The TNT Project File

System Characteristics

Any Computer Platform

TNTmips will probably run on your computer no matter what kind of computer you have. The software engineers at MicroImages have crafted a single sophisticated system in one set of source code that is compiled without modification for each platform. The competitive computer market and its advancing hardware technology mean you can have robust computing power, even on a laptop, at a low price. TNT Project Files require no conversion or translation to be used on different platforms, so even if you have a network of different types of computers, you can easily access your project materials from any machine. Thus you could use a less expensive computer with TNTmips to run a color scanner or X-Y digitizer, and move to a faster computer for computationally intense processes.

TNTmips runs under today's most widely accepted operating systems. The X Window System manages the TNT environment transparently, so that the TNT products on a Windows computer has a Windows look and feel, on a Mac computer, it has a Macintosh look and feel. No matter what kind of computer you have, TNTmips offers the same user interface and feature set. TNTmips makes it easy for you to work on any machine you have, wherever you are, and whenever you change platforms.

TNTmips offers the same tools and features in every process where they are appropriate. For example, the same raster object display tools for zooming in, zooming out, panning, color manipulation, histogram display, and cell value inspection are available wherever a process requires a display window for raster objects. You can also define your own custom tools to access from the window manager's pop-in menu.

TNTmips displays objects of any size in every process that displays project materials. Any combination of raster, vector, and CAD objects can be layered for display. For these complex displays, a selection of simple controls scroll your view in any direction. Of course, you can zoom out so that the largest objects in the composite display automatically fit within the display window, or you can zoom in for close inspection. A unique raster pyramiding technology provides fast redisplays of large raster objects at any zoom level. For example, a 6000 x 6000 SPOT satellite image can be displayed at Full View in about 3 seconds - the display process does not bog down with time-consuming resampling operations.

Databases created in TNTmips or existing in dBase, R:Base, INFO, ASCII, and other formats can be attached to objects and keyed by field to raster cell values, or vector and CAD elements. Then in many processes you can query a relational database to select elements for processing and to control display styles based on the query. For example, symbol color and size for points that represent pumping stations could be selected from a relational database that contains a pump capacity value. TNTmips database query is a key capability in support of all the GIS manipulations possible in TNTmips.

TNTmips automatically accommodates all color data types and display hardware. 8-bit color data uses a variable 256-color palette for color composite or pseudo-color. 16-bit and 24-bit color work from fixed palettes of 32,768 and 16,777,216 colors respectively. If your computer is using a 16-bit or 24-bit display mode, TNTmips will still manipulate any 8-bit object with a color map. If your computer is using an 8-bit display mode, TNTmips automatically renders 16-bit and 24-bit color images from a dynamically optimized palette of 256 colors. TNTmips performs all such color manipulations automatically so they are completely transparent to you.

Raster object cell values can be used as elevation values to create color 3D draped surface images in parallel or perspective views. You can rotate the point of view, change the z-scale, and otherwise manipulate the display in a quick wireframe preview. The process also displays vector and CAD objects in 3D, independently or in any overlay combination with a raster object. Thus you can create a complex 3D display that combines an elevation raster, a "draped" image raster, and multiple 3D vector and CAD overlays.

Relational databases that contain attributes for vector and CAD elements may be queried dynamically to determine complex display, plotting, and drawing styles. You can design and use custom point, line, and polygon fill patterns to differentiate features and portray complex conditions. Point elements can be displayed as customized symbols of any design, size, and color. Polygons in raster editing, CAD, and vector processes can be filled with solid or partially transparent multicolor patterns. Choose from the standard sets of patterns and styles, or use the flexible style editors to create an endless variety of your own designs.

Hardware Peripherals

Wide Peripheral Support

TNTmips works with an impressive array of hardware peripherals. External drives, CD-ROM, DVD, color scanners, X-Y digitizers,  video devices, color printers, film recorders - TNTmips supports all kinds of input, output, and storage devices in every size and price range. You are never limited to a single proprietary hardware configuration. Any external device that works with your computer is likely to be supported by TNTmips.

Printer Support

Direct Input Devices

You can use many direct image input devices in TNTmips. Color scanners as large as 44 inches wide can transfer image materials such as maps and photographs directly into a Project File or to a display window. Likewise, support is available for video devices, digital cameras, and X-Y digitizing tablets. TNTmips supports the TWAIN specification for image scanning and video capture.

Video Capture

If you have the optional computer hardware required, TNTmips lets you digitize frames from standard video sources in color, black and white, or color infrared. Airvideo, for example, is a very fast and inexpensive way to obtain current natural resource imagery from low-altitude aircraft. The raster objects captured from airvideo can be displayed with line and polygon overlays so you can quickly georeference the new images, rubbersheet or warp them, and then update your CAD and vector materials by visual editing.

