21 October 1999
Testimonials and other Tidbits (V6.20)The following are some of the complimentary written comments and related interesting items received at MicroImages during the last semester exactly as provided except for the [edit] alterations in [brackets] to keep them anonymous where necessary. Many more 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. From GeoWorld Magazine The following is an excerpt from an article discussion of 21 NT-based GIS software packages. The products of ERDAS, ER Mapper, or ENVI are not reviewed in this comprehensive review of GIS systems! PCI is included by way of the SPANS product it purchased several years ago. "Founded in 1986, MicroImages Inc.’s flagship product, TNTmips usually gets attention as an image processing system. In fact, the package does GIS and a lot more. MicroImages’ product line consists of TNTmips (image processing, GIS, CAD, RDBMS and more), TNTedit (for editing geospatial data), TNTview (for visualizing and interpreting data), TNTatlas (for publishing spatial data on CD or other media) and the newly released, Java-based TNTserver (for Internet access to TNTatlas projects)." "To get an idea of the functionality offered users can download the free TNTlite product and give it a spin; it has everything that TNTmips does, but works only for ‘lab exercise sized’ datasets. TNTview is a desktop mapping/GIS product meant to compete directly with ESRI’s ArcView GIS product." "MicroImages’ products are available for many computer platforms, including the Macintosh and Linux. The product continues to support perhaps the widest peripheral input and output devices of any GIS/image processing product. Users can incorporate their own proprietary C-language using the TNTsdk development kit (for $300). Pricing for TNTmips ranges from $3000 to $8000 for NT. TNTview is available for $1,000" [The price for NT is not $8000 on the Intel, but only up to $6000.] This was extracted from NT-Based GIS Software Is on the Rise. NT-based GIS packages are abundant in today’s marketplace. Here’s an overview of the products and features offered by 21 NT-based GIS vendors in North America and Europe. By Lee A. graham, Senior GIS/Remote Sensing Specialist, Houston Advanced Research Center, 4800 Forest Research Drive, The Woodlands, TX 77381. This article appears in the July 1999 issue of GEOWorld, pages 34 to 41 and in the July 1999 issue of GEOEurope, and now at www.geoplace.com/gw/1999/0799/799gis.asp. From MicroImages clients using TNT professional products Extracted from an email from Brazil on 10 May 1999 "I have an SML application which presents an interface with a series of buttons. Pressing each button displays a different pre-prepared group." "Normally the groups are designed to display the results of a specific query using a certain style." "Now, however, I wish to add a new style of interactive query to a vector in such a way that it will have the same consequences as when applied by the Select_y_Query... option on the menu presented by the Select/Deselect icon of the layer controls. In other words I want my query to select the appropriate records in all the related or attached tables, and to highlight the selected polygons in the outline vector." "How should I do this?" [An example of what others are doing with SML] Extracted from a report from an international location on 10 May 1999 [Provides a short description of an SML script] "This TKP [SML TurnKey Product] was prepared for the military, late December 1998. The assumption of the DEMO was:" "There are 2 separate army units in the field, marked with blue and red flags. The decision maker has to plan a route for beating the other side, considering the land use, drainage, slope, and viewshed. … " [More complicated, innovative, dedicated geospatial sample products are being created as the SML language expands. This demo had a 3 way split screen showing 2D and 3D views, a movie showing the path, and so on.] Extracted from an email from Brazil on 11 May 1999 "The basic Datatip feature of MIPS is fairly limited in its ability to present information because a Datatip can normally only display the contents of one field of data from a single table. If, however, the field displayed is a String Expression field the possibilities for displaying complex Datatip strings suddenly seem to be almost boundless. This use of dynamic fields with Datatips is such a powerful feature that I resolved to make maximum use of it." "Initially I created multi-line Datatips which displayed 7 or 8 lines of facts about my polygons. This worked fine until I decided to add another 6 lines to each Datatip. This is not unreasonable in terms of the resulting size of the Datatip box, and allows the user to access a huge amount of information very rapidly." "Unfortunately my attempts at adding the 6 new lines soon ran into trouble. I discovered the 255 character limit for String Expression fields (same as for ordinary String Fields)." "I resolved my problem temporarily by creating a second String Expression field for my Datatips. Now my original vector layer calls the first Datatip field to present the first 7 or 8 lines of my Datatip, and a second vector layer (added only for this purpose) calls the second Datatip field to present the remaining lines." "It is a great pity that I have to resort to this extra complication, when a simple doubling or quadrupling of the upper size limit for String Fields would give me all the space I would ever be likely to need for this purpose." "Any chance of you ‘upping’ the maximum size for String Field Expression fields?" "Better still would be if Datatips themselves could display dynamically generated strings, instead of single field values. This way I would need neither the second (otherwise redundant) vector layer, nor the Datatips table of String Expression fields. This would also allow me to tailor the format of the string displayed according to the type of polygon I was displaying for." [DataTips started out as simple little pop-in presentations of a designated field for a single layer and closest element. They are now being used for a lot of other things, such as above.] Extracted from an email from another nation on 3 June 1999 "In January we paid for our TNT-based system about twice over, when we purchased a large (200kmx100km, 4846 samples) geochemical dataset from the [a source] and analyzed it to locate the best anomalies for further exploration. I’ve been thinking we should write it up for Computers and Geosciences. We used TNTmips to divide the dataset spatially based on 4 geological categories and 2 climatological categories, then were able to determine individual