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Custom
View Window.
TNTsim3D
6.9 provided options to
open several different auxiliary views in addition to the pilot, or main, view.
Thus preprogrammed Left, Right, Down, Rear, Point-of-Interest, and Map
Views can be selected and opened. You
can also open a view(s) fixed on a specific ground Point(s)-of-Interest (POIs).
RV7.0 adds the capability to
use the View menu to open a Custom View. The
content of the Custom View, just as with the preprogrammed and POI views, is
simulated and updated in real time relative to the movement of the observer in
the Main View. When initially
opened, the Custom View by default has the same content, XYZ observer position,
field-of-view, and orientation as the Main View.
The size of the Custom View window can be changed in the normal
interactive fashion. The content,
orientation, and observer position of the Custom View can be independently
altered relative to the axis of the Main View using icons and a control panel.
Just
as with the preprogrammed views, the terrain and texture in the Custom View can
be different from those in the Main View and chosen using an icon from any
provided in the Landscape File. The
position change for a Custom View is set as an offset to slide its viewpoint
ahead of, or behind, that of the Main View while keeping the view axis of the
Custom View the same as that of the Main View.
Using icons, a Custom View can also be zoomed in and then out.
If it is set up to use a different texture for the zoomed area, this view
might be used in 3D to read map features for the physical surface being
manipulated in the Main View. The
orientation of a Custom View can also be altered in its control panel using
roll, pitch, and yaw settings to view in any direction relative to the current
axis of the Main View. All these
options are discussed in more detail in the sections below and illustrated in
the accompanying color plate entitled TNTsim3D Custom View.
Selecting
Textures.
The
Custom View initially shows the default texture layer (the first texture
created) for each available terrain in the Landscape File.
However, just as in all other preprogrammed views, an icon is available
in the Custom View to permit you to set it up to use any terrain, texture, and
overlays available in your Landscape File.
Using a Custom View provides considerable flexibility in providing
different perspective and/or content reference views for the Main View depending
upon the purpose of your simulation.
Observer
Offset.
The
Custom View control panel provides an Offset value you enter as a distance.
This moves the observer position of the Custom View forward (+) or
backward (-) that amount from the observer position of the Main View, and along
its axis. This offset along the
axis is then maintained in real time in the specified units for all ?flying?
changes in the Main View. By
default the size and height and width angles of the Custom View match those of
the Main View.
A
default offset of ?0? means that the observer position of the Custom View is
the same as that of the Main View. An
offset of +10368 meters means that the XYZ observer position of the Custom View
has moved forward 10368 meters in front of the XYZ of the observer position in
the Main View along its orientation axis. This
moves the observer position of this view closer to the surface but does not
automatically change the Custom View window?s angular field-of-view.
Thus, the area of the surface viewed is less.
If you want to enlarge or reduce the area of the Custom View relative to
that of the Main View, use the mouse to drag an edge or corner of the window.
Correspondingly, if an offset of -26989 meters is entered, the observer
position of the Custom View is moved back 26989 meters from the observer
position of the Main View and along its axis.
This means that the Custom View is looking at the surface through the
position of the Main View, which is centered in the Custom View.
Setting
a large negative offset means that a much larger area of the surface is being
viewed relative to the Main View and all other preprogrammed views.
Thus, if a large terrain is available and loaded, a different synoptic
image might be selected for the texture of the surface viewed in the Custom
View. For example, the Main View in
the simulation could use a 1-meter color image to provide a detailed image,
while the pulled-back Custom View is set up to use a 15-meter color image that
constantly provides a synoptic or general area reference for the detailed scene
in the Main View. Conversely, a
Custom View with a positive offset could use a high-resolution scan of a
large-scale map as its texture, which would provide readable labels allowing you
to identify features at the center of the Main View as it is moved.
The
offset value you enter moves the observer position of the Custom View the
specified distance away from the position of the observer in the Main View.
Thus, a sufficiently large offset can push all or part of the Custom View
through or under the surface. It
will be immediately obvious that part of the Custom View is absent since it is
beyond the terrain. However, this
can be used as a feature if the underside of the surface has a different texture
and the Custom View has been reoriented to look backward.
In future versions of TNTsim3D,
additional controls will enable you to move the observer position of the Custom
View off the axis of the Main View. This
will provide the basis for using several Custom Views to provide a better grasp
of the structure of terrain and manifold surfaces being manipulated in TNTsim3D.
Zooming.
An
icon is available to zoom the contents of the Custom View without changing its
relative observer position to that of the Main View.
Each click on the zoom-in (+) icon narrows the initial field-of-view 5%
relative to the initially matching field-of-view of the Main View.
The size, position, and orientation of the Custom View window do not
change, so each click on this icon appears to zoom the contents of this view.
If the Custom View has been zoomed in, the zoom-out (-) icon is activated
and can be used to reverse the zoom back to the original scale.
As usual, the size of this view?s window can be changed in the normal
fashion to show more or less of the surface at any zoom level.
An
example use of zooming in would be when a map is used as the texture in the
Custom View. Several clicks on the
zoom-in icon would quickly zoom in this view relative to the image in the Main
View. This would permit map
features, such as labels and contour values and spacing, to be read for the area
near the center of the Main View.
Off
Axis Orientation.
The
view axis of a Custom View can be set to be in any direction relative to the
axis of the Main View. The
orientation of this off-axis viewing is specified by changing the roll, pitch,
and yaw to non-zero values in the control panel of the Custom View.
Yaw is the horizontal angle measured counter-clockwise from the Main
View?s axis. Pitch is the
vertical angle from the Main View?s axis.
Roll is the vertical angle from the horizontal in the plane perpendicular
to the Main View?s axis. Thus, if
yaw is set to be 180 degrees while pitch and roll are set at 0 degrees, the axis
of the Custom View is coincident with, but backward, along the axis of the Main
View. These same orientation
settings and an offset of 10000 meters means the Custom View is positioned 10000
meters in front of the Main View on its axis and is looking backward along this
axis of the Main View. As noted earlier, this permits a Custom View to be
positioned with an offset to be beyond or below a surface and to look at
features extending from or below the surface.
