New Manifold Toolbar for Free Download

The new Manifold Toolbar for Internet Explorer may be downloaded and used free of charge from the Manifold Toolbar page. The new edition provides outstanding ease of use and other improvements, including:

• Automatic download and installation of eighteen new image server modules.
• Fast switches between different image servers without changing context.
• Faster performance.
• Superior use of cache.
• Support by third parties for Google and other image servers.
• Built-in support for upcoming new IE versions.
• The latest Virtual Earth street map styles.

The Manifold toolbar enhances Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser to allow geographic browsing of many different image servers, like Microsoft's Virtual Earth (Bing Maps) for satellite imagery and street maps, Yahoo! satellite imagery and street maps, CloudMade Maps, OpenStreetMaps, Google, Yandex and the incredibly high resolution imagery for many Australian cities provided by Nearmap. Enter a location into the Toolbar and press go and there you are!

See the Manifold Toolbar page for a free download and complete details.

Eighteen New Image Server Modules Released

The latest update to Manifold System features support for a new generation of image servers to provide a wider range of image server sources with faster performance and greater convenience. Eighteen (wow!) new image server modules provide access to the latest imagery and streets for worldwide coverage from both open source and proprietary sources, using the world's most premium vendors like Microsoft Virtual Earth, Yahoo! and many others. Download image servers for free for the latest Manifold edition from the Image Servers page.

Image server modules are small snippets of code provided for free that enable Manifold to connect to providers like Virtual Earth, Yahoo! Maps and Google Earth to automatically pull down georegistered satellite photography, street maps or other imagery to fill whatever map window you want. As you zoom in or out, or pan or scroll around the right imagery is automatically fetched from the provider at the right resolution, completely and perfectly georegistered to whatever other layers you want.

The new image servers include worldwide providers like Microsoft as well as region-specific providers like Nearmap in Australia and Yandex in Russia. They include OpenStreetMaps "open source" geographic data and commercial providers, like CloudMade, which leverage open streets data in new and spectacular ways. CloudMade allows style specification so Manifold users can create completely custom formatting and styles showing the data they want using the cartography and colors desired. The image at above right shows Westminster in London, England, using typical cartographic style and illustrating the phenomenally rich geographic data layers now available to Manifold users instantaneously in their projects.

The illustration at right shows how image server layers can be combined with data layers in Manifold. The green diamonds show chateaus in the Loire Valley in a Manifold drawing layer imported from a Google KMZ database of over 850 chateaus. To provide context a background satellite image layer comes from Virtual Earth. Roads are a middle layer taken from Yahoo! Streets, with the "white space" between roads and road labels made transparent so the background satellite imagery shows through. This display can be created in one or two minutes! The entire presentation is "live action" in Manifold, so we can zoom far in to see each individual chateau in the satellite imagery at high resolution.

Converting from GeoFrameworks to Manifold

With the recent demise of GeoFrameworks many former GeoFrameworks customers have contacted manifold.net to ask about converting from GIS.NET, GPS.NET and Geodesy.NET to Manifold in their applications. A new Information Page provides provides information for any customer considering such a transition.

Manifold Sets Yet Another GIS Desktop Supercomputing Record

Less than 90 days after setting the previous world record for the number of processors used in a GIS desktop computation at 1,440 processors, manifold.net has raised the bar by setting a new world record at an amazing 1,920 simultaneous processing cores!

The new record of 1,920 simultaneous processors was made possible in a compact desktop machine utilizing a new motherboard and four GTX 295 GPU cards housed in a custom case designed by manifold.net engineers. The configuration provided over five teraflops of computational performance in an affordable desktop system.

The new record was achieved at the North American Conference for Manifold GIS Users in Denver, Colorado, hosted by the University of Denver. Manifold users came from all over North America for two days of meetings, presentations, social events and discussions of product futures presented under Non-Disclosure Agreement by manifold.net personnel.

For information on this new world GIS supercomputing record, please see the Press Release for details and links to a complete build document.

Manifold Sets New GIS Record for Supercomputing Desktop

Manifold.net has set a new world record for the number of processors used in a desktop machine for Geographic Information Systems (GIS) processing. At the company's recent 2009 European User Meeting in London, Manifold demonstrated an upcoming new software product that simultaneously utilized over 1,440 processor cores to perform a remote sensing image computation at supercomputer speed with over 3.5 teraflops of performance.

