/6000 = 135 mb.
There are no V4.90 TNT products on these CD-ROMs for the Macintosh using A/UX. Since Apple has discontinued providing this version of UNIX for new platforms, MicroImages has discontinued development for A/UX. Those clients using the TNT products for the Macintosh platforms will be provided an automatic resumption of their quarterly upgrades with the new pending release of the TNT products for native operation under Mac OS 7.x.
No special features were added to TNTsdk other than the quarterly improvements in existing functions and the additional functions added to TNTmips.
All the applicable changes in the display program noted below are similarly available when TNTview 4.9 is installed.
TNTatlasTM 4.9 (release of San Francisco sampler)
Purpose. The promotional San Francisco bay area TNTatlas sampler CD-ROM is enclosed. It should be carefully noted that this is labeled as a prototype. With your assistance, MicroImages will modify and improve this HyperIndex® stack and reissue it.
A copy of this San Francisco TNTatlas and the accompanying manualette will be shipped along with the TNT product brochures to every potential customer who requests information directly from MicroImages. You will also find enclosed with V4.90 an additional set of materials which describe the characteristics of the objects in this HyperIndex stack.
All the software modifications needed to allow the creation of licensed versions of the TNTatlas software coupled or bonded to your Project Files have been completed. This "bonding kit" was created by MicroImages in order to prepare this San Francisco sampler to demonstrate the concept of keyless, licensed, run-time versions of TNTatlas reproduced on a single CD for all platforms, but sharing one common set of Project Files.
Installation and Performance. All 11 versions of the TNTatlas "playback" or "run-time" software are present on every sampler with the one HyperIndex stack of 580 megabytes made up of 66 Project Files in 10 directories with a total of 313 primary objects. Linked, compressed, tiled TIFF files are used for 37 of the largest raster objects. Thus, these large images can be used in other applications which can directly read this TIFF file format as well as in the TNT products.
This sampler is designed to be taken to any one of the 11 different computer platforms supported and immediately used to view the images and map materials it contains. The TNTatlas software will always be loaded at the time of operation directly form the CD. Thus less than 100 kilobytes of space will be required for installation and use on any of the 11 different host platforms for the small reference files required to control the display characteristics and user defaults. MicroImages believes that this is a unique accomplishment in the software field and cannot understand why such an approach is not used by many others: 1 standard data structure in the universal ISO 9660 format accompanied by programs for each platform!
To accomplish this universality a minor premium must be paid as loading the TNTatlas software each time from the CD will take more time than if was installed on the hard drive and subsequently loaded. However, this slower start up time saves the approximately 11 megabytes of hard drive space required for a specific version of the TNTatlas.
Simply install and set up the "run-from-CD" version appropriate for the platform you wish to use, follow the instructions on page ii of the manualette enclosed with the CD. The install process will transfer the several small reference files to the hard drive taking less than 100 kilobytes of space and then provide you with further set-up instructions. The software and Project Files will be left on, and used from, the CD. Should you wish to operate this TNTatlas from your hard drive simply copy the appropriate version of the software CD to the hard drive and set it up to operate there.
Regardless of where the software is located, the time required to read and display each large object is a function of where you choose to keep the 66 Project Files making up this atlas: on a single speed CD, on a quad speed CD, or on a fast hard drive (using 600 megabytes). This is your choice and directly controls the speed at which you can move around in the atlas. If you have the hard drive space, you can significantly increase (depending upon the speed of your CD) the retrieval speed of this TNTatlas by copying all 580 megabytes of Project Files to it.
It is unfortunate, in retrospect, that the new raster pyramiding scheme (see more details below) already developed for use in V5.00 of the TNT products was not available for use on this prototype CD atlas. MicroImages simply did not want to delay the release of this TNTatlas sample product any longer. However, this new, additional raster object storage feature incorporated into the Project File structure for V5.00 will drastically increase the speed of displaying large rasters at any zoom factor selected. In the meantime, it should be clearly understood that this is a prototype version of this atlas produced to help to begin to illustrate the concept of its use and to also to transmit a new set of TNT sample data to all clients.
Linking Project Files. The release of these larger raster, vector, and CAD sample Project Files provides TNTmips and TNTview clients with new and larger sample data with which to experiment. A new feature in V4.90 is available which allows you to link a Project File to any, and all, of the objects in another Project File. Thus, if you choose, you can leave these large San Francisco objects on the CD and link to them from a second Project File created on your hard drive. This new, very small "parent" Project File on your hard drive can then be used by any TNT process to read any of these large San Francisco objects directly from the CD. Without creating such a parent Project File, you would be unable to alter any of the characteristics of the objects (e.g. color balance, georeferences, contrast tables, and other display parameters) in the TNTatlas since they are on the read-only CD. The operation of this feature is provided in printed form as the supplemental documentation section entitled: Linking to Objects.