anomaly thresholds for each of the 8 categories. Finally we used a single query to display points highlighting the anomalies for different elements. The layer of points was combined with various other layers we had prepared in advance, and we were able to rapidly select areas over which to apply for the rights to explore. The applications were being presented in the country’s mineral rights offices only 2 hours after receipt of the data. [Personal names] received the CDrom at 10am and the geologists were working with anomaly maps by 2pm. Our nearest competitor arrived to submit concession applications two days later–too late." [It also helps that these are very experienced TNTmips users.] Extracted from an email from the USA on 4 June 1999 "I really like the new layout [LegendView] in v.6.1–I can spread the main view out and work from there for most of the controls–makes things go faster." Extracted from an email from South Africa on 4 June 1999 "I’m really impressed with the release 6.10, installed last week. What a rocket it is, compared to 5.8, when displaying rasters, almost immediate viewing of a 400mb raster on screen, with a 450 MHz Pentium II, 256 Mb RAM. I like this not having to wait around for large rasters to be viewed!" "Thanks for sending the latest upgrade and the email." Extracted from an email from the USA on 9 June 1999 "I received my marching orders today and it appears that an APPLIDAT is very much what is needed to solve the ‘situation awareness’ problem I spoke of while visiting last Thursday." Extracted from a FAX from the USA on 22 June 1999 "I have been involved in a large aerial photo interpretation project as an expert witness. I am plowing my way through a 300 page written version of my 9-hour deposition (given in June). My corrections to this deposition document are due to the lawyer [in 4 days]. I have spent about 100 hours on this case since May when I was brought into the case. It involves the determination of the ‘historic natural flow’ of a (very) intermittent creek in [a very expensive locale] that experienced a very heavy flood during the El Nino rains of 1998. Basically, I have built a multi-layered GIS with TNTmips from historical photos running from [the 1930s to current] plus a couple of historical maps (and a USGS 30-m DEM thrown in). I have vectorized many of the contour lines and stream flow lines on the maps. The USGS DEM was not of sufficient quality to be of much use in this case. The case goes to court in August. The other side has requested copies; they, of course, want this in ArcView compatible files. Wait until they try to display large rasters (geoTIFF) in ArcView. If they have Image Analyst, this might be a more pleasant experience." [TNTmips goes to court against ArcView. This client should have countered immediately by requesting that the opposition supply their expert witness materials in TNTmips formats.] Extracted from a FAX from Australia on 27 July 1999 "Thank you for such a quick response to my query. Your customer relations are about the best that I have ever seen." Extracted from a FAX from Canada on 27 July 1999 "The company I represent, [a name] has supported MicroImages for over 3 years based primarily upon my recommendations. [Our company] began two and a half year development project upon our purchase of the first TNTmips license in 1996. In that time [our company’s] geospatial capabilities have grown at an exponential rate due in part to the innovative software development approach adopted by your organization. TNTmips has been the cornerstone of our mapping and modeling toolbox and we have been active in promoting the software and its functionality to several of our forestry clients who have been staunch supporters of ESRI products. The nature of our ecological research has allowed us to develop close relationships with the planning departments and decision-makers within major forest companies and they are always quick to comment on the impressive features available within TNTmips. ... It has always been a pleasure using MicroImages’ products and I want to emphasize the important contributions that TNTmips and various other software made to [our product]. The custom SMLs that have been developed for [our product] cannot be easily replaced by another software program so it remains the core spatial analysis tool within the mapping process. ..." Extracted from a FAX from the USA on 22 September 1999 "Thanks for your quick thinking over the phone. As usual, your support staff is very helpful. The training set categorization will give me great flexibility, plus not take a long time to accomplish. I just want you to know that your support is greatly appreciated. Good work, carry on."
From MicroImages dealers Extracted from an email on 25 May 1999 "First of all, let me thank MI Team for 6.1. I just got it yesterday and spent the night reading the Memo... Like someone said, it’s like Xmas when a new MIPS version arrives..." Extracted from an email on 2 June 1999 "Things went well in [a state]. The ranch operator who purchased mips was somewhat in awe of what they purchased. The manager I was training stated quite directly that they got more than they ever expected." "I think we have a shot at mips going into [a location]. Their GIS operator [using Arc/Info and ArcView] was somewhat taken aback by how much we could do with imagery on the spot over the conference table [using a portable]. I seem to live on the edge in sales calls doing things in response to the flow of conversation. This time, things went virtually without a hitch." Extracted from an email on 8 June 1999 "First I would like to tell you that this version of TNTmips is very good and the new LegendView make easy to view the layers." [continues on with problem report] Extracted from an email on 11 June 1999 "G3 Mac is quite no difference from Windows in performance, no complaint for speed. G3 seems fast indeed." Extracted from an email on 24 June 1999 "The last two days I held the training course at the new clients site using release 6.1 and found this release worth to change to. And the clients found that TNTmips will fit their purposes." Extracted from an email on 2 July 1999 [The dealer is discussing here a request for a quote for more GIS systems issued by a major international city currently using a single TNTmips.] "Other aspect to note is the requirements for the GIS software that requires to have orthophoto capabilities, DTM generation, 3D animations, which will reflects well some of the TNTmips capabilities, and will be a lot more difficult or at least lot more expensive to have in other packages." Extracted from an email on 2 July 1999 [The dealer is discussing here why a survey agency of a large international city has ordered a TNTmips.] "Their reasons for choosing TNTmips was that TNTmips could do the task of georeferencing and resampling scanned maps and then exporting the resampled raster as TIFF for further use with MapInfo. Intergraph also offers the opportunity to resample rasters but fails if the raster size is higher than 5 (five!) magabytes! As we were told, the resulting raster lacks every second line."