These settings also permit the Custom View to see the observer position
of the Main View.
Miscellaneous.
New
Starting Position.
The
default viewer position and orientation when a simulation is started have been
changed for RV7.0.
In V6.9 the viewer was placed
above the northwest corner of the landscape and pointed toward the landscape?s
center. This positioning provided a
synoptic view of much of the landscape, but entailed considerable motion to
reach interesting features within it. TNTsim3D
7.0 starts the viewer above the
center of the landscape with a view toward the northwest.
You can easily use the joystick to turn in any direction, then quickly
move toward any features that you find interesting.
Of course, a Landscape File can also be provided with a startup script to
set a predefined viewer position and orientation to immediately focus the
viewer's attention on particular features, as discussed above.
Grabbing
Snapshots.
A
snapshot of the contents of the Main View, including special effects such as the
sky, fog, and so on, can now be captured at any time during a simulation.
By default the F1 key grabs the contents of the view. You
then use the dialog this presents to specify the file name and location where
you wish to record this image as a *.bmp file.
F1 is commonly used for this purpose in games, but if you wish to assign
this action to some other key or input control, this can be done using the
Configure DirectInput button on the TNTsim3D
Options dialog. These operations
are illustrated in an accompanying color plate entitled Snapshots from
TNTsim3D.
Tinting
Views Below Terrain.
This
feature allows you to optionally select a color to tint the view if the observer
position of that view is below the terrain.
This feature will alert you when a view has penetrated the terrain, which
can be disorienting if unexpected and undesired if you have not set a minimum
terrain clearance limit. This
option for tinting and its color and opacity can be set on the Effects tab panel
of the TNTsim3D Options dialog.
Its effect is illustrated on the accompanying color plate entitled Subterrain
Color in TNTsim3D.
DV7.1
? Some Ideas for Additions.
Manifold
Surfaces.
The
relative positions of multiple manifold surfaces can be difficult to visualize
in a static 3D view. Adding the
ability to TNTsim3D to use manifolds
would allow them and the associated topographic surfaces to be explored in real
time. This would significantly
assist you in gaining a better understanding of the 3D relationships in these
multiple 3D surfaces. Adding this
feature will require that the Landscape Builder be modified to transfer these
surfaces into the Landscape File. TNTsim3D
will then be modified to project them into the various views.
The impact of this on your simulation?s frame rate is unknown at this
time. However, a significantly
slower frame rate (for example, 10 to 15 frames per second) could be tolerated
if necessary in simulations using multiple manifolds and a topographic surface
considering the benefit.
Positioning
Custom Views.
Understanding
spatial relationships in manifold structures would also be enhanced using Custom
Views with additional modifications. In
RV7.0 their observer position is
always on the axis of the Main View. For
manifold simulations it would be important to create Custom Views whose axes are
related to, but not coincident with the axis of the Main View.
This may be accomplished by providing additional Custom View controls to
position them relative to the Main View, but using these controls could be
confusing. Meeting these objectives
could be more flexible using TNT
geospatial scripts if the capabilities were added to open new views with
computationally defined orientations relative to the Main View.
A
typical example would be to open two Custom Views looking at the some
?center? position within the simulated structure.
The axis of one new view is offset 120 degrees clockwise from the Main
View and the other is 120 degrees counterclockwise.
The axis of all these views and their point of intersection are
maintained so that as the Main View is moved, all 3 continue to view the
structure from the same relative observer positions.
For example, if the observer position of the Main View is moved in and
up, then the observer positions of the two Custom Views move the same amount in
and up and the intersection point of the axes is maintained. If this procedure
is implemented in a TNT script, then
a startup script could set the initial Main View contents and then orbit the 3
views in tandem until user input moved the Main View. Many different kinds of
relationships between the Main View and the Custom Views may be needed and
creating these scenarios is an appropriate task for TNT
scripts.
Curved
Land Surface.
Creating
a curved land surface is needed as the earth surface area that can be covered by
a Landscape File is increasing. Suitable
free geodata is becoming available for large area simulations such as the free
15-meter color Landsat coverage of the continents.
JPEG2000 compression has created the opportunity to make use of these
large textures in your simulations. All
the 90-meter SRTM elevation data is now available.
The sky dome can be easily set to rotate with forward movement around the
curved surface to prevent looking under its edge.
Provision has also been included in TNTsim3D
to use complete spheres for the sky dome. However,
at this time it is unclear what the content of these spheres will be and where
it will come from. Is the sun
always up or does it get dark and stars appear when the terminator is crossed,
if so what does the surface look like?
Atlas
Discussion Group.
An
active creator of TNTatlases has
volunteered to maintain and moderate a discussion group by which you can
communicate with others with regard to your activities, news, ideas, tips, and
uses of the FREE
TNTatlas
product. This discussion is not a
MicroImages activity, however, your active participation in it is encouraged.
If you wish to join this discussion group, you can sign up at
http://groups-beta.google.com/group/
atlastalk, send your email address to atlastalk@mchsi.com or use the link at www.microimages.com/products/tntatlas/atlastalk.htm.
Introduction.
There
are many applications and also geographic areas of the world, including in the United States, where the general public?s Internet
access is not fast enough or even available at all to support the interactive
use of large collections of geodata materials.
TNTatlas/X provides you a
FREE means to make a controlled public distribution of a large assembly of
image, map, and tabular materials for use with all popular operating systems.
Automatically accompanying every TNTatlas
is a wide variety of tools to access, explore, and analyze these materials.
These include searching via scripts; interaction via simple or complex
DataTips; measurement, sketching, and other GeoToolbox tools; GPS support;
feature selection and location by several methods including queries; and a
variety of additional interactive tools.