If you use this new Project File linking feature for access to the raster in another Project File, all the unique features of tiling, georeferencing, pyramiding (when available) etc. will be preserved and used. Similarly, links to vector, CAD, TIN, and database objects are also transparent when you select the new "parent" Project File. MicroImages believes you will also find many other useful applications of linking Project Files to objects in other Project Files.
Currently, during linking you will need to select each individual object (use the multi-object selection procedure). However, a modification will be made for V5.00 to allow selection of an entire Project File(s) and will automatically select every object in it for linking. When you try linking to 313 individual objects on this prototype CD, you may understand why adding this new feature is important. Correspondingly, you will also wonder why the total, small parent Project File was not created by MicroImages and placed on the CD in the first place, and then transferred to the hard drive as part of the install process. This would have been a complicated approach as this pre-made parent Project File would not know where the CD and its Project Files and objects were located on your system (e.g. drive letter or directory location).
Crow Butte. The old, familiar Crow Butte, Nebraska sample data is no longer on the V4.90 TNT products CDs. It is now located in a separate HyperIndex stack on this same San Francisco TNTatlas CD.
Printing. As has been noted previously in the TNTatlas promotional materials, if you wish to print any screens displayed in this sample atlas (without using TNTmips), MicroImages suggests you use one of the several commercial, very low-cost, window color screen printing software packages such as Pizzaz Plus from Application Techniques, Inc.
No changes have been made in the TNTdemo software or program for this quarter.
An equivalent of 1737 single-spaced printed pages of on-line documentation are included with V4.90. This is an increase of 34 pages over that supplied with V4.80. Three last minute additional sections were completed for the newest features in V4.90 after the master disks were created for the reproduction process. These 50 additional pages are included in supplemental, printed form as follows.
Triangulated Irregular Networks (28 pages)
Copying to Multiple Objects (5 pages)
Vector Merge and Transfer of Vector Attributes (17 pages)
Apple Macintosh via System 7.x.
Again the Apple Macintosh versions of the TNT products are not being distributed with V4.90. MicroImages now has a complete working version of the TNT products for 68xxx based Macintoshes (e.g. Quadras) and which also operates on the Power Macs in emulation mode. Only a few errors are showing up in testing. However, it is now clear that a Mac Quadra with a 68040 processor and associated math co-processor functions only about equivalent to an Intel-based 486/25. This performance comparison is already generally accepted in the industry and is the reason behind Apple's switch to the Power PC chip as the 68xxx chip design could no longer be modified to compete with the changes in the Intel chip designs.
MicroImages is experiencing an additional performance problem in the way the Mac OS multi-finder currently runs independent programs by sharing time equally between the 3 processes: X Server, Menu, and an application (e.g. 2D display). This is similar to the way things started out on the PC platforms, and eventually MicroImages figured out how to properly share and balance the time of service from the system software and CPU for the X Server, Menu, and application process. This is the area in which effort is now being expended to increase the performance. However, irrespective of these performance improvement efforts, it is likely that MicroImages will release special CDs of the Mac TNT versions to those awaiting them just after the Annual Users' Workshop.
Operating the current TNTmips processes on the Power Macs in emulation mode provides slower results than operating on a 68040 based Quadra. This might be expected, as this has also been reported in the literature. MicroImages has never seen a software chip emulation which was as fast as the native use of that same chip regardless of the marketing hype surrounding it.
The current problems experienced by all software manufacturers in developing and releasing native software for the Power Mac is made very clear in an article on the status of Microsoft's products for this platform. The quotes below were printed just yesterday in Microsoft to Update Office, Word, and Excel. by Iian Greenberg. 16 January 1995. in Infoworld, page 10.
"Acknowledging widespread use dissatisfaction with software packages it recently released for the Macintosh, Microsoft Corp. announced last week it will ship by March free interim releases of Excel, Word, and Office."
"Also Word's slow performance was exacerbated on the Power Macintosh systems because users ran the application under emulation. However, Word was never optimized for that platform, unlike the native Excel, according to Microsoft." MicroImages interprets the word exacerbated to mean slower than operation on a 68xxx based machine just as found with the TNT products!
MicroImages is just completing the compiling of the TNT products for the native mode on the Power Mac. At this point it is not yet possible to measure the magnitude of the performance advantages of this native Power PC version over the 68xxx version of the TNT products.
The initial releases of the Mac versions of the TNT products will be shipped with an X Server supplied by another software manufacturer. However, the cost of this X Server prohibits its use with the TNTdemo product and the run-time version used for publishing your TNTatlas CDs. As a result, MicroImages has decided to develop an X Server for use with the Mac OS. While not a trivial task, this effort will be initiated on or about 1 February.