Extracted from an email on 13 July 1999 "Thanks for the tip, and explanation about call backs. Actually, the way callbacks are handled in SML is easier than in IDL [used for ENVI]. In IDL, you had two codes. An event handler code, and a response code. The data structure handed to the event handler had to be created by the user. In SML, these data structures are already members of the base classes of the call back. I should have a function written to handle that event, should it occur. Very slick." Extracted from an email on 14 July 1999 [The following comments are from someone who frequently downloads the latest SML process. They are commenting here upon the addition to V6.20 of the ability to use scripts within scripts added to SML.] "Fantastic!!! include files in SML and scripts to check for functions. This will make the establishment of SML libraries very easy, useful and shareable. Kudos to MI once again." Extracted from a FAX on 20 August 1999 "The TNTatlas concept and TNTserver is now becoming the big selling point–of its own. I’ve much to discuss with you here, but it seems that big companies now have data coming out of their ears, in total disarray, in all sorts of formats, and all over the place. How to pull it all together? The old TNTmips stalwarts like [a name] and [another name] remembered in the back of their minds that thing called TNTlink that nobody really saw much use for in the past. The realization that all this data can be sucked up into TNTmips, be rationally organized and made accessible to all for viewing (for free!) over an intranet using TNTatlas, has finally sunk in. This is causing a TNTmips revolution in [a company] and the plot will be hatched when I return from [a trip] in late September. Once a TNTmips user, always a TNTmips user, and although [a name] was forced to use ArcView he never let [the company] forget the folly of their decision, and he’s about to remind them in a big way that their solution lies with TNTmips." Extracted from a FAX on 5 October 1999 [Response to an inquiry related to the application of several TNTmips units and a TNTserver, which have subsequently been shipped.] "Here is an information on what they plan to do using TNT products:" "1) They will digitize about 12,000 pieces of A3 sized 1/25,000 scaled soil maps and village boundary maps. The 15 user TNTmips will be used for this work. (Using another of the single processor-single user TNTmips)" "2) They have about 60 [subdivisions of the nation], and they will develop a TNTatlas from the soil maps and distribute this product to each [subdivision] facility." "3) The investments done to villages will be centered as a database for the village boundaries map of [the nation], which will be produced in section (1). This data will be developed in TNTatlas and will be served [prepared and served] through the internet, using the other TNTmips key and the atlas product [in other words, TNTserver]." "This is a project that we have been working on almost 3 months, and finally we have managed to overcome the pressures of Arc/Info and satisfy [the government agency]. If we successfully develop these projects, and distribute the TNTatlas, this will be the only ‘finished and working’ investment done in [our nation’s government]. The government has made many investments with Arc/Info, but they could not operate and produce anything yet. The outcome of this project, if successfully finished, will be the invasion of TNT products in governmental institutions (we hope)." From a prospective dealer Extracted from an email from Canada on 5 May 1999 "Our primary business areas are value-added imagery and geospatial information products, GIS and remote sensing applications, and systems integration. We focus on the rapidly growing geospatial information market in Asian, especially in China. So we opened our China branch office in Beijing, also we have office in Shanghai. We have good relationship with most of important remote sensing-related organization, such as National Remote Sensing Center, National Geomatics Center of China, Institute of Remote Sensing Application of Chinese Academy of Sciences etc. Also we have many clients in Local government." "Some of our clients are very interested in your TNTmips product. Compared to ERDAS Imagine, PCI, ENVI, ER-Mapper, MapInfo, we find TNTmips offers a fundamentally superior integration of raster, vector, CAD, TIN, database and text materials therefore no struggling with complex intercompatibility issues. With TNTmips you have it all in the one software package." "We would like to use TNTmips in our oncoming projects. Also we think TNTmips will have a bright potential market in China. So we would like to become an authorized dealer of your products. Could you please give us more detail information about it?" From TNTlite users Email from Canada on 19 February 1999 [Responding to MicroImages’ support] "Thanks Melanie. I’m using TNTlite 6.0 so that explains it. Great program!" Email from Canada on 10 March 1999 "As discussed earlier with you [via phone], I received the TNTlite software image processing and GIS and I think it is a very helpful tool for students and academic works in remote sensing and GIS. Since there is no French version of this software, and taking into account that remote sensing studies are getting more and more popular in high schools and universities, I was wondering about the possibilities of an agreement between MicroImages and [an academic institute] for the French translation of the software and tutorial. The [Institute] develops image processing algorithms (filtering, texture, segmentation, classification) and is also one of the most important center for remote sensing in Canada and among French speaking countries." Extracted from an email from the USA on 10 May 1999 [This TNTlite user is associated with USGS in Denver and is working through the hyperspectral analysis processes in TNTlite. He is using a Power Mac 7100/66 with 32 MB of memory and virtual memory set to 64 MB. This is one of the earliest and slowest Power Macs and was introduced at least 4 years ago.] "Some good news: I tried the matched filtering algorithms on a small