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Release Notes in PDF format...

TNT products V5.90
June 1998

Table of Contents

• Introduction
• Advanced Users' Workshop
• Summary of New Features
• Dropping Platform
• Priority of Features for V6.00
• Editorial and Associated News [by Dr. Lee D. Miller, President]
• MI/X (MicroImages' X Server)
• Macintosh
• Licenses
• TNTlite^TM 5.9
  • General.
  • LINUX.
• TNTatlas^® 5.9
  • Installed Sizes.
• TNTview^® 5.9
  • Changes.
  • Upgrades.
  • Installed Sizes.
• TNTedit^TM 5.9
  • Upgrading.
  • Installed Sizes.
• Getting Started Booklets
  • Introduction.
  • Keeping Up.
• TNT Reference Manual
  • Status.
  • Context Search Engine.
• New TNT Features
  • * System Level Changes.
  • Display Spatial Data
  • * 3D Simulations (new prototype process).
  • GPS inputs
  • CAD to Vector Conversion
  • Warping
  • Raster to Vector Boundary Conversion.
  • Raster Correlation Histogram.
  • Georeferencing.
  • Import/Export.
  • * Supervised Classification.
  • Raster Properties.
  • Databases.
  • * HyperSpectral (new prototype process).
  • * Object Editor.
  • Vector Filtering.
  • Databases Editor.
  • * Network Analysis (new prototype process).
  • Transfer Attributes.
  • Vector Validate.
  • GeoFormulas.
  • * Surface Modeling.
  • Raster Operations.
  • Mosaic.
  • TNTsdk.
  • Stereoscopic Modeling/Restitution.
  • * SML.
  • * Geospatial APPLIDATs.
  • * Field Data Logger TKP.
  • Internationalization.
  • Printing.
  • Installed Sizes.
  • Upgrading.
• MicroImages Authorized Dealers
• Discontinued Dealers
• Computers
• Web Site
  • Error Reports.
• Prices
• Papers on Applications
• Promotional Activities
• New Staff
• Noteworthy Client Activities
• Abbreviations
• Appendix A

Accompanying New Feature Illustrations

• Animating your Geodata with MPEG (HTML)
• Sample APPLIDAT (PDF)
• Bidirectional Surface Fitting of Geophysical Transect Data (PDF)
• Coastal Erosion Rates Using SML (PDF)
• Create Classification Training Data (PDF)
• New Features for SML Developers (PDF)
• Hyperspectral Analysis Process (PDF)
• More Training Set Editor Features (PDF)
• Network Analysis (PDF)
• SPOT Restitution from DEM (PDF)
• Vector Filters (PDF)
• New Vector Topology Types (PDF)
• Behavior of Topology Types (PDF)
• Increase Productivity with Windows 98 (PDF)

Introduction

MicroImages is pleased to distribute V5.90 of the TNT products and the 44th release of TNTmips. Three new processes are being introduced in prototype form: 1) moving views called 3D simulations, 2) road network analysis, and 3) hyperspectral image analysis. The concept of self contained, easily created products called APPLIDATs (APPLIcations plus DATa) is being introduced.

The following processes have had major features added:

• Image Classification: Introduces a new training set editor into the supervised multispectral image classification process.

• Editing: Two new vector object types can be created, edited, and displayed to provide new geospatial capabilities such as 3D vector elements (vertices with Z values).

• SML: Rapid expansion continues with the addition of 237 new functions; introduction of 70 object oriented programming classes; run scripts from a desktop icon; use region and drawing tools; create dialog boxes; read GPS positions; provide access to and from database objects; and encrypt scripts.

Five new Getting Started tutorial booklets are shipping in printed format. All 38 Getting Started booklets which have been produced, including several earlier booklets which have been updated with revisions, are included on the V5.90 CD in PDF format.

A count of 282 new feature requests submitted by clients and MicroImages' staff were implemented in various V5.90 processes.

Advanced Users' Workshop

MicroImages will host the 10th Advanced Users' Workshop in Lincoln, Nebraska over four days (Tuesday through Friday), 19 to 22 January 1999. Set this week aside if you plan on attending. Additional material on this workshop will be mailed to you later in a separate mailing

Summary of New Features

Details on all the following and other new features in V5.90 can be found in their expanded description in detailed sections of this MicroImages MEMO.

Windows 98. V5.90 of the TNT products support Microsoft Windows 98 including multiple screens.

Visualization. A view-in-view window can be moved about and resized to compare inside and outside layers. Simultaneously view DataTips for as many layers as desired with prefix and suffix identifiers. Automatically scroll to keep GPS position in the view. Zoom level, repositioning, and similar actions can be undone through 10 steps. Zoom to the extents of the active layer or any other layer. Directly display CMY or CMYK layers. Redraw any single group on a layout.

The overall transparency can be defined for each raster layer in a view. Transparency or the cells in a raster can be controlled pixel by pixel by using a coregistered 8-bit mask. The histograms of raster areas selected regions can be viewed.

Rasters of 16-bit can now have colormaps. Colormaps can be created and edited for 16-bit rasters in RGB, HIS, HBS, CMY, and CMYK modes with transparency control for each entry.

Highlight all "attached", "unattached", or "multiply-attached" elements in a given table. Save georeference information automatically for each snapshot.

3D Simulation. Draw a path on a complex 2D view, set viewing parameters, and create a 3D simulation in another window of any or all of the layers. Compute a movie of this simulation in MPEG format, and play it back in real time via a browser.

Import/Export. Import AVIRIS hyperspectral images, CMYK TIFF rasters, and CCRS Landsat and TM images. Export vectors to SDTS with attributes, 16-bit SDTS rasters, and georeference for ERMapper.

