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14 December 2001 Testimonials and other Tidbits (V6.60)The following are some of the complimentary written comments and related interesting items received at MicroImages since the shipment of V6.50 exactly as provided except for the edit alterations 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, etc. MicroImages clients using TNT professional productsExtracted from email from Italy on 4 May 2001 “I just received the new version CD and gave it a try. It displays vector files really fast. I have a big vector of cadastral data and it loads and displays ten times faster than V 6.3/ Impressive.” Extracted from email from an international site on 18 May 2001 “The other initiative which is starting to bear fruit is the use of GIS and Remote Sensing for mapping and managing the cultural heritage of remote [indigenous people] communities. This has many advantages in providing IT skills to younger members of the [indigenous] communities, preserving cultural heritage and transferring the cultural heritage from the tribal elder to the younger generation. In commercial terms the major advantage of this technology is that it makes the [native land claims] process more efficient in that anthropologist would no longer be required to visit all significant sites but only require the tribal elders to show where significant sites are located by reference to a satellite image and then explain the significance. At lease that is the theory, our first native title claim hearing will be held in August. I have found that [the indigenous people] have no trouble interpreting the satellite images and quickly find their way around.” … “I am pleased that TNTlite is increasingly being used for training in Universities and I expect that over the next five years as students take up positions in industry they will be inclined toward TNTmips instead of defaulting to ESRI as been the case in the past.” … Extracted from email from Australia on 22 May 2001 “I’ve just been reading the release notes for V6.5 and it looks like a fantastic effort. I particularly like the idea of an editing ‘group’, as the lack of it was a major pain: like when you have created a large display group and then you notice a problem with one of the layers… Or every time I needed to create another vector layer, I had to add several rasters and vectors and lots of different folders before I could actually do any new work. TNTmips just keeps getting better and better!” “Then there’s the new 3D features…I will have to spend a few nights at home getting used to all my new toys. Keep up the great work.” Extracted from email from Italy on 30 May 2001 “After I got a new Cube [Mac] (the old one must have had some hardware damage) I am working very well. The TNTmips is now running extreme stable. I finished all the digitizing a week ago. Now I am working with the databases to get attributes. For this work I will have to georeference some more maps with attributes.” … Extracted from email from an international site on 4 June 2001 “Had a meeting with … and … we are way ahead of them in terms of Internet delivery of spatial data (they are using ArcIMS) so that was rather gratifying and hopeful for the future …” Extracted from email from Australia on 6 June 2001 “Incidentally, v6.5 is another great upgrade by the team at MicroImages! The real challenge is finding the time to explore and absorb all the new features.” Extracted from email from an international site on 21 June 2001 “We are busy with the final redesign of out GIS Website (nothing stands still!) and have our webmaster developing quite a neat facility which allows us to get data published far more rapidly that before (i.e. no more having to write HTML pages for each atlas). We have borrowed quite a lot of the ideas from your site (access atlases directly from a menu etc.). What I would like to know is whether MicroImages have any issues in us using your compass logo as on your site to launch the atlas (kinda keeps it in the family!). We would also like to use the MI logo with “Powered By” just above that. Thanks.” [Response: We have no issues with your company using the compass to launch your atlas. All of our clients are free to use any of our materials and The “Powered By” is quite a nice touch. Perhaps your webmaster could add a link to our site so if our logo is clicked on it would bring up a separate window for our site? Just a thought.] Extracted from email from an international site on 28 June 2001 [addressed to Technical Support] “Appreciate your efforts – way beyond the call of duty – how many other geo-spatial vendors do this I wonder … !” Extracted from email from an international site on 29 June 2001 “This week I and [a military officer] also finished our design [on paper] for the MOBILE COMMAND POST (MCP) vehicle containing C3ISR systems (2 TNTmips, 2 of 18 inches LCD monitors, 2 of P4 1.4GHz, 1 Gbyte RAMBUS, 500 Gbyte Harddisk IDE, CD-writer, 36 Inches Inkjet Plotter, 40 Inches Color Scanner, UPS, GPS, Radio and Mobile Satellite communications etc.) and” [the officer presented this spec to the …] Extracted from email from Wyoming on 29 June 2001 “Hi and Goodby” “I got the results I needed by re-sampling to 28.5 m. Not that I don’t care about TNT, but tomorrow is my last