Headlines 05 - 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  Some items may be superceded by more recent news items.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. 

New Tech Support Topic Added

Although ESRI .shp files are a dreadful format for exchanging projected data, quite a few maps have been published as projected data sets in .shp format.  See the Tech Support Topic  "Import a Projected ESRI .shp File" in the Manifold System Support Page for a step-by-step procedure to import such files in Release 4.50 if you have the projection information required.

Join the Great Release 5.00 Format Hunt

We'd like to make sure that Release 5.00 supports all raster, vector and terrain elevation formats in common use in GIS.  Please take a look at the list of currently supported formats and let us know if there is a format you use that is missing from the list. Please email suggestions for additional formats to sales@manifold.net 

Release 5.00 PrintTest Program Published

Here is your chance to join the development team for the upcoming Release 5.00 ! Download and try out the PrintTest program on your computer / printer combination. The PrintTest program is designed to test Manifold System Release 5.00 printing routines. It has been kept simple so that anyone can download it and try it out. 

Beta test programs inevitably involve a very limited number of printers. To assure that R5 works with as many printers as possible we have placed key elements of the R5 printing functions into small application that prints a page. Version 1 of PrintTest tests the most elementary printing capabilities possible. It will automatically mail the results for you (when you order it to) to tech@manifold.net.

We would like as many users as possible to try out this quick routine. Even if you are not sure about using Release 5.00, this is a chance to make sure as much software as possible supports the printer you have.  

NTAD 2000 Added to FTP Site

An image of the Bureau of Transportation Statistics National Transportation Atlas Databases - 2000 (NTAD 2000) has been added to the manifold.net FTP site.   visit the Free Maps and Data Page for links to download the North American Transportation Atlas Database 2000.

Sample Manifold System Release 5.00 Manual Pages

Despite the tremendous increase in capabilities,  Release 5.00 will still be priced at only $245.  Until August 31, 2000, Release 4.50 licensees will be able to upgrade to Release 5.00 for only $100, plus shipping.  Detail (right): Click on the thumbnail to see a terrain window, an automatic 3D view of elevation data in Release 5.00.

 Click here to see a 780 KB animation of the Grand Canyon flooding.  This animated .gif was created using a DEM data set of the Grand Canyon imaged in a terrain window in Release 5.00 as seen in the thumbnail above.  5.00 can draw a semi-transparent "waterline" plane through a terrain at a given level for waterline analysis.  The flood effect was created by setting the water level higher in ten even steps and then making an animated .gif of the results using Microsoft GIF Animator.

Release 5.00 includes extraordinary raster capabilities that are perfectly integrated with vector, terrain, and other data types.  Release 5.00 includes astonishing new data mining capabilities, fast and easy georegistration of images no matter what projection is desired, perfect integration with external database sources, integrated neurofuzzy inference engine (click on any record for "More Like This" automatically), external programmability, sophisticated internal programmability with drag and drop forms/controls support, advanced Spatial SQL that integrates raster, grid and vector data seamlessly, integrated analytics between raster data and vector data, simple web server and much, much more.   You can spend $15,000 per seat with competitors and get far less.

What does Release 5.00 look like?  

- Click on the thumbnail at right for an 800K screen shot of a Release 5.00 desktop showing image editing of a satellite view of Washington, DC, with Transformer toolbar and map.

Faster, Smarter and more Capable than ESRI ArcView or MapInfo Professional v6...

Don't get stuck using antique, "toy" GIS packages when you need serious combinations of raster and vector layers.  Manifold Release 5.00 integrates raster images perfectly with vector layers.  Raster images may be re-projected as desired as no other GIS can do and recombined in layers in a way rivaled only by professional raster graphics packages such as Adobe PhotoShop.  Click on the thumbnail at right to see a 162KB shot of 5.00 being used as a graphics arts editor to compose multiple layered images using transparency and other effects.  Three images are layered together to form a composite image.  Two of the images use per-pixel transparency guided by other images that are used as masks.  These are expert-level operations that in some cases exceed the state of the art of professional graphics arts editors.  Awesome!

Neither ESRI ArcView nor MapInfo Professional v6 can project images at all, let alone project them on the fly into simultaneous, different map views using different projections.  Full usage of raster images within a sophisticated GIS environment requires a large and sophisticated array of capabilities such as per-pixel transparency, integrated raster/vector selections, sophisticated layer controls and many other capabilities.  Neither ESRI ArcView nor MapInfo Professional v6 come close to the sophisticated raster capability built into Manifold Release 5.00.  

- Click on the thumbnail at left for a 282K screenshot showing multiple simultaneous projections of the same image. It shows Mollweide, Eckert VI and Miller Cylindrical projections of the "globe.bmp" sample image, overlaid with two drawing layers: world boundaries and (in two of the maps) US boundaries.  Note that Manifold can mix and match the same drawing and images within different maps at the same time.  Images and drawings will be re-projected "on the fly" to suit the visualization needs of each map (the original image is untouched).  The desktop also shows that multiple views can be opened into the same map at the same time with independent pan and zoom.  If your GIS (like MapInfo or ArcView) cannot re-project images you should be paying lot less for it than the $245 cost of Manifold Release 5.00. Why pay much more and get much less?