subset of the AVIRIS cube I have, using library spectra as reference, and it worked BEAUTIFULLY!!!!!! Fast too." "I’ll try re-running an unmixing on my subset, and see if I can view those results." "I’ll try and find a way to get you my .rvc file." "Some info:" "System: Power Mac 7100/66, 32 MB RAM (virtual memory set to 64 MB)" "Atmospheric correction is set to equal area normalize, and NONE for the dark target correction. Wavelength and bandpass are set normally, and I can view image spectra just fine." Email from Norway on 14 May 1999 [This correspondent subsequently purchased the professional version of TNTmips.] "I downloaded the free TNTmips program from your website a while ago and I am very impressed by the software so far. It really fills a lot of gaps compared to e.g. ArcView Spatial Analyst and other similar programs. However, I am not able to find the add legend menu... is this because it has been disabled in the free version?" "I am very tempted to buy the software for research purposes, but I would very much like to test the commercial ‘full-scale’ version for a while first. Is this possible? Could you also mail me some pricing information?" [This party was using V6.00. It is clear that what he is looking for is the LegendView feature that was introduced in V6.10, and he was sent a new CD. We hope that many who now try TNTlite 6.1 come to the same conclusions relative to ArcView plus Spatial Analyst plus Arc...] Email from Australia on 14 May 1999 "... now that they’ve completed their harvest and all the growers are looking around, it looks like there’s a great interest in a lot more business there next year. Our customers ended up getting the best yields in the entire valley, and our most dedicated one (the one who used our maps for all kinds of management purposes, irrigation scheduling, spray scheduling, insect control and soil decisions) almost doubled everyone else’s yields. Consequently, you can imagine the interest all the other growers have been showing after tallying the numbers." Email from the USA on 9 June 1999 [This is most unusual feedback. The user obtained unclassified samples of the DTED level 1 and level 2 DEMs from NIMA so that the TNTmips import/export for these could be checked. The samples were forwarded. TNTlite is getting around when unknown users do this.] "At http://164.214.2.54/mel/data.html there is a sample NIMA data over Killeen TX, Also at http://www.wood.army.mil/TVC/tb2data/cd)data.htm, home to the TerraBase 3.0 software there was a sample RPF (CIB) and I think some elevation datasets. On another note, I have been using the TNTlite software for quite awhile. Recently I downloaded version 6.0 for WIN95 and it is definitely an impressive piece of software. Do you have a beta tester program?" Network Chatter Few of these questions and answers in any of the following network exchanges were made by clients of MicroImages. In fact, MicroImages does not know most of these people and has not had any direct contact of any kind with them. Subsequently, several have contacted us and purchased TNT professional products. Posted on comp.infosystems.gis by Eric Miller on 23 November 1998 "After browsing this newsgroup for awhile, I wonder if anyone uses TNT-Mips/TNTlite? I’ve been using TNTlite for about a month and a half on my Linux machine, just to check it out. It has some really cool features that just smoke ArcView and are much easier than Arc/Info." "Haven’t used all of the features/aspects... I’ve been doing a little change detection studies with NALC data, and was pleased to find several variant formulas built in (though algebraically they’re pretty simple..). I couldn’t figure out how to do something similar with ArcView without writing Avenue code (belch!), Arc/Info’s easy enough in Grid but you still have to look up all those commands and parameters and then write AMLs...." "Anyway, I really dig the fact they (MicroImages) have a system that can run on Multiple Platforms *easily* and the files can be shared between Macs, Windoze, Unix’s without conversion. Also they don’t spread so many damn files all over the place, instead using a single RasterVectorCad file system. Their GUI needs an update, but hell it’s the ease of use and the output that matters. Anyway, I’m just looking for other peoples opinions on their product (not salespeople!)." Response posted on comp.infosystems.gis by Robert L. Sanson on 24 November 1998 [This correspondent subsequently purchased the professional version of TNTmips.] "I have been trying out TNTlite for about the last month or so. It is a very comprehensive system (image processing, vector topological, CAD (non-topological), surface modeling), and it seems like they usually give you several algorithms to pick from for each process you want to run." "I’m still trying to get to grips with their database system though. Instead of providing functions for things like computing centroids of polygon features (like ArcView), they include them in an internal table (like Arc/Info), however I haven’t figured out how to get them from here into other tables (I’m not sure how they attach attributes to spatial features)." Response posted on comp.infosystems.gis by a MicroImages client on 29 November 1998 "TNTmips product are very, *very* good." "Another unsolicited testimonial. Just a mostly satisfied customer." Extracted from an email from anonymous on 8 December 1998 "I just downloaded the Mac 68k version of TNTlite from your website." [continues on with a question] "Just a quick aside, Congratulations on your documentation. I downloaded some of your booklets and was very impressed, both by the content and the style. I am also very impressed by the range of features included in you product. One last point, I think having a uniform product for all the platforms is a great idea!" Posted on comp.infosystems.gis by Orin Durey, freenet.carleton.ca on 13 December 1998 "Anybody familiar with any GIS that will run on Linux? I saw a post that suggested GRASS. Any others?" Response from Russia posted on comp.infosystems.gis on 23 January 1999 "Check TNTlite (www.microimages.com) if you can download 100 Mb, you can get free trial version (although with some limitations)." Extracted from a posting on comp.infosystems.gis on 23 January 1999 "TNTmips will run on Macs using MI/X server. Check out http://www.mi-croimages.com. They have some impressive figures about the speed of their software on the new iMac. You can try out a free version, just needs a key to become fully operational, that’ll give you an idea of what you can do with this software. It’s a pretty powerful package with good support for a variety of file