day. My contract runs out here at [a state agency] after 6 years. … And thanks for all your help. I still feel that TNT is the best system I’ve dealt with! Lots of flexibility – importing so many different types of files, using raster and vectors together, etc. Keep yo the good work.” [This state agency has all the ESRI products, ERDAS, and many others.] Email from Maryland on 13 July 2001 “I know I’ve said this before, but thanks again for the ability to create template layouts. “We received a map request from the Congressman’s Office at 3:30 PM today (about 1 hour before “closing time”). [and on Friday] By using an existing map template (created for a different purpose) and making minor modifications, the map was ready within 45 minutes, including the 10-15 minutes required to print the map on the plotter. “Thanks again; the templates are a great feature.” Extracted from email from an international site on 13 February 2001 “Trust this finds you well? Just a short note to congratulate you and your team on developing the HTML Client. I had a quick look at the latest client for the first this morning and was totally blown out of my socks. It is really great. I cannot wait to get out data in the format in order for it to be accessed via the HTML Client.” Extracted form email from an international site on 29 June 2001 “From [2 names], a HUGE thank-you for all the efforts put in recently in assisting us to get the HTML client going. Although there is still a way to go, it is coming along nicely and promises to deliver some big wins for us. It is gratifying to know that when we need to deliver, we can rely on our software developers to go that extra mile. The input of Ron and [your dealer] is greatly appreciated.” Extracted from email from an international site on February 2001 “A major concern for me is in the marketing of TNTmips, as I have discussed with you on all visits I have made there. Maybe you feel I am out of line in bringing up these issues, but as a user of your product, I feel like a shareholder and therefore your (MicroImages’) success is the foundation of my success – I am extremely passionate about this software and the recognition it deservers. I also know from speaking to users at the last AUW that many others feel the same way.” [passion is good!] Extracted from email to an international MicroImages dealer from a USA State Government agency on 13 July 2001 “We have enjoyed an excellent working relationship with the staff at MicroImages since 1987 when we first started using their products. They are very helpful when we have problems, and we collaborate together on new features that my staff need to do their job. [Our program] is a product of that collaboration. Managing such a [approach] requires that we import a great deal of data from diverse sources. The data are produced in many other software packages and are often not produced or converted in accordance to file specifications. The staff at MI have always written new routines to help us, or “walked” us through difficult conversion situations. In addition, we get prompt fixes from “bugs” and the support our operation with new software features.” Extracted from email from Quebec on 13 September 2001 “We use TNTmips a lot in many remote sensing projects with the more agricultural land use survey and forest cut survey in the more agricultural regions. We also have a project with aerial photograph with [a name] to do agro-environment Atlas for about 80 farmers in two regions of the province.” Extracted from email from Germany on 20 September 2001 “Since a few weeks, I’m working with TNTmips 6.5 (not TNTlite!). Great!” Extracted from email from the USA on 26 September 2001 “By the way we had tremendous success with the DEM capability of TNT, as well as generating streamlines and basins using the water modeling tools. There are some driver issues that we will contact customer support about, nevertheless, the software has already paid for itself [in 3 months] along with the time invested into training [free training in Lincoln for 2].” Extracted from email from Canada on 16 October 2001 [regarding new Getting Starting Booklet on precision farming] “This is a great booklet and I found that it cover all the main image and data processing in precision farming. Unfortunately there is less data in our country that are distributed freely than yours (DRG, SSURGO, FSA Slides) but it’s possible to buy them though.” Extracted from email from Japan on 18 October 2001 “[A name] said they had set up a parallel processing system composed of 6 Windows PC to run C or Fortran programs that was developed by [another organization]. He said it took 3 days to complete Fuzzy-C classification using [a name’s] program and 6 parallel computers. He also ran Fuzzy-C using TNTmips on a Windows NT machine with same data. It was 24 hours = 1 day. 1 day versus 3 x 6 = 18 days. He said this might be difference of quality or optimization of programming by your professionals and by [a name’s], not being a professional for programming. He did not say about the results.” Extracted from mail from Japan on 22 October 2001 accompanying 10 CDs sent in to test a new TNT process “Enclose is SPOT Vegetation NDVI data (2.5 years; 10 CDs) for the test of harmonic analysis of time series. “Each CD has 3 months data, and