Headlines 00 - Archived What's New?
This is archived news information. Some items may be superceded by more recent news items.
See the What's New page for the latest news and notes from Manifold. Visit our Headlines page to see a list of archived news items pages. Check out the new Press Releases page for links to press releases issued by manifold.net and see the Customer Comments on Manifold Products page for sample comments from our customers about Manifold and its products.
Electronic Delivery Option
International users who do not need the North American maps and data on the Manifold CD may now order Manifold System for delivery via FTP. No more hassles with shipping or Customs officers! See the Purchase page for more information.
DEM to Manifold Converter Released
Now Manifold can read USGS DEM (Digital Elevation)
files as well as a zillion other formats. DEM files are used to provide terrain
elevation data and provide a rich data source for contouring work, altitude analysis and
the like. This is a beta release of the Dem2Mfd converter that may be downloaded
free by licensed Manifold users from Manifold FTP sites. Dem2Mfd is a standalone
Windows program, but it does require installation of Manifold System on your computer.
Detail (left): Part of preview window in the Dem2Mfd converter. Click on the image to see a full-sized view of the main Dem2Mfd dialog.
ISV Partnership with Microsoft Corporation
We're pleased to announce that Microsoft has appointed manifold.net an ISV partner of Microsoft. The technical support and business assistance Microsoft provides to its ISV partners will help us provide a better Manifold within Microsoft environments, the only environments we support. Stay tuned for even better integration with Microsoft application suites such as Back Office and continuing deployment of the very latest Microsoft development technologies within Manifold.
Case
Studies Added to Web Site
We've added a Case Studies page to provide step-by-step examples of using Manifold in real-life business applications. This is oriented for people who aready have Manifold on their systems, but the examples provide many screen shots and a detailed sequence of "real life" use for everyone. See how to create a custom, local map from a complex TIGER/Line map, find out how Frank's Catering finds all Zip+4 codes within a mile of its locations and more.
Export to ESRI®, MapInfo® and AutoCAD® Formats
Visit the Manifold® FTP site from our Downloads page and fetch the production version of
Manifold's export program. This program converts Manifold .mfd/.mdb maps to ESRI
shapefile, MapInfo mif/mid, or AutoCAD dxf formats. Now ESRI, MapInfo, and
AutoCAD users can take advantage of Manifold's conversion and analytic capabilities.
Imagine... convert SDTS, VPF, and TIGER/Line files (and much more) to ESRI for only $95, plus
you get Manifold! Detail (left): Click
on the thumbnail to see a full size preview of the exporter dialog.
Downloadable Non-Profit License
A downloadable Non-Profit License for Non-Profit institutions has been added to the Purchase information page. Upon approval by manifold.net, the Non-Profit License allows qualifying non-profit institutions to purchase one copy of Manifold per site and then make as many copies as they would like for use at that site. Please note that unlike the Academic License for Manifold, which is automatically granted to qualifying institutions, the Non-Profit License is granted only upon approval of the non-profit application. This license is intended to support humanitarian assistance, medical research and certain other, limited catagories of non-profit organizations. Please see the downloadable Non-Profit License license for more information.
Network Importers Now Online
Download the beta versions of Manifold's new network importation utilities. These allow importation of abstract networks using a wide variety of text formats. Located in the solvers/alpha_beta directory of the FTP site.
Release 4.00 is Shipping!
Visit our Release 4.00 Highlights page for an introduction to this magnificent new release of Manifold System. We think we've achieved the very best value in GIS ever, and perhaps the most capable and best GIS system ever as well. Please take a look and see for yourself if you agree.
Detail (left): Manifold System is mastered and replicated at the KAO facility in Fremont, California. One of the world's highest technology CD and DVD production facilities, this factory also produces Windows 98 for Microsoft. Stacey Ackroyd and Jerry Houck of KAO led the Manifold project team for R4. High speed automated replicator in background.
Release
4.00 is only $95 and frankly, it blows the doors off anything else one
can buy for less than a few thousand dollars. Thanks to all of our Release 3.00
customers for their many suggestions and contributions to R4.
Icons and Bitmaps Collections added to FTP Server
Manifold System Release 4.00
can add external modules for additional icons and bitmaps. R4 ships with hundreds of
cool cartographic, roadsign, and other cool icons. There are now five more
collections on the FTP site under "Downloads" in the "R4_icons_areas"
directory. These are for use with Manifold R4, and will not
work with R3. "ar" series Area patterns require NT and will not
work fully with Windows 95.
Details (left): NT area samples from "arstone" (stone textures) collection. (right): Samples from "flowers" icon collection. Don't laugh! We have many users who are field biologists and love this stuff.