formats. It does GIS, Image Analysis, CAD. The software isn’t exactly cheap though, so it may be more than you need." An exchange on comp.infosystems.gis on 26 January 1999 [Question] "I was hoping one of you could help me with the following problem: I have two scanned images which in part cover the same area. I want to register one to another in such a way that I can use these images in multispectral analysis. In other words, I do not just want to align features (georeferencing) but I want to resample to the same grid so pixels match geometrically. I am using MicroImages’ TNTlite but I would also like to know if other software packages offer solutions for this kind of problem." [Response from a MicroImages client] "If you know the resolution of your input images (which you should), I think this can be done with TNTmips under the Extract menu. You can define areas from each image that ‘match’ and extract them. If you use the same sized area for both, and both images were scanned at the same resolution, then they should overlay properly–provided relief displacement and such aren’t issues. It may take some playing to get images to match properly, without georectifying them." Extracted from a posting from Canada on comp.infosystems.gis on 10 February 1999 "In addition there is TNTlite from MicroImages, free for download, but with some restrictions on the size of files, and import/export capabilities, but for a student it should not be a problem." An exchange on comp.infosystems.gis on 19 March 1999 [Question from Canada] "As a follow up to my last message, my focus is on which companies are targeting universities, colleges and technical institutes with their software. I am aware that ESRI seems to own the market in the States but am wondering who the underdogs may be and also has a presence in Canada and Mexico." "I am trying to compare various academic programs that each company offers, specially for the following software: Remote Sensing, Digital Photogrammetry, GIS, Mapping, Image Visualization." "Thanks for any input, thanks for those that have already replied." [Response from Texas] "While they don’t target academic programs, MicroImages’ TNTmips (http://www/microimages.com) pretty much covers the topics you are interested in, and there is a student version called TNTlite (http://www/microimages.com/products/tntmipsfree/) which is very inexpensive ($10 for CD or $50 for CD and 1000 pages of tutorials). These programs do not have market dominance but do have an international distribution. In addition there is a student workbook that can be used with either program." Email from unknown on 19 April 1999 "I have encountered two problems/issues running TNTlite v6.0 on my Power Mac 7100/66 (32MB RAM)." [2 problems followed relative to using library spectra and endmembers in the hyperspectral analyses.] "Otherwise, the new hyperspectral analysis capability of TNTmips is quite powerful an well thought out. Bravo!" Posted from Australia on comp.infosystems.gis on 20 April 1999 "Hi all, Interested to know how many out there are into TNTmips, and what you think of it. I’m fairly new to it but am quite impressed with its range of capabilities. Especially impressed with TNTlite, price (free) documentation and datasets." "Is there such as thing as a discussion list or FAQ site?" [A TNTmips FAQ will be up by the time you read this.] Response posted on comp.infosystems.gis from Florida on 28 April 1999 "MicroImages’ website (www.microimages.com) has much info that is of a FAQ in nature. There was a short-lived discussion list, but it was terminated (don’t know why)." "As a user of both the old DOS-Based MIPS, and the current Win9x and Linux versions of this GIS package. I am extremely satisfied customer. The folks at MicroImages don’t spend a lot on advertising, but they do on continuous development of their software (FOUR upgrades/year)." Email from a computer science department in Japan on 22 April 1999 "I greatly appreciate permission to include your free product MI/X in our [student] CD-ROM. And, if you don’t mind, I would like to include TNTlite too. I didn’t know about TNTlite before, but now I have checked the web-page out and think it is really useful for our students. Well, I know you re also providing a free copy of CD-ROM including TNTlite. But it is difficult for us to distribute one more CD-ROM for all (over one hundred of) students [in computer science]. Anyway, it helps to make directory tree within our CD-ROM to send me a copy of your CD-ROM. Please send to the following address." Question posted on the agis-l@listhost.ciesin.org on 31 May 1999 "I have just bought Atlas*3.0." "Is there a downloadable patch to bring this up to the later 3.03 or 4 version to allow me to use the chart addin and the raster layer tool." "What is the best way of getting DXF files into Atlas. All the base maps I have available are in DXF. Unfortunately, I need a cheap of even free solution." "Finally, with ESRI offering an upgrade to ArcView cheaper that an upgrade to Atlas 4.0, what are the advantages of sticking with Atlas. I have found Atlas easy to use and I believe that learning curve is much greater for ArcView. However, superficially, judging by the sales literature, ArcView is more powerful. As it is unlikely I will ever be able to afford the ArcView addons such as the Spatial Analysis tools, and comparison needs to be with each program straight out of the box." Response from someone on AGIS-L on 3 June 1999 "You should try the people at MicroImages (www.microimages.com) they have an Edit module that imports and exports from literally everything. I have no clue as to its full functionality and cost but I would suggest that you give it a go." Question posted by jircas.affrc.go.jp on a list server on 4 June 1999 "Does anyone know ‘TNT atlas server’ by MicroImages, Inc. (Nebraska U.S.A.)? This application recently joined the Web GIS tool’s world." "‘Autodesk MapGuide’ and ‘Intergraph’s GeoWeb’ are insufficient to operate Database directly, I think." "‘ESRI’s Internet Map Server’ series use the only raster type maps. Then those could increase the traffic through Internet because of the size of the raster type files." Posted on comp.infosystems.gis by Marin K. http://www/hi.is/pub/gis on 9 June 1999 [Response from GISland, The GIS of Iceland, to the question posed by someone of: I am trying to find packages other than GRASS.] "What about TNTmips? It is CAD, GIS, RS software. They have TNTlite version which is free. I tried it under RH Linux. It is great. Check out http://www.microim-ages.com/." Question posted on comp.infosystems.gis by Albert Wang from yahoo.com on 14 June 1999 "Hi! I am graduate student on environmental engineering, and like to learn something on GIS. I am reading on the GIS books and manuals, and experimenting on ArcInfo, ArcView. But feel tough, since I lack of basics, e/g/ understanding projection, UTM ..... Could friends tell me what topics I should learn first, e.g. what kind of books I should read now? I don’t want to study everything on geography, just like know things necessary for GIS, for a shortcut. Thank you in advance."