Hosted by University College London, the 2009 European User Meeting brought together users from all over Europe and also from as far away as North America and New Zealand for two days of seminars, presentations and previews of advanced technology. For additional information on Manifold's new parallel processing record, including photos, see the Complete Press Release and FAQ.

Manifold Wins Geospatial Leadership Award

Manifold has won the 2008 Geospatial Innovator Award for Manifold System, receiving the award in this year's Geospatial Leadership Awards ceremony at the GeoTec 2008 conference in Ottawa, Canada, sponsored by GeoWorld magazine. The Innovator award was sponsored by BAE Systems and won by Manifold in competition against twelve distinguished nominees.

Nominees included outstanding innovations from companies and products including AutoDesk, Avenza, Gaia, Fusion open source mapping, ESRI, i-Ten Associates, Intergeo, LizardTech, and Magellan GPS. Manifold's nomination cited Manifold System's ability to utilize hundreds of NVIDIA stream processors to deliver supercomputer performance on the desktop.

The Manifold nominaton and award citation reads, "Manifold is the first GIS to exploit massively parallel supercomputer technology on a desktop using inexpensive plug-in cards that provide hundreds of processors for less than $500. That enables GIS tasks and analysis to be completed hundreds of times faster than before through an innovative use of inexpensive, consumer hardware." See the NVIDIA Press Release for Manifold's CUDA support since 2007.

See the Manifold / NVIDIA CUDA demo video to see Manifold in action using NVIDIA. See a one minute task get done in two seconds! Amazing! Manifold is the only GIS in the world that can use NVIDIA CUDA for supercomputer performance. See the Manifold Supercomputer GIS presentation, which also includes the CUDA demo, to learn why NVIDIA CUDA is so fast and for background on why modern computing is shifting to parallel processing.

For additional details on Manifold's use of NVIDIA technology, see the NVIDIA CUDA topic in the online edition of the Manifold User Manual. For NVIDIA info on this outstanding technology, visit NVIDIA's CUDA Zone web site.

Philippine Government uses Manifold for National Geodetic Network

The Philippine government Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) recently trained personnel in Manifold System Release 8.00 to support implementation of the Philippine Reference System (PRS '92) Project. The PRS 92' Project will complete and maintain the national geodetic network and will integrate old surveys and maps into the network. The project is essential for sustainable management and development of the country's natural resources and to establish more accurate spatial positioning for infrastructure and other activities.

Manifold is proud to have been selected as one of the tools utilized for this high accuracy and essential project. For additional details, see the complete press release.

(Illustration, right): Republic of the Philippines illustrated in Manifold usng the technique shown here. Click on the image for a larger view.

Manifold First to Support Windows Server 2008

Manifold is now the first GIS vendor to deliver full support for Microsoft Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 x64. Within days of Microsoft's announcement of this major new Windows edition Manifold has guaranteed full support for all features, including the Manifold Internet Map Server (IMS) for Windows Server 2008.

All current Manifold System editions will install and operate flawlessly with Windows Server 2008 "out of the box."

Manifold First to Support SQL Server 2008!

Manifold becomes the first GIS vendor to deliver support for Microsoft SQL Server 2008 spatial capabilities. No vaporware, no "we plan to support," double-talk, no nonsense at all: Manifold is the first to ship a full power GIS system that today in full production software dynamically connects to SQL Server 2008 and fully leverages SQL Server 2008 spatial capability. Stuck with a GIS vendor that doesn't even know what Microsoft SQL Server 2008 is? Time to modernize! See the press release today.

See the Manifold and SQL Server 2008 demo video to see Manifold in action with SQL Server 2008 spatial while simultaneously using Microsoft Virtual Earth. Manifold can even store large images in SQL Server 2008 spatial! See how in the Storing an image in SQL Server 2008 demo video. Outstanding!

Manifold has supported SQL Server 2008 since August, 2007. The most recent update to Manifold includes built-in support for Microsoft's November CTP for SQL Server 2008, the first public CTP that provides spatial capability. Take advantage of direct support from spatial experts who have had the longest track record supporting the latest and greatest spatial code from Microsoft.

