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What Global Mapper 13 brings back

It was announced the Global Mapper new version, for both 32 and 64 bits. Although this is a program that is questioned for its GIS capabilities, its simplicity is which has become very popular, especially for handling three-dimensional models and the ability to import and export between different formats.

clip_image001There are many changes, I will try to summarize what have drawn my attention and I think are significant, but surely for program’s frequent users, there is much more.

Formats support

  • The most striking change is the data sets support of an ESRI Geodatabase. This program comes to an interesting niche, where ArcMap users have stored a lot of data but are limited in having to buy extensions such as 3D Analysis, that by the way it happens that to make a simple little thing we have to turn half-around in heating to the court. Using GlobalMapper 13, users could create digital models in seconds and return back to the geodatabase without losing all the capabilities of data analysis and construction in what ESRI has more to offer.
  • The export has added the ability to send an ASTER DEM to SRTM HGT format, although it is a raw conventional format, Americans use it much because of their potential to the indexing quadrants. Additionally you can now export to 3D TIN Vulcan.00t format.
  • To join the many formats that Global Mapper already supports has now included support for Segy format, a standard used in the geophysics area, also for LEM format, which is the DEM simile used by the Japanese and NMGF more used in aeronautics.
  • In case of images export within a kmz file is now possible to specify the jpg quality, which will make to reduce the size to taste. It also now supports when the kmz brings .gif files
  • You can export images to the ERDAS .img format, very popularized by ESRI users.
  • In the case of DGN files, has improved the fact that some polygons came unfilled came after they could not interpret the multiple geometries Microstation long handled internally as shared cells. It has also been corrected the error that happened with some curves that did not have much from smart.
  • When downloading layers served through WCS, now it has no problems if they are in other projection different from the Google Earth (lat/long/WGS84)
  • In the case of XML files from Open Street Maps, have improved the hanging problem when having lots of data. The same has happened with the Lidar LAS point clouds (which are always many), where they have optimized the memory usage.

· For the export of DWG and DXF files, it has been corrected a problem that had to labels with more than 31 characters (wow, these are no longer labels).

· Now supports unlimited GeoPDF previously reported.

Improvements in the analysis

  • Union of tables. You can make join between tables in different layers through a common attribute, fairly basic but that incredibly did not exist.
  • Copy and calculation of data in tables. It has now created the ability to do mathematical operations between data from a column to be stored in another as it would be for example, an area calculation in different units of measure when multiplied by a factor, the same function also serves of copied and pasting between tables, being a multiplication by the unit, which would generate the same value.
  • In the management of digital models, new surfaces can be generated from an existing one, specific points or even from attributes of an associated table with a surface. This could be stored more than one model within a table of attributes, without meaning they are two and facilitating operations like cut / fill without doing operations out of the same table.
  • Now the data search has the option of taking on the current view and not over the entire layer.

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Deployment capabilities.

  • You can synchronize a display so as to be viewed the same area on Google Earth, but it can not be done in reverse, similar to one of the 6 things that Microstation makes in this regard.
  • In managing layers, it is now possible to move with greater interaction a raster layer to leave or goes transparent behind vectors’ layer, which up to 12 versions remained as the old in the obsolete layers panel.
  • In the case of online data served by Intermap, you can now get high resolution, since it no longer downloads the data as local but in a stream that refresh as it zooms. In the case of loading data from NOAA, you can download Geoid binary grid shift files.
  • Many other improvements will be on the road, especially with capabilities that have been given to the right mouse button and keyboard use both to the construction and editing of data.
  • In case of GPS data with NMEA protocol a $DPGGA sentences option have been added.

Improvements in data construction

  • There is significant improvement in this part, although it remains a major weakness. In this case it has slightly improved handling snaps, the nearest is now kept in the edition layer as a priority to the existence of other layers or non selected geometries.
  • Now you can build more easily lines and polygons edges based on deflections through the 3 points method.
  • Additionally a submenu in the lines construction, when you have a points’ selection, may suggest the creation of lines from the closest point, which would simplify the digitization of a polygon from points captured with a GPS.
  • You can make transformations with some of greater agility, as it is the case of moving a layer. It is usually a bad practice but useful when the geodesic accuracy is insignificant to the data usefulness, for example:

We often have a layer in NAD27 or PSAD 56 and to move it to WGS84 what we do is move it to a known vector. This won’t be a recommended practice, but to stick to existing data or when the does not affect local context… goes.

  • There is now a datum called “NAD83”, apart from “D_North_American_1983” after ESRI in ArcView early versions confused some of the fat with butter and made that .prj files generated with archaic versions were not compatible with this projection. Something similar happens to Microstation, when you want to believe that NAD27 used by the Americans in many parts of the continent was a symbol of initiation.
  • Something like have been done with a provisional Datum so-called South American Datum 1956 (PSAD56) to make consistent with data errors generated in Mapinfo.
  • Now, when you import generic data from an ASCII file, there is support for formats of degrees, minutes and seconds with decimal, as degrees and decimal minutes (not seconds). Even as incredible as it seems, supports fractions such as 0.25 instead of saying to use 1 / 4
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