TNTatlas
is also a FREE viewer for large geodata files.
Simply download the shapefile, JP2, MrSID, JPEG, PNG, ? file and browse
to it for viewing and using any tool provided by TNTatlas.
For example, TNTatlas is the best
FREE viewer with tools for JPEG2000 compressed JP2 files.
Most other free JP2 viewers cannot even open large files and are
incredibly slow if they do. The direct viewing of these geodata file types is
fast since the TNT link to each of
these file types creates for it an accompanying link file providing many of the TNT
view-oriented optimization features.
TNTmips
7.0 provides you important new
features that are automatically available now for use in your TNTatlas
publications. The Lincoln Property
Viewer sample DVD demonstrates how to construct a detailed, special purpose TNTatlas
that is easy for the public to use for the designed objective.
The Afghanistan
atlas uses sample materials obtained
freely from the web to illustrate how to assemble several different
scale-controlled map and image themes. These
sample themes are then used as the geodata to demonstrate how GraphTips can be
used to interactively present tabular results as interactive ?pinmaps.?
These
sample atlases deal with specific real estate and map/image distribution
applications. However, their design
can be a guide to creating your public atlases for other applications in your
area of interest. The ?public?
here can be defined as anyone who is not particularly adept at using geospatial
materials but has a reason to use them. This
is the person (husband or wife, geologist, ? even judge) or group of persons
(executive board, investors, regulatory board, ? even jury) who make final
decisions for purchase, projects, and disposition and need the spatial knowledge
conveyed in your atlas to do so wisely.
Lincoln
Sample Atlas.
Objective
of Sample.
You
wish to determine the appropriateness of the price and longer term investment
potential of a home located in a newspaper advertisement before getting
emotionally involved with it via a visit. You should consider a number of
spatial questions in this assessment. Is
this house?s price similar to those in the neighborhood?
What is the general appearance of the neighborhood? How does this house
compare with those nearby in price, square footage, condition, general
materials, lot size, and placement? Are neighborhood houses owner occupied or
rented? Is it in the floodplain or
does it have other special zoning?
These
are important questions whose answers will determine how the house is priced
relative to its neighbors. The
answers will indicate if it will increase in value (which means, in a good
neighborhood with higher priced homes) or decrease in value (which means, larger
home and price in an neighborhood of smaller, older homes).
Think about how you would go about evaluating these spatially
interrelated questions in some other ?X?View software.
A large, detailed color image of the entire city would need
to be instantly viewable at any resolution.
You need at least a dozen vector and other layers containing the spatial
details. Topology is particularly
important to insure that areas such as land parcels are not duplicated.
You need to know how to turn image overlay layers on and off, use queries
or at least select them from a list, locate and zoom to the property of interest
and to adjacent properties, and so on. Finally,
and of great importance, is the need to quickly view and evaluate all the
available information for the individual neighboring houses. And, of course,
none of this would be of value to you unless it was presented entirely in your
language!
Providing
easy access to this neighborhood material for any location in the city would not
be an easy goal to achieve with some ?X?View, free or not!
Attempting to relate a number of different spatial layers overlaying an
image in an ?X?View for a specific house will totally confuse the general
public user of the material. The
valuable, high resolution information that this user can extract from a detailed
image on their own of the house and neighborhood is obscured by this approach.
Yes, ?X?View can present the detailed image of the neighborhood and
have all these layers available to be toggled on and off according the specific
interest of the user. It can
provide layers that are combined and processed to contain the specific spatial
results required about the neighborhood. ?X?View
can even provide canned queries to retrieve specific details for a house.
However, the ?X?View approach expects the ?public? users to learn
how to understand the spatial presentation of graphical layers and use some
unfamiliar tools to formulate the questions of interest.
Overview.
RV7.0
of the TNT products is accompanied
by a FREE DVD that contains a home/parcel ownership TNTatlas
for Lincoln, Nebraska
.
The data contents of this atlas are not particularly interesting or
reusable by you as they are local and transitory.
However, this sample atlas has been designed and reproduced to illustrate
to you a variety of new features that have been introduced to TNTmips
7.0 to add new important capabilities for use in your FREE TNTatlas
product.
The
Lincoln DVD atlas demonstrates some of these and is focused upon showing you and
your clients how to distribute a 50 GB image with vector overlays such as how
to:
-
use scripted forms to go directly to the area of interest or just
navigate there,
-
use new enhanced DataTips to present complex information for any position
in the atlas without cluttering up the image,
-
craft an atlas for a public user and objective without using the color
fills, labels, pinmaps, layer controls, and many other confusing features.
The
accompanying color plate entitled Property Viewer Atlas for Lincoln, NE
provides an overview of this TNTatlas.
Startup
Tool Script.
Using
knowledge of the area (for example, a real estate broker or land developer) you
can use the zoom tools, map features presented by scale, and speed of the TNTatlas
to go right to a local area of interest and perhaps a specific house (especially
if it?s yours). However, this
atlas demonstrates how to include a Tool Script in your atlas to find and
automatically zoom to a specific parcel among the 100,000 covered in this atlas.
Since locating a specific parcel is the purpose of this atlas, this Tool
Script is automatically started when the atlas starts.
It can also be closed and restarted later using the ?binoculars? icon
it adds to the icon tool bar. The
Tool Script generates a form for you to set up your owner name or address search
criteria. This is illustrated on
the accompanying 2-sided color plate entitled Property Finder Tool Script
and an excerpt from the script is described on its reverse side.
This
simple search form is designed using the XML approach provided in the TNT
geospatial scripting language. The
same form could be built using Visual Basic.
It provides tabbed panels to set up the search as either address oriented
or owner name oriented. When the
user has completed this very simple form and pressed the Search button, a fast
indexed search will find the parcel, outline it, and zoom in centered on it.
If your entries in the form are not specific enough to define a single
parcel, a list of candidate properties is presented from which you can then
choose the one of interest. This
Tool Script reproduced on the reverse of this color plate creates a flexible
search form since the TNT scripting
language is inherently geospatial and versatile by design.