Tired of clueless GIS vendors who can't help you take advantage of the most important spatial DBMS ever introduced? Get no excuses, full-power support for SQL Server 2008 spatial with Manifold that you can buy and download today. See the web version of the user manual right now, beginning with the SQL Server Spatial DBMS Facilities topic. Working with SQL Server 2008 spatial? Order Manifold System today on the Online Store.

Release 8.00 Delivers Hundreds of New Features!

manifold.net is now shipping the most powerful Manifold® System yet: Release 8. The new release provides revolutionary increases in speed, spatial database capacity, integration with legacy geodatabases, a host of "crowd-pleaser" user interface improvements and the world's first GIS to run at teraflop supercomputer speed on the desktop using massively parallel computing - all delivered with famous, bullet-proof Manifold quality, the most reliable GIS ever!

Release 8 opens projects with lightning speed, even those containing gigabytes of images and renders large images and surfaces with fantastically increased speed, over 100 times faster with very large images than the previous Release 7x product. Innovations like progressive rendering and dynamic caching of views provide superb user interface fluidity when working with large, complex drawings and maps.

Manifold revolutionizes spatial DBMS by providing direct, native support for all major spatial DBMS vendors: Oracle Spatial, IBM DB2 with Spatial Extender, PostgreSQL/PostGIS and even Microsoft SQL Server 2008 spatial ("Katmai"). SQL Server 2008 spatial capability has been announced by Microsoft but not yet shipped: Manifold Release 8 includes built-in full support for SQL Server 2008 spatial so Microsoft partners, ISVs and others working with pre-release editions of SQL Server 2008 spatial facilities can begin work today.

In addition to full, native spatial DBMS support for all major spatial DBMS vendors, Release 8 introduces new Manifold facilities that can confer spatial DBMS capabilities onto almost any DBMS, even those without native spatial capability. Use SQL Server 2005, MySQL, Informix or other "nonspatial" DBMS products as high performance spatial databases to store drawings, images and surfaces of virtually unlimited capacity. Easily connect to such databases and import or link drawings with Area of Interest specification and full, multi-user editing, even with Personal Edition! Import or link images of virtually unlimited size in seconds using spatial DBMS storage managed by Manifold.

To support spatial DBMS operations at high speed on SQL Server for those users who do not yet have access to SQL Server 2008 pre-releases, Manifold has introduced the Manifold Spatial Extender for SQL Server, a free download that installs on SQL Server machines to provide very high performance, server-side spatial indices for spatial DBMS work when using Manifold system. Use the Manifold spatial extender with SQL Server 2005, even SQL Server 2005 Express SP2, to immediately begin using SQL Server as a high performance spatial DBMS. Outstanding!

Manifold Release 8 is the first mainstream application to support NVIDIA® CUDA™, the use of massively parallel architectures to deliver supercomputer performance on the desktop. Typical CUDA cards provide 128 stream processors on a plug-in card, with up to four cards at a time providing as many as 512 processors delivering well over a teraflop of computing power. Because of high volume generated by the gaming industry (CUDA cards provide the fastest graphics as well as the fastest computation), entry-level CUDA cards with 32 processors are under $150 and even high performance cards with 128 processors are well under $600. Manifold can automatically upload surface transform tasks into CUDA cards, automatically using as many as 512 processors simultaneously for essentially instantaneous computation of even very complex calculations.

Release 8.00 Highlights

Release 8.00 delivers over 420 improvements, including new features and bug fixes to prior releases. Highlights include:

• Faster .map file loading - The new .map - file format and enhanced data structures allows much faster opening and loading of .map files, dramatically faster in the case of projects containing large images and surfaces. In some cases, what used to take tens of minutes to open now opens in a few seconds.
• Faster image and surface rendering - Images and surfaces are rendered much faster, typically one hundred times faster in the case of very large images and surfaces. What used to take tens of minutes now happens in seconds.
• Faster drawing rendering - Drawings also are rendered much faster, often two to ten times faster with large drawings.
• Progressive rendering - Manifold now renders components using progressive rendering, where the user interface becomes active and available even before the component finishes rendering. This provides much faster workflow, because if we are opening a component with the intent of zooming into some part of it we can draw the zoom box and begin zooming as soon as enough of the component has been rendered for us to get our bearings.
• Faster selections - Visual selection tools have been optimized to work faster, typically two to four times faster.
• Extensive View Caching - Views are now cached so that Manifold rarely needs to re-render a view once it has been displayed.   Using the Back and Forward view navigation buttons, for example, is instantaneous.