Icon collections for both NT and '95: "flowers" and "helmets" (NFL football team helments as 32 x 32 icons). Areas collections for NT: "arstone", "arpaper", and "armisc1". Stay tuned for more! Detail (below): Samples from NFL team helmets.
Additional Icons added 15 June:
The mxBalls1 collection provides
215 similarly-sized, small 3D point icons in a variety of shades. These are
especially good for rendering thematic maps of abstract networks or any theme involving
points.
mxBalls2 provides a collection of medium and large sized "marbles" rendered in 3D using stone and other textures. Although mostly medium sized stone textures, this collection includes simple rendering of the Planets, and a variety of "glass" and LED textured point icons (see detail at right).
Detail (above): An NT system using the various new area and mxball collections. US_Main basemap show in Lambert Conformal Conic projection using 30 and 60 degrees latitude as standard parallels, with longitude origin at -110 and latitude origin at 0.
TIGER/Line® 1997 Now Available!
Visit our TIGER/Line 1997 page
to find out how you can get all six CDs in the TIGER/Line 1997 series for
only $97 for the complete set.
Wow! Save $1400 from the U.S. Government price on this essential GIS data set.
New Shipping Options for International Customers. Manifold now ships by default in a "CD Only" form for low cost, 5 day delivery to over 33 countries. Check the Purchase page for more information.
More Tech Support Information On Line. Visit the new Support page for frequently asked tech support questions as well as installation information.
Check out the Gold Mines Screen Shot.
Who can resist using GIS to find gold? We've added a gold mines screen shot that
shows the California mother lode pattern. Click on the thumbnail for a 1024 x 768 screen
shot using only 29K. (Release 4.00 toolbars illustrated)
TIGER/Line® 1995 Now Online - Free! Download Disks 1 through 5 of the TIGER/Line 1995 absolutely free from our Downloads page.
Release 4.00 Includes Numerous Importers - Release 4.00 now includes numerous converters for various formats. Import data from VPF, SDTS, DLG-O, TIGER/Line 1995 and TIGER/Line 1997, AutoCAD DXF, ESRI SHP, and MapInfo MIF/MID. Use ODBC to convert files from numerous text formats. Users may convert USGS DLG format, SDTS format, MapInfo® MIF format, Bureau of the Census TIGER format, and CVS comma-delimited text format frequently used for demographic data at sources such as CIESIN. There are hundreds of gigabytes of files at USGS and other government servers just waiting to serve you with Manifold!
1:24,000-Scale SDTS Map Detail (above): Small section of Palo Alto SDTS map (1:24,000-scale) from USGS FTP server, with man-made objects, hydrography, hypsography and boundaries layers (transportation layers suppressed for clarity). Highlighted in red is the Stanford Linear Accelerator, approximately 2 miles long. Small polygons at the bottom and left of the field are individual houses. See illustration below.
1:24,000-Scale SDTS Map Detail (below): Section of the the map above from near the bottom, about one fourth from the right edge showing SDTS detail at higher zoom level. Polygons are indivdual shapes of individual houses in the Palo Alto / Los Altos hills above the accelerator and the Stanford Dish radio telescope. Hypsography lines reveal why the press has covered so many mudslides and moving houses during recent rain in Northern California.
Auto Discovery of Networks - Use SNMP to map the topology of networks and automatically fetch hundreds of different data fields for network objects. Other Release 3 Manifold discovery tools can automatically map web sites from a URL or HTML starting reference, draw maps of Microsoft networks, or even map Local File Systems as networks. Pick the day you want and it will be fetched. The SNMP New Map Wizard lets you save or retrieve the parameters you want so that complex autodiscovery can be repeated or amended.
Spectacular "Morph" Engine to Automatically draw Networks and Maps - Manifold's Morph engine changes the shape of network maps automatically to make them easier to understand. Morph uses a point-and-click, visual interface that can apply any of 16 "effects" to a network using slider bars and spin button mouse controls to vary parameters of interest: it's just like applying Adobe PhotoShop effects to a picture. The pictures below show the same network as a Fractal Tree and as a Fractal Star. You can switch from one layout to the other automatically. Just think, now you can use the new exporters to get Manifold maps like these into AutoCAD. Neat!
Dozens of Networking SQL commands - Manifold system is the first system ever to introduce networking predicates to SQL: dozens of networking predicates allow SQL selections to be made on the basis of the advanced math of networking theory and graph theory. Select all nodes and links on the fastest path from A to B, for example, or select all nodes which have more than 8 incoming links but less than 16, or (example below) find all the routers which are also critical nodes.
Copyright Notices: Microsoft Access 97 is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation. Manifold is a registered trademark of CDA International Ltd., used under license by Manifold Net Ltd. TIGER/Line 1997 is a registered trademark of the United States Bureau of the Census.
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