The form it presents uses tabbed panels, drop down choices, constraints
and user feedback, sample entries, action controls, retrieval of results and
selection, and other features.
Address
Search Tabbed Panel.
The
Address Search tabbed panel provides for the entry of the street number, the
selection of its prefix from those available (for example, S, N, ?), the
street name, and its type (for example, BLVD, RD, ?).
This is illustrated in the accompanying color plate entitled Property
Finder Tool Script. Constraints will confine your choice of road prefix and
type to those available in this Lincoln
parcel owner dataset.
Some or all of this information is all you need to search for a Lincoln
property by its address. If
your entry is unique, it will zoom your view to that property.
If not, a list of properties to choose from is presented for your
selection.
Result
List Panel.
If
your address or owner name search finds a unique match and the zoom to the
parcel occurs, the Result List tabbed panel will show the complete address for
your reference. If your search
retrieved several addresses, they are presented in this panel in a scrolling
list. You can then select the
parcel of interest to complete the search and zoom to the parcel.
From
this panel you can choose the View Assessor?s Website Data button for the
unique parcel you zoomed to. You
can also select this button for a parcel on the list that you have highlighted
but not yet zoomed to. In either
case, this automatically opens your browser and takes you to the Lancaster
County Assessor?s website for the parcel zoomed to and outlined in the view or
selected from the list. This will
provide this website?s detailed ownership record of the selected parcel, which
includes a frontal photograph, sale history, a list of liens, access to the deed
of ownership, and so on. The URL
that the atlas automatically computes and sends to your browser for this purpose
will match and retrieve for the same unique parcel since the parcel layer used
in this atlas is derived from the same shapefile parcel layer and tables used on
this Assessor?s website.
Owner
Name Search Panel.
Select
this panel to search for a parcel by using its owner?s name.
Enter only a last name and optionally a first and middle name or initial.
An unusual last name may produce a unique hit whereas using ?Smith?
alone may produce a long list. Many
properties also have joint ownership names.
In this case, as shown on the plate, an owner search will find and
retrieve an ownership list even when the owners? names are listed in different
orders. Properly indexing the
100,000 records in the parcels layer ownership tables makes this and all
retrievals in a few seconds even when used directly from the DVD. Just
as above, the unique parcel or multiple owners? name and address list will
appear in the same Result List panel.
Settings
Panel.
This
panel permits you to control the action that will take place if you click the
left mouse button outside the form on the image in the view instead of clicking
the Search button on the form to complete your search.
You can also set the zoom action for search results.
Zoom
In to Location.
This
toggle is the default and will zoom 2X to the specific parcel at the position
where you click?which means, you recognize the parcel from the image/map or
from its DataTip, so go there. The
search mode is still active and the form is still open for your use.
Zoom
Out from Location.
This
toggle will zoom out the image view by 2X while keeping the search mode active
and the form open for use. This
permits you to restore more of the image and try again.
View
Assessor?s Website Data.
This
opens your browser for the cursor selected home/parcel and takes you to the
Lancaster County Assessor?s website and automatically shows you their
information for that parcel, such as a frontal photograph, a sale history, a
list of liens, access to the deed of ownership, and so on.
Search
Zoom Options.
A
number of zoom options for search results are also provided on this tabbed
panel: Zoom to Property, Zoom to Block, Zoom to Neighborhood, and Keep Current
Scale. Zoom to Property is the
default setting.
Enhanced
DataTip.
The
public user of this atlas needs to see the details on the area in a local image,
has little patience for complicated tools, wants instant feedback and to easily
explore the available tabular information for any house/parcel in the
neighborhood. These requirements
are best satisfied by instantly popping into the view the desired known data
about any property they visit using the form and/or visit by simply moving
the cursor in the neighborhood. This data must be combined from its original
tabular form into the statistics of interest using virtual fields.
It also should be restructured for easy reading using fonts, tabs, text
styling, and employing text and background color to highlight critical
information. All of this is
illustrated in the enhanced DataTip for this sample atlas and on the
accompanying color plate entitled Add Styling to DataTips.
The details on all the new features used to structure these DataTips for
use in your atlas are discussed in the TNTmips
sections below entitled Styling DataTips.
How
well does this enhanced DataTip meet the needs of public use for which this
atlas was designed? It presents all
the spatial information in an attractive form derived from several vector layers
and attributes ranging from 100,000 parcel polygons to flood zones.
None of these layers are showing by default so as not to obscure the
image layer. However, they are
showing in the LegendView and can be toggled on if their proximity is of
specific interest (for example, the locations of public bicycle and pedestrian
paths). The enhanced DataTip
automatically pops in quickly for any of the 100,000 properties in the city when
the cursor hovers over them?you do not even have to click or know how to use a
mouse, just move it. It presents
the information in a content format easily understood by anyone.
Text and background colors are used to highlight a particularly critical
issue, which in this atlas is the flood zone status of the parcel.
Image
Compression.
This
atlas has been designed around the additional idea that its public user will
have an interest in, be attracted to, and use a detailed color image as part of
this activity. The more detailed
the image, the larger it becomes. The
image used in this atlas covers the city of Lincoln
in 24-bit color at a resolution of
approximately 1 foot and was obtained from a public source.
The uncompressed version of this image was 49.7 GB.
It has been compressed 12 to 1 to fit on the DVD as a
lossy JPEG2000 raster object of 3.97 GB.
The original and the compressed 12 to 1 image are compared at a highly
zoomed level in the accompanying color plate entitled JPEG2000 Compression in
Atlases. It is difficult to
detect any differences between them.
The
display in this atlas of this JPEG2000 raster object and vector overlays at any
scale is fast from the DVD and takes only 1 to 2 seconds if the Project File is
moved to a hard drive. Using it
from the DVD in compressed form is actually faster than if it was uncompressed
since less than 1/12 the data is read from the pyramid layer for any view.