each month includes 3 10-days synthesis data, that is, 1-10, 11-20, and 21-30 or 31. “We are doing processing using “Local Maximum Fitting” method (proposed by [a name and organization], said to be similar to the Harmonic Analysis method. They had spent lots of time and labour costs, and needs very much high-performance computer, and it took 20-30 days for this processing (for 1 year data. Twice for 2 year data. “We are interested in the following two points; One is, to what extent we can expect the result by your programs, and the other, popular PCs are usable for this processing. “We are very much satisfied if your program can give good answers for these two problems. “When your program is successfully usable we want to apply to MODIS. “We are looking forward to the test results.” Extracted from email from South Africa on 30 October 2001 [regarding use of MrSID support in V6.60] “Thanks for the advice. Things worked very well “The Mr. Sid rasters received by us were georeferenced and about 75mb each. When I tried to create an A0 plot file from portions of two adjacent images (in ArcView) the machine was still processing after 18 hours when we killed it. “Then, I merely imported (into TNTmips a Mr. Sid file) and exported as a TIF with world file. Result with packed bits, 1gb and without packing 2gb per file. Then resampled from .42m to .8m pixel resolution. Rather a long process of between 2.75hrs - 5hrs (per file) on a 800mhz machine, but successful. These (resampled) files exported at about 300mb with packed bit and plotting of an A0, combining major portions of the two mosaiced images, took 9 minutes in ArcView on HP1055CM [large format printer]. “Thanks for your developments and your response. Much appreciated.” Extracted from email from Quebec on 7 November 2001 [addressed to Technical Support] “I want to thank you for your professionalism. You made my day… I was able to set my page setup by editing TNTproc.ini and …” Email from the USA on 30 November 2001 [addressed to Technical Support] “It works!! Please tell the boss that this kind of support and follow-through is exactly why I use and promote the software. Thank you for you help and please thank the software engineers too.” Extracted from email from India in December 2001 “The TNTmips software performance on all other aspects is excellent but this problem is bugging us. We need help from you in solving this problem.” Extracted from email from India in December 2001 “I find it a great pleasure to write you about the performance of TNTmips software, which we procured in the year 1998 and subsequently upgraded to version 6.4 in 2000. It is unique software where image processing and GIS have been integrated. Being window based programme it is easy to operate. Once the image is georeferenced, we find it convenient to mosaic, classify, vectorise, import & export. Database creation for polygon, line, and points is very simple. The low overall cost is also one of the factors for choosing this software. I am also impressed by the service and support provided by MicroImages.” Extracted from email from Canada on 12 December 2001 “We got a contract to do some cover mapping in [a US state] so we will be in your neck of the woods a little more often next year. Although not in the contract, which stated everything had to be in ArcGis, they asked us if we could possibly deliver the interim products in TNTmips format. That is the first time we have ever been asked to do that.” [as elsewhere, the hard work and interim products will be done with TNTmips while ArcSomething gets all the glory] Extracted from email from Missouri on 13 December 2001 “I’m meeting with the Indiana State Forester the beginning of next week and I have some landscapes that I would like to show him using this great new tool you all have developed. It’s also a chance to get your product in front of a high end administrator from a state natural resource agency. I used the viewer with some landscapes I downloaded off of your web site and I demo’d it to some people in my office. They are very excited about this tool. (Really, I think they’re closet video game nuts that just want a joystick in their hands at the office. One wanted to know if I could hide treasures in the landscape that they had to navigate to.)” From MicroImages dealersExtracted from email from an international dealer on 4 May 2001 “In these last days I reflected a lot on the quality of my work environment, and on how the quality of my products could be increased if I would be able to use – and make others use – some high-performance GIS software without the need to sustain too high initial costs. In other words: I am now sure that the TNT products are the right solution for me and that I will support their distribution, because I agree with the particular binomial of scientific purpose (and their solutions) and commercial policy of MicroImages, Inc. For example, I find the Getting Started booklets extremely useful and well made, and I find they are even better than many university lessons I saw yet (maybe here in [my nation] we are a few under-developed what this concerns).” Extracted from email from an international dealer on 1 June 2001 [after receiving the first upgrade to a TNTmips license] … “But I was especially impressed by the very detailed