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adamw


10,447 post(s)
#20-May-20 16:15

9.0.172.1

Here is a new build.

manifold-9.0.172.1-x64.zip

SHA256: 7aec6e79457e4f2a8aecbc2ae287fa7a8b894091d0455dcb82cc09a4b951012b

manifold-viewer-9.0.172.1-x64.zip

SHA256: 0adcffceef4d1da19bec51ccc3c2136d88994b8d3461caf69a1071e2d6ad1245

adamw


10,447 post(s)
#20-May-20 16:16

Panes and UI

The Component, Record, Select, Style, Transform panes are taken out of the Contents pane and can be shown and hidden individually. The Contents pane is removed. Panes that provide previews cooperate between themselves so that a component window only shows the last submitted preview. (Example: If you open a table window and start using the Select pane, the window will show the preview for that pane. If you then switch to the Transform pane while the Select pane is still on screen, the window will start showing the preview for the Transform pane. If you switch back to the Select pane and change the template or alter a parameter, the window will switch back to showing the preview for the Select pane again. We are currently reworking the previews, they will function a little differently than they do now.)

The View - Pane - Xxx commands for panes are reworked to always show and activate panes, never hide them. Each command has a shortcut, with Ctrl-1 assigned to the Project pane and Ctrl-2-...-7 assigned to all other panes. To hide a pane, use the close button in the tab strip.

(Fix) Closing an inactive floating component window no longer sometimes changes the active component window.

Pressing Escape in a map window clears the picked record shown in the Record pane if there are no uncommitted changes.

Pressing Escape in a layout window only clears the picked frame shown in the Record pane if there are no uncommitted changes. (Previously, pressing Escape was clearing the picked frame even if there were uncommitted changes, we made the behavior safer and the same as in the map window.)

Editing a frame in a layout window allows committing or canceling changes using the Save Changes / Undo Changes commands in the context menu.

(Fix) A repeat click on an opacity value for the current layer in the Layers pane starts editing the value. (Previously, one had to click the layer name or press F2 to start editing the value, clicking the value itself did not work.)

(Fix) Alt-clicking the name of the current layer in the Layers pane no longer starts editing the opacity value and instead activates the layer.

Alt-clicking the header for a layer in the Layers pane activates the layer.

Shift-clicking or Ctrl-clicking the header for a record in a table window selects the record without entering or leaving the edit mode.

The New Script dialog shows the type of each script engine: '(COM)', '(.NET)', '(V8)'.

Right-clicking a tab for a component window or a pane and right-clicking the caption for a floating component window or pane shows the context menu with the dock commands. Component windows support the following commands: Dock / Dock Down / Dock Up / Undock / Close. Panes support all these commands plus Dock Left / Dock Right, which move the pane between left and right sides. (We will also allow rearranging component windows and panes using drag and drop.)

The default pane layout is changed to use both left and right sides, with Project + Layers panes shown on the left and Component + Record + Select + Style + Transform panes shown on the right. The dock state of all panes is saved between sessions. (The default layout is not final, but tell us what you think of using both left and right sides out of the box. If you liked the previous layout better, you can easily switch back to it by moving all panes from the left side to the right and the system will obey.)

The main application window cannot be resized smaller than a certain reasonable size.

Floating component windows and floating panes cannot be resized smaller than a certain reasonable size.

Floating component windows and floating panes can snap to each other. (Previously, floating component windows could only snap to other floating component windows, and floating panes could only snap to other floating panes.)

Floating component windows and floating panes no longer show the close button in the right corner. To close the window or pane, right-click the caption to show the context menu and use the Close command. An active floating component window can also be closed using the Close command in the Window menu (Ctrl-F4).

(Fix) Middle-clicking or right-clicking the caption of a floating component window no longer fails to make the component window active.

(Fix) Resizing the Select and Transform panes no longer sometimes produces visual artifacts near the bottom.

(Fix) The Merge Images dialog computes shifts for the target image using shifts in the selected projection as a base. (Previously, the dialog was using 0 as a base.)

The Merge Images dialog fails when none of the source images can convert to the projection of the target image. (Previously, in that case the dialog was creating a 0x0 image.)

