26 September 2005
Testimonials and Other Tidbits (2005:71)
This
document in PDF ...
The following are some of
the complimentary written comments and related interesting items received at
MicroImages since the shipment of version 2004:70 of the TNT products
exactly as provided except for the comments and edit alterations [shown in
brackets] to keep them anonymous where necessary.
Additional favorable comments are received by MicroImages by voice
but cannot be reproduced here verbatim as quotes.
Please note that these quotations are not edited from their original
form in spelling, grammar, punctuation, and so on, and many are written by
those whose first language is not English.
MicroImages clients using TNT professional
products
Extracted from email from England
on 10 December 2004
“New patch loaded and works
fine. I am glad that this is
now resolved as it was starting to look difficult.”
“Thanks
for your help and efficient response (we have just agreed to purchase an
extra license so you must be doing something right!).”
Extracted from a FAX from an
International site on 31 January 2005
“I am now writing this fax
with my brand new iMac G5 20” machine and this feels fine.
I have managed to install TNT V7.00 products, too.
I followed your advice to wait for Apple’s possible new releases
and that is the reason I moved my Mac purchase till now.
“Several reasons I changed
to Mac: G5 processor and 64-bit capabilities, coming and existing as you
clarified my knowledge about in your fax, security compared with Windows
OS’s which are full of different viruses, worms, spyware etc., Mac
prices have came down and are quite able to compete with PC branches, and
to run TNT products more efficiently.
I am also planning now to buy PowerMacs for my group.
“So, this iMac G5 I did buy
on my personal desktop at [my
organization]. When I
get wealthier I’ll provide my home with Macs as well.
I am standing quite alone with this choice, but regarding my
position at [the organization], I have quite influence of coming procurement
and as you see, I have several issues to go to Mac within my group.
At the moment my group consists of [a
number of professionals including PhDs].
“About the acceptance of
TNT products I have no difficulties versus ArcSomeThing for the noisiest
Arcuser in my group left [my group]
and he was replaced by a person who understands spatial data management.
Shortly, I have changed the approach of GIS of the whole [organization]
during my [short] stay here and
today I had the evaluation of my work with my superiors and they were very
pleased about my work.”
Extracted from email from the USA
on 31 January 2005
“I spent about a
‘month’ trying to uninstall ESRI ArcGIS 8.3 off my standard Dell
workstation so that I could load ArcGIS 9.0.
“This was a bit frustrating
since it took only about 20 minutes to download and run the TNTmips 7.0
upgrade via the internet!
“Thanks again for making my
life a little less painful.”
Extracted from email from Spain on
1 February 2005
“Congratulations for the
excellent Profile tool that allows the user to create cell value plots in
multiple rasters. The fact
that the rasters don’t have to be displayed and can be in different
projections is impressive. This
is a very important feature for my work, too often I had to use other
software just for checking ‘z-plot’ across spectral values.”
Extracted from email from Romania
on 12 February 2005
[This is from a German consultant
who has been setting up TNTmips for use in several sister cities.
The profiling tool he is referring to is the SML interactive
profiling tool described in the color plate released with RV7.0 (see
www.microimages.com/ documentation/CP7001.htm).
In order to capture and print this profile as requested a class to
draw a view, in this case the profile, into a CAD object has been added to
SML and added to this script. Now
this sample profile script has a “save” button which reproduces and
saves it into a CAD object which can be viewed, captured, added to a
layout, and so on.]
“I have introduced the tool
for longitudinal profiles. The response is overwhelming!
Profiling a chainage of canal reaches [actually
means sewer and water pipe network] enables [the
organization’s] staff to immediately identify errors, either in
database or in the field survey or in the design.
With this functionality the GIS-system is accepted as a real
engineering tool, even by most of the traditionalists who remianed
sceptical for a long time. However,
there is the very understandable desire to have the profile on paper, not
only on the screen. Finally
the profile is all a sewer engineer/designer is interested in.”
Extracted from email from Romania
on 10 March 2005
“Thank you very much for
the revised profile script. It
works nicely after installation of the V7.0 patch of 9 March 05 which I
downloaded from your FTP site for TNTlite.
“It is exactly what the
local GIS-Group needs and I am sure that many other clients will
appreciate it also.”
Extracted from email from Egypt on
22 February 2005
“We visited [an
educational organization] from 2-3 weeks, they have 4 licenses
TNTmips, and they are producing impressive maps with it.”
