Newsletters
LizardTales Newsletter – December 2010
FROM MANAGEMENT
As we come to the end of another year we want to look back at what a great year it has been, meeting new friends and revisiting old ones, working with you on new things and supporting you on the old. We hope you have a great holiday season and look forward to working with all of you throughout the New Year.
For us here, it has been very exciting during the last few months. We have released a new version of our GeoExpress® software; Version 8 was released on November 1st at the Geoint conference in New Orleans. GeoExpress 8 has some new features which you have asked for. GeoExpress now supports multi-spectral imagery, has better support for mosaicking, and features a few other things that you can find out about herehttp://www.lizardtech.com/products/geo. For those of you who are under a current maintenance agreement, we are just starting to ship out your upgrades and you should see them in the next few weeks. Along with the GeoExpress release, we have introduced a new version of the MrSID®file format, MrSID Generation 4 (MG4™) that supports both LiDAR and raster. The Decode Software Development Kit (DSDK) will also be available in the coming weeks.
To wrap up 2010 we want to thank all of you for your support. It is true that without you we could not be here. From all of us here at LizardTech, have a happy, safe, healthy and prosperous 2011.
LizardTech Management
GEOSPATIAL
With the release of version 8 of the GeoExpress application in early November, LizardTech completed the launch of MrSID Generation 4 (MG4), the latest version of our trusted, industry-standard file format. MG4 offers customers many advantages of previous versions of MrSID, and was designed with the goal of supporting the new technologies and standards that have been developed over the past decade. With MG4, customers can compress multispectral, hyperspectral, and LiDAR data to MrSID. Additionally, support for alpha channels means that users have better control over how their imagery looks, and with our new mosaicking functionality LizardTech customers can create and view their mosaics faster than ever before.
MG4 files have supported LiDAR data since 2009 when LizardTech released LiDAR Compressor, but now that the raster component has been completed and GeoExpress 8 has launched, MG4 images can be created as well. With support for up to 255 bands, customers can now compress four-banded RGBIR (RGB plus infrared) imagery for agricultural purposes, take advantage of 8-banded imagery from the most technically advanced satellites, or compress hyperspectral imagery from advanced sensor platforms.
MG4‘s support for alpha channels means that speckling artifacts that were seen in older MrSID Generation 2 (MG2) and MrSID Generation 3 (MG3) images are gone for good, even at high compression ratios. And with the improved mosaicking functionality, you can now create your mosaics in minutes rather than hours, while still retaining rapid viewing for end users.
All in all, MG4 marks a significant milestone in the lifecycle of MrSID. We hope you’ll find it beneficial to your daily workflows, and use it to compress and manipulate today’s high resolution data.
WHERE IS LIZARDTECH?
WHERE IS LIZARDTECH?
Defence Geospatial Intelligence (DGI) 2011
January 24-27, 2011 - Queen Elizabeth II Centre,
London, UK
Esri Federal User Conference
January 19-21, 2011 - Walter E. Washington Convention Center, Washington, D.C.
The International LIDAR Mapping Forum 2011 (ILMF 2011)
February 7-9, 2011 - Astor Crowne Plaza,
New Orleans, LA
ASPRS 2011 Annual Conference
May 1-5, 2011 - Frontier Airlines Center,
Milwaukee, WI
For a complete schedule of LizardTech events, please visit our Events Page.
UPCOMING WEBINARS
Following are the details for LizardTech’s upcoming webinars:
Date and Time:
Duration:
Overview:
Register Now:
Date and Time:
Duration:
Overview:
Register Now:
If you have questions about our webinars, please e-mail us at info@lizardtech.com.
You can view the full webinar schedule here.
Tips and Tricks
GeoExpress
Take advantage of improved MG4 composite mosaics.
MG3 composite mosaics have the unique problem of being quick to create but slow to view. So, in the past, we’ve recommended creating flat mosaics, which take time to create but can be viewed extremely quickly. The MG4format solves this problem; MG4 composite mosaics are fast to create AND fast to view. It’s the best of both worlds. You save time creating mosaics and your users save time viewing them.
MORE INFORMATION:
In the creation of a flat mosaic, each tile is decoded and the raw data from each tile is combined to form one brand new image. This means a lot of processing must be done to create the mosaic, but the output file is one efficiently-stored MrSID file.
To create a composite mosaic, each tile must be in MG3 or MG4 format already. The tiles are combined as-is and copied into one new “composite” image. None of the tiles are decoded, so minimal processing is required. InMG3 composites, viewing the image at high zoom levels can take a bit of time, as each tile in the image must be decoded to create the scene. In anMG4 mosaic, an additional, low-resolution “overview” tile is created to provide for faster viewing at high zoom levels. Instead of decoding each tile to create the scene, just the overview is decoded.
Choose the appropriate alpha settings before compressing to MG4.
If your source image already has an alpha band, it will be preserved in the output MG4 file. If your source image does not have an alpha band, one will be created automatically. The default alpha setting is “opaque”, which specifies that all pixels should be treated as valid image data. This is appropriate for rectangular images, but for images containing collar or nodata areas, you should specify a nodata color in the alpha settings (typically black or white).
Hot Tips?
Do you have tips that you want to share? Send them to suggestions@lizardtech.com and we might publish your tip in the next issue of LizardTales.
Customer Wins
CIVIS
Digital Globe
Hennepin County
JD Barnes
Lockheed Martin
NGA Production and Analysis Directorate
Royal Canadian Mounted Police
Sanborn
Spatial Engineering
Texas Water Development Board
United States Army
United States Navy
EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITIES
LizardTech is always seeking great talent. To learn more about current opportunities to join a dedicated, talented and close-knit team, please visit our Careers Page.