* Paragraphs or main sections preceded by this symbol "*" introduce significant new processes, or features in existing processes, which are released for the first time in TNTmips 4.9.
A Project File may now be linked to objects in another Project File. This allows objects to be used in all TNT processes which reside on permanently recorded media such as a CD or a write once optical drive or where you simply do not want to store another copy. The "parent" Project File may contain no objects of its own and merely show many other objects to which it is linked. A Project File may also contain a mixture of local objects (stored within it) and linked objects (stored elsewhere in other Project Files). All TNT processes are transparent to the use of linked objects, and no performance is lost when using a linked object.
Additional details on the use of linked Project Files was presented above in connection with the discussion of their use with the San Francisco TNTatlas. The operation of this new feature is provided in printed form as the supplemental documentation section entitled: Linking to Objects.
* TIN Objects.
A TIN (Triangulated Irregular Network) is a topological data structure that represents a continuous 3D surface as a set of adjacent triangles computed from irregularly spaced 3D points. The TIN data structure also stores topological relationships between adjacent triangles, edges, and nodes.
The triangulation that forms a TIN structure satisfies the Delaunay criterion and produces a unique set of triangles with several useful properties: any point within a triangle is closer to its triangle's vertices than to those of another triangle, the number of sliver (long skinny) triangles is minimized as much as possible, each triangle is formed by connection of input sample point with it's two nearest neighbors. TNTmips uses tolerance for discarding input points that are too close to each other, which helps maintain TINs with desired spatial density for the resulting triangles. Additional details on the structure and characteristics of a TIN object are contained in the printed supplemental documentation section entitled: Triangulated Irregular Networks.
A TIN object contains coordinate and topological information about the nodes, edges, and triangle elements which make it up. You can attach database records or attributes to the node, edge, and triangle elements just as with the point, line, polygon, and node elements in vector and CAD objects. In addition, each triangle has an attached characteristics database record with information about perimeter, surface, and projected areas, volume, slope, aspect, and some other useful parameters. These attributes and characteristic databases can be used with queries for displaying and analyzing TIN objects in Display 2D and other processes.
The current method to create a TIN object is to convert points in vector objects into a TIN object. The points selected become the vertices of the triangles for the TIN object in a process called tessellation. Previous computations of TIN data structures in various software products has been a problem due to the time involved if large numbers of points were used. However, MicroImages has designed an fast and efficient algorithm for this key activity. A new fast TIN computation function was proposed in the paper: Delaunay triangulations in TIN creation: an overview and a linear-time algorithm. by Victor J. D. Tsai. in International Journal of Geographical Information Systems. 1993. 7(6):501-524. This article contains a Table 2 on page 520 that shows the results of this new, fast TIN formation procedure (see attached). This table reports that the new method requires 90 seconds to form Delaunay triangles for 10,000 vertices on a 486/66 PC with all input data and results kept in memory. MicroImages is pleased to report that using the algorithm designed for use in the TNTmips, this same result on this machine would be between 15 and 20 seconds. MicroImages also has preliminary indications that its algorithm is several times faster than the tessellation process (TIN formation) provided in the current version Arc/Info on each comparable platform supported.
A new process is available via Interpret / TIN / Voronoi Diagram to create a Voronoi polygon structure from a TIN object and save it as a vector object. Voronoi polygons are used extensively in a variety of disciplines (e.g. home range in wildlife management). An important application in GIS analysis is point pattern analysis. The Voronoi polygons represents a spatial tessellation of continuous space based on the finite input points set that associates all locations in that space with the closest member of the point set. Voronoi polygons are easily constructed from a TIN object, as they are directly related to the inherent structure of the TIN object.
This process converts a TIN object into a raster object of the selected data type (8-, 16-, 32-bit, and 64-bit) using linear or quadratic piecewise (each triangle used separately) surface fitting methods. A modified quintic piecewise polynomial surface fit will be added later to provide a smoother surface in the raster object. All methods insure that all triangle vertices occur on the surface computed.
This process converts the vertices in a 3D TIN object to the set of vector lines that represent equal elevation. The input parameters are similar to those for the raster contouring process. Currently a piecewise linear fit (each triangle is a plane) is provided. A modified quintic piecewise polynomial fit will be added later to generate more curvilinear contour lines.
The amount of unused space within a Project File is now displayed.
* An RVC Project File can now be "packed" to free up space previously captured by objects which were deleted. This feature was available in DOS MIPS and now is available in TNTmips. The operation of this new feature is provided in printed form as the supplemental documentation section entitled: Removing Unused Space from Project Files.
The Layer / Edit option has been renamed as Layer / Controls.
There is now an option to allow "differential" X-Y zooming. This will permit each axis of the display to be zoomed independently.