[actually have 6 TNTmips licenses]
Extracted from email from
Australia on 2 March 2005
“I ran the export [from
ECW file] to a BIL/BIP format overnight [for
use in an ESRI product], and TNTmips says it completed that
successfully. It is very good
that your product handles such large files (84 GB) with ease, once one
knows the limitations of the various formats.”
[took overnight since the ECW file
would have to be decompressed]
Email from the USA on 10 March
2005
“I mentioned to [a
name], editor of www.Architosh.com that I was extremely impressed
with TNTmips and thought it should be better known n the Mac AEC
community. He’s asked me to
write a review.
“A few initial questions
(I’m sure I’ll have more)
1) Are there plans to bring
over the modules not available on the Mac (server and flying around)
2) What do you see as its
strengths and weaknesses compared to specific competing products?
3) What is the history?
(I’m guessing it started as a remote sensing app and GIS came later).
4) Who are some major users?
What are your biggest market segments?”
Email from the Middle East on 16
March 2005
“Both of us has a deep
experience in GIS development, since I’m older than [a
name], I started working GPG (IBM GFIS) on Main Frame since 1990,
and I know well, how powerful TNTmips is, and the cross platform
portability, as well as, the mix between both raster and vector that does
not exist in other GIS packages. I
developed myself GIS applications on GPG (Main Frame), geoGPG (AIX),
Smallworld, ArcGIS, CadCorp, AutoCadMap, and used many GIS package such as
ErMapper, Erdas, Geomedia, WinGIS, MicroGDS, and I confess, TNTmips is
most powerful, even Smallworld itself, does not have the raster
capabilities TNTmips has.
“Last month we had a job in
the Red Sea to generate contour for sea bed for a navigation company, and
we tried several GIS software to generate contours, the best output was
from TNTmips, making raster from XYZ points then generating contour from
raster.”
[GFIS is IBM’s Geographic
Facility Information System. GPG
is IBM’s Graphic Program Generator.]
Extracted from email from the USA
on 18 March 2005
[These are comments made to a
current user of TNTmips from an associate and former user of TNTmips who,
due to a job change, is now forced to deal with his employer’s use of
ESRI’s products.]
“I miss the straight
forward way of programming with TNTmips SML.
Each object is available simply by calling it.
In ArcMap, to use an object you have to declare and set variables
to link to each object and from the original display map.
Display>Active Layer>Raster Layer>Do something.
It is like this for everything.
I guess it just takes some getting used to.”
Extracted from email from the USA
on 19 May 2005
“Tonight, I downloaded
TNTmips Version D7.1 (dated 5/18/05) and installed it.
It looks great in every way!! The
SMLs work, the Save as… option works in the Console Window, objects open
in the right TNTmips tool when the icon is double-clicked in Windows
(including groups and related layers), the new color palette for Raster
Correlation (“TwoSpace”) looks great, TNT layers instantaneously turn
on and off when show hide are clicked (if on top) … so looks like I can
now make final edits and start bringing the tutorials and scripts up to
date in D7.1.”
Extracted from email from England
on 6 June 2005
“I’ve been working with
the 3D Animation and TNTsim routines—and very nice they are too!
I especially like the ability to put in manifold layers—very
cool.”
[This client is using the DV
2005:71 since it is the first version to support the use of manifold
layers in TNTsim3D.]
Extracted from email from
Australia on 9 June 2005
“Congratulations on the
integration of Windows Explorer with TNTmips Projects Files.
This is an excellent new feature!!”
[This client is using the DV
2005:71 since it is the first version to support the use of the new TNT
Explorer based on Windows Explorer.]
Extracted from email from
Australia on 23 June 2005
“Previously my company used
TNTmips as the core image processing system with PCI as the ortho-rectification
engine for a project that involved ortho-rectifying and calibrating
thousands of Landsat scenes from the 1970s through to y2k.
The final images with GCPs and residual reports were supplied in
the ER Mapper format. Using
SML scripting and taking advantage of TNTmips ability to link external
formats, we were able to implement very efficient quality assured
procedures making our tenders very competitive in comparison to other
image processing systems.”
Extracted from email from
Australia on 23 June 2005
“Hi Tech,
“Just wanted to report that
[an error report followed].
Apart from that, I’m just starting to use Mips, and I’m loving
the flexibility so far.. keep up the good work over there.”