Functions and Templates

There is a new DateTimeMake query function + Compose Date transform that compose a date from year, month and day. There is a new DateTimeMakeFull query functions that composes a date from year, month, day, hour, minute, second and millisecond.

There is a new DateTimeClearTime query function + Clear Time transform to clear the time part of a date.

There is a new DateTimeYearLeap query function + Date Year Leap transform that determine whether the year of a date is a leap year.

There is a new DateTimeYearDay query function + Date Year Day transform that return the number of day for a date from the start of the year, with January 1 being day #1.

There is a new DateTimeWeek query function + Date Week transform that return the sequential number of the week for a date from the start of the year, with the week containing January being week #1. There is a parameter to specify the start day for weeks: 0 means that weeks start on Sunday, 1 on Monday, etc.

There is a new DateTimeWeekDay query function + Date Week Day transform tnat return the number of day for a date from the start of the week. There is a parameter to specify the start day for weeks, as above.

There is a new DateTimeAddDays query function + Date Shift transform that shift a date by the specified number of days. The number of days can be positive, to shift to later dates, or negative, to shift to earlier dates. The number of days can also have a fractional part, to shift by hours or minutes, etc.

There is a new DateTimeDifferenceDays query function + Date Difference transform that find the difference between two dates in days. The returned difference can be positive or negative, and can have a fractional part.

There are new StringUrlScheme / Host / Port / User / Password / Path / Extra query functions + URL Scheme / Host / Port / User / Password / Path / Extra transforms that parse a string as an URL and extract various parsed parts.

There is a new StringUrlMake query function + Compose URL transform that compose an URL from parts.

There is a new StringUrlAppend query function + Append URL transform that append a relative URL to an absolute URL.

End of list.

Next in the plans are improvements for most of the existing panes plus a new specialized pane for registration.

Mike Pelletier

2,122 post(s)
#20-May-20 17:29

The new pane arrangement is quite fantastic. The ability to dock down and left/right without having to remember key strokes makes for very intuitive work flow. The default docking arrangement is good. I generally prefer to have everything on the left side of the screen under the main menu to minimize moving the cursor across the screen. Perhaps when more panes show up, the default should include a pane docked down to show off that ability.

The ability to use the escape key when changes are not uncommitted is nice. Seems like when an object is alt-clicked and no uncommitted changes are pending, it would be good to allow a ctrl click to proceed without first having to remove the alt-click. Also, in general when uncommitted changes are pending, would it make sense to ask the user what they prefer to do rather than having nothing happen?

The comment about registration going into a new pane makes me wonder about what should be in panes vs. in dialogues like the merge image and join. Also, there is lots of space on the main menu across the top of the screen (lines 2 and 3) to add lots of additional dropdowns. It seems like there is good flexibility with current UI and as stuff gets added a logical organization will surface that will help users find needed tools quickly.

Looking good!

dale

630 post(s)
#21-May-20 02:26

Just had a good look at the UI with the individual panes.

It works.

I have a bunch of colleagues that work in ESRI world, this interface exposes all key functions at a root level that are intuitive to see, and read.

I can easily introduce Nine to that class of users.

Good stuff.

adamw


10,447 post(s)
#21-May-20 08:51

Agree that it would be logical to allowing selecting objects using Ctrl-click or Ctrl-drag even when there is something in the Record pane, provided there are no uncommitted changes - we will try to add this.

The reason we don't ask the user whether he wants to save or lose uncommitted changes when he is trying to do something that would clear the Record pane indirectly is that there are several scenarios where it feels infeasible to ask - eg, when you are changing the current layer the confirmation would be way too intrusive. If we ask in some cases and don't ask in others, the asking won't fulfill its function - a confirmation has to make the operation safe and in this case we can only make it partially safe. So we don't ask at all and either stop the action that would destroy changes whenever possible, or allow it and lose changes when stopping would be worse. We have a good solution to this in the plans - allow losing the changes, but also allow to restore the unfinished editing session via Undo. We will do this together with several Undo's in different areas.