X-Y Digitizing Tablets

The TNTmips object editor and georeferencing processes fully support X-Y digitizer tablets. Your X-Y digitizer can be used to create CAD or vector elements directly, or to add georeference control from a published map to a raster, vector, TIN, or CAD object. X-Y digitizing can also be a good choice for computerizing paper line drawings when automatic conversion by scanning is impractical.

Data Import

You can easily import materials into Project Files, and export Project File objects to external data formats. TNTmips supports more import and export formats than any other professional system on the market. Just a sampling of the raster, vector, CAD, and database formats include: TARGA, TIFF, PCX, SPOT, LANDSAT, ARC/Info, DXF, MOSS, DLG, DGN, DEM, GRASS, TIGER, GSMAP, ERDAS, ERmapper, Mapinfo, MacPaint, IDIMS/IDIPS, TERRA-MAR, EPPL-7, PCIPS, TYDAC, DTM, GIF, VPF, EOSAT, CCRS, CAT scans, MRI scans, World Data Bank II, Digital Chart of the World, dBaseIII, dBase IV, R:Base, Info, ASCII, and user-defined formats.

Preparation

Map Projections

TNTmips supports every standard map projection and allows you to define your own custom projections to match those used anywhere in the world. When you georeference project material, you can choose whatever map projection you want. Supporting processes can translate objects between map projections, so all of your materials can have the same reference framework. TNTmips processes automatically reconcile map projections, so even if your materials are in different coordinate systems, scales, or orientations, TNTmips displays and processes them in the selected projection without altering the source material.

Rectify and Register

Rectilinear map properties can be established for project materials that have distorted geometry, such as oblique airslides or airvideo. You can enter map control points manually, by visually identifying features, or you can use a georeferenced overlay object and establish the spatial relationships with tie points. Once map control (or other reference framework) has been established, a selection of numeric warping, resampling, rectification, mosaicking, and merging methods are available to correct the geometry of your project materials and fit them together evenly.

Object-to-Object Registration

You can derive georeference control for any raster, vector, TIN, or CAD object by using another as a reference. The reference object need not have the same geographic extent or cell size as the target object, as long as it presents common features that can be marked with tie points. Thus, for example, you can tie a road intersection visible in an airphoto to the corresponding feature in the scan of a reference map. Once you have established georeference controls for your project materials, other TNT processes automatically present and use them in the correct geographic relationship.

Interactive and Automatic Mosaicking

The objects in your Project File may be pieces of a larger whole. Automatic and interactive processes let you merge raster, vector, TIN, and CAD objects containing such adjacent sections. Raster mosaicking may combine pieces of a large paper map that was scanned in sections, or multiple airvideo frames of a study site. The mosaic process allows contrast matching and trend removal to give the final product a smooth, continuous appearance. Vector mosaics resolve intersections of overlapping objects to retain correct topology.

Intersection and Merging

You may have project materials that must be combined intelligently, such as two vector objects: one with a land development proposal imported from a CAD system, and another with sensitive wildlife habitat mapped from airvideo. TNTmips intersection and merging processes let you locate, measure, and produce maps of areas of overlap. You can also specify "dissolve" conditions to remove boundary lines between polygon elements with similar attributes.

Elevation Mapping and Orthoimage Creation

TNTmips can use the spatial information contained in pairs of stereo images to derive an approximate surface of the overlap area. When you establish tie points between the stereo pair, the process can create an elevation surface in a raster object. Such elevation information can be applied to raw imagery to correct spatial displacements and produce an orthoimage with map-like geometry.

Surface Fitting

A number of surface fitting methods let you create an elevation raster object from the surface defined by a 3D vector object. For example, one application would be to use the smart line- following process in TNTmips to vectorize the elevation contour lines in a USGS topo map from which you could create an elevation raster object with one of the numerous surface fitting techniques. Alternatively, you could create a complete surface from a sampling of discrete elevation points collected by a GPS field survey. In both cases, you are able to specify the scale, cell size, or row and column dimensions of the output raster object.

Classification and Interpretation

Interactive, semi-automatic, and automatic classification processes in TNTmips can map, measure, and categorize land cover or other image features. Multiple raster objects representing things like multispectral, magnetic, or thermal imagery let the processes find characteristic numeric signatures that represent categories such as vegetation types and conditions, surface clues to geologic mineral deposits, and other feature classes not easily mapped by direct visual interpretation.

Statistical Measurements

Knowing the statistical qualities of your project materials is important for many tasks. TNTmips provides raster object statistics such as a histogram display, surface area, and cell value mean, variance, and standard deviation. You can also generate a two-dimensional correlation histogram to represent the similarity of two raster objects. Statistics for vector and CAD elements include line length, polygon area, perimeter, centroid, and maximum dimension.
 