Extracted from email from Germany
on 28 June 2005
“Many thanks for your quick
action, that is what makes MI special!”
Extracted from email from
Australia on 29 June 2005
“Thank you for your efforts
in improving your product. We
all rely on it for our livelihoods so it is good to see the improvement
and commitment to excellence.”
[using multiple TNTmips in
commercial forest management]
Extracted from email from Germany
on 12 July 2005
[71ShellExtRMB.pdf is a color plate
entitled TNT Explorer: Right Button Features in a Folder.]
“HI Tech, just browsed
through and tried the features of 71ShellExtRMB.pdf and: WOW that is
really great! Even though the
Project File Maintenance had improved in recent years, this is a big step
forward in performance.
“I like especially the fact
that I can collect/add objects in groups using the miniature view option
in WinExplorer.”
Extracted from email from Japan on
13 July 2005
“Thank you for the
information. I’m often very
impressed about your quick response and rapid software development.
I’ll download that just after now.
Thank you.”
Earlier posting to manifold-l@lists.directionsmag.com
on 18 November 2004
[These comments are from another
list from a MicroImages client who makes his living as a geospatial
consultant with various products. After
reading these comments, he was sent a cost estimate to upgrade his TNTmips
from 2000:64 to 2005:71 at the standard prices.
Eventually he did so. His
following email from 22 September 2005 is in response to an email from
MicroImages technical support about an error being patched in 2005:71.]
“Another
interesting thing I've just been looking at (and I know this has featured
in a few discussions, and [a name]
mentioned that they're working on it) is the display time for a large
drawing (75mb e00 file) of watershed basins (i.e. areas). I double clicked
the drawing and it opened up and is still working away at displaying the
basins (quite a while now) - in the meantime I've opened up TNTmips 6.4
and displayed it in there. The initial time was about 1 minute, thereafter
redrawing took less than ten seconds (while Manifold is still not showing
anything but the red dot in the right hand corner). I then overlayed the
flowpaths (couple of tens of thousands of lines) on the basins in TNTmips,
and again the initial display time was about a minute, and thereafter
redisplaying, zooming in/out, etc/ takes less than 10 seconds. Selecting
basins or flowpaths is almost instantaneous (recolouring the line/area as
well as showing the attribute data in the table). How do they do it? I
know this has been one of TNTmips' features for many years - very fast
drawing/displaying of vectors and rasters. I've seen ArcView battling with
less, and so do all the open source products (especially the Java products
like Jump and OpenMap) that I've worked with. It takes ages for larger
vector objects to display. I'm interested in how it's done - curious. I
know there's a checkbox in TNTmips, when you import vector data: Optimize
vector for display. Also, a process for optimizing old (pre 6.4, I think)
vector layers. Any theories? What voodoo art do they use to get MSWindows
to display these things so very quickly?
“Mmmh,
no drawing yet - Manifold's still oozing along... :-) ”
[TNTmips 6.4 is now more than 4
years old, a long time in this rapidly evolving business.]
Email from South Africa on 22
September 2005
“Thanks.
This is a process I use quite often, so it’d be great to get it
to work. The clipping process
in TNTmips is so blindingly fast compared to the same in other software I
use (manifold system), that I use TNTmips preferentially. In
fact, these datasets that I took the screen capture of, I haven’t yet
managed to do the clipping in Manifold since it simply takes too long (or
alternately runs out of resources). Even
with the work-around as you describe, it’s simpler to use TNTmips.”
From MicroImages Resellers
Extracted from email from an
international reseller on 31 January 2005
“[The
University] has two computer laboratories which each of them has
15-20 computers. At present,
ESRI products, MapInfo, and PCI are the most used software packages.
They have decided to purchase TNTmips (SAL) due to its capability
of raster –vector integration. Day
by day geospatial projects are getting more complex and people need much
more functions than they have in hand today.
This is the reason why TNTmips will become the most desired
software. Thank you in advance
for your works and developments.”
Extracted from email from an
international reseller on 1 February 2005
“Thanks so much for your
interest in this project! So
far you have given me some great ideas to start playing around with as
soon as I get the data in from the city of [a
name]. I have a meeting
with the city of [a name] tomorrow,
which will (hopefully) result in me, finally getting the data I need from
them. At the very least, I
hope to get some sample data to start testing your ideas on.”