Regarding what should be a dialog vs a pane - one of the things we are looking at when deciding this is whether the operation needs a preview. If it does, it should go into a pane. We think registration does need a preview - you should be able to try different combinations of the parameters and check different corners of the map - so it should go into a pane. We might either put registration into a separate pane or embed it into the Transform pane, trying both variants internally.

The main menu and the toolbar do have a lot of empty space on the right which could be put to use, yes, especially on wide screens which are pretty much the standard today. One thing we might do is merge the main menu with the caption, many applications do this. As to the toolbar, we don't want to grow it simply because there's space, but we will likely be adding to it - very carefully, preferably things with drop-down menus, etc. We also have some plans for the statusbar, it can show more things.

geozap
264 post(s)
#21-May-20 10:13

Regarding georegistration preview, I think that what is more important is the option to see RMS errors for each point before (and after) registration. The lack of of such options in 8 (except from error surface creation that is not easy to use) is a problem for those that do a lot of registrations. I wrote about this issue in an older post.

http://www.georeference.org/forum/t142519.4#142520

adamw


10,447 post(s)
#21-May-20 10:23

Point taken. Yes, that's doable.

tonyw
736 post(s)
#20-May-20 18:43

(Fix) A repeat click on an opacity value for the current layer in the Layers pane starts editing the value. (Previously, one had to click the layer name or press F2 to start editing the value, clicking the value itself did not work.)

When I need to adjust opacity of a layer, I'm mostly working with my mouse (actually a tablet with stylus instead of a mouse). Adjusting opacity means putting the stylus down and moving to the keyboard then back to the mouse. What if there was an option of either typing in a number for opacity as it is now or having an option to set the opacity with the mouse? It could be a drop down list of opacities in intervals of 5 or a sliding bar. If the sliding bar was interactive and opacity changed once the mouse button was released, then the user could slide the bar back and forth until achieving the desired opacity?

adamw


10,447 post(s)
#21-May-20 08:52

Yes, that's a good idea, we'll consider adding a dropdown picker or a slider. Thanks!

vincent

1,972 post(s)
#20-May-20 20:48

It's wonderful to see things added a few days after a discussion here. I don't know any software team that is so fast to add / fix things.

I reported bugs at ESRI years ago and there are still not adressed.

However, 172.1 is still importing some .TIF twice. Not a big deal. I'll wait !

I like the new UI !

adamw


10,447 post(s)
#21-May-20 08:55

We have the fix for the TIFF in the works.

Happy you like the new UI. :-)

geozap
264 post(s)
#21-May-20 04:54

Since Previews are being reworked, in drawings I think it would be nice to see the initial drawing and the result. For example you have some lines and you want to create buffers. It can be useful to see on screen both the lines and the preview of the buffers, one over the other. Because sometimes one might want this effect and sometimes not, there could be a checkbox on the pane saying something like "show preview on initial drawing". To extend the idea, instead of the checkbox, there could be a drop-down list with the options "Show initial", "Show initial and preview", "Show preview". "Show initial" would be equal to "No preview".

adamw


10,447 post(s)
#21-May-20 08:57

Absolutely, being able to see both the original and the result simultaneously is one of the goals of the rework.

Corentin
159 post(s)
online
#21-May-20 19:10

In addition for time consuming task, one may not want to see the preview. For example if I want to draw buffer of line *only for selected lines* if I type 1000m, M9 will take 10s when I type '1', then 10s for the next '0', then 10s for the next '0' etc, and 10s for the "restrict to selection"

Dimitri


7,413 post(s)
#22-May-20 05:58

In addition for time consuming task, one may not want to see the preview.

Previews don't delay anything. They're just previews, not full computations. You don't have to wait for a preview to render before commanding the transform, and you don't have to wait for a preview on each digit when entering digits to specify 1000 for a value.

If you want to see a preview faster, zoom into the window so the preview sample is smaller and the preview prediction computation can go faster, as discussed in the Example: Zoom In to See Transform Previews for Big Images topic.