A
TNTatlas can be optionally locked so
that no other TNT product can access
its Project Files. Using this
feature and internal JPEG2000 compression of the image, it is possible to
encapsulate all the geodata used in this atlas so that none can be extracted in
its entirety and then reused in some other manner or product.
Using this approach, the user can have complete freedom of use of these
materials but could only save or print snapshots at the current view?s screen
resolution.
Startup
Control.
This
sample atlas has been designed for a specific objective and public user. However,
it still provides all the advanced features and tools of any other TNTatlas.
These include the visualization and measurement tools, sketching, GPS support,
general queries, tabular views, and so on.
The focus of this sample and your atlases is set in part by temporarily
or permanently hiding these initially confusing capabilities. The user of the
atlas can subsequently explore and discover these advanced tools or can be
advised how to access and use them by your accompanying instructions.
For example, a neighborhood planning group might want to use the
measurement tools with this Lincoln
atlas to review the impact of a public
project on their neighborhood. Or,
a high school geography class might like to learn about how a GPS operates and
relates to image or map position.
Default
Design.
Previous
versions of your TNTatlas could be
simplified by using customization to hide those features not needed and
potentially confusing to its user focus. TNTmips
has extensive controls built in via its tntproc.ini file to determine how a view
should appear when you first start or even if you patch or update.
The size and position of windows, LegendView width, startup tool,
measurement units are just a few examples. These permit your many changes to the
defaults to be preserved and reused via this file. Now
your TNTatlas 7.0 can automatically
use these same settings via the TNTatlas
startup file (*.atl). More on this
topic is illustrated in the accompanying color plate entitled Greater Control
Over TNTatlas/X Startup.
Custom
Startup.
A
TNTatlas can provide special custom
tools you develop in the TNT
geospatial scripting language (SML),
such as discussed above and in the accompanying color plate entitled Property
Finder Tool Script. These
interactive tools can be very specific and important to the focus of the user of
the TNTatlas.
Anywhere in your atlas you could pop in HelpTips to instruct the user to
choose a specific tool. Remember, a
HelpTip is simply a DataTip that pops in after a couple of seconds for any
cursor position to provide instructions such as ?Choose the Property Finder
icon above to locate any property by address or owner name.?
Since HelpTips are actually delayed-appearance DataTips, the instructions
they provide can even be changed by the position of the cursor.
In
TNTatlas 7.0 it is no longer
necessary to expect that its user will subsequently discover your key tool by
locating its icon or menu entry from your instructions or by chance.
You can now designate that your SML
script be activated when the atlas starts with a layout that contains the custom
tool saved for use with that particular layout.
Using this new feature, the sample Lincoln DVD atlas starts up in a
fashion that focuses its user directly upon what they are interested
in?locating a house/parcel. It
does not distract or confuse them with the other visible or hidden tools, which
they might be more inclined to try later if they get interested in what this
atlas can do and if they have initial, uncomplicated success in its use.
Lincoln Sample Atlas.
Details
on the use of this sample TNTatlas
can be found in the ReadMe files
(ReadMe.doc and ReadMe.txt) on the DVD. The
sources of this public data and general information about the objects in TNTmips?
internal format are provided below. All
object sizes listed include subobjects.
The
property parcels vector object included on the DVD was provided by the Lancaster
County Assessor?s Office as a 94.2 MB shapefile (size includes auxiliary
files, such as the database and projection).
This vector object represents the official quarterly property parcels
dated 29 March 2004.
The imported vector object after additional modifications is 138 MB with
polygonal topology and includes 100,099 polygons, 266,214 lines, and 175,737
nodes. The original database
structure has been modified to include virtual fields, standard statistics
tables, and tables tailored to speed owner and address searches by the Property
Viewer tool. This vector object
uses map scale control so you don?t waste time displaying a solid mass of
parcel outlines. This vector can be
drawn when you zoom in beyond a map scale of 1:40,000.
Many
of the other layers were obtained from the City of Lincoln
and Lancaster County Geographic
Information System Map Shop (www.ims.ci.lincoln.ne.us/...
[link obsolete]).
All of these files were downloaded
in shapefile format (*.shp).
Street
centerlines is a 12.0 MB vector object with 5,400 polygons, 18,002 lines, and
12,629 nodes. The complete
shapefile was 14.1 MB. Elements
from this vector object were extracted to supply two separate vector objects,
MajorStreets and MinorStreets, to provide faster initial display of this TNTatlas.
The MajorStreets vector is 3.28 MB with 4,855 lines and 4,299 nodes with
planar topology. The MinorStreets
vector is 8.37 MB with 13,134 lines and 11,259 nodes with planar topology.
The MajorStreets vector is visible when viewing the full extents of the
atlas. The MinorStreets vector
comes on when you zoom in beyond a map scale of 1:15,000.
Both turn off when you zoom in beyond a map scale of 1:4,000 because the
streets are easily seen in the orthophoto layer.
Only the MajorStreets and MinorStreets vector derived from the street
centerlines are used in the atlas, but all three vector objects are included on
the DVD.
Floodplains
is a 2.3 MB vector object with 525 polygons, 1,368 lines, and 935 nodes.
This layer is hidden by design and can be turned on by you at any map
scale.
Lincoln
schools are represented by a 74.5 KB
vector with 68 polygons, 70 lines, and 68 nodes.
This layer is hidden by design and can be turned on by you at any map
scale. The complete shapefile from
which it was imported was 48 KB.
County
schools are represented by a 33.2 KB vector with 21 polygons, 29 lines, and 22
nodes. This layer is hidden by
design and can be turned on by you at any map scale.
The complete shapefile from which it was imported was 15 KB.
Historic
Districts are represented by a 35.9 KB vector with 20 polygons, 38 lines, and 27
nodes. This layer is hidden by
design and can be turned on by you at any map scale.
