15 August 2002
Testimonials and other Tidbits (V6.70)
The
following are some of the complimentary written comments and related
interesting items received at MicroImages since the shipment of V6.60 exactly
as provided except for the comments and edit alterations [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 Germany in December 2001
“Another year is approaching its end, hopefully it was as successful for MI
as it was for us at [our company].
Presently our Company is in a process of re-organization - which will, among
others, bring our division more independence and a slightly different name
in 2002.
“However, that’s something which will not affect our very good co-operation
with many companies abroad, especially with MI, for which we want to thank
all of you at this opportunity. I think you are among those who knows best
what it means to be somewhere in the no-where hoping desperately for help
and advice - and then this hope fulfills. Therefore I am very grateful for
you esteemed assistance which in many cases showed an efficient and easy to
follow work around of this and that stuck.”
Extracted from email from Russia on 21 January 2002
[This
client represents a Russian municipality. They purchased both TNTmips
and TNTserver in late 2001. They have contacted MicroImages once
before this email concerning where to find some specific information on the
TNTserver. They did get training in the use of TNTmips only
from a Russian dealer. They also had access to the TNTserver-List
archives.]
“Hello Ron,
“I am
very glad that my email reached you. Mail problem had another side. I was
absolutely new in Server technology, but now it seems to me I know how it
does work. HTML client (beta version) is working good (and fast!). Now we
have design stage of TNTserver for intranet purposes. There are some
questions about .rvc file structure and HTML client future.” …
[At
this point this client has built their own sample atlas(s), set up a web
server, set up Tomcat, set up TNTserver, and gotten the HTML-based
TNTclient going with 1 contact with MicroImages.]
Extracted from
email from Great Britain on 23 January 2002
“You
may be interested to know that having tried to use ESRI’s import E00 format
utility (ships with ArcView 3.x) to import some E00’s without success (it
said I had no access to my ‘D’ drive, which most certainly I did), I used
TNT to do it and then exported results back out to use in ArcView - keep up
the good work!”
Extracted from
email from the USA on 22 February 2002
“Note: ARCGIS/ARCINFO/ARCVIEW 8.1 all have a problem with buffering large
line coverages (numerous errors in the output). ESRI reports they will not
fix the bug or rewrite the code. Their workaround is to cut the coverage
into pieces, buffer each piece and then put the buffered coverages
together. In the meantime, TNTmips will buffer just about anything but back
conversion to ARC is slow for large objects (not TNTmips problem but an
internal limit on the number of vertices in ARC). MicroImages is working on
making the process faster. If you are buffering large line coverages, do
not do it in ARC.”
Extracted from
email from Germany on 28 February 2002
“Thank you very much for your support in regard of the mentioned
[map] projection. MI’s proven
efforts to support were well-disposed at
[the prospective client’s site].”
Extracted from email dated 7 March 2002
“Regarding the annual maintenance product for the key, could you accept wire
transfer? I am now persuading my wife to buy it.”
[We
all have our “bankers”.]
Extracted from
email from Latvia on 8 March 2002
[from
a beginning user]
“Thank you for your email. It was so easy to drape photographs over a
surface layer, I was surprised.”
Extracted from
email from Brazil on 12 March 2002
[This
client is using TNTmips in something like a corn and soybean
producer’s “information cooperative” in central Brazil. The members of this
group are about 12 farmer operations with large acreages of at least 10,000
hectares. These farms are not contiguous but are in the same general
locale.]
“I am
sorry by the delay in the answer of your e-mail, I was traveling to Amazon
to do a georeferencing of satellite images (Landsat 7). Amazon is a very
different environment than we are gotten used to live, nature of that
location provides us a life and energy sensation that I never imagined that
I could feel. This experience all of us should have to value the biological
diversity, so argued nowadays, and little well-known. With this fascinating
experience I can understand why there is so much preoccupation with the
preservation of that forest.
“Changing of subject mips is really a powerful tool. Every day I get more
impressed with the potential of this software. Congratulations to you and
your team.”
[some
questions are omitted here]
“Inside our group we have a [agricultural]
producer developed most in the digital area that already owns GPS and
already works with TNTlite since I arrived here in the region. Now he felt
that need to acquire TNTmips professional. He asked me if would be possible
to parcel in three payments the price of mips in the credit card. I you say
me that are possible I pass tomorrow the number of his card for the proposed
in voice.
There
is other agricultural engineer of the region, which is with intention of
buying mips professional as well, but did not talk me in payments terms. If
you can sends the divulging materials for me, thus I can introduce better
the general idea.”
[This
TNTmips was recently purchased with a single credit card transaction]
Extracted from
email from the USA on 3 April 2002
[in
response to an approach to solving a problem outlined by our technical
support]
“Great solution! The [government agency]
reps were impressed by the sophistication of your product, and the fact that
it does far more than they had given it credit.”
Extracted from
email from Norway from a client dated 18 April 2002
“As I
mentioned [an Ethiopian organization]
are building up their GIS unit. One of their employees, who will be heading
this unit, received his M.Sc. in GIS from
[an institution] recently. They
[that institution] are using ArcInfo and ArcView. I figured ArcInfo
might be a bit “overkill” for their applications as well as criminally
expensive, so that’s why I showed them TNTmips, as I feel they will be able
to do the same (and more) things within TNT as in ArcInfo at a much lower
cost. ArcView is totally useless (that’s just my opinion - unstable, slow,
and very bad file handling, ++), but they will need to have that anyway I
suppose. What they particularly liked at first site was the ability of TNT
to import/export from such a wide range of formats, which will enable them
to feed their partners (who use various other GIS products) with data. I
also ran them through a few of TNT’s functions, and they were totally
impressed.”
Extracted from
email from Great Britain on 19 April 2002
“I’ve
started in on a project that will use TNTatlas to deliver data to potential
customers. It’s a very exciting product and really seems streets ahead of
the competition, so well done for that. I’m running the Windows version
that was supplied on the 6.6 CD and have been trying to break it - I don’t
want to send something on out that crashes on my potential customers, for
obvious reasons. I must say that I’ve found it very difficult to break, but
the following couple of problems have appeared so far, plus I have a couple
of requests - I realize that you have lots of these, so I don’t expect
miracles.”
Extracted from
email from the USA on 26 April 2002
“WOW!
Kudos to the tech support team. I never cease to be amazed at how quickly
MI is able to respond to user input, and the utility of being able to patch
so easily.”
Extracted from
email from Australia on 29 April 2002
“Your
suggestion has helped me solve the problem. Issue stemmed really from the
messiness and complexity of the input shapefile. The perils of having
clients who use arcview.”
Extracted from
email from the USA on 29 April 2002
“During the weeks prior to this happening, I had the opportunity to work
with TNTmips quite a bit. I am new to the software, but not new to GIS.
After working with the US Army Corps. of Engineers “GRASS” software, and of
course ArcInfo and ArcView since the beginning of the 90s, I thought that
TNTmips was an excellent software for [my
employer] to choose, and I look forward to using it. I loved the
manuals. (What great manuals, as compared to your competitors! I welcome
the change).”
Extracted from
email from Great Britan on 30 April 2002
“Congratulations MicroImages as it is the only software I have used where
you can use raw NTF without conversion!!!”
[NTF is the United Kingdom National Transfer Format]
Copy of email
from the USA on 3 May 2002
[sent
to a moderator of a GIS list by a beta tester of TNTmips for Mac OX
X]
“I
thought I would touch base with you and let you know that MicroImages, the
makers of TNTmips GIS/RS package is gearing up to release their software for
Mac OS X. Right now a beta version of TNTlite is available for download at
www.microimages.com. The full release will be available in June sometime.
It will be version 6.70 but the first version to run on OS X.
“TNTlite is the free software version of the main TNTmips flagship product.