[ideas for building a TNTatlas]
Extracted from email from an
international reseller on 14 April 2005
“With regards to version
7.0 of the MicroImages products, I am very impressed to say the least.
I find the operation of the software to be smooth and fast over
previous versions and I find the processing capacity to be greatly
increased. A dataset which has
run previously for 48 hours to remove complex intersections, dangling
nodes and sliver polygons has taken just 8 hours on the very same machine
with 7.0. The display of both
vector and raster data is of higher quality and pans and zooms
substantially faster. While
they may seem like small things, it is those little improvements that are
so very noticeable for users who work with the software all day, every
day.
“The enhanced abilities
with shapefiles have been a strong selling point—particularly when
demonstrating to leads that are considering replacing ESRI products.
It is an instant attraction to think they are up and away so easily
(even when I recommend importing the data into project files for enhanced
security and management), and it endears the software greatly I have
found. The Coordinate
Reference System tool must be the most outstanding new feature though.
Nobody has really seen anything quite so comprehensive before, and
it is such a strong feature to have. In
terms of demonstrating the software, this feature, alongside the graphical
database editing and management and the comprehensive data types that can
be imported and exported, are the components of the software that
technical users are most blown away by.
While everyone loves the really clever components of image
processing and things like fly-throughs, everyday users are instantly
taken with the things that will make their lives better.
The CRS tool is definitely a standout in that regard.
“On the whole, the
improvement in the software over the past 5 versions has been quite
stunning. The development path
has seen so many releases of features that are quite simply very useful
core capabilities. This is
appreciated by the users I have talked with – each upgrade isn’t just
a warm-over of the interfaces which really helps users feel good about the
software. Well done!
“The Afghanistan atlas is a
nice piece of work too—I have been particulaly taken with the graph
tips. I am reworking one of
our demo atlases at the moment to build those in, as well as working on 3D
labeling and areas of interest. I
hope to have that ironed out soon—it’s not quite as comprehensive as
the Afghanistan atlas though. I
have also got a lot of mileage from your Lincoln property viewer DVD.
This is a great tool and we are working on a similar demonstration
with some of our own data. I
see quite some potential for getting such an atlas online as a showpiece,
so I am working towards that with both time and budget at the moment.”
…
“I hope everything else is
going well for the team there. I
am impressed with Kevin’s AtlasTalk group incidentally; there have been
some great tips on there over its life to date.”
Extracted from email from an
international reseller on 23 May 2005
“TNTmips now stands as the
most sought after integrated GIS and RS software in [my
nation] within and outside academic spheres.
The major drivers of this trend being the continued performance and
visibility of the existing systems. Of
the many numerous GIS setups in the county over the years, unusually high
mortality has been a feature common to those running on rival software.”
Extracted from email from an
international reseller on 1 June 2005
“Thank you for sending the
enormous list with the new features for 7.1.
It is really amazing how fast the MicroImages software engineers
adding new features to the TNT products.”
Extracted from email from an
international reseller on 1 June 2005
“My compliments for 7.1
release/ It seems
fantastic.”
Extracted from email from an
international reseller on 15 June 2005
“Superb—please thank
everyone involved for me—I look forward to trying it.”
[regarding new feature added per
their request]
Extracted from posting on
AtlasTalk from an international reseller on 22 June 2005
“I’m a MicroImages
reseller. I love it and I use
it a lot. For these reason I
would like to increase TNTmips diffusion.
A general mailing list is in my opinion one of the best ways to
promote software, because technicians love mailing lists and almost all
TNTmips users are technicians.
“I do not think to a
general TNTmips mailing list like something that can replace MicroImages
official support. MicroImages
support is for me one of the best things of MicroImages.
They are always very kind and competent.
A mailing list is for me a way to know people with the same
interest of yours, it’s a tool to build new ideas, it’s a place where
you could increment your knowledge.
“The success of a mailing
list depends from its users. But
I think that TNTmips users should be also good mailing users.”
Email from an international
reseller on 23 June 2005
“I’ll try, but I want to
thank you very much. You have
made something of incredible: you have installed [my
language] XP to help me. Once
again thank you for all.”
Email from an international
reseller on 24 June 2005
[responding to email indicating a
new feature has been added]
“I didn’t realize I had
requested it but it sure is overdue. Using
v7.1 right now and have to say very happy with what I see.”