documentation of the version upgrade. And what I appreciate particularly is the kind of information given: not only on how to deal with new features, but also much background information on why and how the new features became necessary and how various problems have been solved. For example, regarding the multiple buffer zone issue, it seems to me to recognize myself in the descriptions. This is the way I like to work and to conceive the relationship with the software developer. “A last comment: as I expected, the TNTatlas/W is exactly what many public administrations need for daily data use. I don’t know in the US, but here in [my nation] Microsoft-styled uses are extremely popular because Microsoft is the undiscussed leader in software production. Linux and other UNIX’s are relegated to some (not all neither the majority) EDP centre or IT specialists. Finally, the Macintosh is at the level of a religious sect and, in additions, resists fairly in graphics-oriented environments (and with this I also answered to a question you made me almost two months ago). The lack of these easy-to-use tools induces then many administrators not to purchase a product which, on the other hand, has many high-performance tools for data preparation. So, I think (without exaggeration), the choice to include this new tool could be strategic in [my nation], and I hope it will soon leave its prototype stage. For the rest, I would like to renounce to the X-server modus for the other products.” Extracted from email from an international dealer on 24 June 2001 “You all deserve congratulations for this 50th release. I don’t know of any other software company that can claim this milestone, especially with such a sophisticated product. Here in [our nation] where cricket is a big sport, scoring a half-century is a big event and puts a batsman into the first class big-league when scored at international level. We all hope MicroImages will continue to bat for us, score that century in sixteen years time, and that we will all still be around to see it. I think it is especially noteworthy that many staff who started out with [MicroImages], and clients, are still with you – given the comings and goings of IT-based companies over the last few months, this speaks volumes about your company model and methods of doing business.” Extracted from email from an international dealer on 15 August 2001 “We downloaded the patches, installed them with no inconvenience and found the whole density raster functionality to be very good. Thank you very much for this very fast implementation. Now it will be possible for us to speed up such kind of analyses. You have an excellent development team, and a very rapid response to these kind of consumer needs. We will conduct right away some tests on it and keep you informed.” Extracted from a letter from an international dealer on ~ 10 September 2001 “Finally, I found some time to give the [a location] atlas a new look and to translate it into english language. It comes in different groups and has hyperlinks to photographs of the area. Additionally, extensive use is made of the DataTip (I love the new option, “Data Tips / Visible Layers”). “I hope you can arrange exchanging the existing atlas with the [this] new one the MI TNTserver. The present atlas of [this area] on the TNTserver is pretty poor, as you know. “From the start of the [this] landscape project to present more than two years have passed. Of course it was not a continuous working, rather long stretches of nothing, e.g. until the public participation (which is a major issue in planning process in [our nation] was done, the first draft approved, the changes to be made discussed, etc. Now the final version is ready for approval, which is only a formality. “In the various stages we always provided the digital data as an TNTatlas to the customer. They were delighted (at least the first time, then they got quickly used to the extra treatment), especially as they have no GIS system themselves. Up to now they had no digital data at all and still they are quite intimidated as to which way to go. So it seems that for the time being they will rely on external GIS consultants like ourselves.” Extracted from email from an international dealer on 13 September 2001 [comment with regard to an application of TNTserver] “Our client is a authority of a federal state, already running TNTmips. They have already tried ESRI Mapserver, but this product did not fit their requirements.” Extracted from email from an international dealer on 13 September 2001 “Secondly, our trip [training program] to [another nation] was very successful. We felt we gave a great insight into the potential of TNT as a geospatial data management tool and hope they can harness the power of TNT to their advantage and our continued support.” Extracted from email from an international dealer on 25 September 2001 [upon being informed about a new feature which was added at their request] “That was way fast, once more. And it’s exactly what we meant. I’ll try it out right away. Thank you very much, indeed.” Extracted from email from an international dealer on 7 October 2001 “Recently I was in [a major city], I made a presentation on the “advantages of using a software which integrates GIS, image processing, CAD, database, surface