TNTlite has all the same features as TNTmips, but you are limited in file
size and have no export capabilities. TNTlite is a great training tool or
for use in small projects. In addition, MicroImages has a number of
tutorial booklets available for download as PDF file which provide excellent
documentation and training guides. All of these are free at the web site as
well. I’m not sure if you have ever tried their software but I find it to be
one of the most comprehensive I’ve ever seen for GIS and RS. It is also a
bargain compared to buying ESRI products that could do the same thing.
TNTmips has the capability of Arc/Info and ArcView (with 3D, Image and
Spatial Analysis extensions). It costs roughly half of the equivalent ESRI
combined products. I also have never seen a program that supports so many
formats as TNTmips does. TNTmips has them all in there for export and
import. Very impressive. It handles all of the ESRI native file types such
as .e00, ungenerate, and shapefiles. It also handles just about every
raster format there is too, so TNTmips can play nice with other GIS products
across platforms.
“I’ve
been beta testing TNTmips for OS X for the past few weeks and it is very
good. It uses Xdarwin and OroborOSX which are nicely implemented through
the Open Source community. Plus the rendering engine is very fast in OS X.
I loaded 4 Digital Ortho Quads, 2 DRG files and 4 DEM files and it renders
these faster that any other GIS I’ve used.
“I
know you are a fan of the Mac so I wanted to point this out to you. I will
post this information to the Caribbean-GIS list as well if that is OK, just
so people are aware of this.
“A
PowerMac setup with TNTmips running in OSX would be pretty slick setup for
geospatial specialists. I think this would be especially good for small
geospatial companies or individuals. For the price of ESRI software you
could put TNTmips and the Mac hardware to run it on your desk with change to
spare. Put the word out if you get a chance.
“Thanks!”
Copy of email
from the USA on 3 May 2002
[sent
by a client to an associate visiting a Mac information site]
“Thanks David. I’m glad you have found the site useful.
“I am
currently beta testing MicroImages’ TNTmips which is an excellent
full-featured GIS. In June they anticipate releasing v.6.70 that will run
natively on Mac OS X. Currently a free beta version of TNTmips, called
TNTlite can be downloaded that runs on OS X at www.microimages.com. It has
all the features of TNTmips except that file size is limited and you cannot
export from it.
“If
you are thinking about getting a GIS for your Mac, this is the best choice.
It does what ESRI’s Arc/Info and ArcView w/Spatial, 3D and Image Analysis
extensions does, plus it imports and exports a huge variety of geospatial
data formats, both rasters and vector. It can handle all of ESRI’s main
file types (shapefiles, e00, ungenerate).
“Plus, the rendering engine is excellent in TNTmips (very fast). It also
makes nice use of Xdarwin and OroborOSX which makes TNTmips run its
X-Windows environment in a more transparent fashion that gives windows
behavior similar to any other OS X application.
“It
has a good price point compared to ESRI’s products as well. The company
support it excellent and the documentation is some of the best I have ever
seen for any software.
“Just
something to keep in mind if you are shopping around for Mac GIS software.”
Copy of email
from the USA on 22 May 2002
[from
a client with a personal TNTmips starting a new position in a local
office of a large organization using ERSI products]
“Last
week I had my orientation meeting in the main office in
[a city]. I met with
[a name] who is the GIS coordinator
for the [organization]. I mentioned
TNTmips and he was very favorable towards it. He had not used it in several
years, but he said he remembered it being very good and “better than ArcView.”
He said I was free to use Mips on my machine in
[my office] and had no problems with
that. He liked all of these aspects of the Mips package. The main thing is
he is not brainwashed by ESRI and is open to using other GIS packages and
that he has had favorable experience in the past with MicroImages’
products.”
Extracted from
email from the USA on 28 May 2002
“This
morning I downloaded a new version of TNTDISP.ZIP and NEEDED.ZIP. I tested
the new ASTER [HDF] import routine
on the following data sets:”
[several ASTER images listed as obtained from the EROS Data Center and from
Japan]
“So
far the new ASTER import routine appears to have excellent georeferencing.
The file structure is indeed less complicated. It is good to deny access to
bad georeferencing in the Level 1b latitude array.”
Copy of email
from the USA on 31 May 2002
“I
just wanted to thank you for your staff for offering a very thorough and
useful week of instruction on TNTmips. I’ve been working with TNTmips
almost solidly over the last two weeks since my return from Lincoln and it
has been a smooth and productive experience. The school was a very
effective starter and exceeded my expectations.
“I
also want to thank you and your staff for making our visit to Lincoln a
hospitable one; it was particularly enjoyable meeting your staff and the
diverse set of individuals attending the school.
“I
work in a department that houses two programs: geology and geography; and
here, the geography program is heavily into ArcView, ArcInfo, and ERDAS
Imagine. It is almost an elitist group, and the climb required to
effectively use GIS technology around here is difficult and long one.
TNTmips has removed the haze surrounding these analytical procedures and
made geo-spatial and remote sensing technologies usable and readily
accessible by the “general scientific community.” Thanks again.
“Best
regards.”
Extracted from
a FAX from a South American nation on 31 May 2002
“During the past year we have shown our projects to several other
exploration and mining companies with a view to joint ventures. I cannot
think of one company representative who has not admired our presentation
material and asked about the software. We had one amusing incident where we
were asked to sent the digital information, which we did, in MapInfo
format. I then received a panic phone call from the technical person who
had been asked to quickly reproduce all of the layouts – she said it would
take her months! We quickly printed [our
layouts to] pdf files and sent these on, realizing that not everyone
had the same interpretation of the phrase ‘digital information.’”
Email from the
USA 10 June 2002
“We
here at the county have decided that the annual $3000 spent on ESRI annual
maintenance would be better used for a second TNTmips software key. We can
buy TNTedit now and upgrade next January for an extra $2000 to a second full
TNTmips version and still save money. Running fewer GIS software packages
(now down to two) will help streamline training overall operations and
eliminate ESRI trained employee flight. Retaining GIS trained human capital
is crucial for long term success.”
[The
other GIS package noted is MapInfo. The actual situation here as related
verbally is that some years earlier the county administrator bought this
party an ArcInfo and then budgeted annually to upgrade it. Alas its box was
never opened. Obviously even more money will be saved from the difference
in annual maintenances of the products.]
Letter from
Ecuador 20 June 2002
[This
transmittal letter accompanied a copy of the printed color ATLAS de la
provincial de Pichincha. This provincial atlas in Spanish was printed in
April 2002 and contains the city of Quito. Its legends employ many of the
latest features issued in V6.60. Inquiries concerning the
availability of this atlas should be directed to Direccion de Planificacion
Y Ambiente at pichincha.gov.ac]
“As
per our previous contacts and as offered, please find enclosed a copy of the
ATLAS de la provincia de Picchincha, in which as you will notice the
first 30 maps were prepared with TNTmips. With no doubt the software was of
great help in getting accomplished the project, so I will thanks all the
people involved in the development of so good package, at the same time
encourage you all to keep the high standard in the product, from which all
of us will get some benefits.”
Extracted from
a FAX from a South American nation on 12 July 2002
“Well
my roll in this project was basically the generation of all the
[maps]
which I am in charge of. So as I mentioned to Lee all the
[map] data base is so far in the RVC
format. This matter also were mentioned to Lee or to you in the past,
mentioning as well as that they have [had]
make [made] a decision to but
ArcView as the GIS software, but after looking the TNT results and
performance they have stopped this decision, and now there is an report
backing up TNT products and asking for funds to buy it.
“Basically all the last requests of support and questions to Tech Support
are in reference to this project. As a last comment I will have to say I
have prepared (plot with TNT a 2.3 x 1.3 meters physical map of the province
(3 plot pieces) in a glossy photo paper to be in one of the walls on the
[Governor’s Office], the maxim
authority. I did not see it yet hanging in that wall but I receive the info
that the [Office] is really happy of
it.”
Extracted from
a FAX from an African nation on 15 July 2002
[information supplied by 1 client about another, TNTmips 5.3 was shipped 7
years ago early in 1996.]
“
[A name] have finally cottoned on to
the fact that TNTmips is very powerful and now want to upgrade their key
from 5.3 to current version.”