Classification. Use a powerful new training set editor to create, modify, and test training sets for use in supervised classification procedures. .Use raster and polygon or point vector elements for defining training sets. For example, point elements logged in the field can become circular training sets with radii set from their attributes. Draw a raster mask to define any complex sub-portion of the input images to be classified. Use new error matrix (confusion matrix) to evaluate results and combine training sets, set color, label, and so on with a convenient, interactive tabular approach. Apriori probabilities can be set for each category and an unknown class set for maximum likelihood classification.

Hyperspectral. A new hyperspectral analysis process is included with integrated spectral libraries. Tools are provided to combine curves in libraries or build new libraries: average, resample, divide, subtract, add, maximum, minimum, and difference. Additional tools edit curves in libraries: set a value, add, subtract, multiply, interpolate, smooth, normalize, and compute derivative. Perform spectral curve analysis: Remove Continuum and Spectral Feature Fitting.

Import AVIRIS Images and apply calibrations: Equal Area Normalization, Log Residuals, Additive Offset Calibration, and Flat Filed Correction. Then analyze the images: Spectral Angle Mapper, Cross Correlation, Linear Spectral Unmixing, and Matched Filtering.

Object Editor. The object editor and TNTedit now support direct creation, access, and editing of ESRI's E00, Coverage, and Shapefiles.

You can now create and edit vector objects at several new topological levels and convert between them: polygonal, planar, and network. As a result, new vector capabilities are available via these topologies such as assigning a different Z value to each vertex. Z values can be obtained by overlaying an elevation raster. Default records can now be assigned when elements are added. All the vector filters are now provided via a new interface and can be visually tested and evaluated. This filtering approach can also be applied to a vector object via a separate menu process.

Ortho/DEM. SPOT images can be converted to orthoimages using a DEM.

Network Analysis. A new network analysis process uses a network vector object, a network control attribute table, and attributes attached to nodes and so on. You can now compute constrained paths through a complex network system with waypoints (in other words, intermediate stops). Allocations can also be performed to determine areas served by all possible routings.

Surface Fitting. Breaklines and polygons can be edited into or inserted from vector line elements into TIN objects in the object editor. These lines/polygons can represent drainage, ridges, lakes, and other features and will become boundary conditions in the appropriate surface fitting process.

A new bidirectional surface fitting procedure has been added. It is specifically designed to improve model surfaces from data collected in parallel lines such as in geophysical or other transect-like surveys.

Mosaicking. Bundle adjustment has been improved using single value decomposition methods to handle indeterminate cases. Two new and better edge feathering methods have been added. Multiple bands can be mosaicked at one time.

SML. SML has extensive additions of 237 new functions and 96 classes. New suites of functions are included for displaying and viewing objects; drawing in views; GPS inputs; creating dialog boxes; and the creation and management of database, vector, and region objects.

All documentation of functions is maintained on-line in SML. An icon editor is embedded, and icons can be used in scripts on toolbars. Scripts can be encrypted. Scripts can be saved as objects in project files along with the geodata they can be applied to. This provides a new product delivery procedure called APPLIDATs where the scripts automatically act on the geodata in the same project file to create self-contained products.

Tutorials. Five new tutorial booklets are enclosed:

• Managing Geoattributes • Rectifying Images

• Introduction to Map Projections • Constructing a HyperIndex

• Changing Languages (Localization)

Dropping Platform

MicroImages proposes dropping the Solaris 1.x version of the TNT products from the V6.00 TNT product CDs to make room for other materials. It appears that everyone using Sun workstations has migrated to some version of Solaris 2.x. The TNT products will still be compiled, checked, maintained, and can be provided on custom-made CDs to anyone who specifically requests them. If this will be a problem to any clients still using TNT products on Sun Solaris 1.x, please notify MicroImages as soon as possible.

Priority of Features for V6.00

As usual, it is not clear if the MicroImages software engineers will get all these tasks done for V6.00. Thus the following list only represents our current priority efforts and plans. The designation [available now] means the feature has already been added since the V5.90 CDs were created and can be tested in beta form by downloading the process(es) involved.

System Level. Provide option to install Getting Started booklets. Modify TNT products to start Adobe Acrobat and access each booklet from your hard drive or a CD. Issue separate TNT geodata CDs, removing some datasets from the normal TNT product release CDs. Provide a means to switch between languages while the TNT products are operating. Icons, "Add All" objects in a Project File or directory, and other improvements have been added to the Object Selection dialog [available now].

The FLEXlm floating and multiple user license manager is being upgraded to the latest V6.1.

Visualization. An alternate ArcView-like layer control panel will be added for use in simpler visualizations. It will integrate that product's useful automatic legend generation features. It will be especially useful in creating products in SML.

Smoothing simulation paths by splining in XYZ will be added. A new profile window will show the path relative to all layers involved. Faster "direct" (in other words, not MPEG) simulation will be implemented by precomputing a 16-bit surface and draped layer.

An alternate simpler 3D view control will be added to control only key parameters, especially in SML scripts.

The measure, select, and sketch tools will be integrated for easy use and handling of overlapping features.

Layouts. Legend layout and presentation will be improved.

GPS. [most available now] GPS log files can be recorded or created in simple comma-separated-value text files. When they are used as virtual GPS sources, a dialog is provided to play, set playback speed, interpolate intermediate positions, rewind the log, close the log, and so on.

Wherever a GPS is used in TNT products, it can be either a real or virtual device. A Status and Control dialog can be exposed for each active device showing position, speed, heading, accuracy, number of satellites, and so on. It also provides the controls for selecting symbol style, size, color, and so on in all active views.

A GPS menu item and icon appear on all views to select devices to show cursors, set up a device, open log file, toggle auto scrolling, select reporting units, and so on. A dialog box is provided to set up and configure each new GPS device selected in a view, accessed in SML, used in graphical editing, and other locations. Multiple GPS devices (mixed real and virtual) can be selected. Cursors will be shown for each device. You can designate which cursor controls the scrolling, optionally automatically change scale for diverging cursors, and so on. When GPS devices are available, an attempt will be made to reconnect to the devices when a view is opened.