modeling, desktop cartography, and raster to vector conversion capabilities as a decision support tool in managing our scarce resources” at the Institute of Town Planners [for the city].” Extracted from email from an international dealer on 17 October 2001 [This dealer is using a download of a beta version of TNTsim 6.6.] “TNTsim. Thank you. Today I tried first time TNTsim and it made me speechless. This is something I did not expect. Great. Please, let me know what joystick do you prefer and recommend? I just have to get one immediately.” Extracted from email from an international dealer on 17 October 2001 [from a new dealer] “We have started to study and use your products, I know a lot of gis applications (with ArcInfo exception) but I have not ever seen anything similar to TNT.” Extracted from a FAX from an international dealer on 17 October 2001 “I think that TNTmips becomes STANDARD software in [our nation]. Customer Contacts come from Ellie has increased recently. Of course, we don’t know how many hits you have on www.microimages.com from [our nation] without giving their contact information.” [i.e., those who download without filling out the reference] “We are getting several e-mails through info@, support@, or sales@[their web site]. In the past, we were receiving such contacts only from those that we already know. Now people know TNTmips and [our company] although we don’t know them. This may be the result of our growing market share, or brochures, or our Internet site, or advice of people what we met to others or whatever. The time is very soon, we will assign one staff to get order faxes, and send TNT products from the stock. I hope the wars, economic crisis and misuse of authority etc. will (I don’t say stop because we got used to live with them…) but at least will decrease.” Extracted from email from an international dealer on 8 November 2001 “Today we have received a statement of a professional GIS user (ArcInfo it seems). He has tested TNTlite for around a week and gave us his feedback. I have translated his statement, hoping that I met his message as nearly as possible. “I have tested the software under Linux and Windows and was comparatively quickly able to work efficiently. Of course a new system needs some attention, but it shows that the documentation and Getting Started Booklets are very informative and voluminous. Positive as well in comparison to ArcInfo 8 is the better performance. ArcInfo is very, very sluggish. “Think you will like. I enjoyed his report.” [and ArcInfo 8 is not available for LINUX] Extracted from email from a new international dealer on 13 November 2001 “Also, I wanted to inform you that I have been exploring TNTmips in detail. I’m quite amazed at the capabilities of the software. I’m happy to be a part of the network for marketing the application. You people have done a really good job.” Extracted from email from an international dealer on 11 December 2001 “Yesterday we had an appointment with the director of the [a Foundation], we showed him the TNT products, we gave him a TNTlite, and today we received an e-mail, that I'm sending you below, where he says that he found the products very good. I thought, that you can add this e-mail to your testimonials, because this is someone who really knows about GIS and has been working with them for many years. (Would you like me to translate the e-mail?)” “Hola, aquí les envío, por lo pronto, los archivos del modelo digital del terreno de [a nation] que les ofrecí (en formato raster de IDRISI, archivos .doc .img) tomado de lo que hoy es http://edcdaac.usgs.gov/gtopo30/gtopo30.html y que pude proyectar del sistema Lambert Azimuthal Equal Area al sistema [with origin specified], con IDRISI y mediante el archivo BOG.REF. “Espero que les sea útil y sólo les recomiendo dar los créditos en caso de publicarlo en cualquier forma. “La reunión de hoy estuvo muy interesante, el software de TNT de verdad impresionante. Espero que podamos en el futuro cercano establecer mecanismos de cooperación a través de proyectos concretos, a partir la amplia gama de posibilidades que pudimos ver hoy por encima. Una vez hayan tenido el tiempo de revisarlas y consultarlas con sus colaboradores espero se comuniquen nuevamente.” Extracted from email from an international dealer on 13 December 2001 “In a previous email, I typed that a University at [a] city are scheduling the GIS day, but University internal decisions cancelled this event to new date, but curiously when the show was cancelled I to met a Esri’s dealer person, so talking with this person, he told me that they are surprised with the performance, features and prices about TNT products, specially when I showed TNTmips runs in Windows and Linux with the same interface; here in [a nation] TNT products have a cost approximately of U$8100, the esri products more cheaper are TNTview that with several modules to compare (plus or minus) to TNTmips (in features) are U$12000, talk about Arc-info the price are U$19000 (basic module) with the inconvenience that the interface in Unix are different than Windows, so are necessary to do a conversion process between platforms.” From TNTlite usersEmail from the USA on 23 May 2001 “In a nutshell, I’m a software engineer for the most part but right now I’m following my passion of bike