Has MrSID saved your bacon? We’d like to hear about that. The industry standard MrSID file format turns 20 years old this year, and one of the ways we’re celebrating is with a contest.

MrSID debuts in the ’90s, lookin’ sharp.

We’re asking you to send us your story about how MrSID has enabled you to get stuff done (or kept you out of trouble), or about your involvement with any MrSID workflow. In return, you’ll get your name entered for a chance to win an iPad.

Another old MrSID avatar.

Send your anecdote, story, homage, five-act play or other MrSID tribute to “celebrate@lizardtech.com” by July 10th, 2012. Three winners will be selected at random, the first receiving an iPad and the two runner ups each receiving a $50 Amazon.com gift card.

MG4 stands for “MrSID Generation 4″, the latest version.

We’ll announce the winners via Twitter at the Esri Conference in San Diego on July 24th. Our thanks to the geospatial industry for two decades of support!

I can hardly keep up with developments to talk about here. A few weeks ago we released version 8.5 of our MrSID SDK, an update that adds support for per-band decoding. Per-band decoding means that LizardTech’s partners and customers now have the ability to decode only the bands that they need from multi- and hyperspectral imagery, which can greatly improve decode and viewing performance.

The new version also supports several additional platforms, including iOS 4.0, both 32- and 64-bit versions. I had it on my list to blog about that, but now ClearTrust, a Reston-Va.-based company that develops geospatial tools for the Macintosh and iOS devices, has already used our SDK to integrate support for the latest version of MrSID (MG4) into version 1.2 of its CartoMobile® field data entry and visualization application, so that CartoMobile users can now view MrSID imagery on devices such as iPhone and iPad. That’s bound to make iOS loyalists happy.

There’s good news particularly for Linux users, too. The new version of the MrSID SDK supports Red Hat 6, both 32- and 64-bit versions. For more information about the MrSID SDK go to www.lizardtech.com and log in to our Developer website at the bottom of the page.

You may already have heard, but now you can view imagery compressed to MrSID and JPEG 2000 formats on your iPad. Folks in the industry are excited and we’re already getting positive feedback about the functionality this application brings to users. Glenn Letham at GISuser picked up our news item today and Matt Ball at Spatial Sustain even wrote a little thing about how the app extends image portability. Thanks guys!

Here are some of GeoViewer’s intuitive, easy-to-use features:

• Open MrSID and JPEG 2000 images.
• Select bands to view from a multispectral image.
• Explore imagery by panning, zooming and zooming out.
• Add vector overlays (Esri Shapefiles and KML files) to get more out of image layers.
• Center on your GPS location so you can see what’s nearby.
• Measure the distance between a series of points.
• Identify geolocation by touching on any image.
• View layer properties, including coordinate reference system, geo bounding box, dimensions, colorspace, datatype, and resolution.
• Search by geographic coordinates in WGS 84 (Lat/Long) or the image’s native coordinate reference system.
• Set viewing preferences (band selection, layer line color, etc.).

The GeoViewer application for iPad is free and can be downloaded from the iTunes App Store. Get busy!

LizardTech has become a member of the British Association of Remote Sensing Companies (BARSC).

BARSC is an industry association dedicated to the promotion of the interests of all commercial companies involved with remote sensing technology throughout the United Kingdom.

In a press release we released earlier this month in which we said some nice things about BARSC and they said some nice things about us, we noted that we’ll be getting invitations to events that in the past have included presentations from senior staff of ESA, the UK Space Agency, NCEO, and the like. That alone has got us pretty excited. But add to that the detailed information about industry goings on, plus eligibility to attend the renowned BARSC Annual Lunch, and we’re in RSSH (remote sensing seventh heaven!).

Membership in BARSC is open to all remote sensing organisations (notice the Brit spelling — wink wink) with offices in the United Kingdom. That describes us to a teacup. LizardTech’s London EMEA office is run and managed by geo-sales and marketing agency Quarry One Eleven.

Look for us in the green and pleasant land!

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…