I don't doubt that as part of upcoming work in panes there will be an option to show/not show a preview. But that wouldn't make a difference, it seems to me, between unchecking a "show preview" box and not waiting for a preview to appear if the scene is big enough that the preview takes a while. In both cases, there's no preview.

oeaulong

521 post(s)
online
#23-May-20 00:45

The default pane layout is changed to use both left and right sides, with Project + Layers panes shown on the left and Component + Record + Select + Style + Transform panes shown on the right. The dock state of all panes is saved between sessions. (The default layout is not final, but tell us what you think of using both left and right sides out of the box. If you liked the previous layout better, you can easily switch back to it by moving all panes from the left side to the right and the system will obey.)

So, after using this for a while. I find that old intuitions of a Right hand side for the Project is ingrained. Is it possible to have the default Pane setup mirror flip sending Project and Layers to the right and the C+R+S+S+T panes to the left? Do Layers and Project by necessity deserve each other in docking?

tjhb
10,094 post(s)
#23-May-20 02:35

[.]

tjhb
10,094 post(s)
#23-May-20 02:57

I disagree (I think?).

I'm not sure whether I prefer the new default of having Project on the left. I think it may be best enjoyed by ESRI users, I don't know. If so, that's really good! Let's get those iffy users on board.

Otherwise, just right click and switch to the right. Equally cool. (I haven't done it yet, I'm still giving the default setting a chance.)

I love the new UI, absolutely to pieces, and as for many past changes, immediately I could never go back. This is the best build ever.

It is beautiful, and for me it has just the muscle memory I was looking for. (Due to others' great suggestions. The community is clever!)

adamw


10,447 post(s)
#23-May-20 09:12

We are reworking panes, so let's first wait until these reworks are complete.

In general, different people will obviously prefer different pane arrangements, so no matter what we choose as the default, it will not suit everyone. I guess it might be the best for us to provide several standard arrangements, eg, under View - Panes - Rearrange submenu. This would also be useful to quickly restore the default arrangement in case a productive working session sends panes into a creative disarray. :-)

tonyw
736 post(s)
#23-May-20 05:51

Next in the plans are improvements for most of the existing panes plus a new specialized pane for registration.

I regularly use M8 to register an image to use in M9. For registration in M9, it would be really handy to be able to tweak the position of control points. In M8, once I let go of the mouse (actually I use a stylus, once I lift the stylus) there is no way to nudge the control point to a more accurate location. I usually live with the position of the control points if they are "close enough" otherwise I delete the badly positioned control point(s) and try again to place them better, sometimes with better, sometimes with worse results. In graphics and drawing programs I can select an object and nudge it with the arrow keys. Something similar in M9 or some way to adjust the control points (if M9 will use control points at all) would be handy. Thoughts?

I never tried or looked in M8 but what if M9 had an undo if the results of registration weren't entirely satisfactory? Rather than start over placing all new control points, what if you could undo then tweak the position of control points or add a few more where the registration was off, then try the registration again? Or instead of undo, what if the product of a registration was a new image component so then you can go back to the original and assuming there was a way to tweak control points, try again? So a non-destructive registration?

I'm looking forward to the paradigm Manifold will have for registration in M9. In M8 it was relatively fast,with 4-5 representative control points with good results presuming my aim was good placing control points. That is one thing a mouse is better at doing, precisely placing points. The motion of lifting the finger off the left-button on a mouse is done with a stylus by lifting the stylus off the tablet which introduces some lateral movement. For me, for most other Manifold tasks, the stylus is better plus easier on the wrist.

ColinD

2,081 post(s)
#23-May-20 07:37

I never tried or looked in M8 but what if M9 had an undo if the results of registration weren't entirely satisfactory?

M8 has one undo for this which has been very handy.


Aussie Nature Shots

adamw


10,447 post(s)
#23-May-20 09:22

We are going to provide means to register into a new component / adjust control points and repeat the registration. We are also going to provide a preview. No undo, but with the ability to register into a new component and a preview an undo is less needed.

Thanks a lot for the post, it's very useful.

Mike Pelletier

2,122 post(s)
#23-May-20 15:36

This sounds really great for what I typically do.

One common use is lining up a subdivision plat where you don't want any warping of the image but you don't have exact control points. So you may need to use more than 2 control points. Hopefully there will be an option to have more than 2 points but no warping.

Another common need is to warp a historical map/aerial to modern mapping. Here lots of control points are needed with quick ways to try and adjust control points.