Extracted from
a FAX from email from Chile 18 July 2002
“Although there is a strong corporate issue to use ArcInfo and ER Mapper in
the company I do most I can in TNTmips and transform to other formats
later. TNTmips saved my professional life so many times any more than this
it is wonderful software that I certainly need and want to keep using.”
Extracted from
a FAX from email from Australia 24 July 2002
“Our
company owns a company called [a
name], which was a registered user of TNT version 4.7 and has the
relevant CD’s. [That company] did
not subscribe after V4.7. Could you advise me of the cost of upgrading to
the latest version of TNT. Our main usage is image processing and
interpretation using on screen map production. At present I use ERMapper
and ArcView together, but would like software which would enable me to do
this in one operation.”
Extracted from
a FAX from email from Great Britain 28 July 2002
“…
Also, I must thank Terry and Cindy for the fantastic support of the product
during this period. Will you thank them for me. I can honestly tell them
that the professionalism shown has far exceeded that shown by our existing
supplier companies ‘E!!!’ and ‘I!!!’ in the UK.”
From
MicroImages dealers
Extracted from
email from an international dealer on 25 January 2002
“Following our communication with various TNTmips users it turns out that
6.6 is proven to be very reliable. [A
client] is very content with 6.6. For instance he had to make a few
changes to a layout done with 5.8. Besides a few problems with string
encoding in text objects/files he found that everything was in his place
like expected.
“Our
experience concerning 6.6 is good as well. So far no severe bugs of
something like that. Congratulations to the MicroImages staff.”
Extracted from
email from an international dealer on 15 February 2002
“Please find attached a zipped RVC with a 3D simulation. These 3D vectors
are the result of several SMLs and show a section of the subway in
[a city]. It might be quite
difficult to understand, but our geologists here like this very much. The
SMLs facilitate the
a)
preparation of reference layers for the geologist’s interpretation, which is
the drawing and attributing of strata lines along cross sections, i.e. in
2D.
b)
converting these various cross section lines into 3D-lines (the thicker
lines) and eventually
c)
interpolating those 3D-lines into surfaces, from which those wire mesh
vectors are produced.
“All
attributes are created and attached automatically, as well as display
parameters.
“So
it is highly automated and corrections can be carried out easily, even
through direct editing in the 3D model would be much more comfortable.”
Extracted from
email from an international dealer on 19 February 2002
[In
response to an approach to an analysis outlined in email from MicroImages’
technical support.]
“I
was interested in a solution [procedure]
like the second one. I have used it, and I’m astonished. It’s so simple
but so powerful.”
Extracted from
email from an International dealer on 21 February 2002
[This
dealer is located in Europe, not in Croatia. The language resource files
were posted for the first time for the TNT products for Croatian,
Bosnian, and Serbian on 25 February 2002.]
“It’s
interesting to hear that the Croatian, Bosnian, and Serbian translations are
almost ready to be posted. Just few day ago, while writing to a potential
client at the [a name] Township
Administration, I still had to say that the Croatian translation is underway
but not yet available. Even if Croatian people know very well foreign
languages (German and English are often spoken also by ancient persons),
they will appreciate the availability of a Croatian locale. Consider that
neither AutoCAD nor any ESRI product have Croatian locales, and that GISDATA
(ESRI’s business partner in Zagreb) produced an own viewing and querying
product for which they advertise with the catchphrase ‘Interface in the
Croatian language.’”
Extracted from
email from an international dealer on 22 February 2002
“I
feel happy to inform you that TNTmips is now as well known a software in
India as Erdas Imagine and ARC-INFO. We, at
[a name], consider this an
achievement of the software engineers of MicroImages.
“I
thank you once again for your support in our efforts in understanding and
marketing TNT products.”
Extracted from
email from an international dealer on 14 April 2002
“Although we were slow to get there and are still learning, we think the
atlas is the greatest thing since GIS.”
Extracted from
email from a NAFTA dealer on 29 April 2002
“Yes,
we have worked with the 3D Sim and, in fact, it won a visualization job for
us! We are now using it routinely to show clients the results of our work
for them. We just bring along a laptop and joy stick.”
Extracted from
email from an international dealer on 7 May 2002
“Until now, we have good news about the [a
name] bid. It closed [a date],
we gave them our documentation, and as law states everybody who is
participating could know the [cost]
of the other companies. We proposed to do it for
[~US$40,000] and
[ESRI] the other company (there are
no more on it) proposed [~US$52,500].
As you can see in the [request for
proposal] documentation you downloaded, there are 400 points for
price, and 100 for economical aspects (the total points sum 500), we would
have the 400 points for the price, and at least 80 for the economical
aspects (for a total of 480 points/500), and
[ESRI] has then 323 points for price
and, supposing having 100 for the economical aspect (the maximum), they’ll
have a total of at most 423. In other words, if everything is fair we
should win by far… In 30 days (or less) we’ll have the official decision of
the [award]. I’ll tell you the
result; I hope everything would be fine. For your information, the GIS we
proposed is composed as follows: 1 TNTmips, 2 TNTedit, 5 TNTview and 1
TNTserver.”
Extracted from
international email on 29 May 2002
“Some
weeks ago I also saw the new tutorial ‘topomap,’ I liked it very much. So,
if you don’t have other plans I would like to translate it.”
Extracted from
an international FAX on 14 June 2002
“…we
were burgled and all our computers stolen – main loss was a weeks down time
while we rebuilt our computer resources. Insurance are fighting about
paying us out because armed response took more than ten minutes to respond
to the alarm! Thank heavens our dongles [TNTmips
keys] were spared (attached to cables they pulled out),” …
Extracted from
international email on 15 May 2002
[A technical staff member] is
spending the whole day at [a national
laboratory] with [its managers and
officers] that are now starting to interest in TNTmips very good
remote sensing & GIS features. Today, [he]
is conducting his very good showing about TNT’s supervised classification
using Maximum Likelihood method by drawing very easy training areas after
using enhancement, and doing class groupings, and then doing export all
theme/classified raster polygons to vector polygons plus attribute
assignment, and then doing map poster layout at scale 1:50,000 which
[he] had designed very beautiful map
legend by following the design of [our
official] topographic map!
All
steps were very fast since [he] is
very [experienced] in using TNTmips
commands and I asked him to prepare himself very good before going to
[this demonstration] due to
[this organization has been using]
Intergraph & ENVI & IDRISI for a long time, they may some technical
questions to defeat [him] since they
don’t want to change to new software easily! … I would like
[the managers] to rely on my credit
(plus our TNTmips performance) to help him designing the benchmark procedure
for testing the other competitive software. At this moment
[they] had accepted that
[their] existing ENVI & Intergraph
system could not do the above processes as fast as our TNT software and the
[our staff member’s] TNT show had
made [their staff] stop by our
action area and watched!
Extracted from
international email on 24 June 2002
“Our
current client base, from our work as a company to date, typically have hard
copy map products along with a CD of the digital data and a viewing software
so that they can have some interactivity as the concept of GIS sinks in.
This viewing client has in the past been ArcExplorer, and I am in the
process of converting all of these to TNTatlas. The reception of atlas thus
far is astounding as the added functionality of Atlas over other viewers is
seen as a great improvement by most clients. We see this as a very good
step as most of these clients are coming to us with more work and ideas on
their data management which lead us to believe that many will be potential
TNTview clients in the short to medium term future.”
Extracted from
international email on 28 June 2002
“JPEG2000 support in 6.7 is very welcome. We have made first experience
with the Irfanview (http://www.irfanview.com) plugin for jp2 by
algovision-luratech. It shows the file size decreases to under 4% in
comparison to TIFF/LZW (both 24-bit).”