Response posted on comp.infosystems.gis by John Zastrow from uwm.edu on 20 June 1999 "Download the Getting Started PDFs from www.microimages.com, then use the HTML reference manual. The student version is fully features and <$50. The documentation, though proprietary, is written by a bunch of ex-academics so they provide good generic info." Question posted on comp.infosystems.gis by D. Miller from usit.net on 15 June 1999 "I need some help. I am going to set up a GIS to integrate geologic hazards with other applicable data for land planning. I will have funding to buy whatever I need. There is the problem. I’m new to the field and I am trying to learn as quickly as possible what software applies to what and which is the best for various tasks. It is difficult to get an objective answer on this subject. I know that your first question is ‘what are you going to use it for and what do you want it to show you?’ I want to be able to use diverse sources of data as well as data that I input myself. I want to combine this data with surface geology, wetlands information, property maps, well data, environmental data, etc. I need the ability to print maps at various scales." "I need opinions on which is the best overall given enough fund to buy what I need. Any input will be valuable to me. I hope I don’t start a war asking this question." Response posted on comp.infosystems.gis by Marin K. http://www/hi.is/pub/gis on 16 June 1999 "Of course–TNTmips. It is CAD, GIS and RS software. This is probably the best software your money can buy. These is TNTlite version which is FREE! You can install on UNIX, Linux, Windows, Mac. Check out http://www.microimages.com/" [MicroImages appreciated these unsolicited comments on this list from someone who had downloaded TNTlite, so we sent an offer to Marin K. to send him/her the latest TNTlite 6.1 CD.] Response from Marin K. http://www/hi.is/pub/gis on 19 June 1999 "TNTmips (lite) is really an amazing product. I like this CAD/GIS/RS/GPS integration. I prefer CD to be used for Windows (and Linux)–if it is possible." [Both CDs were sent.] Another response to the same inquiry on comp.infosystems.gis by John Zastrow at uwm.edu [He is a graduate student using TNTlite and TNTmips at the University of Wisconsin at Madison] "I second the motion. They have new geologic styling features implemented as well. These style you lines based upon common geologic/cartographic line styles based upon attributes attached to the lines." Question posted on comp.infosystems.gis by tparsons at internorth.com on 16 June 1999 "I need to produce double precision GIS files that can be saved or exported out in .E00 ArcInfo format and use Arc/Info extended data models such as ‘regions’." "Are ArcInfo and Autocad Map my only choices or is there any cheaper double precision GIS software that can do this." Response posted on comp.infosystems.gis by John Zastrow at uwm.edu [He is a graduate student using TNTlite and TNTmips at the University of Wisconsin at Madison] "TNTmips or TNTedit GIS. www.microimages.com" Question posted on comp.infosystems.gis by Piotr Irlik at kki.net.pl on 18 June 1999 "Hello, I’m currently using MapInfo on Win95, but I’d like to change platform to Linux. Do you know any GIS programs working with Linux. I’m especially interested in programs such as MapInfo and ArcView." Response posted on comp.infosystems.gis by Jan Iven, rz.uni-sb.de on 18 June 1999 "http://www.linux-center.org/en/applications/gis/index.html gives GRASS, OpenMap, TNTlite (and supposedly TNTmips (which is payware)) and SPRING." Question posted on comp.infosystems.gis by Nicola Lonetti from pitogora.it on 22 June 1999 "Hi there. I’m new to this newsgroup. I’m looking of a g.i.s. software. At the moment I’m using an obsolete version of Arcview... which is the best/diffuse/portable g.i.s. software. Thanks in advance." Response posted on comp.infosystems.gis by Marin K. http://www/hi.is/pub/gis on 23 June 1999 "Of course–the best is TNTmips. This is CAD, GIS, RS software. This is probably the best software your money can buy. You can install it on UNIX, Linux, Mac, Windows. These is TNTlite version which is FREE! The documentation is great and it is FREE also. Sure–this is the coolest GIS around. Check out http://www.microimages.com." Response posted on comp.infosystems.gis by RemaQ from http://www/hi.remarQ.com on 24 June 1999 "So the best part of mips is that it is free? Hard to argue with that." Response posted on comp.infosystems.gis by Marin K. http://www/hi.is/pub/gis on 24 June 1999 "The best is TNTmips. This is real GIS/CAD/RS software. Use TNTlite which is free. Be real! Go to http://www.microimages.com. GIS GAZE." Response posted on comp.infosystems.gis by Marin K. http://www/hi.is/pub/gis on 25 June 1999 "read the posting one more time!" Further question posted on comp.infosystems.gis by GIS GAZE from my-deja.com on 1 July 1999 "Sure? Can you install it under Linux, Unix, or Mac?" Response posted on comp.infosystems.gis by Chili con Queso from student.badger.wisc.badger.edu on 30 June 1999 "I use TNT Mips as well as the ‘industry standard’ tools. I have used TNT Mips for 7 years." "I am a GIS researcher as well as an analyst and perform most of my work with TNT Mips, converting to other formats when required to converse with my colleague. However, I do not believe a GIS researcher can perform with only ‘one tool in the toolbox’." "I concur with John Zastrow’s recommendation (with caveats) of the GeoWorld review. A major missed point through is that the reviewed ‘image processing’ software." "It seems the industry is still stuck in the mindset of evaluating GIS, CAD, Image Processing, Cartographic Layout, Data Conversion, Data Editing, Surface Modeling, etc. etc. etc. as separate packages. When these all share the same foundation as any GIS ie spatial data, period." "TNT Mips is the only package I am aware of which is an expert and ‘hybrid’ GIS. That is, I consider all of the above to be lumped into GIS. All of these systems deal with spatial data." "TNT Mips is a ‘hybrid’ GIS which has all of the data import/export and manipulation tools to handle the various data structures and theory required by each of these