Transparency:  Release 5.00 includes three methods for transparency: invisible pixels, percent transparency by layer and even RGBa images that allow each individual pixel to have its own percent transparency.   Click on the small thumbnail at left for a 100K image that shows the use of invisible pixels, a very simple method.  We selected oceans in the globe image used in the example above and then pressed Edit - Delete to "delete" the pixels.  This leaves the regions they occupied transparent, so that when the image is used in a layer stack in a map items below it can be seen through the transparent regions.  In this case we see the graticule "below" the floating world land areas. Note how regions of invisible pixels are projected just fine into Mollweide projection along with everything else.  Invisible pixels may be combined with RGBa images where each pixel can have its own percent transaprency.  Neat!  You can't do that with MapInfo Professional version 6 nor ESRI ArcView, no matter how much money you burn.  Invisible pixels are possible, in theory, with ArcView but only with near-infinite hand manipulation of color maps. Neither MapInfo nor ArcView allow percent transparency in layers or (don't even think about it!) per pixel percent transparency.  Thumbnail at left: Transparent layers! - A partially transparent vector layer showing urban areas overlaid on an image.  Manifold can overlay any mix of image or vector layers and set any layer to a desired percentage transparency.  The urban areas drawing has been thematically formatted and is seen in a small window.

- Click on the lower thumbnail at right for a 730K screen shot showing images of the San Francisco Bay region combined with vector layers.  The Landsat 7 image (originally shot in Space Oblique Mercator) was assumed to be an Orthographic image.  It's displayed on the fly within an "Overhead" Orthographic projection in the center map, which also shows US boundaries in a vector layer as well as a layer of hydrography lines from a Palo Alto 1:100K-scale USGS series map. Some of the lines in the Palo Alto set have been selected and appear in red.  The large map in background shows a perspective view from space computed for a point over the Atlantic ocean to show how the Bay Area would appear to an incoming spacecraft rocketing in over the US.  All image projections are done on the fly using the small image in the lower left of the display. Manifold can simultaneously show the same images and drawings in different views using different projections, with simultaneous re-projection of vector and raster data.  Note: Many Landsat images are remarkably close fits when treated as Orthographic or Vertical Perspective images without any need to track down the orbit or other information required to fully utilize Space Oblique projection.  Manifold can easily georegister an image with great precision to any desired projection.  Download an image off the Internet and use it right away! Cool!

Visit these links for sample pages from the Release 5.00 User Manual.  

• Getting Started - Useful overview of the system: drawings, images, terrains, maps, tables and a lot more.
• Selection - Key introductory topic on visual (mouse) selection methods.
• Colorize - A sample "small" topic, one of hundreds of image commands.
• Relief - Everyone's favorite 3D effect to apply to geographic images and terrains.
• Threshold - A very important image processing tool.  Great screen shots!
• Image Filters - Convolution matrix based raster image filters.  Neat!
• Modifying Selections - Expand, Contract, Border and Smooth operations in image pixel selection.
• Form Controls - Manifold has better programming capabilities than any other GIS.    Release 5.00 includes extensive Visual Basic scripting using drag and drop forms creation, elaborate forms editing (just like Visual Studio!) and much more.   Use Visual Studio-style forms-based programming with standard Microsoft dialogs and controls.  This topic provides a survey of the vast number of Windows controls shipped with Manifold.  Remember: to do all this programming in Manifold you need not buy anything else.  It's all included at one low price!
• Controls - Check Box -  A sample controls topic.  This is just one of numerous controls one can use to create forms for user interfaces to scripts, tables, custom dialogs and much more.
• Invisible Pixels -   A very cool topic that shows how images can be combined in many layers to create complex visual effects.   Manifold can replace Adobe PhotoShop in many applications... the raster image capabilities are that good!  When applied in maps in combination with drawing layers, transparency can provide breath-taking effects and unprecedented clarity in presentations.  This topic is from the Release Candidate documentation.
• Gaussian Blur - Add spectacular drop shadows to map elements.  Includes screen shots showing layers using RGBa images in Manifold, where every pixel in the layer can have a different percentage amount of transparency.
• Masks - A lengthy topic with awesome illustrations.  See amazing graphics effects not possible even in Adobe PhotoShop, fabulous color manipulations and the creation of false color images using Landsat 7 infrared images shot using the Enhanced Thematic Mapper instrument. 

Detail (above right):  Manifold System Release 5.00 includes hundreds of new projections, including every projection set forth in J.P. Snyder's USGS technical bulletins - even exotic and difficult projections such as the Space Oblique Mercator.   Parameterized variations include many national grids and other "local" projections.  All of these projections may be applied to raster images as well as to other data types.

Wow! That's only the news for the last few months.  Check out the Headlines page to see a summary of news items for previous months, with fast links to previous What's New? pages.  You'll be astonished at the range, power and productivity that a relationship with manifold.net provides.