Hopefully 9 won't do like 8 in that some methods clip the image outside the control points. That seems odd and less useful.

adamw


10,447 post(s)
#23-May-20 16:50

Regarding clipping - clipping depends on the method. Triangulation-based methods have no choice but clip, because they are undefined outside of the triangulation. This is normally solved with extra control points relatively far from the regular ones, with the intent to cover the whole component and extend the method to do at least something on the borders. Numeric methods are defined everywhere and don't clip.

geozap
264 post(s)
#23-May-20 18:24

As a land surveyor, I sometimes have to use 100+ year old range plans (by saying range plans I mean maps of parcels for a big area, I don't know the exact English terminology). For those paper sheets, that had undergone distortions over the years, the best method to use in georegistration is triangulation, using the grid to place control points. Sometimes the sheets are partly torn and the grid is not visible at the edges. So I firstly perform triangulation at the area that there is a grid, and I get a clipped map. Then, I perform another transformation, that doesn't clip the raster, to the sheet area that doesn't have grid. After that I merge the two result rasters. There are problems(=differences) at the areas that the triangulation and the other-method rasters overlap, but it is the best one can get.

I wonder if there could be a georeference method that, using the same control points, performs triangulation in the area covered by triangles, and some other method outside the triangulated area?

Mike Pelletier

2,122 post(s)
#23-May-20 19:46

With the speed of 9, preview, and any easy way to adjust points, I suspect it will open new approaches and ability to tackle more/larger maps. I have lots of super old historical maps that will be interesting to try and overlay.

Perhaps to get at what you described we can line up the map as best as possible without clipping and then do triangulation for area you have control except add the outer 4 corners as control points as well (as Adam described). I no precious little about georegistering methods, but seems like it would be helpful if you could assign the accuracy of the control point, such that some points carry more weight than others. So in this case the outer 4 corners don't tug at any of the real control points that may be nearby.

adamw


10,447 post(s)
#24-May-20 08:15

I wonder if there could be a georeference method that, using the same control points, performs triangulation in the area covered by triangles, and some other method outside the triangulated area?

That's an interesting thing to think about, indeed. We'll see. Maybe we can create something robust that would extend the spirit of triangulation outwards.

tonyw
736 post(s)
#23-May-20 19:04

We are also going to provide a preview

Yes, a preview, presumably overlaid in the target map, would be really handy, then I would know if I need to adjust some control points or add some more and where they are needed. Preview would allow a more interactive process of registration so that undo is not necessary. Looking forward to registration features in M9.

KlausDE

6,410 post(s)
#24-May-20 11:19

german UI file for 9.0.172.1

Attachments:
ui.de.txt


Do you really want to ruin economy only to save the planet?

adamw


10,447 post(s)
#28-May-20 16:11

Status update: we are planning to issue the next build in the beginning of the next week. The primary focus of the build is improvements to panes.

The overall number of changes and improvements planned for panes is big, it will take multiple builds for all changes to appear. The order is dictated by dependencies between individual features, Component / Record go first, then Select / Transform, then registration (which depends on everything else, unfortunately, else we'd put it first).

BerndD

162 post(s)
#29-May-20 18:55

Please, if the time allows add the ability to give a map in the layout a specific scale.

It would kid of round up things for printing maps.


Organizations that want to adapt to CHANGE are using products that can adapt.

www.yeymaps.io

HMS
185 post(s)
#29-May-20 19:30

Please, if the time allows add the ability to give a map in the layout a specific scale.

I would second that. Allowing more than one map in a layout at a specific scale, together with the option to display a coordinate system grid, are essential features for my printing tasks. A few builds ago I submitted a suggestion for this feature, I hope it will find a way over the next builds.

adamw


10,447 post(s)
#30-May-20 08:59

To clarify - do you mean (a) telling a map in a layout frame to zoom to a fixed scale, perhaps entered manually, similarly to how you can enter the scale in a map window by right-clicking the scale portion of the status bar and invoking Custom, or (b) telling a layout frame that it should use a specific fixed DPI, even if the DPI of the target device during printing is different (that's useful for fixing the scale of web images, otherwise the objects on them typically look much smaller then they should, because they are designed for screen readouts, same for labels)?