Pin Mapping

The TNTmips pin mapping feature lets you quickly display points from relational databases with other project materials. For example, you could prepare a table of species locations collected in the field by a GPS team, and then display these points over a map or photograph of the area. You can display dynamically labeled bar graphs or pie charts at the points, based on queries of multiple fields in the databases. TNTmips lets you display the points directly from the database; you need not convert your point lists to vector or CAD objects first.

Automatic Vectorization by Scanning

A suite of processes lets you create line and polygon elements automatically from scans of your line-oriented project materials. The TNTmips processes you use can include scanning, binary conversion, geometric rectification, mosaicking sections, trimming to map extent, raster editing, thinning raster lines, automatic vectorization, vector thinning, and assignment of vector element attributes.

Smart Line-Following

TNTmips offers a unique smart line-following process that lets you create line and polygon elements interactively from scans of your line-oriented project materials. Smart line-following creates line elements directly from grayscale or color raster objects. Because it uses the line color in a raster object, the process works well on "problem" line features that are hard to vectorize accurately by other means, such as convoluted brown contour lines. Smart line-following also produces the true position of the curved line, not a sparse, jagged approximation created by a tired X-Y digitizer operator.

Buffer Zone Creation

The vector buffer zone process creates polygon elements that define buffer zones around selected vector elements. Use database queries to map areas around nesting sites, streams, wetlands, or other areas of interest. The raster buffer zone process creates a proximity map (raster buffer zone surface) around point or line elements. The farther from selected elements, the higher the cell values in the output raster object.

Polygon Fitting

Several different methods can solve the classic problem of fitting polygon elements around swarms of points representing observation events. These polygon fitting processes let you control how tightly the inscribing polygons fit the observation points, and how much weight to assign to lone-point outliers.

Watershed Analysis

TNTmips can analyze an elevation raster object to derive the watershed that drains into any selected seed point. Watershed analysis determines many intermediate aspects of an elevation surface: flats, depressions, flow accumulations, pour points, and flow paths. Watershed analysis is useful in tasks such as erosion studies, selecting sites for farm ponds, and evaluating flood control plans.

Viewshed Analysis

Elevation raster objects can be analyzed to derive the viewshed for a selected point and observation height above the surface. The viewshed boundaries that are determined are useful in natural resource management for selecting scenic views. Viewshed analysis is also useful for communications or radar applications that require line-of-sight tower locations.

Shortest Path Derivation

The shortest path process analyzes a network of line elements in a vector object and finds the shortest or least-cost distance between a sequence of two or more points. You can use complex queries to restrict the solution to line elements selected by attributes (representing arterial streets, for example), or draw an elastic box to limit the search area. Shortest path analysis is usually applied to questions of routing vehicles, commercial transport, and public transportation.

TNTsdk for TNTmips

If you have TNTmips, you can purchase TNTsdk for TNTmips, the custom software development kit. TNTsdk takes you a step beyond SML and gives you access to the proprietary C programming libraries created by MicroImages for software development with the X Window System, OSF/Motif, and TNTmips. Adding your custom processes to the TNTmips menu is as easy as placing it in the proper subdirectory on your system. TNTsdk also includes OSF/Motif libraries, and MI/B, the MicroImages (Motif Interface) Builder, which writes C code for you as you design complete interface windows interactively.

Presentation

Screen Layout

Complex displays of multiple objects and descriptive text can be defined with a reusable screen layout definition. You can select and arrange objects, and then modify or re-create that display. The layout definition is not bound to a particular dated version of the objects involved, so updates and modifications in an ongoing project can be displayed easily.

Map and Poster Layout

An interactive color layout process lets you create and save definitions for complex large-format printing. What-you-see-is-what-you-get control lets you select and position multiple raster, vector, CAD, TIN, and text objects, and arrange them in drawing order (so, for example, highways print over streams). The map layout process can label map features automatically with fields from related databases. Flexible annotation tools let you add explicit textual notations and graphic interpretations, and you can select from a variety of stadia bars and map grid features in any scale and projection.

TNTlink for TNTmips

Every TNTmips includes TNTlink, the product that lets you create massive HyperIndex® stacks: hierarchical and spatially related atlases of image and database materials. You can create map and image atlases with vector, TIN, or CAD overlays keyed to database records. You can publish your stacks for use with TNTview, TNTatlas, and TNTserver, our internet map server.  Create a wide variety of spatial database applications: parts catalogs, facilities management, medical imagery, technical handbooks ... all can benefit from the flexible, logical, image-keyed, spatial database presentation TNTlink makes possible. Publish your HyperIndex stacks for use within your office or around the world, so a large number of installations can access a single standard stack on a wide variety of computer platforms.

Database Report

You can create new databases or print tabular reports from relational databases attached to the elements in raster, vector, TIN, and CAD objects. In the report specification, you select fields, column headings, field formats, column spacing, and borders. The process can coordinate information from multiple related tables. Select elements for processing from a point file, by on-screen selection, or by logical query.