* The new TIN object, its database attributes, and other properties can be displayed. The controls are similar to those for displaying a vector object except that there are no "text" elements. Adding the capability to overlay, control, and display this completely new topological object to the display process for all platforms took only a couple of days, illustrating the flexibility of the TNTmips code base.
Pin mapping now allows selection of the "internal" table if the pin map is created from a vector database subobject.
Japanese and Chinese characters can now be automatically extracted from the attached database tables and displayed next to the pie, histogram, or other symbolic representations of each pin. A sample color pin map is attached showing multi-line Japanese labels for each pin.
By now, those clients using pin mapping recognize it as the means of displaying the contents of database objects which may be primary objects or attached to other objects (raster, vector, CAD, or TIN). Any symbol which can be designed in the symbol editor can also be used as a pin for displaying database fields or queries which control its selection, color, and size (e.g. stars, circles, trees, etc.). Alternately, two graphical symbols can be selected: the pie diagram and the histogram. Other special graphical types can be added as requested. For example, a "stacked" histogram of vertical boxes with labels at the side has just been requested along with a request to fill the boxes (and the pie and histogram segments) with the bit map pattern symbols designed elsewhere in TNTmips.
When making a link, you can now control whether the new image will come up at 1X or Full View. If you choose to have it at 1X, you can choose whether you want to come up in the center of the image or at a point centered around the location where it was selected on the parent object.
The Select Key Field window has been modified to allow greater ease in data input. This window appears in many vector processes, including buffer zones, copy vector, home range, transfer attributes, and others. The improvements are:
1) multi-line selecting and editing capabilities - previously, you could change only one line at a time, now you can select and change one or many lines at one time, and the lines don't have to be in one contiguous block.
2) The selection remains in effect during the entire run of the process - previously, if you re-entered the select key field window, the previous selections would have been cleared, forcing the user to redo all the work.
* New fields can now be interactively added to existing internal tables (but not if database is in an external database file). This feature was requested by many users. It is used via "Edit Definition..." in the database editor (AKA Examine Attributes).
* An option was added via "Edit Definition..." to make fields "hidden". The hidden field is still there in the tables but is not shown in the editor.
When creating a table (or by editing the definition of an existing table), you can specify which character encoding is used for the fields in the table. This has been added in connection with supporting the use of other languages and character encoding schemes in the database tables. For example, 2-byte Japanese character fields might occur in a table with a specific encoding scheme (e.g. Shift JIS).
* The database query process now uses the new multilingual text editor and therefore allows characters from other languages to be used in character strings in queries.
The query process now checks to see if you are using a Pentium chip subject to floating point divide errors. If yes, it uses a division routine which avoids it.
The process now transfers attributes from the raster database (if any) to the vector polygons. Polygon styles are also created if the input raster has a color map.
The text crosshair entry method now supports multilingual text and Unicode fonts.
Raster objects can now be imported from the Arc/Info "Image Integrator" BIL (band-interleaved-by-line) and BIP (band-interleaved-by-pixel) formats. You may also link to this Arc/Info BIL format.
The hardware enhancements on Howtek and Howtek-compatible Sharp scanners are now supported as in DOS MIPS V3.31.
This process now allows rasters to be skipped for HIS, HBS, and RGB output. For example, you can now specify that only the raster object for the "I" component of the HIS transformation be created.
This process now creates a raster database table with the categories and features identified stored in records attached to the cell values for the category and feature raster objects. This table contains the feature class which can then be viewed using Examine / Attributes in Display 2D. This also allows the class to be transferred to the polygons if the features are vectorized later using Convert / Vector to Raster / Auto-Boundaries.
Purpose. The multispectral-multitemporal classification process was completely redesigned for V4.90. The only practical limits in these revised processes are the amount of memory and the time available. The new processes also standardize the user interface, add more statistical display features, speed up the classifiers, and fix previously reported problems. The on-line documentation describes the operation of all the new features and options in detail.
Speed Enhancements. For all methods the time to process is now linearly related to the total number of cells in the raster objects.
The processing time for some of the classification methods, notably Maximum Likelihood, will increase with the square of the number of input raster objects. Also if the increased memory required is not available as real memory, and must be satisfied via virtual memory, then a further slow down of as much 10 times could be experienced.
Memory Management Enhancements. Memory requirements are for all classification methods are independent of the total number of cells processed. However, for most of the methods the required memory (either real or virtual) increases by the square of the number of raster objects. Therefore, doubling the number of rasters will require four times the memory to process.