riding by writing a book that will be titled “Off Street Paved Bike Paths in Oregon”. You could guess by the title that this subject is very narrow and as such I’m hoping to break even on this venture. Chances are I won’t make a profit on this thing. As such, I went into this thing with a VERY low budget approach. I’m using open-source tools where ever I can, although the primary reason for using open-source tools is STABILITY. I honestly believe that open-sourced software is more stable than commercial software. The book itself is written using docbook with the usual array of tools that go along with it, SGML (Jade), ghostview, gs, tex, and lots of self written perl tools. All of these tools are open-sourced. The source can either be written as HTML or tex where the output is Postscript. My plan is to someday make the book itself open-source and freely available on the Internet. “Each of my paths need a very tiny map as most of the paths are about 1 – 2 miles in length. Being an open source developer I looked for open source mapping tools but didn’t come up with anything very useful for what I needed to do, so I started looking at commercial offerings. The thing that drew me to TNTlite was it’s functionality and excellent design. When I first started using it I was amazed at it’s capability and VERY thought out architecture.” … “On a positive note, my experience with your technical support have been absolutely stupendous! I can’t say enough good things about it.” Extracted from email from the USA on 5 June 2001 “I have spent a little time getting familiar with your product. It does offer some very nice features, I describe it as a blend of ENVI and ArcView. I do mean that as a compliment of course.” Extracted from email form Virginia on 9 July 2001 “I had found TNTlite when working on a course project involving satellite data and topography. It allowed me to visualize a portion of the GTOPO30 dataset around the Aral Sea.” Extracted from email from California on 14 September 2001 “Thanks kindly for your assistance, one again. By the way, TNTmips has proved very useful to me in the course of several projects despite the inherent limitations of the Lite version. I make considerable use of the program and proselytized for it here in the Los Angeles District.” From Other PartiesExtracted from email from the India on 28 June 2001 “I hit your site more by accident using Google when I was looking for some material for newbie on Projections. Great site and apparently great software too!” Email from Nebraska on 13 July 2001 [from a party in a community college who is researching a historical trading fort in Western Nebraska.] “I just got in the office today (Friday) and found your message. Your program and your offer to use both sound fantastic. We appreciate your support and generosity, and we’ll sure let you know when we use something. “Isn’t it rare to find folks who just want to learn and help share knowledge and intellectual excitement? But it’s a pleasure to run across people like you who do appear. “Thanks again, and let’s try to stay in touch.” Email from Ecuador on 27 July 2001 “Thank you very much for your help and for sending us the information! We are really interested in buying the software because I have had the opportunity to work with TNTmips before and it is perfect for what we will need.” Network ChatterPosted on arcview@lists.directionsmag.com by Ray Harris from baesystems.com on 14 May 2001 “I think it’s only fair to open up comparisons with several products. many listers might wish to know what alternatives are workable given the AcrView 8.1 direction. What I am concerned about is the general lack of “quantitative decisions”, if you will pardon the pun. When I do systems engineering for a customer, we first describe the GIS by the outputs and functions it must perform. We build workflows and activity diagrams (UML) to model the business. From this list we begin our trade studies of candidate software packages and prototypes. We then run process simulations before any code is written. The end result is a body of quantitative work that clearly explains how our recommended workflow will meet the customer requirement, and which packages will be needed. “I would encourage the open and full discussion of other products in a context that would support comparison. I rarely see this in GIS. For example; ESRI recently announced that Arc/Info 8.1 will support projections on the fly. Yet, this feature has been available in TNTview since 1994. So, I would like to see what projection on the fly really means. I understand it to mean that if I have vector data in latitude longitude coordinates, imagery in State Plane, and a TIN in UTM, I can display the data correctly and do geospatial analysis without having to resample or warp the data. Does anyone know if these packages do this? “A comparison of the following would be a good start: “MicroImages TNTview “ESRI ArcView “MapInfo “Manifold “Smallworld” The following comparison for 3 products only is posted on the web site of the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis Maryland at http://www.nadn.navy.mil/NAOE/research/gis/ gis_software_packages_.html. “ARC/INFO “ArcInfo was designed in 1981 by Jack and Laura Dangermond, founders of ESRI (Environmental Systems Research