Styles. The line style editor will be improved. A hatch pattern editor will be added to create, edit, manage, and store "line" fill patterns. Processes which fill polygons will be modified to use them. A new feature will support the insertion of symbols and characters into line styles as they are rendered. Support to copy styles between objects will be added.

Import. Create an import to CAD and vector objects for the native MapInfo format often referred to as TAB. Based upon possible success in this, all the other things like export, linking, and direct use in the object editor may be possible. When importing lines from ASCII files, an option will be added to create nodes for the vertices and attach attributes to handle geophysical and other transect data sources.

Classification. [available now] In supervised classification routines, you can now view a histogram for each class of the distance from its center of each cell assigned to the class. Tools are then provided to graphically split this class into two classes and recompute the classification results.

Hyperspectral Analysis. A new interpretation method called Vector Quantification has been added [available now]. The range of image bands to be processed can be selected and will control all subsequent processes [available now]. This will be expanded to allow the exclusion of atmospheric absorption bands. The hypercube object is being worked on now.

Networking. Additional network analysis features and improvements will be added.

Geophysical Analysis. More line leveling optional approaches will be added [one available now] as well as reduction to the magnetic pole. The first tool needed to edit geophysical profiles has been added in the object editor [available now]. More features to assist in importing and storing generic transect data will be added.

Object Editor. A new Profile window has been added where a selected line element can be viewed and Z values edited including splining [available now]. New cross-section sketching tools will be added. A "node-turn" table (for example, right turns only) will be added for use in network routing. A feature will be added to step through all selected elements to identify those without attributes. You will be able to convert nodes to points. A semiautomatic tool will be added to locate label points for contours and other "parallel" line element situations.

Polygon Fitting. The Adaptive Kernel and CALHOME methods of polygon fitting (in other words, home range) will be added.

SML. Major expansion of the TNT geospatial programming language will continue to support your development of TKP and APPLIDATs. An HTML interpreter is being developed for use in various locations in the TNT products. It will appear first in SML to allow the easy creation of scripts for presenting instructions. A method will be created to share common script segments between scripts. You will be able to create and control more layers in the view window: map-grids, scale bars, regions, SML scripts, and so on. New suites of functions will include:

• import and export of objects

• printing

• surface modeling

• layout with control over positions in groups [available now]

• conversion between 8-, 16-, 24-bit, and composite rasters

• conversion between color models: RGB, HIS, HBS, CMY, CMYK, ...

Bench Marks. Begin to release SML scripts which will run standard geospatial analysis tests on any TNT platform and report time to complete. These can then be used to evaluate the performance of the TNT products under various hardware and network configurations.

Internationalization. [available now] A utility process will merge the translated resource (language) files for any previous version of the TNT products with those of a newer English release. Those items which need new translation will then appear in English in the merged file.

Tutorials. The most effort will be focused upon bringing the existing tutorials concurrent with the features in this version. The following new booklets will be released:

• Using Hyperspectral Analysis

• Sharing Geodata with Other Products

• Operating the 3D Simulator

• Installing the TNT products

Editorial and Associated News [by Dr. Lee D. Miller, President]

Yes, I write this MEMO to you every quarter. And, yes, it does get to be a big chore when it gets so long. Yes, it does give me gray hairs. But, this is my own fault. I can always choose to say it "short" or say it "long" and request less input and fewer color plates.

I create this MEMO from draft inputs from most of the other MicroImages staff, but try to make it look as if it were written by one person with a common vocabulary. Other staff also complete and print the attached color plates. However, in writing every MicroImages MEMO, I prefer to stay in the background, as it does represent the combined efforts of everyone at MicroImages, all of whom contribute in various ways to each new version of the TNT products, of which this MEMO is just a part. Every staff member has had the opportunity to read, edit, and modify every MicroImages MEMO which has ever been released.

While this MEMO takes a lot of effort from everyone, it is important. Without it, you would not know what to look for in each new release. Its creation and review forces everyone at MicroImages (especially me) to "get it all together" and understand what we have individually and collectively accomplished to date and what it contributed to the TNT products. From this we each get the sense of accomplishment that drives MicroImages. From it, we also all plan what we will be doing for you in the next quarter. This last objective is perhaps the most important from a management viewpoint when a dedicated group of professionals with diverse backgrounds are set upon creating and releasing products and features that a much larger company cannot keep up with.

During the last quarter, there were a significant number of TNTmips systems upgraded from years back, including several from DOS MIPS (V3.33 and earlier). Unfortunately, clients, who for various reasons, let their TNT product maintenance lapse for a year or two get way behind, as they do not get the interim quarterly MEMOs. As always, anyone (including our competitors) can access microimages.com and review all our previous MEMOs prior to buying or starting to use the latest version of the TNT products.

I have decided with this MEMO that I might also like to occasionally "have my say". As a result, you may periodically find this section where I present my viewpoint on some topic of possible interest.

This MEMO is longer than usual due to the extended sections introducing the Hyperspectral Analysis process and the long sections on SML and the new APPLIDAT, both of which are important extensions of TNTmips. Hyperspectral analysis is a complex subject, and I am sure I have not gotten everything in this section correct and will have to eat some of my words later once I hear from you. I have also taken the usual manager's prerogative to delegate and have assigned more tasks out to the staff to research various image sources and create two Getting Started booklets. One booklet will summarize this section and new materials into an introduction to what hyperspectral imaging is all about, and another (to be completed first since we have the summary in this MEMO) on how to use these new analysis tools in TNTmips.