The amount of memory required is NC * (20 + 8 * NR + 8 * NR * NR) bytes, where NC is the number of classes and NR is the number of raster objects. This memory requirement is doubled for the supervised (trained) classification methods. For example, classifying the 6 raster objects for the Crow Butte Landsat sample quad of 488 by 361 cells into 30 classes would require 30 * (20 +8 * 6 + 8 * 6 * 6) = 10680 bytes of memory. Increasing the number of rasters to 100 increases the memory usage to 2,424,600 bytes of memory.
Capacity Enhancements. There is now no limit on the number of input raster objects. The maximum number of output classes has been increased to 32,000. As with increasing the number of rasters, choosing a larger number of output classes will increase the time and memory needed to process. For example, a K-Means classification of 4 raster objects for the Crow Butte Landsat sample quad of 488 by 361 cells and 20 classes required 21 seconds to process on a Pentium 60 MHz. Increasing the number of classes to 40 increased the time required to 34 seconds (all using real memory).
Algorithm Enhancements. The "Back Propagation" method now allows a non-random initialization of the network. This can often lead to network convergence far sooner than random initialization.
There is a new classification method available: Minimum Distance to Mean. This method computes the class means from the training data and simply assigns each output cell to the closest class. At the present time, only Euclidean distance is used. Additional distance measures are planned.
Using a Mask. A mask raster object may now be selected to limit the area to be analyzed, classified, or both. This is especially useful in the fully automatic methods to exclude known areas that will skew the classification results and for which no result is required (e.g. large areas of water).
Statistical Summaries. There is now an option to view the statistics for the training data. The training cell counts, means, and standard deviations are displayed. In addition, the confusion matrix, a matrix showing the distances between class means, and covariance matrices for each class are available. These statistics may be saved to a text file for later use.
The dendrogram is now available for all classification methods. The dendrogram can now be zoomed and panned. This is useful if the number of classes is so large that the dendrogram lines are too close together.
Spatial Aggregation. A new option is available to view the co-occurrence matrix. This matrix can be used to determine the spatial intermixing of classes. It can be used with an unsupervised classifier which is deliberately set up to produce a large number of classes to help label the classes sought (i.e. aggregating them into the final classes desired). If two classes have a high co-occurrence, this indicates that cells of these classes frequently occur next to each other. This information can be used, along with the dendrogram to determine which classes should be merged into a single coherent meaningful land-cover class.
This concept is described in a paper provided to MicroImages by a client and is entitled: The use of Program mCOCUR to Analyze the Co-occurrence Statistics for Image Classifications with microBRIAN. by Peter Booth and L.B. Jupp. A more complete reference to this paper is unavailable at this time.
Briefly, this reference states that a desirable land-cover classification is one in which the classes are spectrally homogeneous and the elements of the classes are spatially aggregated. Unfortunately, if an unsupervised classification produces classes that are spectrally homogeneous, then the classified image is often very spotty - that is, spatially disaggregated. The incorporation of spatial information into the classification process can assist in aggregating spectral classes into land-cover labels and should also improve the certainty of the classification.
Traditional methods of including spatial data into classification range from supervised classification by a knowledgeable operator, through the inclusion of texture channels into the data set, and the spatial stratification of the raw data. The co-occurrence statistic provides an estimate of spatial autocorrelation in the classified image, which is a spatial intermixing of classes.
The co-occurrence matrix of a classified image is a matrix that tabulates the frequency with which pixels of a given class are adjacent to pixels of every other class. Thus, this co-occurrence matrix C has elements Cij where Cij is the frequency with which pixels of class i have immediate neighboring pixels of class j. The algorithm used does not double count the diagonal elements of the matrix. The results are analyzed by normalizing the matrix, and the randomness of the joins between classes can be tested.
An important new process is available to a copy CAD object into a new CAD object. It allows the extraction and windowing of any CAD elements from the existing CAD object. Its interface and features are similar to those of the previously available vector copy process. The CAD elements to be copied can be selected by database query, attributes, element selection, region selection, and so on. Its operation is described in the on-line manual.
* This process now supports the selection and copying of elements using attribute selection.
This new process allows the user to transfer selected input vector element attributes to selected output vector elements via Prepare / Vector / Transfer Attributes. For example, you may transfer point attributes to polygons that overlap those points, or to the closest line, or to the closest point. Many other possibilities exist. After the process runs, the output vector object will contain a new database with all appropriate vector elements attached to those database records. The operation of this new feature is provided in printed form as the supplemental documentation section entitled: Vector Merge and Transfer of Vector Attributes.
The multi-file selection and processing capability has been added for Intergraph *.DGN and DLG imports.
A new "polar" vector format has been supported. This format allows simple definition of 3-dimensional shapes using sets of depth, angle, and range values.
* Vector Merge.
This new process allows you to merge two or more vector objects to form one contiguous vector object, all in one operation. This process can be found in Prepare / Vector / Merge. Each input object and attributes are copied to the destination object. Merge will split lines and create new polygons where necessary, attaching database records to the appropriate output vector element.