The complete shapefile from which it was imported was 12.1 KB.
Bicycle/pedestrian
trails imported with additional database modifications became a 528 KB vector
with 96 polygons, 671 lines, and 585 nodes.
This layer is hidden by design and can be turned on by you at any map
scale. The complete shapefile from
which it was imported was 511 KB.
Onstreet
bike trails imported with additional database modifications became a 292 KB
vector with 9 polygons, 167 lines, and 176 nodes.
This layer is hidden by design and can be turned on by you at any map
scale. The complete shapefile from
which it was imported was 266 KB.
Planned
county trails imported with additional database modifications comprise a 62.4 KB
vector with 7 polygons, 67 lines, and 67 nodes.
This layer is hidden by design and can be turned on by you at any map
scale. The complete shapefile from
which it was imported was 37.3 KB.
School
districts are represented by a 96.1 KB vector with 90 polygons, 182 lines, and
125 nodes. This layer is hidden by
design and can be turned on by you at any map scale.
The complete shapefile from which it was imported was 81.9 KB.
The
cities layer used in this atlas was derived from TIGER data (*.rt1) originally
produced by the U.S. Census Bureau and downloaded from GeoCommunity (www.geocomm.com).
The
city boundaries used in this atlas were made by dissolving polygons in Lancaster
TIGER 2002 data. The complete TIGER
2002 data in its original TIGER format is 16.8 MB and after import is 14.3 MB. This
city vector object is 54.5 KB with 13 polygons, 13 lines, and 13 nodes.
The
townships layer used in this atlas was derived from data downloaded from
Nebraska DNR (www.dnr.state.ne.us/databank/statewide.html)
in shapefile format.
The
township vector object is 57.6 KB with 24 polygons, 57 lines, and 34 nodes.
The township names were added by consulting other maps.
LincolnOrthophoto.
This layer is a 12:1 JPEG2000 lossy compression raster, 3.97 GB,
mosaicked from data available from seamless.usgs.gov that was obtained from City
Ortho Imagery (www.mapmart.com/module/cityonefoot.htm).
The data was obtained in numerous MrSID 10:1 compressed tiles totaling
4.66 GB on two DVDs. These were
batch imported into uncompressed raster objects and mosaicked into a single 46.6
GB raster in TNTmips, which was then
JPEG2000 compressed to a 3.97 GB raster. If
this mosaic had been done in RV7.0
rather than an early DV7.0, the
separate compression step would have been eliminated?you can now compress
directly to JPEG2000 in the Mosaic process.
It is also not necessary to import the original tiles unless you want
them separately in TNT?s internal
format for some reason. The
mosaicked raster object has 145,000 lines and 115,000 columns.
The
elevation layer used in this atlas is derived from data downloaded from Nebraska
DNR (www.dnr.state.ne.us/databank/dem.html)
in DEM format (*.dem). Nine
10-meter resolution rasters with elevation in feet were mosaicked into a single
raster object with 4,247 lines and 3,273 columns that is 29.0 MB.
Afghanistan
Sample Atlas.
The
sample data for this atlas has been deliberately designed to fit on a CD.
For example, only the Kabul
area is covered by the very detailed
map sample and maps are available for downloading at most scales for much larger
areas. Using a CD will permit
almost anyone with a computer to try this atlas, which is of importance in this
example because it may potentially be used in areas where even electricity is
hard to come by. However, please
note that by using compression methods, such as JPEG2000 and others, a large
collection of sample data has been included.
More information on the purpose and features of this sample TNTatlas
CD can be reviewed on the accompanying color plate entitled Afghanistan
Atlases on CD.
Choose
from the 4 different atlases on this CD to experiment with the use of different
types of maps and images and scale-range control.
Each of the four atlases has its own GraphTip/Display Control Script
application. These new interactive
features are illustrated on the accompanying color plate entitled GraphTips
in the Afghanstan Atlas. These
new capabilities are discussed and illustrated in detail later in this MEMO in
the sections on GraphTips and Display Control Scripts.
However, since you might not have the data used in these subsequent
illustrations, they were easily adapted to be tried as part of this sample TNTatlas.
Demographics
& Hazards.
The
Demographics & Hazards atlas
includes theme maps in Project File format of population and urbanization at the
province and district level as well as a number of externally linked files that
provide additional information on population and urbanization, climate, food and
health care availability, and presence of landmines.
The population and urbanization geodata use province and district
boundaries, both of which were imported from shapefiles that were 357 and 718
KB, respectively. In Project File
format, the province boundaries are 309 KB and the district boundaries are 664
KB. As you zoom in, scale control
is used so that provinces are replaced by districts that are also theme mapped
to reflect population or urbanization. The
Demographic & Hazards atlas
demonstrates a GraphTip that pops in to display the name of the province, the
urbanization of the province presented as a pie chart and a percentage, as well
as the total population for the province.
Planimetric
Maps.
The
Planimetric Maps atlas shows
province boundaries at full view highlighting the province that contains Kabul
.
These are the same province boundaries described for the Demographics
& Hazards atlas using different display parameters.
You can zoom in and scale control will replace province boundaries with
district boundaries, or click when the HyperIndex Navigator is the active tool
to open a large (approximately 33" by 23" if printed full size)
planimetric map in PDF format for each province or a smaller map (half size in
each dimension) for each district where you click.
There are about 53 MB of maps in PDF format linked to the provinces and
districts. These maps present
settlements, boundaries, rivers, and roads.
The scale of these maps varies with the size of the province or district.
The GraphTip for the Planimetric
Maps atlas enlarges the label(s) beneath the cursor to make it readable
at any scale without all labels being so large that the map is obscured.
This GraphTip also deconflicts labels that are overlapping, enlarging and
positioning them out from their initial map locations with leader lines to their
original map position.
Country
Image Maps.
The
Country Image Maps atlas
initially presents a color-coded, 16-bit elevation raster for Afghanistan
.
