Just when you were saying to the person in the next cubicle “I don’t see how they could make GeoExpress any better”, along comes GeoExpress 8.5. We’ve been listening to our customers’ feedback again, and one of the things many of our customers asked for was the ability to compress image bands individually.

Done.

We’re still listening.

The latest version of GeoExpress not only enables you to select which bands from a multispectral input image you want to include — and in which order — in your output MG4 file, but allows you to compress individual bands or even groups of bands at specified ratios. So, for example, for MG4 output you can compress the R, G and B bands of your 8-banded source image at 20:1 if you want, while leaving the other five bands lossless. We call these features “band selection” and “per-band compression” and we’re sure that anyone using multispectral imagery will find them to be useful advancements.

There’s more. We streamlined our Coordinate Reference System selection tool so that specifying a CRS for source and output images is easier and takes less time. And for those of you administrating GeoExpress with a license server and floating licenses, version 8.5 gives you greater control over your licenses by allowing you to specify how many of your floating licenses can be checked out as commuters and taken off the network. We also fixed some stuff — you know, little under-the-hood things you probably don’t care about (they’re listed in the Readme file if you do).

All in all, we’re pretty pleased with GeoExpress 8.5, and we’re eager for you to take it out for a drive and tell us what you think. Get the trial download at http://www.lizardtech.com/downloads/trials.php or contact your LizardTech representative.

Okay, NOW we think its impossible for GeoExpress to get any better. Of course, we haven’t yet finished reading our latest batch of customer mail…