This is kind of a diversion from what we are doing now, but we agree that at least (b) is pretty important and we have been planning to do it for some time, so why not.

But maybe you mean something else?

HMS
185 post(s)
#30-May-20 15:00

Hi Adam, I was refering to (a) telling a map in a layout frame to zoom to a fixed scale (it could be done entering manually like you state or perhaps applying a location, similar to what a saved view did in M8). When working with layouts with more than one map this option would be of great importance for my workflow. Right now, without this option to set a second map to a custom scale and without the graticules associated to the coordinate system the application of the M9 layout in my workflow is still limited. There are workarounds (like it happens with the design of a scale bar), but they are so time consuming that it's still easier to export data back to M8 to make/print the layout. This doesn't mean that the latest upgrades in layouts (specially the ones regarding legends) aren't stellar, because they are, but at least for my worflow these few missing options are still crucial. In this regard (b) is also a great thought and I would definitely use it.

adamw


10,447 post(s)
#30-May-20 15:43

Thank you for the explanation!

We'll see what we can do.

HMS
185 post(s)
#30-May-20 19:52

That would be great. Thanks!

dchall8
1,008 post(s)
#31-May-20 18:20

When I worked in the oil biz the people wanted to see D or E sized paper maps with a scale of 1:2000. Apparently AutoCAD and ESRI have easy ways of doing that. I found it challenging with Manifold 8.

HMS
185 post(s)
#01-Jun-20 12:42

Most of my GIS printing output over the last years was done with Manifold 8 using the international standard for paper size (A4, A3, A2, A1, A0) at several scales and sequential drawings. The option to specify a view in a layout (using the scale and center point of a saved view from a map) allowed using different scales for different maps with different paper dimensions. Once I got used to this it was just a case of setting up maps and layouts in order to fulfill a particular project scale. Perhaps ESRI/ArcGIS way of specifying a layout scale was mor direct but Manifold's views pane did the trick for me. However, for enginering/architectural drawings at smaller scales I believe CAD platforms like the one provided by Autodesk, will always have more dedicated ways to deal with these tasks.

lionel

995 post(s)
#01-Jun-20 12:54

I don't understand what mean E and D for paper sheet size & format .

But after search i understand that standard should refer sometime to countries and not world !

-1) US ANSI : E > D >C> B> A

-2) US ARCH ( ARCHITECTURAL ) : E > D > C > B > A

-3) ANSI ( American National Standards Institute) METRIC :ISO 216 has A4 and ABC sizes

So it is difficult to understand what mean ABCDE and ANSI US is not ANSI METRIC !

-the letter ABC is use in 1)2)3)

-the letter ED is use in 1)2)

and i don't cover the ASME Y14.1M ( AmericanSociety of Mechanical Engineers) and US Envelope that are not in the ISO 216

Like unicode /Color there is discussion beetween country to have suitable/compatible things. We have EuropeanStandards Organisations (CEN, CENELEC and ETSI) in Europe that try to modify how European countries do things to do things in the same manner ( a dream) .

Dream because see how detax work in europe : differentvat rates category per countries ( same name but not same value) , differents fee take by reduce the amount of your detax (mandatory if manage by 1/3 like globalBlue or 0 or % if detax done /manage by merchant ) , different way to valid your vat when you go outside europe depends where you buy yours goods ( old stamp , electronic PABLO in france but no standart way) .

- Power Outlets and Voltages

-microsoft word

Photoshop has a really long list but I never take care of paper size until today.I know that phothoshop has a way to take care - calibrate the shape/Size of LED in screen monitor to have wysiwyg on screen and paper !


Book about Science , cosmological model , Interstellar travels

Boyle surface fr ,en

BerndD

162 post(s)
#01-Jun-20 16:42

I would vote for a) over b)


Organizations that want to adapt to CHANGE are using products that can adapt.

www.yeymaps.io

scandalxk72 post(s)
#28-May-20 18:19

The new UI is a vast improvement, and the layout and legend tools in particular are very promising. Covid lockdown means I finally have time to learn how to use it. This I think marks the tipping point for me, from M8 to M9, for my particular type of use.

Thanks.

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