• NVIDIA CUDA support - Manifold will automatically utilize NVIDIA CUDA hardware that may be installed in the system and supported with CUDA libraries.  Currently supported in many surface transform dialog functions, CUDA-capable plug-in cards provide as many as 512 stream processors for supercomputer power on the desktop for as little as $150 or less.   Some applications fitting CUDA capabilities that might have taken tens of seconds or even minutes can be accomplished in hundredths of seconds. Although limited in the current implementation, CUDA is the first step in what during the months ahead will clearly emerge to be the future of almost all GIS computing. In terms of revolutionary steps forward, this could well be the Release 8 feature with by far the most impact upon the future of GIS.
• Autohide / Popup Panes - We can now expand the size of working windows by auto-hiding panes, such as the project pane. Move the mouse cursor over the pane's tab and it dynamically expands for use. Move the mouse away and the pane hides itself into the tab to allow a larger working view.
• Manifold Spatial DBMS capability storing drawings, images and surfaces within almost any DBMS - Manifold Enterprise Edition or higher now can confer spatial DBMS capability onto almost any DBMS, including those that do not have native "spatial" facilities. Manifold can automatically create spatial indices to store drawings using a variety of supported geometry types and can also store images and surfaces within high-performance spatial DBMS storage. Drawings of virtually limitless size can be edited using Area of Interest specification on desktop machines. Manifold can store images of virtually limitless capacity with very high performance access and rendering using almost any commercial or open source DBMS you choose, allowing opening of even multi-gigabyte images in seconds. Even if DBMS is not used to store drawings, the ability to store images with very high performance into DBMS is something all serious users of Manifold should learn to exploit.
• Enterprise Edition support for Spatial DBMS export - Previously, Database Administrator Edition was required for convenient export of drawing into a spatial DBMS. With Release 8 any Enterprise Edition or higher edition can easily export drawings, images or surfaces into spatial DBMS in a single step, automatically creating spatial indices, marking the spatial table to be treated as a drawing and otherwise managing the spatial DBMS infrastructure to allow subsequent use of drawings.
• All editions can utilize Manifold spatial DBMS capability - Enterprise Edition continues to be required to connect to native spatial DBMS (DB2 with IBM Spatial Extender, Oracle OCI, PostgreSQL/PostGIS, SQL Server 2008) using native spatial capabilities, but any Manifold edition from Personal Edition on up can connect and utilize generic spatial DBMS capability conferred by Manifold once Enterprise Edition has been used to upload drawings, images or surfaces into the spatial DBMS. That includes use of spatial DBMS within SQL Server 2005 using the Manifold Spatial Extender for SQL Server.
• Manifold Spatial Extender for SQL Server - The spatial extender provides high performance spatial indices within SQL Server 2005 or more recent version.   Works with SQL Server 2005 Express SP2 or more recent edition as well. Use the spatial extender with SQL Server 2005 to get started today with spatial DBMS within the SQL Server world. Manifold works automatically and transparently with the spatial extender when it is installed on a SQL Server machine for better performance.
• Spatial DBMS support for Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Spatial - This new Microsoft product (code named "Katmai") has been announced but has not yet been published for the general public. If you are lucky enough to have a pre-release version, your copy of Manifold has built-in support for SQL Server 2008 Spatial.
• Spatial DBMS support for IBM DB2 with IBM Spatial Extender for DB2 - Manifold also adds DB2 to the roster of native spatial DBMS products supported by Manifold. The IBM Spatial Extender for DB2 is a free download for IBM DB2 Express-C editions as well as full DB2.
• Spatial DBMS support for PostgreSQL - Breaking with the prior tradition of supporting only commercial DBMS products, Manifold now provides full native spatial DBMS operation with PostgreSQL equipped with the PostGIS spatial extension.
• Spatial DBMS support for ESRI SDE geodatabases and ESRI Personal geodatabases - Manifold can now connect to SDE (also known as "ArcGIS") data stores using any DBMS supported by ESRI or to so-called "Personal" geodatabases, most frequently encountered within Access .mdb files.   Manifold can import drawings from such geodatabases or link to drawings for read/write/edit dynamic compatibility with such linked drawings to add/delete/edit objects in such drawings, even changing their assigned projections.