In compiling this long section, I had to dust off my old memory cells on one of my major areas of research of 20 to 25 years ago. To create some creditability in this complex area, I am attaching a summary of this work as Appendix A. At the same time, several of us had to dig around a lot to get some insight into what is being done by others in scientific labs, practical exploration settings, and included in other commercial products. The section on this topic introduces what we have learned to date. I welcome your input so that we can strengthen our knowledge in this area.

On Earth. By pure coincidence, just as this section, our process, and this MEMO were being completed, NASA, via the commercialization program at the NASA Stennis Space Center in Mississippi, issued a "call for proposals" for projects to define in Step 1 (in other words, these two year projects) the long-term commercialization of hyperspectral applications. Step 3, to be undertaken in several years, would be the design/economic study for the launch of commercial hyperspectral satellites. I was privileged to be able to draw upon the new ideas generated by MicroImages' staff, the ideas of other participants in our proposal, and my own remembered past research experience, to submit a data analysis plan in a proposal. This proposal was submitted from California State University at Monterey Bay (CSUMB) on behalf of NASA/AMES, the Spatial Information, Visualization & Analysis (SIVA) Center at CSUMB, MicroImages, and another agricultural industry partner representing an application area. Proposals are probability games, but the next MEMO will report the outcome.

Around Jupiter. By a second coincidence, during the last stages of writing this MEMO section, a long-time client called me for a letter of support for a proposal call from NASA Headquarters. This scientist used DOS MIPS and the then newly created Feature Mapping 10 years ago to trace out the water bodies on Landsat images defining the land based portion of the rim of the Yucatan dinosaur-killer crater. At the time, he was studying the relationship of the distribution of these water bodies to the incidence of malaria in the area.

His latest project is to assemble a raster based composite GIS system of the images being collected by Galileo of the three ice moons of Jupiter for public access and use. The projections needed for these moons are spherical and can be easily handled as accurate shapes, for these moons have not been measured. Georeferencing is provided by the accurate pointing and positioning provided by the other project participant, who is the Galileo Project Team leader at JPL. Three of the four Galileo imaging devices collect hyperspectral images of a total of ~890 spectral bands ranging from .05 µm (the extreme vacuum ultraviolet) to 5.20 µm (the thermal infrared). The fourth has seven higher resolution bands in the visible and "photographic" infrared range, which is of less interest to astrophysicists and astrogeologists. Since all the original images fit within TNTlite, information about this new process was FAXed to this client to strengthen his proposal.

This project would be of particular interest to the computer science oriented people at MicroImages, as they are very interested in science fiction and thus real science. I would also find it of particular interest for similar reasons, because as a naive graduate student, I completed a funded research project for NASA 35 years ago culminating in this report.

Investigation of a method for remote detection and analysis of life on a planet. University of Michigan, Institute of Science and Technology, NASA Report 6590-4-F, Ann Arbor, Michigan. 1965. 33 pages.

In this study, I assumed that such life would be carbon based and contain chlorophyll, which could be easily determined from the collection of geological and vegetative spectral curves I had amassed. Since we humans subsequently orbited devices to look back at the earth, I was proven right in at least one case. This paper was also presented at a symposium where Dr. Carl Sagan, who was also in his formative years, was happy to discuss with me his new ideas. Fortunately, he went on to form even better and more interesting ideas.

Last week, RDL Space Corporation, located in California, was awarded the first ever U.S. Government license to build and launch an SAR Satellite (Space News, Vol. 9, No. 25, front page). Earliest launch date for this RADAR-1 would be in 2001. As you may know, there has been a lot of controversy over this license application, as RDL will build a one meter resolution system. The license has been granted based upon restricting the distribution of the one meter imagery for immediate use by our national security agencies, five meter degraded images for general public sale, and higher resolution images for "particular customers" on a case-by-case government approved basis (noted elsewhere as other "U.S. defense agencies or the governments of key American allies").

But, as with the optical satellite licenses, the resolution of the public images can be increased automatically to any resolution provided by similar satellites of other nations. Since Canada has announced the launch of Radarsat-2 in 2001 with three meter imaging capabilities, the five meter barrier may never exist.

The article continues on to note that while "RDL Space Corp. is targeting national security markets both in the United States and overseas," Dutt said. "Other potential markets, such as crop monitoring, mineral exploration and insurance, will have to be developed."

So what? A couple of weeks ago, MicroImages learned that a proposal submitted by RDL and the Spatial Information, Visualization & Analysis (SIVA) Center at California State University at Monterey Bay (CSUMB) will be funded by the commercialization program at NASA Stennis Space Center as a Step 2 project to demonstrate the use of high resolution RADAR imagery in the areas of agricultural insurance and precision agriculture. MicroImages will be funded as the third, smaller participant in this project to provide the software modifications needed to support these applications via the standard TNT products. The project will employ overflights of high resolution SAR imagery produced by a JPL and NASA/AMES aircraft program called AirSAR flying over test sites in California and elsewhere.

MicroImages has been questioned and addressed over the years about its unusual practices in the area of frequent upgrades (now biweekly), fast error support, user driven feature add-ons, extensive user communication, free TNTlite, on-line manuals, and so on. V5.90 adds another question to this list: Why make it possible for you or others to create and sell or give away the new SML based TurnKey Products and APPLIDATs within the free TNTlite?

An extraordinarily good article on these general ideas was published on the Internet by Eric S. Raymond, 1998. It is entitled The Cathedral and the Bazaar, and can be obtained at http://sagan.earthspace.net/esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/. It is the first in a series of three articles and contains some very insightful ideas of how excellent software can be developed. Netscape Communications Corp. has stated that this paper helped spur them into opening up the source code of their Communicator product line (for example, browsers) to developers earlier this year. It is well worth the trouble to obtain and read. I found it to be one of the most interesting computer articles I have read in years. This was probably because it made me sort out the reasons for my past decisions at MicroImages wherein I found that they agreed with those of the author.

