When we released LizardTech GeoViewer for iOS last January it enabled iPad users to view geospatial imagery in MrSID and JPEG 2000 formats and included distance measuring tools and geolocation support.

We’ve released a new version that runs on iPhone and iPod Touch devices as well as iPads, and we improved the UI with easier-to-see tool icons. As an in-app purchase for just $4.99, you can enable this new version to access layers from WMS servers. It’s super easy. You can download the WMS capability in seconds and presto! — instantly view image and vector layers from WMS servers all over the world.

Here are some screenshots of the new GeoViewer for iOS in action:

MrSID image in LizardTech GeoViewer for iOS. You are here. (Actually, we are there.)

Find geocoordinates for any location with a touch of the screen.

How long is SR-520 between I-5 and I-405?  And do you want that in miles or kilometers?

Version 2.0 of LizardTech GeoViewer for iOS is available now at the App Store on iTunes.

To learn more about LizardTech products visit http://www.lizardtech.com/products.

We’re excited about the release of Express Server® 7 image serving software. You already know that Express Server is the fastest, most stable, and easiest way to distribute high-resolution raster imagery. Who doesn’t know that? But what you may not know is that besides running as a 32-bit application as it always has, Express Server also can be installed as a 64-bit application on 64-bit systems, which means you can take full advantage of increased memory for performance gains.

Express Server 7 is available now.

And that’s just one reason to look at the new version of Express Server. Here’s another: support for MG4™, the latest version of LizardTech’s MrSID® image format. Through the use of alpha bands, MrSID Generation 4 enables true transparency, which means Express Server 7 can deliver better looking mosaics.

Even more exciting, MG4 supports multi- and hyperspectral imagery, and Express Server 7 enables you to specify any three bands to serve out. You can create any number of band-mapped catalogs so that any image in a given catalog will be served with your desired band arrangement. You can also use the same image for any number of band groupings. This gives you unprecedented flexibility in serving imagery for your geospatial end users.

We hope you like Express Server 7 as much as we do. If you’re at the 2011 Esri User Conference this week, stop by and visit our team at Booth #1311. They’ll be happy to talk with you about image delivery or any other needs you have.

For more information about Express Server, visit http://www.lizardtech.com/products/exp/.

Good news, LiDAR users. Our friends at GeoCue Corporation have announced that they’re integrating support for the MrSID Generation 4 (MG4) format into their popular LP360 software applications. GeoCue is the parent company of QCoherent Software LLC, the makers of the LP360 product line.
 
This means that geospatial professionals using LP360, a LiDAR software extension for the Esri™ ArcGIS environment, will be able to efficiently input and decode LiDAR data that has been compressed using LizardTech’s LiDAR Compressor™ software. MG4, the latest version of the MrSID format, accommodates new GIS technologies by supporting multi- and hyperspectral imagery, LiDAR point cloud data, multiterabyte datasets, and other innovations.
 
GeoCue’s customers have asked them for tools to input, decode and view compressed LiDAR point clouds, says Lewis Graham, the company’s president and CTO, noting that now they’ll be able to do so easily.
 
We’re excited about the integration, too, because one of our objectives is to ensure that MrSID files can be used in the widest possible array of applications used in our industry. Now LP360 users will be able to handle compressed LiDAR datasets in ArcGIS, which adds to the number of applications that support MG4. (You can find a complete list under “Third Party Integrations” at http://www.lizardtech.com/products/lidar/.)

The newly released MrSID Decode SDK is really two sets of libraries and tools in one package. And part of it was released more than a year ago under another name. Hopefully, geospatial professionals have more to do than wonder why this is, but for those with light workloads or long memories, here’s some background that we hope will address any confusion you may have.

In 2009 LizardTech introduced an updated version of the MrSID format that the geospatial industry has been relying on for years. We called it MrSID Generation 4 (MG4) and we released a “decode SDK” so that developers could begin building supporting for MG4 into their applications.

What was most unusual about MG4 was that it was a version of the format specifically updated to support the compression of LiDAR data. That is, the SDK enabled support for files compressed to MG4 using LizardTech’s LiDAR Compressor software. MG4 (and its SDK) would not support raster imagery for another year, during which we returned our attention and energies to GeoExpress, our raster image toolset and compression engine, to evaluate and implement the features our customers most wanted in the way of new features.

GeoExpress 8, with its support for alpha bands and multispectral imagery and its improved mosaicking, is a product we’ve long been excited about releasing. It came out in November of last year, and it looks as though our customers have once again steered us straight about the features that are most important to them, because the response to the new release has been very enthusiastic.

In the wake of the GeoExpress 8 launch, we’ve just released the decode SDK that combines MG4′s LiDAR capabilities with support for the new raster advancements in GeoExpress, bringing the MG4 story into full resolution, as it were. The updated SDK is called the MrSID Decode SDK, and as we noted at the beginning it’s really two toolsets in one. However, the toolsets are designed to work together. For instance, we include a sample application that shows you how to easily determine whether a file is composed of raster or LiDAR data and then shunt off the processing to the correct section of the SDK.

When you download the MrSID Decode SDK you have everything you need to integrate support into your applications for either LiDAR data or raster imagery in the MG4 format. It also enables support for viewing and decoding imagery compressed to both of the classical versions of the format, MG3 and MG2.

It’s an exciting season to be working with compressed LiDAR and raster image data. We’re happy to be making tools that developers can use to make their applications more useful to more geospatial users. The MrSID Decode SDK is available for download on our developer website.

We’re pretty excited. Last week we announced that version 11.01 of Global Mapper supports LizardTech™ MrSID™ Generation 4 (MG4) among its many supported elevation formats. Mapmakers who use Global Mapper will now benefit from being able to load point clouds compressed using LizardTech Lidar Compressor™ into Global Mapper.

Earlier this week we were able to announce that Merrick & Company has similarly integrated MG4 support into its MARS^® (Merrick Advanced Remote Sensing) software application. Users of MARS 6.0, available now, can load MG4 files into MARS for visualizing and managing LiDAR terrain datasets.

How are they doing this? They’re using LizardTech’s MrSID Generation 4 Decode SDK, a free download.

Oh, and we should remind any ArcGIS 3D Analyst users that MG4 files are supported via LizardTech’s free MrSID Plug-in for ArcGIS 3D Analyst (http://www.lizardtech.com/download/dl_options.php?page=plugins), so you can work with MG4 files the same way you work with LAS files to create contours and surfaces.

The way we feel about all this is: The more the merrier.