Institute, Inc.). It offers automation, management, display and professional quality output of geographic and associated multimedia data. It is one of the most widely used GIS programs because of its user-friendly characteristics. ArcInfo is used both commercially and by the government to improve operational efficiency and to increase profitability. “ArcInfo relies on two types of data models to store information. These models are the georelational model and the geodatabase model. The georelational model allows for the creation of geographically oriented databases. In other words, it allows users to add behavior, properties andrelationships to objects. The geodatabase model, or object data model, is an extension of the georelational model and allows users to define these behaviors, properties and relationships to model data that closely resembles the real world. The geodatabase model supports topologically integrated features, complex networks and relationships among feature classes. “The latest release of ArcInfo is ArcInfo 8. ArcInfo 8 makes use of both the georelational model and the geodatabase model. It also utilizes ArcMap, ArcCatalog, and ArcToolbox. ArcMap is a program that displays, queries, and analyzes maps, similar to that of CAD programs. ArcCatalog locates and manages spatial data, creating “smart” data. ArcToolbox provides tools that can convert, overlay, process and transform data. The combination of these programs greatly enhances the abilities of ArcInfo 8. “Other key features of ArcInfo include: open database support, customizable interfaces, flexible and fast data entry, comprehensive data access, data updating, address matching and geocoding, network analysis and management, surface modeling, raster modeling, map projection, datum conversions, rubber sheeting, transformation, tabular databases connectivity, topological map overlay, buffer generation, hydrologic modeling, surface analysis, network modeling and cartographic map production. “Data can be entered into ArcInfo either by tablet digitizing, heads-up digitizing, scanning, key entry, photogrammetry and global positioning systems. Acceptable data formats include: DXF, DLG, IGDS, TIGER, CGM, EPS, SDTS, ERDAS, BIL, TIFF, JPEG, and BIP. “Within the program data can be analyzed. There are several analyzing methods to include, but not limited to, creating data relationships; edge-matching, map-join, split, sliver removal and attribute verification; routing, allocation, address matching and dynamic segmentation; graphic and tabular reporting; surface modeling, analysis and management; and raster modeling and analysis. “TNTmips “TNTmips is a GIS program developed by MicroImages, Inc. It is very similar to ArcInfo in its capabilities and in it's benefits to the commercial sector. One of the advantages of TNTmips is that one project file can hold all geodata objects, including, raster, vector, TIN, CAD, relational database and text objects. File sizes are only limited by the operating system and media capacities. “Typical editing tools include: elevation mapping and orthoimage creation, surface fitting, classification and interpretation, statistical measurements, pin mapping, automatic vectorization by scanning, smart-line following, buffer zone creation, polygon fitting, watershed and view-shed analysis, and shortest path derivation. “Compatible file formats include TIFF, TFW HEADER, DXF and DEM. The internal file format for TNTmips is RVC. Although TNTmips provides similar capabilities to those of ArcInfo, it does not support as many file formats.” [not accurate unless possibly only vector formats are involved] “TNTmips can be used on multiple platforms. Prices vary from $4000-$10000 depending on which platform is used. “LITE VERSIONS “Both ArcInfo and TNTmips offer lite versions of their software packages. These lite versions, ArcExplorer and TNTlite are ideal for students and teachers because they are inexpensive. They are very similar to their counterparts in capabilities and uses. ArcExplorer and TNTlite are limited in their abilities to handle large file formats. In addition, ArcExplorer and TNTlite prohibit the exportation of data. [ArcExplorer is actually a viewer while TNTlite is a fully functioning GIS] “MICRODEM “Microdem is a GIS program developed by Professor Guth at the United States Naval Academy. He is a professor in the Oceanography Department. Microdem is a component of the Army-Corps of Engineer's Terrabase II. It works with elevation data, imagery data and map data. Microdem can handle several file formas including THF, DXF AND DEM. Capabilities of Microdem include fly-through and panorama views, distance measurements, coordinate conversions, GPS way points and tracks, oblique views, perspective views, sunlight/moonlight tables and head-up digitizing.” Response posted by posres.co.ukon a general list to a question about preparing geodata for field use. “If you really want to go to town and use a fully professional solution (i.e. not cheap) then PocketGIS from http://www/posres.co.uk/pocket.htm is the only real choice. “However - its not recommended unless you are using a good GIS like TNTmips, MapInfo, ArcGIS, GCP, Cartology, etc.” [It is nice to see TNTmips first on the GIS list for a change.] 
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