Extracted from
international email on 10 July 2002
“Our
web site is still being designed under contract and should be up by end of
July. Tell Ron I have got Apache Web Server running Tomcat to talk across
to our NT server and server up the HTML client with Atlases, and its an
order of magnitude faster than when all done on the NT server – so fast in
fact that we have a machine stack overflow error on IE5 when our intranet
W2000 client machines access the site. Seems Apache streams the stuff back
so fast that IE5 can’t handle it when run on Windows 2000, yet on a 98
machine it works! Another MS riddle. On a 56K dial-up I can get less than
30 secs for most of our atlases, which tend to be rather complex.”
Extracted from
international email on 11 July 2002
“I
want to congratulate you for the development of the TNTatlas for Windows;
it’s really very easy to use, it looks very nice, for us is a very useful
tool for giving GIS information to people who don’t know very much about GIS
and don’t have the time to learn a lot. With it, we already start to show
regular people what is a GIS and what its use.”
Extracted from
international email on 12 July 2002
[This
is not a small nation.]
“…
[A name] and his staff did satisfy
our concepts very much and all officers had seen our TNTmips presentation
with surprising on how fast of TNTmips displaying to handle the whole
country’s geodatabase – while they also saw TNTmips could handle both GIS
and remote sensing in single product.” …
From
TNTlite users
Extracted from
email from Poland on 2 January 2002
“First off all let me thank you for the great program TNT, which we have
been using in Poland for geographic purposes. This is an extraordinary
program and all my professors glad to use it. I would like to ask you for
the help. I am a geography student and I have a small question.”
Extracted from
email from Zimbabwe on 14 January 2002
“TNT is
just fantastic and I’ve really find it to be a cut above the rest in terms of
functionality.”
Extracted from
email from New Zealand on 15 January 2002
“I am
Managing Director and principal shareholder of
[a name]. While my technical
prowess falls short of [a staff member’s
name] or of any other of our GIS team, I am still capable of
recognizing a good product, and what [he]
has shown me of your TNT line is certainly exciting.”
Comments on
the TNTlite download form on 31 January 2002
“I am
a newbie to this area, just learning as much as I can. Your Lite software
makes it affordable for people like me to learn. Thank you very much!”
Email from the
USA on 20 February 2002
“I
received the envelope w/ TNTmips [TNTlite
for Mac OS X]. I’ll install it tonight and get started … what fun!”
Email from New
Zealand on 4 April 2002
“I am
a user of TNT lite for my research in University. Firstly, I just wanna say
thanks to MicroImages for developing this great software.”
Email from
Germany on 11 April 2002
“Your
program, especially the translation into German is really good. Thanks,
that will help me in getting better success in using TNTmips.”
Extracted from a FAX from the USA on 16 April 2002
[refers to the beta version of TNTlite for Mac OS X]
“Over
the weekend I spent some time just exploring TNTlite in general and getting
a feel for all it can do. You have really thought of everything. I love
that map calculator! Also, the 3D features are fantastic. What great
program! And to think it is a native Mac program as well. No more ArcView
with Virtual PC! I’m excited to have this opportunity to use TNTmips.”
Comments on
the TNTlite download form on 19 April 2002
“I am
student at University of Innsbruck. I have seen your product and can not
believe. It is wonderful. Thank you very much for your all sensitive and
informative efforts for us for students. I will inform all my friends.
Thanks and best wishes from Austria.”
Extracted from
email from Indonesia on 7 June 2002
“I
would like to introduce myself: [a name],
affiliation Department of Geology, [a
University], Indonesia, right now I am as visiting Associate
Professor at [a name] University in
Japan. I already learn how to operate TNTlite, it seem not so complicated
and I can easily understand after reading the manual book. Based on your
dealer location and geospatial consultant map, there is not one available in
my country.” [continues on]
From
Other Parties
Extracted from
email from Kenya on 21 December 2001
“… we
are comparing functionality for TNTmips with that of ARCGIS. So far we have
found that database operations for your product are quite superior.” …
Extracted from
email from Texas on 10 May 2002
“I’m
very impressed with your product suite, your professional demeanor and
company policies, as well as the web site. You have already been a great
help to me, and I’m looking forward to becoming more familiar and expert
with your products.”
Comments
entered on the TNTlite download form by a person in Mexico on 24 May 2002
“We’re working with a project about Geographic Information Systems. The
project is academic, and we have some ArcInfo, ArcView and ERDAS licenses,
but I guess that TNTmips works faster than other GIS tools or it has other
single functions and geographic process. I have received commentaries about
TNT mips is a intuitive software. I’m Geographer, and I like the GIS
process and analysis. I have studied some concepts about TNTmips functions
in microimages.com, but I think that to see it and check directly the
functions, I will can do some single and complex geographic process. Thanks
so much for TNTlite.”
Extracted from
email from an Asian nation on 13 June 2002
“Allow me to introduce myself, I am [a
name] and I am a lecturer at [a
University]. I have about 4 years experience in using TNTmips when I
was studying in Japan from 1997-2001. For my practical of 4 subjects
related to GIS and remote sensing at two schools in the university, I am
using TNTlite and I shall thank you for the high quality and user friendly
software. Last year, I actually proposed to buy TNTmips so that research
could be carried out. Nevertheless, until now, I haven’t been able to get
approval to go ahead. Partly because nobody knows about TNTmips in
[my nation] although it is an
excellent software (my opinion). Anyway, I have been writing a GIS textbook
which contains practical [training]
using TNTlite, in [my language].
The book targets on all undergraduate courses related to GIS in
[this nation’s universities].”
…
“I
would like to know if I am permitted to provide a copy of TNTlite to
accompany the book. I am planning to give the copy to accompany the book,
if permitted and budget allows. If it is permitted, kindly give a letter to
the below address. For the book is targeted to be published in September
2002 during the 4th university convocation’s publication. I hope
you can reply to my enquiry as soon as possible.”
Extracted from
email from a European nation on 11 July 2002
[This
is not a MicroImages client but someone working at the moment with TNTlite.
Clearly this party is in a position to make the comparisons noted.]
“… A
[name] and I have about 15 years of
GIS experience (mostly with ESRI products as I worked 12 years for ESRI
[a nation], which I left in
[a year]. My last job their was a
member of the Board or Directors. …
“…
The product looks very good above all in comparison to ESRI’s products and
ESRI’s price policy. Beginning next year we will train about 8 to 12 people
in GIS technology and we plan to incorporate TNT products in that training.
Some of those training participants (of course the best ones) will become
employees of our company. …
“By
the way, not only TNT’s [capabilities but]
‘topology on the fly’ is impressive.”
Retraining to use TNTmips
A discussion arose recently at a public meeting
with representatives from MicroImages and a U.S. Government agency. “How long
would it take professionals using current ESRI products for GIS and/or Leica/ZERDAS
products for image processing to learn how to do integrated geospatial
analysis with TNTmips?” Shortly after that meeting MicroImages was
able to carry on an email dialog with a new professional user of TNTmips
who had just thoroughly learned it on his own using the tutorial materials
provided and his previous experience. The following is that exchange, which
was oriented toward helping MicroImages better understand how to answer this
kind of question that is being asked more frequently of MicroImages in various
forms. The exchange starts with our concern as to why this new user was not
requesting assistance from MicroImages technical support.
Email from
MicroImages on 27 June 2002
“In
reference to your email of 24 June. Thank you for the detailed update on
what FMNZ has been doing over the past several weeks. Overall, it sounds as
though everything is well underway and that FMNZ is making in promoting the
TNT products in New Zealand. Some specific comments / questions:
“1)
As we had not had any questions or error reports from you, we were curious
as to your progress on learning how TNTmips runs in comparison to ArcView
and any other geospatial software which you had experience with. From our
experience and from what we have seen on the net, there is a lot more to
becoming a professional geospatial analyst than learning how to use a
particular software package such as the Arc products or TNTmips. Given
this, the geospatial learner / novice spends considerable time learning
where to obtain geospatial data and how to convert it to a usable format,
how to conduct an analysis and present / report the results, etc. It seems
to us, based upon comments from users and others, that those who have
managed to learn these steps with a given software package and easily learn
the terminology and how to use another software package with similar
functionality relatively easily.