Display and Annotation Fonts

All of the TNT display and hardcopy processes provide direct support for external TrueType annotation fonts. You can produce maps and posters with labels, legends, and annotations at any size in any TrueType font on your computer. For special annotation needs, you can use an external TrueType font editor to create and modify special symbols and characters. Then add them to a TrueType alphabet and use them immediately in TNTmips.

Interface Fonts

You use any TrueType fonts for menus, messages, and other interface elements.  

Internationalization

TNTmips is used in over 150 nations around the world. A growing list of interface translations is available for every TNT product.  MicroImages has developed TNTmips using the international standards adopted by such companies as Microsoft, Apple, and OSF, so TNTmips is easy to localize for any language. Every copy of TNTmips supports the Unicode standard, so you can use two-byte characters from any alphabet. TNTmips supports the use of alternative keyboard entry methods for special character sets, such as Chinese Han ideographs, and Japanese Hiragana, Katakana, and Kanji. You can use non-Latin characters for both the user interface and display and hardcopy labels and annotation. It is even possible to translate the online documentation. TNTmips is designed for worldwide service.

Training and Support

Training

A five-day course at the MicroImages office in Lincoln, Nebraska provides participants with a comprehensive introduction to geospatial analysis using the TNT products. The course covers concepts and techniques of data visualization, enhancement, analysis, and presentation, and provides hands-on experience with a variety of forms of geospatial data. The course is targeted both toward new users of TNTmips and toward established clients who may have considerable experience with particular processes but wish to broaden their knowledge of the full range of available tools.

Unlimited Software Support

As an owner of TNTmips, you are entitled to unlimited software support by phone, FAX, or email. MicroImages assesses no per-call charges. You pay only the cost of your phone calls. MicroImages wants to help solve your problems and get your system working for you from the day you unpack it. Experienced professional software support specialists provide immediate help on the phone. If a software fix is necessary, it can usually be shipped to you immediately or posted on our internet machine for FTP access. We measure our success by how well we help our clients progress in their knowledge and use of TNTmips.

Complete Documentation

Over 2500 pages of illustrated, online documentation, updated with each release, are only a mouse click away. The unique online system includes flexible features for setting electronic bookmarks, following chains of "See-also" references, searching by key word, and referring to the glossary. An expandable table of contents lets you navigate quickly to any section of the documentation. 

A growing set of tutorial and application booklets with step-by-step lessons are available from this Web site. You can view or download these free booklets, which total more than 1700 pages with over 3700 color illustrations, exceeding the material in at least 3 textbooks.

Regular, Frequent Upgrades

A new version of TNTmips is released on CD-ROM two times per year. Since the first release of version 0.9 for 8088 PCs in 1986, this development schedule has helped propel TNTmips to a leadership position in the market. Every subscribing client gets the latest features, modifications, speed-ups, and revised documentation for the lowest subscription cost of any professional system. Even clients who have let their subscriptions lapse can buy up to the current version for a reasonable price. And TNTmips has been ready for each new generation of computers, so clients who started with 8-bit 8088 PCs have not lost their software and learning investment, and can now run TNTmips in the newest 64-bit multi-tasking environments.

Low Cost, High Performance

TNTmips systems are priced at one low cost for computer platforms from PCs to workstations. MicroImages prefers no customer over another, and offers no special treatment or discounts, except for quantity purchases. Every TNTmips customer in the United States, Canada, or Mexico pays the same low price, whether buying from an authorized NAFTA reseller or MicroImages directly. International prices are 20% higher, whether from a MicroImages representative or from MicroImages. You do not have to worry whether or not you qualify for some special discount category or spend time negotiating a complex deal. You pay the lowest cost in the professional market for the best commercial product. It is that simple.

TNTmips is ready for You

Try TNTmips yourself for a hands-on experience with the most technically advanced and easy-to-use professional system available. When you compare TNTmips to other systems, you will see that you would need several different high-priced products to match the features in TNTmips. Consider too, that any aggregation of other products would begin to duplicate the features of TNTmips only after you struggle through complex issues of integration, separate options, interfaces, learning curves, equipment requirements, support procedures, update schedules, and associated costs.

TNTmips comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee, so if you are not completely satisfied, you can return the product for a full refund. Or, if you like, you can first put TNTmips on trial with TNTmips Free: a full, working system that is limited primarily in the size of the project materials it handles. MicroImages is confident that TNTmips will win you over by showing its ease of use and technical superiority.

When you become a MicroImages client, we will provide full documentation and technical support to help you get TNTmips up and working for you. Your suggestions play a significant part in the evolution of TNTmips. At MicroImages, our clients have consistently helped TNTmips maintain its position as the most advanced software for geospatial analysis available.

25 March 2009

page update: 29 Feb 12

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