Raymond's Cathedral approach is the approach of SUN, IBM, and the like. Control everything, design in infinite detail, release infrequently with extensive checking, and so on. Build software as you would build a Cathedral. The Bazaar approach has produced LINUX, the only serious pending competition to Microsoft Windows. It has produced Apache, which is being used for more web servers than all its competitors and has just been supported for use by IBM. Certainly the Internet as we know it would not exist without the standardization first introduced by Mosaic, and it is only the Internet which has given rise to the Bazaar approach. Raymond points out that the Mosaic to Netscape and now back to free Netscape source code was a transition of the Bazaar approach to Cathedral and back now to Bazaar.

Clearly some of the most powerful and useful software now available to us is suddenly originating from this new, open software development model. It is being built, rebuilt, and improved by many smart people with the simple motivation of sharing in the excellent result or in the self interest of having the result. The paper reviews many guidelines as to how and why many programmers in the world work together for free to produce a very robust LINUX, Apache, many UNIX applications, and so on. His arguments are very pervasive with regard to how future software, free or paid for, must be developed. As a corollary to his paper, it is also clear that far bigger commercial companies than MicroImages, and far smarter heads than mine, are trying to figure out how commercial software can coexist in this new Bazaar. And coexist it must, as without a large, viable commercial software industry, who will employ those software engineers who so readily contribute their efforts in the Bazaar?

Raymond's paper details how software can be developed using LINUX, Apache, Mosaic, and other similar open software development as a model. It clearly identifies the rules which govern software development by such a model. I think the Bazaar system is also a model for how commercial software products can evolve based on inputs from clients to a smart and responsive group of professional software engineers. While reading it, I even found out why MicroImages has haphazardly evolved into a "Bazaar-like" method of product development over the past 12 years.

For example, the Bazaar approach has as one of its foremost rules to release reasonably tested versions frequently and then respond to errors as effectively as possible. It points out that users of the product will trade off some rapidly fixed errors in exchange for their input into the evolution of the product. It continues on with many more insights into how software will have to be developed in the future with a world-wide, intelligent software user community; very rapid information exchange via the Internet; and more complex software that requires increasingly more cooperation among the software engineers, management, and the end users.

MI/X (MicroImages' X Server)

The minor modifications to permit the Windows version of the MI/X server to be used with Windows 98 operation have been incorporated. The U.S. Justice Department notwithstanding, Windows 98 shipped on June 25^th. To setup MI/X to use multiple monitor support under W98 or NT5.0, go to the MI/X section under "Support/Set-up/Preferences …" in TNTmips or to the "Options" icon in TNTview or TNTedit. The option will appear only if the system has multiple monitors attached. MicroImages strongly underlines that by its very nature, the productivity of your use of geospatial analysis will be significantly increased if you use two or more monitors under W98 or set up a large scrolling area on a single monitor by using a single display board with at least 4 MB of video RAM (VRAM). A color plate is attached entitled Increase Productivity with Windows 98 to illustrate and explain this idea in more detail.

Downloads of the MI/X servers by non-clients from microimages.com now average approximately 1500 per week (100 for 68xxx Macs, 200 for PMacs, and 1200 for Windows products). This quarter, MicroImages gave permission for four book and magazine publishers to include a version of MI/X on CDs accompanying their magazines and books (one in Japan, one in Slovenia, and two in Germany.) It appears from user response that MI/X is more robust than the currently available X servers for Windows and MacOS, including Apple's MacX. This is likely the case since the TNT products have stressed and thus forced the perfection of MI/X more than most other smaller X activities on PC platforms, except LINUX which has its own X servers. One of the most popular free uses of MI/X is to allow many PCs and Macs to communicate and work with LINUX/PC based servers.

There were 31 additional mirror sites added around the world this quarter to serve up MI/X, bringing the total of mirror sites to 91.

Macintosh

There were no special adjustments made to accommodate the use of the TNT products on this platform.

Licenses

A number of clients are switching from single user licenses to floating and multiple user licenses. Please remember that when such a change is made, only a single existing license can be traded in for credit as part of such an upgrade.

TNTlite^TM 5.9

* All the hyperspectral processes in TNTmips are free via TNTlite. This is described below in the section on this new process. The limit on the number of spectral bands which can be processed at one time in TNTlite has been removed to accommodate hyperspectral image analysis within TNTlite.

The direct full downloads of TNTlite from microimages.com from January through June 1998 were 2.5 times more than the number in the same period for 1997. Downloads for LINUX are increasing and now regularly equal or just exceed those for the PMac.

Shipments of TNTlite kits continue at approximately the same rate. The largest new client order of TNTlite 5.8 kits was for a forestry department at a university in Europe. The order was placed without any previous direct contact with MicroImages or a dealer except possibly via microimages.com.

Many of you are beginning to notice more and more publicity about the LINUX operating system. A number of academic groups have indicated to us that they have set up TNTlite on PC servers supporting multiple users in both floating and multi-user modes. One geography department has four such LINUX networks with TNTlite installed. This works very effectively as we supply the free MI/X for the other Windows and Mac computers which act like terminals when a multi-user server is employed.

A section below discusses the 38 Getting Started tutorial booklets which are now available. It suffices to say here that all these booklets with associated geodata sets can be downloaded free for use with TNTlite as Acrobat PDF files or PageMaker 6.5 files. Those purchasing the physical kit version of TNTlite 5.9 will find it includes printed versions of all the 38 current booklets, modest bookshelf storage boxes for the booklets, and that all the PDF files and the sample geodata sets they use are on the V5.90 CD.

* The limits on TNTlite raster objects have been lifted from the product of 640 by 480 (307,200 cells) to the product of 614 by 512 (314,368 cells) to accommodate full AVIRIS images.

TNTatlas^® 5.9

This process can connect to GPS devices to show cursors and scroll the view when the GPS position nears the edge of the view.