“With
all of this could you give a rough estimate of the amount of time that it
takes someone (you, for example) who was a professional user of ArcInfo to
become equally proficient using TNTmips? If this could be expressed as a
percentage of the time that it took you to learn and become proficient using
ArcInfo in the first place, this would be appreciated. It is not our intent
to imply that TNTmips is easier to learn as the initial geospatial analysis
systems someone might use, but rather to gauge how much effort is needed to
convert from using ArcInfo to TNTmips in contrast to learning either system
from scratch.
“2)
Yes, moving your clients from ArcExplorer to TNTatlas and then eventually to
TNTview is a good idea. TNTview is not a free viewing package, but a local
geospatial analysis package where the user can do queries against their
data, print and do their own script writing using SML.
“3)
It is good to hear that there has been interest from schools in regards to
the TNT products. We trust that you have downloaded the SAL program from
our website (http://www.microimages.com/dealers/memo/.)
If not, I would encourage you to do so and include this material as part of
your proposal for introducing GIS to the schools. While it is possible that
the primary and secondary schools may not be able to afford an SAL, they can
install and use TNTlite which is free on all of their student computers.
“Out
of curiosity, are Macintosh computers as widely used in New Zealand as they
are in the U.S. in primary and secondary schools? What about in colleges
and universities? As you may be aware, until the release of Mac OS X it was
not possible for Macintosh computers to be part of an SAL. However, with
version 6.70 of the software and under Mac OS X, Macs can now be included in
an SAL. This will be a key point in promoting the TNT products on the
Macintosh, especially where they are the predominant computer being used.
“4)
We look forward to receiving the sample atlas that you will be sending
shortly. After we have taken a look at it, would FMNZ mind if we posted it
as a public atlas on our website (microimages.com/tntserver/)?
Please look at some of the atlases that are posted at this URL and let us
know. In addition, you may wish to consider taking advantage of the special
offer that we have for dealers on TNTserver. As FMNZ was accepted after
this program was officially announced you may not be aware of it.
Therefore, following this cover is information on the special dealer offer
for TNTserver. Yes, it is a little dated, but the gist of the program is
still applicable. Note that FMNZ must have a website located someplace
readily available (such as your office) in order to setup and maintain
TNTserver. FMNZ does have a website, so you are probably familiar with
writing HTML and setting up IIS, etc (Apache?) If you are interested in the
offer, please let us know so that any additional paperwork can be sent.
“5)
Concerning the AusIMM conference. You will be interested in knowing that
among the new booklets being released with version 6.70 of the software is
one (1) on Making Geologic Maps (there is also a booklet on Making
Topographic Maps). All of the booklets, including the new ones, can be
downloaded along with their associated geodata sets (if appropriate) from
our website at
www.microimages.com/getstart. Something that you may wish to
consider for distributing at the conference, besides TNTlite CDs of course,
is a CD with some public domain geology data sized for TNTlite for New
Zealand in RVC along a printed map which uses the data included on the CD.
Of course, the map could also be in PDF on the CD in case they wanted to
print it themselves. This is only a suggestion, but worth considering.
“In
addition, you will find it useful to review some of the geological maps and
projects that have been done by the Geological Survey of Japan. This
organization has more TNTmips than they do ESRI products which are actively
being used in mapping the geology of East and Southeast Asia. This work is
being done in conjunction with the CCOP (www.ccop.or.th).
In particular, see their list of projects under DCGM where TNTmips is
specifically mentioned. Searching with Google (CCOP, Geotectonic) will give
a list of links to the TNTatlases that CCOP and GSJ have done along with
some papers (in English) on the ideas of creating electronic atlases. The
English version of the GSJ website (www.aist.go.jp)
does have some illustrations on the work that they are doing with TNTmips.
There are probably more references to be found in the Japanese section if
anyone at FMNZ speaks the language. It is possible that GSJ may have a
booth at the conference. You should check with the organizer to see and if
they do, get the contact person to arrange some joint printed materials
promoting the TNT products in the geological area.
“Finally, given the number of different countries which will be represented
at AusIMM, you will want to mention during any discussions with visitors
that the TNT products can be used in any language; not only for hardcopy and
digital data but the user interface as well. While it may not seem
important, this is a big selling point where English is often the second
language or where the users of the software do not speak English at all.
Being able to product hardcopy maps in Japanese, Chinese, etc. hence is
valuable to them. We do not have all of the world but most of the top
spoken languages in the world are covered. If you do have someone ask about
a language which does not have a user interface kit (*.pkg; microimages.com/i18n),
please let us know so that we can see how complicated it would be to add
support for and what is required.
“6)
It is good to hear that there has been some good feedback from the list of
New Zealand leads and that you will be meeting with some of them over the
coming weeks. If many of them are in the same field / application area or
geographic region, you could arrange for a meeting at a convenient location,
such as at a hotel meeting room for a half or full day session without
coffee breaks. This is especially useful if these people might be in the
same application area and would have many of the same questions.
“Regards,”
Response
extracted from international email on 1 July 2002
[from
a new dealer with professional experience with other GIS products learning
to use TNTmips]
“While I haven’t any specific questions yet, I think that is more a
reflection on the smooth running of the software than a concern about asking
the help. I have tried out about 90% (I would estimate) of the
functionality of TNTmips at this stage. I have come across a few issues
that had me a bit vexed for a while, but I have managed to iron them all out
myself so far. It is my natural learning path to explore by breaking and
fixing a bit, so I have been pleased with what I achieved with minimum
fuss. I provided helpdesk support for ArcGIS for some time a couple of
years ago, and I spent more time explaining things that can’t be done and
trying to fix internal errors than I ever did just helping people get on
with their work. It was rather frustrating. It is perhaps an upshot of
that that I consistently test for flaws and try and fix them when they are
encountered. With TNTmips, I have only had one or two issues which haven’t
been user error on my part. I have run a separate test installation that I
have continuously updated off the update section of your website and I have
found that recent updates have mostly fixed problems I have come across.
One issue I haven’t yet solved is regarding the import/export functionality
of some formats with which I have had some unusual results. I guess I was
waiting to see if I encounter the same issues in version 6.7 before I pursue
it further.
“With
that in mind I tried to compare the learning curves of different software’s
from several perspectives. When I first worked with workstation ArcInfo I
had some background with MapInfo and ArcView. I learnt ArcInfo in the first
instance by teaching myself. That was a reasonably steep learning curve and
took quite some time before I was at a point where I would call myself a
proficient technician. Later on I had to do all the courses to get
certified to teach them, and still learnt a lot I didn’t know in that
process. Learning TNTmips has been approached from a point where I have a
pretty wide range of experience with a number of software’s. You mentioned
that someone with proficiency with software of similar functionality will
find it easier to learn a different brand. I agree with that a lot, and
find there was a good degree of that involved in learning TNTmips. I found
at first that it was a little unusual to learn. I found simple tasks were
easily achieved, but as I didn’t look at the help enough, missed some
important concepts. After studying a couple of booklets I quickly realized
that I was expecting things to operate in a way that they don’t and started
over again. This was done in about the first hour of having the software.
After I started looking at the software more sensibly, I found that there
was an intrinsic logic to its structure and quickly got used to its
interface. With this breakthrough made I found it worked just as I would
have expected and made quick work of getting to grips with it. As a
percentage of my time spent learning ArcInfo, it would have taken about 25%
of the time at a maximum. While ArcInfo has the same paradigm shift in
operation from ArcView or MapInfo that TNT has, it does possess the logical
layout and structure that TNTmips provides.
“I
have had several of the contacts on the list of all time leads tell me that
it was straight forward and enjoyable to learn. That came from both GIS
Professionals and novices alike. I firmly believe what they are say, and
would suggest that learning TNT from scratch would be a much easier
proposition than leaning ArcInfo. It certainly helps to understand concepts
like Topology that users of ESRI ArcView, Intergraph and MapInfo may not
necessarily have a handle on. I think I was particularly lucky as my GIS
background meant that I have had to learn GIS from a software development
perspective in the past, so the core concepts are very easy to comprehend.