Email from an international
reseller on 24 June 2005
[with regard to TNT Explorer]
“Thank you for this info.
Thumbnails mode is wonderful.”
Extracted from email from an
international reseller on 24 June 2005
“Both error reports we have
sent to MI this week show that there is nothing more to improve in
reaction time and quality of MicroImages software support.
Our suggestions are just meant to make your work more easier.”
Extracted from email from an
international reseller on 12 July 2005
“Last week we have been out
to the [a name] conference at [a city].
We have had a small booth there showing TNT products.
Besides that I gave a lecture on “Advantages of topologic editing
of vector geodata”. This has
quite been a real success. Lots
of people came over to our booth afterward stating that they really have
been amazed about this feature.
“But what’s even more is
the fact that a federal administration wants to extend the ESRI products
base by means of TNT products. They
have needs in both remote sensing and editing of geometric data.
Friday next week I will go out to [a
city] to give them a introduction to TNT products.
Afterwards I will leave our TNTmips key there as a loan key for a
period of four weeks, it is not unlikely [i.e.,
it is likely] that this will lead to the sale of several TNT
products. The interest of
those people is really serious.”
From TNTlite users
Email from the United States on 6
January 2005
“This is from [a
name] at the Northwest Missouri State University.
I would like to express my appreciations of you effort on putting
up your TNTmips software evaluation (TNTlite license) for educational
purposes. We have used your
TNTlite license for our ‘online students’ in learning remote sensing
basics. It seems a perfect fit
for our ‘online students’ using geospatial software because they are
not physically on campus. They
took great advantage of the free TNTlite license when they work at their
location. Thank you for making
TNTlite license available.
Email from Germany on 31 January
2005
“Finally TNTlite is running
on my laptop. Great!
“I had a telefon call with
the people of the German provider DE632 [a
German reseller] and they were very helpful.
Fantastic.”
Email from Germany on 18 April
2005
“We have a pool of
approximately 60 machines on which TNTlite shall be installed.
The administrator uses a distribution mechanism to distribute the
software to activate the software to the different machines.
We would like to activate the software automatically.
Is there a possibility to enter the activation code by script or is
there some other ways to acheive this?”
[answer was no but that the
activation code would be good for 3 days and would work for all 60
machines]
Email from the United States on 30
April 2005
“I downloaded TNT from your
site yesterday. I’ve been playing with it almost non-stop.
I love it. I’m
learning Photogrammetry as a hobby. When
Google announced their purchase of Keyhole.com, and the start of of maps .google.com,
I suddenly became very interested. Many
years ago, I found a book on photogrammetry at a junk sale.
I studied it a little, then lost interest due to lack of
availability of aerial maps. However,
now with so many free sources for data, images, and software, I’m highly
interested once again. I’m
totally amazed with TNT and greatly appreciate you producing the lite
version for someone like myself. I
wish all companies did the same. There
are so many programs that I would like to have, but can’t afford the
price. For someone like me
that is just curious, and has no plans of making money from the software,
nor seeking any employment in the field, the price is just too high to
pay. Now if I did
photogrammetry professionally, for sure, the cost of your software would
be worth every dime! I know
that TNT will be fun to learn and use.
“I thank you very much for
providing me such a great learning tool.”
Comments from a download from
Denmark on 5 May 2005
“application: During the
last 4-5 years we have used the program for mapping and measuring ancient
human activity in the woodlands. The cogo functions have been used very
often, and we are very pleased with the software. Unfortunately my
harddisk broke, and could not be repaired. That is the reason for this new
installation.”
Comments from a download from
Germany on 10 June 2005
“Dieser Programm ist wunderbar
für unseren Studium. Best Dank im Voraus!
[soft
translates as “These programs is marvelous for our study. Best
thanks in advance!”]
Comments from a download from
Ecuador on 16 June 2005
“I like TNTmips is very
interesting.”
Comments from a download from
Paraguay on 26 June 2005
“I am wanting to more learn
a little on the program, being that in the year of 2000 I worked in a
company who uses the paid version of this program I finds that pra is one
program incrivel if to use in the field of the precision agriculture.”
From MI/X users
Extracted from email on 2 February
2005
“Thanks for getting back so
fast. I must say that I am
particularly impressed since the product we’re discussing costs only
$25. I didn’t expect such
great turn around given that the potential for profit is so slim.
Thanks again.”
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