• Faster data access through the Data Source dialog - Access to data sources such as OLE DB, ADO .NET and ODBC has been streamlined into a new Data Source dialog. The new dialog remembers data sources that have been configured and makes them available within dialogs such as the Database Console or Administrator console. This makes it much easier to connect to databases because once a data source has been configured we can quickly double-click on it in the Data Sources dialog to use it.
• Changeable Area of Interest - Drawings linked from any spatial DBMS using an area of interest subset can now have the area of interest changed even after they are linked.
• User Interface Scripting - A massive new capability that enables programmatic control of virtually all Manifold user interface elements and even many non-Manifold user interface elements as well.    Instead of working exclusively through objects within the API, programmers can now control the Manifold user interface as if someone were automatically calling commands from menus, clicking control boxes, making choices, entering text and so forth. All Manifold dialogs (many hundreds of dialogs) have been adjusted to allow user interface scripting. Uniformly praised by beta testers as a revolutionary step forward in convenience, power and flexibility.
• Numerous scripting improvements and new objects - The scripting system has been enhanced with new options, such as forcing a script to run in a separate thread if desired. Many new objects provide access to new Manifold features.
• Expanded command line and logging options - A variety of new command line options support discovery of programmatic command names as well as a set of new logging options that enable automatic recording of timings such as rendering and execution times.
• Choice of IMS rendering formats - The Internet Map Server can now render using a variety of graphics formats, such as .jpg or .gif in addition to the default .png format, as well as allowing specification of rendering quality.
• IronPython scripting - We can now use IronPython, the outstanding .NET implementation of Python supported by Microsoft, for scripting Manifold in addition to the other .NET and ActiveX languages supported.
• Extensive additions to imports and exporters - Numerous new capabilities have been added to importers and exporters, such as a NetCDF importer and numerous improvements in TIFF (16-bit LAB data and 32-bit/64-bit CMYK data), DXF /DWG, improvements in KML/KMZ exports (layer transparency, extended coordinate accuracy, etc.), yet more options for PRJ file recognition and improvements to other formats.
• Coordinate system (projection) improvements - Numerous improvements have been added, ranging from the ability to better support rotation factors in custom datums to numerous new datums for European countries. EPSG support has been integrated to allow use of Microsoft SQL Server 2008 spatial, and extensive work has been done on auto-matching of coordinate systems with spatial DBMS in PostgreSQL and DB2 spatial extender.
• Faster geocoder handling of extension address errors - Misspelled addresses geocoded against a geocoding extension database can now be processed twenty times faster.
• Numerous other improvements and bug fixes - Release notes for Release 8 have been changed to separately itemize changes in the main development path from bug fixes within new features or features continued from 7x. Current release notes cite a total of over 420 new items and bug fixes. Some new items, such as much faster image rendering, are massive features which themselves incorporate hundreds of internal changes.  User interface scripting alone required thousands of discrete changes within the code base.
• Additional details - For Release 8 build history, see the Updates page. For transition issues and other information, see the What's New user manual topic. For complete details on Release 8, see the online edition of the user manual.

10 Day Money Back Guarantee

See for yourself the incredible power and modern conveniences of Manifold: Manifold Personal Edition, Professional Edition and Enterprise Edition as well as the Geocoding Tools extension are sold with a money-back guarantee for 10 days from the date of purchase. See the Returns and Refunds page for details. Order Manifold today and download tomorrow with no risk!

Buy Now via the Online Store!

Buy Manifold System today on the Online Store. The store is open 24 hours / seven days a week. Orders received by 10 AM Pacific time will process the same business day. Manifold System is delivered by download, so there are no shipping charges or delays in shipping!

Questions?

Please contact us at sales@manifold.net. We would like you to be happy with your licensing of Manifold products, so please do not hesitate to ask any questions before placing an order.