The following 47 page reference on how to create TNTatlases has been prepared by one of MicroImages' dealers. Mastering TNTlink and the Presentation of GeoSpatial Datasets with TNTatlas. "A Rambling Yet Roughly Instructional Guideline For Getting Creative and Productive with TNTlink." Prepared for your use free of charge by Dr. Thomas H. Furst, Furst Light GeoTechnologies, 2295 Dexter Drive, Suite 200, Longmont, Colorado 80501-1515. Voice (303)682-3046 FAX (303)682-3157 email tfurst@lanminds.net. It can be viewed or downloaded from www.microimages.com/ documentation/tntatlas/tfurst.

Loading TNTatlas 5.9 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.

No specific changes were made for TNTview alone. However, many other changes were made in processes provided as part of TNTview. These changes are explained in detailed descriptions provided in the TNTmips New Features section and in the attached color plates. The improvements include the:

• new 3D simulation process

• expanding GPS support

• SML additions

• all improvements in the visualization process

• viewing of the new topological structures vector objects

When TNTview is installed, a second icon representing an APPLIDAT will also appear. An explanation of this new kind of product can be found in a detailed section under TNTmips New Features. You can create and use APPLIDATs and other TurnKey Products via TNTview.

Within the NAFTA point-of-use area (Canada, U.S., and Mexico) and with shipping by UPS ground. (+50/each means $50 for each additional quarterly increment.)

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For a point-of-use in all other nations with shipping by air express. (+50/each means $50 for each additional quarterly increment.

Loading TNTview 5.9 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.

All the features added to TNTmips in the processes supplied as part of TNTedit have been correspondingly updated. All the new features in the following major sections apply. Please review them below:

The most significant single addition to TNTedit is the ability to directly access, edit, and save ESRI's E00, Coverage, and Shapefiles. See the section on the object editor below for details.

If you did not order V5.90 of your TNTedit and wish to do so now, please contact MicroImages by FAX, phone, or email to arrange to purchase this upgrade or annual maintenance. Entering an authorization code when running the installation process allows you to complete the installation and immediately start to use TNTedit 5.90 and the other TNT professional products it provides to you.

If you do not have annual maintenance for TNTedit, you can upgrade to V5.90 via the elective upgrade plan at the cost in the tables below. Please remember, new features have been added to TNTmips each quarter. Thus, the older your current version of TNTedit relative to V5.90, the higher your upgrade cost. As usual, there is no additional charge for the upgrade of your special peripheral support features, TNTlink, or TNTsdk, which you may have added to your basic TNTedit system.

Within the NAFTA point-of-use area (Canada, U.S., and Mexico) and with shipping by UPS ground.

For a point-of-use in all other nations with shipping by air express.

Loading the TNTedit 5.9 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.

The collection of Getting Started tutorial booklets continues to expand. Five new booklets are being shipped with V5.90. Currently the series contains 38 booklets, all of which have been provided to you. The available booklets now contain over 800 color pages which provide the equivalent of three good sized textbooks of material on geospatial analysis. As usual, the sample geodata sets used in each booklet have also been included on the CD and on microimages.com. Almost all of this geodata is sized so that it can be used in the TNTlite product.

IMPORTANT: It is becoming clear that some of our experienced clients are not using the Getting Started booklets!

Before these booklets were available, MicroImages planned that it would take six months to a year for a new MicroImages software support specialist to "come up to speed"; perhaps as long as 12 months for them to achieve the same breadth of knowledge about TNTmips that they can now gain in one month devoted to completing all these tutorials. If you are the boss, it is particularly important to set a new employee in front of TNTmips or TNTlite and have them take the first month to go through each tutorial. Even if they are experienced in using some other GIS or IPS software, this month will pay handsome dividends in the speed, but more importantly the breadth, of what they will accomplish for you. If you are in a hurry, you might consider paying them a bonus for each booklet they complete at home.

Previously Completed Booklets. [33 units already in your possession]

New V5.90 Booklets. [5 new units shipping]

Scheduled for V6.00. [4 units]

Possible Future Booklets. [18 units]

Constant Changes. Some of the booklets released prior to V5.90 have been upgraded to reflect changes in the associated processes, for example, changes associated with the layer control panel introduced in V5.80. The Building and Using Queries, Sketching and Measuring, and Displaying Geospatial Data booklets have been updated and are on your CD. The V5.90 TNT product CD contains all the latest booklets which were available at the time of the CD duplication, and you can view them on-line or print them out in color.

Since the duplication of the V5.90 CDs, the Interactive Region Analysis and Theme Mapping booklets have been revised to be current with V5.90 and can be downloaded from microimages.com. The following booklets are significantly out-of-date relative to V5.90 and require significant changes: Laying Out Maps, Using SML, and Image Classification.

Remember, any modified, improved, and new booklets are immediately posted on microimages.com for your immediate access in PDF and PageMaker formats. All associated geodata, its modification, or corrections for booklet updates is also posted at the same time. Thus, while you may have all the booklets, their updating and expansion may take place at any time. It is a good practice to check the status of the booklets on microimages.com every couple of weeks. Each booklet contains a date on page two which the author changes each time it is modified.

Draft Releases. Via microimages.com, MicroImages is going to get "draft" or "beta" tutorials posted for you as rapidly as possible. This is the same practice that is used with new software features released each Tuesday and Thursday. Many of you are moving so fast in advancing your geospatial analysis activities, applications, and needs, that even MicroImages is pressed to keep up with you in writing software and instructions on how to use it. Rapid updating of tutorial materials which are nearly complete (in beta or draft form) gets you most of what you need as rapidly as possible, which is certainly better than having nothing at all for many weeks or months more while it is "made perfect".