different areas." "It is an expert system in that it (in my opinion) requires a higher level of thinking that encountered with the other ‘industry standard’ tools (of which I have 7 years of experience)." "In my opinion, this company performs 180 degrees from ‘industry standard’ companies. For example, there is no such things as ‘modules’ or ‘extensions’ with TNT Mips. It is a complete package. Sooner or later you’ll end up using all the capabilities. In my opinion, ‘modules’ and ‘extensions’ is how the ‘industry standard’ companies lure you in. Also, as John Zastrow alluded to, the software engineers are constantly updating the software, fixing bugs and implementing new concepts. Therefore, the look, feel, and functionality improve on a weekly basis." "In general, I find that I am able to concentrate on the semantics of my geospatial research and processing, and less on the syntax. My mind is more free to imagine what we could be instead of constrained by the very old raster/vector dichotomy which still (regrettably) exists in today’s market. I do not embrace the ‘one size fits all’ mentality perpetuated by the ‘industry standard’ packages." "If you are curious about real results, you are welcome to inspect the results of TNT Mips processing I used to complete a cartographic design project: http//rs320h.ersc.wisc.edu/ersc/about/profiles/pages/pap/geog 572/baca.htm. Cheers, C con Q." Question posted on comp.infosystems.gis again by my-deja.com on 25 June 1999 "Is there any conversion tool out there that will take a ARC Export, ARC shape or an ARC coverage file and convert it to an file that MapInfo can read? anyone?" Response posted on comp.infosystems.gis GIS GAZE from my-deja.com 28 June 1999 "YES! FREE SOFTWARE! GO TO http://www.microimages.com/downloads/mapinfo/ OR http://www.bluemarblegeo.com/products.asp?id=5" Question posted on comp.infosystems.gis by Paolo from soilmec.it on 7 July 1999 "Dear Sir," "I’m a newbe in GIS world and I found on microimages site the TNT software for free. Is it a good product? Which are the features and differences with arcview? Many thanks." Response posted on comp.infosystems.gis from Chili con Queso from student.badger.wisc.badger.edu on 7 July 1999 "Paolo," "It is not clear who you are addressing with the ‘Dear Sir’. However, please allow me to comment on your question." "It is my impression that at present ArcView is mainly that, a viewer for data. The user would have to purchase extra modules, download or develop extensions, etc. to achieve the functionality of TNT." "However, I believe that TNT requires a much higher level of thinking to master its capabilities. This does not mean that a new user could not perform work analogous to ArcView. Indeed, with V6.1 TNT has an optional LegendView which matches and extends that available in ArcView." "What I mean is, skills to work with the ‘industry standard’ products is a reality of today’s market. I use several packages to conduct my work and research. But if you want to push the bounds of research and productivity, I’d invite you to compare TNT Mips to ArcView yourself by installing TNT Lite and trying it out. TNT Mips is what I use most of the time." "Open questions like this are much too wide. Defining a specific task would be a more fair and clear way to understand similarities/differences." "Regards, C con Q." Question posted on www.agriculture.com/scgi/agtalk/discuss_user.cgi from the USA on 10 July 1999 "Anyone else out there frustrated by buggy software? Would you like to try another product but don’t want to reenter 3 years of GPS history? What’s out there in GIS land that works better" Response posted on www.agriculture.com/scgi/agtalk/discuss_user.cgi from Germany on 14 July 1999 "Try TNTMips, they have a full free version which is very versatile and can do all you need. The only restriction for the free version is, that the size of the single file you want to work on is limited. But for most farming works it is still enough." Question posted on arcview@listbot.com by Colin Finney from ic.ac.uk on 24 September 1999 "Hi. I’m relatively new to ArcView and am having trouble sorting my projections out. I’m trying to overlay NWI [National Wetland Inventory] files (which come as UTM projection zone 11) over geotiff image files that come as Teale Albers Projection of California. Despite using the Projector extension, as well as the Teale in the same view. Any pointers anybody can give me, or web resources to consult, would be gratefully welcomed. Yours in ignorance." Response posted on arcview@listbot.com by Ray L. Harris from san.rr.com on 24 September 1999 "AV group. Colin asks a very fundamental question, ‘How does the software handle data in different projections?’ I responded to this question over 6 months ago, and was promised it would appear on the [ESRI moderated] webpage http://home.earth-link.net/~tpudoff/srosa-avug.html. It never showed up, as Bill Huber has experience. So I am sending my response to Colin’s question to everyone on this list (see bottom of this email for full response)." "But first let me give Colin his answer–You can’t get there from ArcView unless their latest Projector Utilities have greatly improved. To use the so-called ‘projector’ extension, your data must first be in latitude longitude coordinates, essentially unprojected. You cannot use the projector extension to go from UTM to Teale Data Center projection." "All AV users should ask the fundamental question, ‘Why should my software care if I have multiple maps in different projections?’ The software vendor should be able to display any map in any projections that covers the same geographic area. If not, the vendor is making your life difficult, and telling you to pay more money to buy some 3rd party extension. If you would like to know which software package can dynamically display data in any projection (without physically reprojecting it first), send me an email and I will give you the answer. If you are stuck with ArcView, then get their reproject utility or buy the Blue Marble thing." Response posted on comp.infosystems.gis by Ray Harris from san.rr.com on 24 September 1999 "The only software I know that will dynamically project data layers is MicroImages’ TNTview (actually all their products can do it)." "TNTview does not need to reproject the data from 4 different sources. The data stays in its respective format. For example, I can display 1:100k scanned topographic quads in Teale Data Center projections with USFWS NWI data in UTM. I can even change the projection coordinates that read out on the screen. I then can take my laptop into the field, plug in my GPS and check my data live in real time. It costs about $1000 and does everything ArcView plus can do (that’s about $6000). You can try it out by downloading TNTlite, the academic version for small projects." "If you need any more info, let me know."