Some improvements to the user interface were completed for this process.
The multi-created / destroyed status dialog was replaced with a continuous status widget. The previous approach of creating multiple status dialogs slowed the performance of this process.
Japanese and Chinese Localization.
All aspects of using Japanese and Chinese within every process have been completed except as noted. Databases and their queries can be performed in these 2-byte languages. Raster editing can use these characters for annotation at any angle. The only known incomplete 2-byte language management in V4.90 is the display and editing of vector labels in 2D display, the object editors, and related. However, these processes were also adjusted to properly handle the 2-byte characters just after the initiation of the V4.90 CDs and are now available on an individual request basis. The 2-byte keyboard entry methods also vary for each brand of workstation and must be individually accommodated as needed by adjustments to the TNT products. Testing must now be undertaken in Japan to determine if localization problems remain and to determine the ease of translation of the user interface into these 2-byte languages.
The modifications to the TNTmips products to accommodate the Thai language were also completed just after the initiation of the reproduction cycle for the V4.90 CDs. Testing must now be undertaken in Thailand to determine if localization problems remain and to determine the ease of translation of the user interface into these 2-byte languages.
The outline font editor has now been deleted from TNTmips as it is no longer worth the effort of maintaining. The TNT products use *.OF fonts imported from TrueType. Many high quality TrueType font editors are available for MSW3.11 and MSNT to alter and prepare fonts for use in the TNT products on any platform. Furthermore, MicroImages plans to eventually eliminate the use of the outline fonts in the TNT products. A new TrueType rendering engine is being coded and will eventually allow all TNT products on every platform to directly use TrueType fonts available for Mac, Windows, or UNIX platforms in any encoding scheme. Direct use of TrueType would eventually further negate the utility of the existing *.OF font editor.
Process status management features have been added, including error reporting into a log file. If no error occurs, the status information will indicate the time to complete the batch job. The batch job manager can now be stopped from extracting other batch jobs with the "stop" button. The batch job manager window will now also remain open when all batch processes are completed to facilitate viewing the process status logs.
New Image Printers/Plotters Supported
HP Color LaserJet [Model C3099A].
Support for this new color laser printer is now available in V4.90 under printer levels P8 for postscript and P10 for direct support without Postscript. This 8.5 by 11" printer sells for about $7000, operates at 300 dpi and is fast. However, MicroImages has found that this laser printer is not the best choice for color image printing. One sample color print attached illustrating Mt. Fuji with Japanese annotations was prepared on the HP color LaserJet ($8000) and is reasonable in apparent quality. However, when compared with prints produced on the HP DeskJet 1200C color ink jet ($950 and sample also attached), the LaserJet prints are muddy and lack color contrast range. It does have the advantage of speed printing more duplicate image pages per minute. However, the HP Color LaserJet printer does do a good job in "plotting" text and graphics via the TNTmips as seen on the attached raster printing of a line map for a small area in Thailand.
Just after the new year the price of the excellent HP DeskJet 1200C color ink jet printer (without Postscript) dropped to $950 in the local Best Buy and Office Depot chain stores. All factors considered (print speed, quality, price, and reliability) this is the best 8.5 by 11" color printer available.
The large format grayscale scanner sold by Altek and Vidar (a U.S. equipment manufacturer, not MicroImages Russian Representative) was supported for TNTmips just after the V4.90 CDs were reproduced. Additional details on this scanner will be provided when the support is released with V5.00. However, anyone needing earlier access to the support of this scanner can contact MicroImages for an early release.
Howtek has officially notified us that their Scanmaster III+ scanner has been discontinued due to irreconcilable problems with its manufacturer. A few used models are still available. Howtek also announced that shortly the product will be replaced by a product with similar purposes and manufactured by them.
Exclusive International Representatives
MicroImages will no longer be directly represented in
Spain, Portugal, and Taiwan.
MicroImages has not signed new agreements with the previous Exclusive Representatives to these 3 nations due to their inactivity in communicating with MicroImages and in their lack of understanding of the operation of the TNT products. Until such time as new exclusive Representatives are appointed, the purchases of TNT products in these countries can be made from MicroImages, any NAFTA reseller, or any other International Representative.
All potential and current clients in these 3 nations have been informed of these changes by direct mail. They will, as always, be able to obtain direct product support by FAX, phone, or Internet directly from MicroImages without cost.
No new resellers were added this quarter in the U.S., Mexico, or Canada.
A significant portion of MicroImages' clients now have access to Internet. This has enabled them to seek technical support via this route. Of even more significance is that it is also now common for MicroImages to receive sample data sets and provide repaired processes to clients via Internet.