Status Table. By the time you read this, you will be able to print out a simple table from microimages.com showing the status of each booklet and its geodata currently posted for your downloading. This table will contain the booklet's name, the date of last revision (as on the second page), the TNT version it is concurrent with, the name of associated geodata set(s), the date the geodata was last changed, and so on. Print this table each time you visit microimages.com and compare it to the last table you printed and saved to see if anything has changed which you need to download. Since it is very important for you to track the changes in these tutorial and reference materials, the "What's New" access on the front page at microimages.com will indicate the most recent date that any modification was made to any of the Getting Started materials and also provide direct access to this status table.

Error Reporting. Certainly the Getting Started booklets and their associated geodata sets can have errors which you should report immediately via software support (as some of you are already doing). When you do so, you will find that you get the same kind of error code returned (for example, ldm2037) as with software errors. These errors are managed by MicroImages as software errors, and their priority and status can be checked by entering this ID code at www.microimages.com/support/features. Corrections of these errors will often cause a new version of the booklet, and especially the geodata, to be posted.

Translations. Earth Intelligence Technologies Co. (EIT), the MicroImages dealer in Thailand, has carried the use of the Getting Started booklets into their plans for the future. This dealer's staff has shared the work of selecting a dozen of the booklets they consider most important in PageMaker format, abstracted important pages, translated them into Thai, and laid them out again in PageMaker in 8.5" by 11" format. This resulted in a 177 page printed and bound reference book with a nice cover which they are distributing to Thai universities without charge along with TNTlite. Four sample pages chosen at random in their "Getting Started" book are enclosed so you can see the quality of what they have done. MicroImages has spent time creating TNTlite for student use, and we certainly appreciate the time this company has spent, in a poor economic environment, in helping their nation's students.

Abstractions. Some of you may also wish to extract material from the booklets for use in your own printed manuals, guides, translations, and other reference materials. The Adobe Acrobat Reader is excellent for viewing and printing the color booklets. However, it is not possible to extract illustrations from the PDF files or translate their text to other languages. MicroImages now creates these booklets in a standard fashion in Adobe PageMaker 6.5 from which the PDF files are created for inclusion on the CD. In response to your requests, the PageMaker files as well as the PDF files for the latest version of each booklet can now be downloaded from microimages.com.

Hardcopy Upgrades. All Getting Started booklets are included in black and white printed format along with the CD in each TNTlite kit shipped. The current price of an individual kit is $40, and at this time it will include 38 or more booklets. Additional printed Getting Started booklets are added into the kit as they are completed during the quarter. If you need printed copies of any or all the printed booklets, please order a new TNTlite kit.

All new TNTmips professional product shipments contain all the published printed booklets and the associated geodata. Existing MicroImages clients with active maintenance contracts get all new booklets published that quarter in their upgrade shipment. You are also free to duplicate the published booklet, duplicate it via the PDF file, or cannibalize its contents via the PageMaker file as long as the source of the information continues to be credited to MicroImages.

Future Plans. A goal for V6.00 will be the upgrade of all existing booklets to be current with V6.00 except for any completely new processes or features introduced in V6.00 at the last minute. To provide time to achieve this "version concurrency" in all published booklets, only a minimum of four new booklets have been scheduled for release with V6.00. Furthermore, from now on, priority will be given to upgrading and maintaining existing booklets to be as current as possible over creating new booklets.

TNT Reference Manual

The Reference Manual this quarter has 2621 single spaced pages (a decrease of 266 pages). Most of this reduction results from the removal of the Appendix containing the documentation for the SML functions as well as other streamlining. All this documentation is now part of and integrated into the SML process. This means that if you download a new version of the process (as many do), you will get this built in documentation rather than using a copy of the Reference Manual which is issued only quarterly and therefore several months out of date. This is particularly important as SML is evolving so rapidly.

The Reference Manual installs into 32 MB with the illustrations or into 7 MB without them. Last minute supplemental sections which do not occur in the on-line HTML version or Microsoft Word version were created for new processes and features. These sections were completed for V5.90 after the master CDs were created for the reproduction process. These 34 additional pages are included in supplemental, printed form as follows.

3D Simulation (9 pages)

Orthorectification Mode [SPOT] (6 pages)

Vector Filters (19 pages)

V5.90 now provides a search engine (a Java applet) for your Netscape or Explorer browser. It is automatically used when you access the Reference Manual, select search, and enter a key word you wish to locate. Use it to view any page of the text except the "Volume Index" and "Table of Contents" which do not have links. The built-in document search tool in the browser can be used to search the "Table of Contents".

At the top and bottom of every page you will find a set of links. For example:

Next Page Bottom of Page Table of Contents Index Search

By clicking on "Search" you will instruct the browser to load the search engine. There will be a small delay while the search database is loaded. Type the words relating to the topic you are interested in at the "Enter query:" prompt. The results list provides links to all the pages that contain the selected words. The document search tool built into your browser can then be used to find specific occurrences of the words. This Java applet requires Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.x or Netscape Navigator 4.x to work. It also requires that Java be enabled in the browser or it will not run.

New TNT Features

* Paragraphs or main sections preceded by this symbol "*" introduce significant new processes or features in existing processes released for the first time in TNTmips 5.9.

The file/object selection dialog now allows double-clicking on an object when selecting multiple objects in a "set" (for example, selecting Red, Green, Blue rasters). This eliminates the step of first highlighting the object and then pressing the [==>] button.

Error messages can be saved to a text file. Please save and send this message file when communicating with MicroImages concerning these errors.

Away from your desk? Multitasking by doing other things? There is an option you can set in the TNT preferences to have TNTmips "beep" when a process is complete (use Setup/Preferences).

The unit list has been expanded to include over 60 new scientific unit types, such as "density", "concentration", "mass", and so on. Unit names can now be localized into your language.

IMPORTANT: You can use the "Print Screen" key on a PC or the shift-command-3 keys on a Mac to save your entire display area to an image file from within the TNT products. You can then select and insert these image files into Windows products such as Word Perfect 8 or Word 97 for PC or Word 98 for Mac. These products also support direct cropping, annotation, ... so that these TNT images can be modified for attractive use in your reports and other documents.