When you zoom in, this atlas replaces the elevation raster with a Landsat
image sampled to approximately 60-meter resolution with 10:1 lossy JPEG2000
compression and a variety of map scale controlled vector layers.
The GraphTip for the Country
Image Maps atlas shows the nearest road line segment in profile.
The Country Image Maps
atlas includes a country-wide Landsat mosaic initially obtained as 6 files in
MrSID format compressed 35:1 for a total of 493 MB.
This file was imported and JPEG2000 compressed to 160 MB (including
pyramids) although a direct comparison cannot be made because the extents of the
original and that incorporated in the atlas are different.
The elevation raster was acquired in SRTM format (*.hgt, 456 MB) then
imported and JPEG2000 compressed to 133 MB including pyramids.
This atlas also includes a variety of vector overlays imported from
shapefiles for roads, airports, province and district centers, and hydrology,
all of which were imported from shapefile format.
Kabul
Maps.
The
Kabul Maps atlas provides maps of
the city of Kabul
and surrounding areas at five
different map scales. The initial
view of this link positions these maps over the same 16-bit, color-coded,
elevation raster of Afghanistan
seen with the Country
Image Maps atlas with the addition of these maps in their geographic
positions with instructions to zoom in. How
well features match across maps of different scales is demonstrated by zooming
in to the indicated area. The Zoom
In tool is the active tool for this layout, so you just have to click where you
want to zoom. The area of
comparison shows the seams between 1:10,000, 1:50,000 and 1:100,000 maps.
Maps at 1:200,000 and 1:500,000 are also included at this level of the
atlas. The GraphTip for this atlas
provides the slope and aspect of the topographic surface at the cursor location
both graphically and in text form. The
collection of Russian topo maps in MrSID format (30:1 compression) as they were
obtained was 18.1 MB. They are now
in internal Project File format with lossy, best quality JPEG2000 compression
and occupy 114 MB including pyramids.
Miscellaneous.
The
GeoToolbox permits viewing of cross sections in the other TNT
products. This feature is now also
available in TNTatlas and its use
can be reviewed from within your TNT
product by consulting the Quick Guides entitled Cross Sections with Style
and GeoToolbox from within your TNT
product.
The
default width of the LegendView when a TNTatlas
is autorun can be set as well as the DataTip viewing mode via the *.atl file.
The
specific tool that will be active and immediately usable (in other words, its
icon depressed) when a TNTatlas is
opened can be set in the *.atl file.
The
?navigation? icon buttons can now be removed using the TNTatlas
Customize window.
Only
minor modifications and adjustments were made in these products since RV6.9
was released. TNTserver
is now built weekly on the same schedule as the other TNT
products and weekly patches are posted. A
TNTclient can specify the type of
image to receive using a menu (in other words, send results as JPEG, JP2, PNG,
or SVG). A client option is
available to display/not display a list of hyperlinks if only one hyperlink is
available in the atlas at the point selected in the TNTclient.
A transparent panning button can be optionally added/not added by the TNTclient
at the edges of its view. TNTserver
uses UTF8 encoded strings for queries when used with an up-to-date
servlet engine (such as Tomcat 3.3.2).
DV7.1 ?
Supporting OpenGIS?s Web Map Service (WMS).
This following WMS section was in the
MicroImages MEMO entitled Release of RV6.9 of the TNT Products as a
planned feature for TNTserver 7.0.
Other priorities in other products prevented this work from being
undertaken. It is now underway so
these sections are being repeated here from that previous MEMO.
Introduction.
MicroImages
is currently extending the TNTserver
to implement the protocol specified for the Open Geospatial Consortium?s (OGC)
Web Map Service (WMS) V1.1.1 (see www.opengis.org/specs/?page=specs). When
this is available, TNTserver will
still access a TNTatlas layout and
return either a JPEG, JP2, PNG file(s) or a SVG layout, but will then respond to
requests issued using either the WMS or the current TNT
protocol.
What Does It Add?
A browser-based client or any client can
issue requests to any available server implementing this WMS protocol and expect
it to respond correctly if it has implemented that particular feature of the
protocol. As a result, this new
version of TNTserver will also
respond to any of these clients written by others that issue WMS requests.
Conversely, a client you write or sample TNTclients
written by MicroImages can issue requests to any WMS site as well as TNTserver
and combine the results as appropriate. Furthermore,
supporting requests using only the
WMS protocol will not require the use of the Tomcat servlet engine with TNTserver.
Clarifications.
Supporting WMS protocol indicates that a
server will respond to requests that come to it using its documented protocol.
The designation that a server (for example, TNTserver)
implements WMS 1.1.1 protocol does not mean that it will respond to every
possible WMS request to it. It also
does not prevent that server from responding to requests in any other additional
protocol it may support as an alternative to or extension of the WMS.
Whether or not a server responds correctly or at all to a specific
request can vary widely. Almost all
server products listed as supporting WMS are in one category on the OGC
site (see www.opengis.org/resources/?page=products)
designated as ?Implementing
Products, that is, software products that implement OpenGIS Specifications but
have not yet passed a compliance test.? Thus,
a close inspection of this OGC listing of server products reveals that at
present, only 3 commercial server products are certified by OGC as WMS 1.1.1 ?Compliant
Products, that is, software products that comply to OGC?s OpenGIS®
Specifications.? These must
be further qualified by OGC adding that ?Compliance
tests are not available for all specifications.?
It is also important to understand that a
server?s implementation of WMS 1.1.1 may be restricted to responding to
requests in that protocol. Thus,
the designations that a product implements WMS does not mean that the server can
issue requests in WMS or any other protocol to other WMS sites either locally or
over a network such as the Internet. To issue such requests, the server must
support the additional capability of acting as a client to other WMS sites.
Cascading Service.
The use of the terms ?client? and
?server? in this context can be confusing because they are popularly used to
indicate the software implementation for the end users, such as the party using
the browser or other human interfacing product.