Question posted on arcview@listbot.com by Matt Wilkie from gov.yk.ca on date unknown 1999 "I’m interested in what solutions the listers have come up with for dealing with grids/images in a multi-user ArcInfo/ArcView environment." "We are currently developing a new Grid dataset (a very large elevation model) for eventual inclusion into our main Arcdata library and at the moment don’t really know how to split it up to make it accessible to our ArcView users." [It has been reported in many places that ArcView is very slow dealing with larger rasters.] "The main Arcdata library spans a region of ~50 tiles. The individual tiles are projected, while themes covering the entire region are in unprojected lat/long. The grid will also (most likely) be unprojected." "How would you set it up so any ArcView user could access the elevation grid specific to their area or interest (usually only 1 or 2 tiles) without loading the whole region? How do you deal with the projected/unprojected issue? What about the overlap ‘nodata’ areas in adjacent grids? What software package would you use?" [Any experienced user of the TNT products knows the answers to all the questions he has posed–they do not exist within the TNT products.] [Do not worry about lat/long versus unprojected versus projected–TNTview is transparent to varying coordinate schemes and projections.] [TNT products do not "load" large rasters but only the pyramided tile(s) requested–TNTview is raster size transparent in operation–same display performance and speed for any size of raster.] [His "nodata" areas would simply become null areas–TNTview is transparent to null cells, and apparently ArcView is not.] Response posted on arcview@listbot.com by Ray L. Harris at san.rr.com on 1 October 1999 "I addressed this exact issue last week. (refer to the msg ‘AV Response: projection problems’, Sept 24/99)" "The only software I know that will dynamically project data layers is MicroImages’ TNTview (actually all their products can do it)." "TNTview does not need to reproject the data from 4 different sources. The data stays in its respective format. For example, I can display 1:100k scanned topographic quads in Teale Data Center projections with USFWS NWI data in UTM. I can even change the projection coordinates that read out on the screen. I then can take my laptop into the field, plug in my GPS and check my data live in real time. It costs about $1000 and does everything ArcView plus can do (that’s about $6000). You can try it out by downloading TNTlite, the academic version for small projects." Response posted on arcview@listbot.com by Matt Wilkie from gov.yk.ca on 1 October 1999 "The TNT line of products does indeed look impressive. What is especially interesting (to me) is their policy of quarterly updates [now semester updates] no matter what. How many times have we heard ‘will be released Real Soon Now’? Of course quarterly updates is no guarantee the features you want will be there. It should be noted their flagship line of products is a great deal more expensive than noted above. It is jarring that the price increases ~$1k for every screen resolution increase ($6k for 1280x1024x24bit). Still TNT would be worth investing in depth for anybody not already hitched to a particular product." [Obviously, he is stuck on a raster management problem that does not exist in the TNT products. However, this is nice feedback from someone whose original question implies that he is a serious ESRI product user and has no previous contact with MicroImages or our products. He simply went to microimages.com and explored the materials provided there.] [However, what this respondent has missed is that he is using ArcView and asking how to handle large images in it. TNTview is $1000 and would not have the problems listed, so what does this have to do with the price of TNTmips? The ArcInfo product he wants to use to prepare the grids is certainly more costly than the TNTmips or TNTedit needed to prepare the same materials for use in TNTview, and it sounds like a lot less preparation and subsequent management of the geodata than would be involved in the TNT domain.] Email from Canada on 8 October 1999 [From someone still using W3.1, for which TNTlite 6.1 is not available] "Thanks Kelly. If your product works as well as the fine service that you’ve given me, I should be able to get my task done in good time. Thanks for hunting up that older copy for me, I’m looking forward to getting it. I’ll let you know how well I’m able to make out with the CD version." MI/X server This semester, MI/X has been published on a CD distributed in Sweden to 3000 students by the Royal Institute of Technology and distributed with Hungarian CHIP Magazine. Email from hotmail.com on 8 June 1999 "I use the MicroImages X server and I want you guys to know that I have never had any problems with it. Don’t ask my why I decided to write and say thanks for the good work you guys did. I just feel to say thanks. So here it goes. Thanks for the MicroImages X server. It is truly a robust piece of software that does what it is supposed to do and does it well." Email from ujf-grenoble.fr on 30 June 1999 "I just downloaded your MI/X product. You’ve done a beautiful job, very helpful." Email from overstock.com on 15 October 1999 "BTW, I just wanted to let you know that your software rocks. You could charge 100 bucks for it and I’d still buy it." AtlasGIS is Fading Extracted from a posting on agis-l@listhost.ciesin.org on 1 October 1999 [This posting is from someone known to be a dedicated, long-time user of Atlas GIS.] "It is with much sadness that I write this message. Recently, I spoke to senior people from ESRI about the future of Atlas GIS and they have confirmed that ESRI will not be ‘aggressively’ developing Atlas as they will ArcView and other ESRI products. This has possibly been evident to you in the ‘few’ people it has allocated to the Atlas GIS production team. In addition, it seems that ESRI have far too many products in their stable which means that in the past they have not been able to focus as much as they would have liked to. Thus, there is a concerted effort it seems to focus on the new ArcInfo 8 and Arc products like ArcMap in the immediate future. This makes sense." [ESRI’s actions in this area have not "made sense" to this dedicated Atlas GIS user in any of his many, previous postings to this locale.] 
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