New Menus. The TNTmips menus have been reorganized to provide a more logical arrangement for the many new processes which have been added over the last five to six years. A three page table is enclosed entitled Converting from Version 5.8 to 5.9 TNTmips Menu to assist you in finding the processes and features in the new structure. Perhaps you might like to temporarily post these pages above your system.

New topology types are now defined for vector objects. These additional vector topologies will be transparent to you until you choose to use them. The topology types were created to handle different mapping and problem solving requests from you and planned new features in the TNT products. For example, your requests for expanded network applications required the creation of the new network vector topology option. The different topology types are introduced below. A color plate is attached entitled New Vector Topology Types to help describe these new topology types. A second color plate is attached entitled Behavior of Topology Types.

1) Polygonal Topology. This topology is the type for all vector objects before V5.90 of the TNT products. It requires that none of the line elements within it intersect, and thus all lines meet at node elements. All polygons are assembled from this node-line topology and are maintained by all processes. No two polygons can overlap, and any polygon completely inside another is an island of that polygon. A common example of this topology would be a property ownership map wherein all land and water is accounted for in polygons without dispute. "A place for everything and everything in its place." Vegetation and soils maps are additional examples of this type.

2) Planar Topology. This topology also requires that none of the line elements in the object intersect and that those line elements which do meet do so at node elements. The difference between this planar type and the polygonal topology type defined above is that polygons are not generated nor maintained by any process using it. The advantages of this type are that more and simpler editing capabilities can be provided when polygons are not present requiring maintenance, splitting, and so on. Also, editing this type of topology is faster, it saves faster, and the object is also smaller, as polygons are not being created. A hypsography (contour) or hydrology map are examples of uses for this topology type. It is also a convenient topology for materials which require Z values attached to the vertices in the lines.

3) Network Topology. This topology type allows line elements to cross each other, but the ends of the lines must have node elements. No polygons are generated or maintained by a process which is operating on this topology. This type is useful for routing and other network analysis applications. Road or utility maps are examples of uses of this topology type.

4) No-Topology. This topology is only being provided for backward compatibility with older 3D vector objects. CAD objects are specifically designed for situations where no-topology at all is needed as yet and where intersections are ignored. CAD objects should be used for this kind of "spaghetti geodata".

Combining Topologies. The selected vector topology is now maintained for 3D vector objects as well. This allows all the vector processes to operate on any vector object, regardless of its coordinates or topology type. For vector operations that combine vector objects--for example vector combinations and vector merge--the topology and coordinate types are automatically promoted to match the highest level of the inputs involved. For example, if you merge two vector objects where the first one is a 3D network object and the second is a 2D planar object, the resulting output object will be a 3D planar object. This occurs since a planar object is a higher topology type than a network object. The coordinate type will also be 3D since a 3D object is higher up on the coordinate scale. It is important to understand that if this upward reconciliation of topology were not done automatically, some information contained in the topology of one of the input vectors would be lost.

You can now attach your attribute tables to the new Element ID tables. This feature is in response to some people using the Internal Element table and Element Number field as an Element ID field and expecting the vector processes to maintain the number through a vector operation. This was not a viable solution due to the algorithms used in the vector processes which can and usually will renumber elements. As an example, the validate operation performed by most vector processes will renumber the polygons. The new Element ID table attachments will be maintained by the vector processes just like any other database table.

Element ID tables are generated automatically as standard tables for vector point, line, and polygon elements. The defined fields for the point element ID table have one entry in them and the line and polygon element ID tables each have two. The line and polygon ID tables are for the "Original" element ID and the "Current" element ID. The current element ID will differ from the original element ID if the line or polygon is split in a vector process. The initial element ID values can be set in the object editor under Layer/Properties… dialog and in the New Object Values dialog when creating a vector object.

Node elements can now have attributes assigned to them. The node elements are attached to tables in the point database. Therefore, there is not a separate node database object. This allows nodes to be drawn using all of the selection and style information as points. In fact, such node elements are now treated as point elements for the purposes of display.

If all of the lines attached to a node are removed through some operation, the node, if it has an attachment to a point record, will become a point. If a line is snapped to a point, that point will become a node with the database attachment being the Point Element ID field. Attaching database information to nodes will allow more specialized tables to be added to nodes for other line-node topology problems, for instance, routing and network analysis.

* View-in-View. A "view-in-view" comparison tool has been added. It permits you to define, move, and resize a rectangular box in a view and show different layers inside versus outside the box. For example, data of different resolutions, dates, and so on may be compared. Complete control of which layers appear inside and outside is provided in the layer control panel. This is a very useful tool, so try it once.

DataTips. Many additional controls have been added for DataTips. It is now possible to set a "prefix" and "suffix" for each DataTip. For example, the prefix could be set to the field name and the suffix set to the units. Control over the number of decimal places and the units used is also provided.

Simultaneous display of DataTips for multiple layers is now possible. Each is shown as a separate line in a single DataTip. The simplest example is to show the RGB values of each cell in a color image displayed as separate RGB layers. Due to the potential confusion of showing multiple DataTips when many layers are viewed, you may want to turn this feature on and off as needed. It is also possible to turn all DataTips off without having to turn them off for each individual layer.

Scrolling. A view showing a GPS cursor will optionally auto-pan to keep its position within the view. A "halo" is drawn around the GPS cursor so that it is easier to see over complex backgrounds. GPS coordinates are displayed in the position report at the bottom of the screen.

Zooming. There are now options to zoom to the "extents" of the "active" as well as all "selected" elements for any layer.

Ten previous view settings are remembered, so you can back up 10 times after zooming or scrolling a view.

Groups and Layouts. The size and position of all open views is now saved with groups and layout