I would suggest that an average capability user, with little or no GIS
experience, would be able to learn TNTmips in 1/2 to 3/4 of the time that it
would take them to learn workstation ArcInfo. Notably, the same user could
learn TNTmips from the booklets and reference manual if required, whereas
the ESRI products really require a course [1 for each major topic).”
…
“With
regard to academic licensing, I had downloaded the SAL information, and that
will form the basis of our proposals to schools. Similarly to the U.S.,
Apple computers feature strongly in academic circles. They faded away for a
time due to a deal between our Government and Microsoft, but are on the way
back again. It is definitely the growth platform in academia. This is more
so in schools at this stage, but many University and technical institutions
are converting back currently, or at least planning to. When I was at
University in the mid 90’s, there were really no PC’s available – it was all
Mac. This changed gradually after the Governments deal in 1995, but that
expired last year. I would suggest that by 2004, it will be totally Mac
dominated again. It is very pleasing to us that we can make SAL available
to Macs running OSX, because it is out of reach of any competing GIS
software. The platform independence is proving a strong bonus for TNT, far
more than I first expected. This appears to be a result of the rapidly
increasing Linux usage in this country, and the general refusal by other GIS
software’s to accept it as a supported platform.”
Follow-up
email from MicroImages requesting clarifications on 4 July 2002
“In
reference to your email of 1 July 2002. Thank you for the detailed update.
It was interesting to hear how everything is going and having your feedback
on the questions that were asked. Some further comments regarding your
email.
“One issue I haven’t yet solved is regarding
the import/export functionality on some formats.”
“1)
You mention that you had some questions regarding the functionality of the
import/export process; especially with regards to some formats and unusual
results. Would you please expand upon this? Were there questions about
what formats the TNT products do import/export? What kind of unusual
results were you getting and with which formats? If possible, please send
the data and questions so that they can be looked at. For future reference,
if you do find an error or have a question about the software do not
hesitate to contact our offices for assistance. This is especially true
with import/export and other errors so that they can be fixed for the
benefit of all clients. Given your experience on the help desk with ArcGIS,
you know that not all clients use all of the features of the software or a
particular process in the same fashion. So while you may come across an
error given how you are doing something, another client may not. We tell
all of our clients including dealers to report errors as they are found so
that they can be corrected early. Also, if you have suggestions for the
software feel free to provide these as well.
“I found at first that it was a little unusual
to learn. I found that simple tasks were easily achieved, … , missed some
important concepts.”
“2)
In your email, you mention that you found the software unusual to learn at
first with simple tasks easy to do, but later on missed some important
concepts and went back to the booklets. Like yourself, I find that the
easiest way for me to learn software is to explore and refer to the help if
needed. Did you dive right into the software after getting it installed or
did you take time to review the prerequisite booklets Navigating and
Displaying Geospatial Data first? The Navigating booklet is important as it
introduces the user interface, the project file and other important things
which are assumed to be known by the user in the other booklets. The
Displaying booklet is important as all clients use the display process on a
regular basis. From my own experience, I have found that trying to select
and display an object in other software packages can be difficult if I am
unfamiliar with the user interface.
“In
any case, can you note for us which concepts were not self evident? As you
may know, we are continually making adjustments to simplify things for
beginning users while retaining depth for advanced users. Sometimes this is
done by changing the user interface or by introducing Quick Guides on a
particular topic. Other times there are changes made to the booklets.
Anything to make it easier for the first time user to begin using the
software without getting frustrated in the learning process.
“I have come across a few issues that had me
a bit vexed for awhile, …”
“3)
For the same reasons, if you could outline those issues which had you
puzzled for a little while until you solved
them yourself.
“I provided helpdesk support for ArcGIS for
some time a couple of years ago, and I spent more time explaining things
that can’t be done and trying to fix internal errors than I ever did just
helping people get on with their work.”
“4)
As a newcomer to the TNT products, but given your experience with providing
support for ArcGIS, can you comment on the relative error situation between
the two (2) products?
“For
reference, the TNT products do not have “bugs”, they have "errors" as noted
in your email. We consider the use of the term “bug” a cover-up and
MicroImages operates under the principal that “all software has errors, but
it is how we (MicroImages and our clients) work together to solve them in a
timely fashion that really counts.” This is why it is important to us that
if you do find errors to report them as they are found; even though you
think that the error in question must have already been reported already.
We know that all of our clients are busy doing projects with the software
and the quicker that an error is reported and corrected, the sooner that
they can continue their work. We, despite telling our clients all of this,
there are who wait for a period of time to report any errors that they find
and report them all at once. Then they wonder why it takes us so long to
correct them.
“Returning to the import issue, are there any particular formats used in
[your nation] which can not already be imported/exported by TNTmips? If so,
which formats and can you provide complete format documentation and sample
data?”
Response
extracted from international email on 1 July 2002
“I
hope your 4th July celebrations and holiday period are going well. It has
got to be better than our [weather]
right now. I had only just realized after my last email that it's that time
of year for you.
“1.
With the import/export process, I generally find it very easy to run and
have not had any major difficulties with corruptions or crashing. I mention
that because tools such as MapInfo's Universal Translator are very prone to
corrupting files and crashing for no apparent reason, so it is refreshing to
have a well engineered facility for importing and exporting. Handling many
formats is very important to us and I am constantly impressed with the range
of formats available to import and export. To this end I can't really see
any formats that need to be added except perhaps the ability to handle
native AutoCad DWG format. [My nation]
is relatively free of unique file formats, so as for specific new formats,
there is really nothing we would add.
“In
terms of our results from the import export/process, we have found that in
some instances importing from MapInfo Tab files and ESRI shapefiles, table
values have a figure added, seemingly at random. This has been almost unique
to our national topographic dataset which starts as a Laserscan format at
the government agency and gets converted by their resellers into various
formats. End users like ourselves can only buy it in DXF, MIF or shapefile.
We are in the process of becoming accredited resellers ourselves, so we hope
to soon have it available in raw forms to work with directly. We suspect we
may find some cross-over issues that could solve the import/export problems
we have had. An example of the problems we have seen was on importing an
elevation contour dataset. After importing it and creating an elevation
model from it, I draped an aerial photo on it and processed it for sim3D.
On loading it up I thought I had messed up the vertical exaggeration, but on
looking more closely I found that a series of the internal table elevation
values had acquired a "9" in front of them. This meant there were
elevations of 950m where they should have been 50m and so on. It was also
banded in groups of 5 or so, such that every so often there was a band of
extreme elevation amongst an otherwise sensible landscape. I am in the
process of packaging up the datasets and sending them to the support desk to
see what you make of them. As the issues are fairly unique to one data
source, I tend to suspect the data source more than the software.
“2.
When learning the software first, I installed it and started tinkering
around. I didn't take the time to read any of the booklets and this is why
I found the experience unusual at first. Had I come straight from ArcInfo
version 7.x, or been using UNIX more at the time it would have been a much
more familiar interface layout. However I had been spending a great deal of
time with the ArcGIS interface, which is remarkably like MapInfo and heavily
Windows oriented. To this end I automatically expected things to fall a
different way in the menus, a way that doesn’t necessarily reflect logic.
An example would be clipping a theme. I quickly loaded objects to display
or edit and then searched the main menus for the clip tools. It did not
occur to me to look at the tools associated with the objects I had just
loaded. That is no reflection whatsoever on the software, but rather a
factor of entrenched reflexes. After about 2 hours of toying around I
decided to read the two key getting started booklets. I found that I
suddenly had my eyes open and was a bit sheepish about the way I had started
out. I have recommended to everyone I have talked to that they first read
the Navigating and displaying data booklet and do the exercises before doing
anything themselves. Interestingly everyone has said it is the most logical
and well laid out interface they have used. I thoroughly agree with that
and find it ideal now. I mention ArcInfo 7.x and UNIX because the TNTmips
interface in particular follows the logic of UNIX, and has a familiar look
and feel to ArcTools and AML applications.
