Our Express Server product, a web-server add-on for distributing massive image datasets, has always been a fairly straightforward, simple product — it takes advantage of efficiencies inherent in MrSID and other image formats to make high-resolution raster imagery available at lightning speeds. But we found in listening to feedback from our customers that many of them were intimidated by Express Server’s XML-based setup and catalog configuration files.

Well, we’ve responded by updating Express Server with a spanking new graphical user interface that we call the Express Server Manager. We think customers will be thrilled. Now all you have to do to set up your Express Server and configure the catalogs is check some boxes, fill in a few text fields, and click a button or two.

Express Server 8′s interface for configuring a catalog looks like this:

Express Server image catalogs are easier than ever to configure and manage in the Express Server Manager, Express Server’s new graphical user interface.

On this Basic Properties tab, you can create a spatial index for a catalog, specify its projection (EPSG code), enable or disable the catalog (make it available for viewing or take it offline), and map image bands according to particular viewers’ needs. More advanced operations are on other tabs, but there’s no XML to fiddle with, just buttons, fields and checkboxes.

And that’s just the beginning. It’s really easy to stop and restart your Express Server, check whether or not it’s running, consult error logs, restore a previous configuration from an archive and even license your copy of the software. All this can be done on the Status page, which looks like this:

Administrators can start and stop Express Server, license their copy of Express Server software, consult logs and recover previous configurations — all from a single page in the Express Server Manager.

Version 8 of Express Server also introduces support for Geospatial PDF, so you can take advantage of PDF source imagery and serve a broader range of users.

It’s easy to take Express Server 8 for a spin, too. You only have to download and install it once — the trial version is the same installation as the permanently licensed version. If you like what you see and purchase the software, you simply copy and paste a license code that we send you and your Express Server is street legal. Try it today!

The free 30-day trial is available here: http://www.lizardtech.com/downloads/category/#free_trials.

To learn more about Express Server visit http://www.lizardtech.com/products/exp/.