However, in a generic computer sense, being a server indicates a source
of information that will respond to an inquiry.
Thus, if the server product supporting WMS has an embedded client capable
of issuing requests in WMS protocol it is called a Cascading Web Map Service (CWMS).
The WMS 1.1.1 specification states:
?A
?Cascading Map Server? is a WMS that behaves like a client of other WMSes
and behaves like a WMS to other clients. For
example, a Cascading Map Server can aggregate the contents of several distinct
map servers into one service. Furthermore,
a Cascading Map Server can perform additional functions such as output format
conversion or coordinate transformation on behalf of other servers.?
Price Reduced and
Functionality Expanded.
| Drastic
reduction in TNTview price of 50%
for NAFTA and 58% for all other nations for use on a Mac, Windows, Linux, and
Unix platforms. |
Summary of Features.
Regardless
of what product you or your institution may now be using for your professional
GIS and image analysis, you and your associates and clients can also add and use
the most advanced geospatial visualization product available.
You can use it with a wide variety of popular geodata files to view 3D,
stereo, manifolds, atlases, pinmaps, routings, and other complex visualizations without
purchasing additional expensive extensions. It
also comes with a suite of interactive geospatial tools and a geospatial
scripting language to add your own tools and analyses. The only optional feature
is for printing larger than A3, A4, or 11" by 17".
Assemble
and use geographical overlays in 2D or 3D with composite legends, DataTips,
GraphTips, measurement tools, and so on for direct display without import
of large files of ESRI shapefile, LizardTech MrSID, ER Mapper ECW, Oracle
Spatial, and ODBC linked tables together with JP2 (JPEG2000 compressed file),
GeoTIFF, JPEG, and PNG, with any raster, vector, shape, CAD, or database objects
in MicroImages internal Project File format.
Hundreds of other raster, vector, and CAD formats can be added to a view
after they are imported.
Add
MicroStation DGN and Autodesk DWG to this list via DV7.1
and then RV7.1 along with the new
ability to double click on any of these formats to automatically open a
2D view in TNTview of any of these
geodata layers.
Directly
view these composite layers in any ISO/EPSG Coordinate Reference System they use
for their internal georeference or via a companion external file such as a world
file (for example, *.tfw, *.jgw).
Use
all the TNT selection tools, such as
direct element, query, regions, and others to interactively select elements from
any layer, internal object, or externally linked file.
Display attributes in single record or tabular form.
Use
any of the standard analysis tools such as sketch and save as CAD object,
measure, View-in-View, regions, and others.
Create,
add, use, and distribute your own geospatial analysis scripts for use with these
geodata including Tool, Macro, Display Control, Startup, Process, Import, and
other scripts, link to and communicate with external Basic, C, or Java programs,
or use the TNTsdk to extend this
product.
New
Prices.
Fixed
License:
TNTview 7.0 is now US$500 per
copy worldwide (formerly US$1000 NAFTA nations of USA, Canada, and
Mexico and formerly US$1200 for all
others).
Floating
License: TNTview
7.0 is now US$600 worldwide per each seat, which is each simultaneous user.
Adding
the large format printing option to a TNTview
to print layouts and images greater than A3, A4, or 11" by 17" is
unchanged at US$1500 for each user.
Items
in Package.
TNTview
will be delivered on a CD for the operating system specified.
The
package includes a USB Software Authorization Key and a serial key can be
specifically requested for use with Unix workstations only.
The
tutorial booklets entitled Displaying Geospatial Data and Navigating
will be included printed in color.
The
other tutorials and Quick Guides applicable to TNTview
will be installed from the CD, can be viewed online from within TNTview,
and can be printed locally as needed.
Relationship
to TNTmips.
TNTview
is a subset of TNTmips, which is
available on every supported platform including the new 64-bit version released
with V6.9. The processes in TNTview
and TNTmips use the identical code. TNTview
provides all of TNTmips that deals
with the management and 2D and 3D visualization of geospatial data but does not
support its creation or export. TNTview
provides about 25% of all the code making up TNTmips.
Your Software Authorization Key or floating license determines the subset of TNTmips
that will be installed and available for use with your TNTview
license. Various sites are already
using separate floating licenses (but one Software Authorization Key) to serve
out their independently licensed seats for TNTmips,
TNTedit, and TNTview.
Try
it Free.
Try
TNTview free as long as you like, no
time limit, with all your smaller GIS datasets or our samples by downloading TNTview
as part of TNTlite from
microimages.com/tntlite/. TNTview
provided as part of TNTlite is
identical to the professional TNTview
you buy in all aspects except it limits the size of the geodata it will work
with.
Characteristics
of Licenses.
Fixed
License.
A
fixed license is controlled by a physical Software Authorization Key, which must
be attached to a USB or serial port on your computer to permit TNTview
to operate. The USB key, and
therefore your license to use TNTview,
is completely portable and can be moved freely among computers using any of
popular operating systems supported by the TNT
products: Mac, Windows, and Linux. Simply
plug this key into the USB port and download and install the appropriate version
of TNTview for the specific
operating system. TNTview
portability is further ensured by an identical user interface and operation on
all platforms and complete interchange of your geodata sets without conversion.
Floating
License.
One
or more seats on a floating license are controlled by a physical Software
Authorization Key attached to a USB or serial port on a computer on your
network. This computer, which can
be using any operating system supported by the TNT
products, must also be running the floating license management software.
As many TNTview seats as your
purchase authorizes can then be checked out to any computer on that network and
these computers can be a mix of all popular operating systems (Mac, Windows,
Linux, and Unix). Separate seats
for TNTedit and TNTmips
can be ordered for use with the same USB or serial key and software license
manager.
©MicroImages, Inc. 2010 Published in the United States of America
11th Floor - Sharp Tower, 206 South 13th Street, Lincoln NE 68508-2010 USA
Business & Sales: (402)477-9554 Support: (402)477-9562 Fax: (402)477-9559
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