“As
far as concepts that weren’t self evident, I think they actually all are
perfectly evident. The particular things that didn’t fall immediately to
hand for me were functions like clipping, union, intersect, merge and so
on. I would reiterate that I only found it unusual before I read the first
getting started booklet. Had I read that first I believe I would have
picked it up immediately.
“3.
As for issues that puzzled me at first, I think that was a bit of the same
problem with not reading the booklets before I charged on. One thing that I
had trouble with at first was doing raster calculations. I had an elevation
model of a tailings dump and wanted to make a volume calculation of its
capacity to infer its life span. I made a separate elevation model for the
projected top, or roof, of the dump and used cut and fill analysis to give
me a figure. After no success of getting cut and fill to work, I made the
discovery that the rasters need to be of the same size and extents. Had I
read the booklet I would have seen that of course. When I recreated the
dummy dump roof raster with the as-built dump raster as the implied
reference it worked fine. Another example was the orthorectification
process for aerial photos. When I charged ahead I treated it a bit like ER
Mapper/OrthoWarp and went straight to the Orthorectification dialog and then
got puzzled as to why I couldn't set the parameters properly. A small
amount of forsaking and I worked out two thirds of the operation, but still
missed some bits. As soon as I read the booklet of course I noted that it
was a straight forward, step by step process. As soon as I had read that I
had a successfully orthorectified photo from scratch in about half an hour.
Great stuff. Once I had the logic of it all sorted out, it was then very
easy to go on with supervised classification and so on.
“From
a first time users perspective it is a fine balance. You could follow the
path of MapInfo and ESRI and have an interface that is very Windows
standardized and simple. While it seems good for the first hour, one
becomes increasingly frustrated with the inability to find functions, and
annoyed at the fact that a lot of customization is needed to get the
interface to suit your work style. On the other hand the interface of the
TNT products hides power effectively, such that the basic functionality is
easily reached and natural curiosity drives the user to discover more. Bear
in mind of course that MapInfo and ESRI have considerably less functionality
to provide for than does MicroImages. I believe MicroImages really has the
right mix. TNTview, edit and mips step up in their interfaces as the users
will step up in ability. I feel TNTview has an interface at a level that an
entry-level user would find it intuitive and easy to learn and explore.
TNTmips at the other end of the spectrum offers a good balance between the
intense functionality the software contains and ease of use and learning. I
would suggest that trying to improve that interface will be a natural
evolutionary process, rather than a radical shift in thinking. I suspect
the native interfaces offered by version 6.7 will also aid first time
users. For anyone with a background in Linux or UNIX, the behaviors of X
Server and the interfaces running on it are easy to come to terms with. It
has been my experience to find that Users with a windows only background
immediately say the look and feel of X server is "clunky". I have never
heard anyone still say that after some time using it however. Either way, I
believe the native interfaces will be a good improvement from a conversion
marketing perspective.
“4.
In comparison to ArcGIS, the TNT products don’t really have error problems
at all. When supporting ESRI products I spent a large amount of time
apologizing about and, requesting fixes for, a multitude of errors. These
errors ranged from security flaws in ArcIMS through to the inability to
support topology in the GeoDatabase format. Alongside of many errors is a
lack of responsiveness from head office on fixing them. Many of the errors
first reported in ArcGIS in its release in 1999 still remain as “known
issues”, no closer to being fixed. This has generated a lack of confidence
in ArcGIS and a general negative feeling in this area amongst users. There
are many telling statistics around to this extent. Most ESRI user sites
have not converted to the GeoDatabase format, and there is still a strong
reliance on Workstation ArcInfo, as ArcGIS is typically mistrusted. It
strikes me that MicroImages is streets ahead when it comes to being
relatively free from errors. Most impressive is that it is maintained
alongside an aggressive development policy. It has also been noted how
helpful and efficient the support team at MicroImages are. Several TNT Lite
users here have mentioned their pleasure with it and I know the couple of
issues I forwarded on behalf of clients were solved overnight. That is a
situation unheard of elsewhere. I know of at least 50 ESRI Helpdesk calls
that I had open in 1999 that are still awaiting response today. It isn’t
possible to fix everything and make everyone happy, but MicroImages does the
best job of it that I have seen to date.
“Again I seem to have turned a few thoughts into a rather long-winded email
- sorry about that. One thing we have been discussing here is our
projections and local systems. [A name]
is by far the most common system to use, but there are changes being
implemented to it, the introduction of [a
new map projection], and the continued use of local circuits. These
projections are easy to create ourselves in TNTmips, and we were wondering
about submitting them for consideration for future releases. Obviously
there is a smallish market at this stage for
[our] coordinate systems, but
hopefully we will be expanding that market over the near future.
“Anyway, thanks again and I hope this helps you.”
Network Chatter
http://keene.home.texas.net/macsoftware.html
“This
is, along with GRASS is the only full-featured GIS to run natively on a
Macintosh. However, it is more feature rich than GRASS and easier to use.
TNTmips is a very powerful GIS that offers all the functionality of ArcView
(w/Spatial, 3D and Image Analysis extensions) for about half the price. Its
features also include capabilities of Arc/Info, which makes TNTmips a good
bargain. This software handles probably more file formats that any other GIS
available. While it is not free like GRASS, it offers more features. The
company does offer a free TNTlite version that gives you full functionality
except for file size, export capabilities (which are disabled). The file
structure TNTmips uses is also very efficient and the rendering engine is
excellent. It handles vector and raster files equally well. A new release
(v.6.70) that will be compatible for Mac OS X is coming this summer and a
beta (v.6.60) is available right now either as a download or as a CD ($10).
MicroImages has always been committed to providing a Mac version of their
software and this new OS X version, should be an excellent choice for
geospatial analysis on the Mac. Their manuals and getting started booklets
are some of the most comprehensive documentation I have ever seen for any
software package. Many of them provide a good overview of GIS in general.”
Extracted from
email from an international site dated 27 December 2001
[This
material comes from a party who does not have any TNT product or any
previous contact of any kind with us. It does appear that they have been in
contact with some of our clients in their nation.]
“[Our company]
is recognized as the only Natural Resources
GIS specialists in [our nation], and
similarly recognized in [another large
nation]. We are currently involved in developing GIS applications
for Viticulture and Aquaculture, and are continuing to work aggressively to
grow the business. Our goal is to become the Number one GIS business in the
Southern Hemisphere, and we are certainly making some inroads.
“I
see one of the keys to our business growth in
[these nations] is the ability to
develop and promote one line of software, rather than continuing to benefit
other companies growth by developing theirs
[presumed to refer here to writing add-on programs]. We have long
used both ESRI and MapInfo software, as well as working with other products
when required. As a person with experience within
[our nation’s] ESRI agency, I am
well aware of the ESRI marketing machine, and very conscious that its
domination of [my nation’s]
marketplace could be unseated by a good product that is well serviced and
supported. [My nation’s] MapInfo
agents are at best appalling and we see them as no competition.
“On
assessing MicroImages’ product lines, I have seen a suite of products which
I believe can take ESRI head-on in the marketplace. I am extremely
enthusiastic about its possibilities, and would like to switch our clients
to the MicroImages range as soon as possible. We want to act as agents for
you because we firmly believe the TNT suite is the best GIS available. We
wish to develop a culture of using MicroImages’ products within this country
by taking them to schools and Academic Institutions, and immediately making
our current clientele into TNT users.
“I am
aware you already have resellers in [a
nearby nation], but would be keen to take you products to our users
there as well. Whether or not this is possible I am not sure, but please be
aware of our interest. As I mentioned earlier, we thoroughly believe that
MicroImages has the best GIS products available, and we feel that we can
make a large impact upon [our]
marketplace with these. It is an exciting time for GIS at present, and we
as a company are working around the clock to become a leader in the
industry. With the help of MicroImages’ range of products we see that goal
being achieved faster, to the benefit of the GIS industry, our companies and
the end users.”