Kevin Royal has joined MicroImages' technical support team. Kevin completed his bachelor's degree in Agricultural Management at Northwest Missouri State University in 1988. Upon graduation, Kevin was employed as a customer service representative for Farmers National Company, a farm management company located in Omaha, Nebraska. Since 1990 and until recently, Kevin managed a portion of his family's large farm operation in Palmyra, a very small farm town about 20 miles from Lincoln. As part of this activity, Kevin became involved in the use of microcomputer image processing and GIS analysis for farm management. By a circuitous path this has led Kevin to the doorstep of MicroImages. However, you will not be visiting with Kevin for a while yet as he learns the details of the TNT products.
Jennifer Larson has joined MicroImages' documentation staff. Jennifer completed her bachelor's degree in Journalism at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln in 1991. Since 1991, Jennifer had been employed as a staff writer for PC Novice Magazine which is published by Peed Publications. In this previous position, Jennifer contributed at least four articles per month to this nationally marketed magazine.
Several copies of the new, color envelope-sized accordion flier are enclosed. Please pass these along to your professional associates who may express an interest in your activities with the TNT products. If they wish to have a personal copy of the sample San Francisco TNTatlas, they can return the attached coupon directly to MicroImages.
Approximately 12,000 of these fliers were mailed out world-wide a couple of days before Christmas. This mailing included those on the MicroImages master address list as well as mining exploration companies and U.S. counties. Additional mailings are planned in February. Over 750 of the attached coupons requesting the sample CD and additional information were received in the first 2 weeks of January. This is the largest number of requests for information ever received by MicroImages in any 2 week period.
You will also find enclosed a new TNTmips product brochure. It is quite similar in interior layout and content to the previous brochures. However, there are some minor changes in content reflecting additions to TNTmips (e.g. the support of TIN objects). The remaining 5 brochures (TNTview, TNTatlas, TNTsdk, TNTdemo, and TNT prices) are now in various stages of preparation with new color covers and appropriate content upgrades.
A Technical Characteristics Checklist was distributed with V4.80 and outlined the many innovative technical features incorporated in the TNT product suite. A companion item entitled Professional Features Checklist is included with V4.90. It can be used to check off the application features of other competitive products against TNTmips and the other products. These materials will help you answer the inquiries of others, especially those promoting competitive products. Perhaps you are getting tired of defending your use of TNTmips against the characteristics of competing products. It is suggested that you ask those promoting other products to use these checklists to tabulate the characteristics of the system(s) they propose against the TNT products and TNTmips in particular.
From an experienced Australian client.
"We are also undertaking constancy work for this office and using TNTmips for all the mapping work (in fact, all our maps have a note at the bottom saying the map was produced using TNTmips). We are achieving far more from TNTmips that any other image processing/GIS we have previously used."
From an International Representative.
"This was a very successful 4 days of TNTmips training and response and feedback has been beyond my expectations. The positive aspect of the 4 days was that all of the 8 participants progressed from [having limited knowledge about] GIS to a stage where they were capable of, and had imported and georeferenced a variety of datasets including TM, MSS, aeromagnetics, gravity, exploration license CAD objects, AGSO (A. Geological Survey Organization) *.E00 vector and dbf database files, in-house fgeochem and others. So, at the end of the 4 days they had built up a GIS of their areas of interest and were actively producing hardcopy of various displays using Paintjet XL and 650C."
From an International Representative.
"[client name] seems happier with Version 4.8."
"I also spoke with [another client name] who also seemed very happy with 4.8."
From a new Australian client.
"I've been using TNTmips 12 hours a day for a week now. The more I use it the better I like it! It's a great system."
From an International Representative.
"Is it still the MicroImages custom for everyone to go to lunch once a week? If so, I would like to pay for lunch to say 'thank you' for all the hard work done this year. Please charge this to my account." [an especially tasty testimonial]
From an experienced U.S. client.
"Got your fix for disp2D (12/2/94) and got a chance to try out the new version of printrvc. Haven't had any complaints about disp2d, so it looks like it is working ok. Was impressed with printrvc. Had a lot of resizing, contrast enhancement, and yes, even rotation. The rotation buttons actually work! The impressive thing was that all through the layout process I didn't hang even once! Dithered my layouts over the networks. Even that didn't hang."
From an Australian Representative.
"May I take this opportunity to wish you and the staff of MicroImages the very best for 1995. The service support provided to [company name] by your team has been superior to anything we might expect in Australia from a GIS software development company - service from [a competitor's name] is hopeless."
From a purchaser in Greece of TNTdemo 4.8 (not a current client).
[public question posted on Internet]
"I've heard that a new IDRISI for MS Windows 3.x platform will be out in a couple of months. Are there any other GIS programs available for Windows that are comparable??"
"It would make more sense to me to develop a GIS program utilizing a 32-bit operating system like OS/2 or Windows 95, if it is ever released."
"Comments??"
[public response from TNTdemo user]
"Try TNTmips from MicroImages, Lincoln, NE (402)477-9554 CAD, raster GIS, vector GIS, database and programming environment. 30-day full featured demo license available. Win 3.1, NT, UNIX-X platforms. Seeing is believing!"
From an ERDAS user in Fresno, CA.
[public question posted on Internet]
"We are using ERDAS Imagine to load a 3-band, 6000 pixel by 6000 pixel image of Thailand. It took almost 30 minutes on a SPARC 10 running Solaris 1.x. Has anyone experienced such an unacceptable wait?"
[public response posted by MicroImages]
"It is assumed that by "load" you mean to read the 3 bands of the 6000 by 6000 pixel Landsat image from a hard drive and display the sampled image fitting on the screen in color."
"The current TNTmips 4.8 (the Map and Image Processing System) from MicroImages would require approximately slightly more than 6 minutes to display same image from a hard drive on a Pentium based PC. It would require perhaps 1/2 that time on a SPARC 10 depending on other activity on the system."
"With the advanced image storage methods already implemented in TNTmips 5.0 which will be shipped in March, the similar display of any 3-band raster of this size or even larger will take less than 15 seconds on the Pentium. This time includes the time to change the rotation angle and resample to any fractional scale."
"An even more demanding display test is how long it takes TNTmips to display from a 22,000 by 22,000 pixel Russian Priroda monochrome single-band image. With TNTmips 4.8 displaying a 1:1 (i.e. full resolution) grayscale image would require no longer than 10 seconds. With the new features already added for release in TNTmips 5.0 the sampled display of the entire image or any subportion including rotation and any fractional zoom factor will always take less than 15 seconds on a Pentium. Of course all of these times would be less when using TNTmips on a SPARC 10, a DEC Alpha, or some other faster workstation. Should you wish to see these fast displays in person you will find that your University currently has about 15 TNTmips systems in operation. Please contact Dr. Jack Paris in the GeoInformation Technology Center for a demonstration to substantiate the times provided."
"posted by technical support at MicroImages, Inc., 201 N. 8th Street, Lincoln, NE 68508; voice (402)477-9554; FAX (402)477-9559; email info@microimages.com."
Selecting a color display board for MSW3.11, MSNT3.1, and UNIX.
True-Color Graphics Accelerators. An in-depth inspection of 35 PCI and five Macintosh NuBus cards for ultrafast graphics and deep colors. by Jim Kane, Siva Kumar, and John McDonough. February 1995. in Byte Magazine, 20(1):136-152. (This article's top rating for use on the PCI bus was given to ATI Pro Turbo board [retails $700 with 4 mb VRAM] and the Matrox Impression Plus [retails $500 with 4 mb VRAM].)
TIN references.
Modeling for Sedimentary Surface Basin Simulation. by John C. Tipper. in Computer Modeling of Geological Surfaces and Volumes: pages 93 to 101. 1992. edited by David E. Hamilton and Thomas A. Jones. available from American Associates of Petroleum Geologists, Tulsa, OK. (A good, short summary of the TIN approach.)
Mapping Anisotropy in Computer Mapping of Geologic Data. by Gregory Kushnir and Jeffrey M. Yarus. in Computer Modeling of Geological Surfaces and Volumes: pages 75 to 91. 1992. edited by David E. Hamilton and Thomas A. Jones. available from American Associates of Petroleum Geologists, Tulsa, OK.
Computer Modeling of Geological Surfaces and Volumes. 1992. edited by David E. Hamilton and Thomas A. Jones. available from American Associates of Petroleum Geologists, Tulsa, OK. (This whole book is quite well done.)
Papers referencing work using MicroImages Products.
Urban Terrain Zone Based GIS for MOUT (Military Application of a Geographic Information System). by Richard Ellefsen and Jack Liu. 1994. in Proceedings of GIS/LIS '94: Annual Conference and Exposition. pp. 254 to 262. (available from Am. Soc. for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing, URISA, Am. Assoc. of Geogr., AM/FM Intern., or Am. Cong. on Surv. and Mapping).
Yesterday's spies: making a scene. by Ren Capes. December 1994. in GIS Europe, 3(19):14. (This article contains a high resolution natural color image of the Buckingham Palace area of London prepared in TNTmips by combining 2 meter Russian [source Piroda] as a panchromatic band with 20 meter 'true-color-corrected' SPOT three-band multispectral scene. Reprints of this article have been ordered and will be sent to you in a future mailing.)
| 25 March 2009 |
page update: 16 Jun 11 |
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