Email from an
Australian government agency dated 30 January 2002
“I’m
looking into possibly replacing our current ESRI bound GIS (5 sites - 80
users spread across a LAN/WAN) with TNTmips. Could you please supply a
price for the above mentioned product. Could you also include cost such as
maintenance etc.”
Follow-up on
above Australian email dated 31 January 2002
[In
reference to your email of 30 January. MicroImages is currently working on
the numbers for your request which will be sent in a few days. In the
interim, we would like to ask a few questions.]
[1)
How did you happen to hear about MicroImages and the TNT products in
general?]
“I
seem to be on your mailing list!”
[2)
You mention that there are five (5) sites with eighty (80) users. What is
the hardware setup at these locations; computers, operating system, etc.]
“All
sites are Windows NT or win98 machines connected to Windows NT Domain. All
machines are i386. Sites are spread over a large (1600km between major
nodes) WAN. Two sites with 10 users or more, another two with 5 to 10. We
also have several users (could be as many as 15 to 20 Arcview users) spread
many many kilometers apart on very slow dial-up access to the WAN.”
[3)
What other geospatial analysis software (GIS, remote sensing, etc) are you
using besides the WSRI products?]
“We
are using ESRI, ER Mapper, Erdas Imagine and MapINFO. We are in the process
of bringing out spatial data into Oracle Spatial.
|
MapINFO |
~4 licenses |
|
ER Mapper |
5
licenses |
|
Imagine |
2
licenses plus vector |
|
ArcInfo |
10 licenses |
|
ArcEdit |
4 |
|
ArcGRID |
5” |
|
ArcTIN |
3 |
|
ArcNetwork |
2 |
|
ArcView 3.2 |
55 ” |
Email from the
United States dated 3 February 2002
“I am
sick of ArcGIS! Send me pricing and details on TNTmips of Mac OS 10.1.
Thanks.”
Extracted from
email from New Zealand dated 21 February 2002
“There are arguments both ways but we are leaning in favor of proceeding
because we feel that you are offering real competition for the current
market leaders (if it was a product line that didn’t excite us enough to be
our first choice then there would be no argument at all!).”
Email from
Japan dated 21 February 2002
“ERSDAC is preparing most images using Mips.”
[Earth Satellite Data Analysis Center (ERSDAC) in Japan has multiple TNTmips
units in operation. ERSDAC is a foundation set up and operated under MITI
to coordinate and conduct remote sensing research for the Japanese
Government.]
Email from the
United States dated 27 February 2002
[comments on the TNTlite download form.]
“Develop GIS-based curriculum materials using ArcView. Currently frustrated
with our relationship with ESRI and are looking for a Mac/Windows
alternative.”
Email from
Germany dated 1 March 2002
[comments on the TNTlite download form.]
“Mapping of water quality survey results, and impacts on waters. Standard
GIS at our offices is ArcView, but for reason of contact to other agencies,
research institutes, and publication, other GIS software has to be tried.”
Email from the
United States dated 1 March 2002
[comments on the TNTlite download form.]
“I am
now planning to buy TNTmips for Mac OS X. The reason is loving the human
interface and import/export variety of TNTmips. After the examination. I
will try to get budget for this.”
Email from
Australia dated 24 March 2002
[comments on the TNTlite download form.]
“Consider as an alternative for ArcView/Ermapper on Mac platform.”
Email from the
Japan dated 15 August 2002
[comments on the TNTlite download form.]
“Beautiful idea.”
Question to an
Australian individual on a forum from EPA dated 22 February 2002
“Are
you able to distinguish between Zostera marina green macroalgae in your
aerial photography? That’s been a challenge for us & I’m eager to learn how
you deal with that.”
Response
from Australia no date
“It
is hard work and subjective, but if you have a time series of images it is
possible to distinguish reasonably reliably between seagrasses and green
macroalgae (which vary in their distributions and densities more rapidly
over time) - may not be true if you are looking at seagrasses which have
highly seasonal cover variability. I have been able to map wastewater
plumes from their green microalgae and cyanobacterial spectral signatures
and the spread of the polychaete Sabella (from its burden of red and green
microalgae). I am now using airborne hyperspectral data from the CASI and
Hymap instruments. These can be flown so as to provide pixel sizes of about
2m. CASI has 30 bands, Hymap 128 bands. Airborne hyperspectral data is
relatively expensive, but if you really want good spectral discrimination
and the ability to very accurately correct for water column absorption and
atmospheric effects and you account for all the time you would spend
classifying aerial photographs subjectively (and not being sure your
classifications could be repeated by anybody else) then it works out to be
not so expensive. The Hyperion satellite can provide data at 15m pixels for
12 bands and the coverages are quite expensive.
“You
also need the right software for image classification. I have found that
TNTmips is far and away the best product for image analysis - by comparison
ArcView and Imagine and ERMapper are kindergarten toys.”
Follow-up
question from someone else following the discussion
“This
has been an interesting discussion of the discrimination of algae and
seagrass spectral signatures. I was not aware that by using ERDAS Imagine
we were still in kindergarten. Could you provide us with a few examples
that might support your strong statement.”
Response
from Australian
“I
mentioned that I had said I thought ArcView, Imagine and ERMapper were in
kindergarten. Well I apologized to somebody who was obviously offended.
See below my apology, but also discussion of remote sensing user and
software capabilities. Got a good response- see at start of the email.”
More
response from Australian
“I
didn’t mean to cause any personal offence. I perhaps should refer to the
number of users of the products I mentioned, who over the last couple of
years have asked me on numerous occasions to assist them with image
classification, only to find these other products simply don’t have some of
the statistical image classification procedures or excellent functions of
TNTmips. I am aware that there is a danger that once you commit the enormous
time and effort needed to become familiar with a particular piece of
software (not to mention the cost of licenses) you tend to think it is the
best thing around. However I have found TNTmips to be far better
integrated, more powerful in image analysis esp. stats and hyperspectral
than anything else I have had the opportunity to work with. When
MicroImages produce their occasional product comparisons, in the area I use
TNTmips, it just stands out. You might like to download a copy from the
free software TNTlite from www.microimages.com.
“I
think very unfortunately that although the other products are more widely
used than TNTmips (I have worked for major environmental consultancies and
government departments and am aware that they tend to be ESRI “shops”) there
is a frighteningly low level of user training - some people are lucky to
get any at all, and then it is often for staff not qualified to work in the
remote sensing area - planners and engineers who are GIS users - not remote
sensing scientists.
“So
perhaps I should say that when I have listed up classifications done by
TNTmips users as compared to those done by users of other products, in
general have found TNT to be vastly superior, reliable and more detailed in
terms of feature discrimination. The software or the users skills?? could
be either.
“Just
one example that really stands out for me was in a project to classify
terrestrial spring vegetation into just two features - vegetation and wet
soil. I developed very efficient and accurate methods using TNTmips and ran
a trial of 30 springs. I was able to classify and compute feature areas and
develop maps and statistics of changes for 30 springs, over 3 time periods
of aerials coverages in just 10 days. Another consultant who took on the
job of classifying an additional 300 springs, using other software had not
classified one spring after 3 months and managed to complete less than 10 in
the following 2 months. Once again I think it is probably the users, but I
know that classification algorithms used in TNTmips are not available in any
other software.
“Once
again apologies to you and I am sure you are doing a great job. CSIRO here
in Australia’s major government research organization uses both Imagine and
TNTmips. I think because their training backgrounds they use the former,
but we communicate data sets and classification regularly - no file format
problems at all and I generally end up correcting or improving their
classifications. [Must be using TNTmips
to import/export from Imagine as the reverse is not possible.] Again
this may be user skills - I have a lot more local knowledge of the areas we
are currently working on so am able to pick up classification errors very
easily - no slight on their abilities - they are world leaders in
hyperspectral analyses.
“Thank you for your response.”
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