Manifold® System GIS
Full Featured, Low Cost GIS
By Rich Friedman
GIS Supervisor
City of Farmington
Manifold® System GIS
Current Version 6.5
IS NOT:
– A GIS light
– Basic GIS for beginners (although a good option for
beginners)
– A Novelty GIS package
IS:
– A full, very comprehensive GIS package
– A very valuable addition to ANY GIS tool set
– A scalable GIS solution from a stand alone GIS to a full
Enterprise GIS
– Different both in terminology and user interface from
other GIS software
Manifold® System GIS
Manifold® System GIS Strengths:
– A very complete GIS solution
– Robust feature set, powerful geoprocessing tools, dynamic feature
labeling, view bots, “active” database columns, full SQL support,
and scripting
– “Basic” package includes full editing and analysis of points, lines,
polygons, images, and surfaces
– Integrated Internet Map Server (IMS)
– 3D display including:
» Vector overlay/extrusion
» Image overlay
» Surface overlay/shading
» Elevation contouring
– Support for import/export of a wide variety of geospatial, data
formats
– Superior ability to import, link, and relate to tabular data
– Full .ecw image compression engine (unlimited image size)
– Dynamic labeling support
Manifold® System GIS
Manifold® System GIS Weaknesses:
– Cartographic hardcopy output in not as “refined” as some
competitors
– Mr. Sid image support is “slow/weak” (uses the free Mr. Sid
Image de-compressor which is “throttled-down”)
– Geographic projection support is VERY good internally, but
import/export of certain data types and projections can be
confusing and slightly problematic
– Large images can make project files very large, and increase load
and save times dramatically (linking images with the Enterprise
Edition solves this problem)
– Very little 3rd party support for training and applications (but there
is excellent user based list server user support)
Manifold System Products
Manifold® System Professional Edition - $245
Manifold® System Professional Edition with Debugger - $295
Manifold® System Enterprise Edition - $395
Manifold® System Universal Edition - $495
Manifold® Business Tools - $95
– An optional extension to Manifold System that provides additional
commands for working with drawings
Manifold® Surface Tools - $95
– Optional extension to Manifold System that provides additional
commands for working with surfaces
Manifold® 2004 Geocoding Data - $100
– Optional US street address geocoding database that turns on (enables)
street address geocoding functions
(currently upgrades for any level of license costs $50.00)
Professional Edition
General Features
The Professional Edition is the base product
Full vector and image editing capabilities
Full Data Base Editing
3D Visualization, DEM Support, and Elevation
Contour Generation
Full ECW and JPEG 2000 compression (unlimited
file size)
Image Registration, Image Mosaic, Image Fusion
Unlimited Project Size
Professional Edition
General Features (continued)
Integrated Internet Map Server
Integrated GPS Capability (with NEMA
compliant GPS devices)
Statistical and Spatial Analysis
Spatial Overlays (over 27 different
operators) and Buffers
Data transfer rules by individual column for
spatial data manipulation
Professional Edition
General Features (continued)
Spatial Editing including:
– Boolean unions, dissolves,and clips
– Polygon islands and holes
– Transfer selections from vector drawing layers to image
layers or surface layers and vice versa
Automatic Contouring of surfaces into areas or
lines
Chart Creation and Editing
User interface Customization
Geospatial SQL
Professional Edition
Supports: Scripting (programming)
– Vectors (points, lines, support for:
polygons) – ActiveX
– Raster (image) Data – OLE DB & ODBC
– 2D and 3D Surfaces – MS Internet Information
– Terrain Simulations Server
– Multi-layered maps – COM
– User defined and auto – Visual Basic
generated labels – ASP & ASP.NET
– Wide Range of Data Base – MS .NET Framework
& Tabular Data Formats – MS XML
– MS Jscript
Professional Edition
Wide variety of vector, raster, terrain, and
database data import tools (over 80)
including: HDF EOS, .shp, .mid/.mif, .e00,
SDTS, TIGER/Line (through 2002), DLG,
VMAP/VPF, NTF, TAB, DXF, TAIF,
DGN, DEM, SDTS DEM, NITF, Space
Shuttle SRTM
Professional Edition
Data export includes: .shp, .mid/.mif, .dxf,
mfd/mdb, SDTS and .e00 (Enterprise Edition
required for .e00 export); image formats: .bmp,
.ecw, JPEG 2000, .png, .gif, .jpg, .tga, .emf, .tif
and GeoTiff; .bil surface format; database table
formats such as Access .mdb, Excel .xls, Paradox
.db, Dbase .dbf, Lotus Wkx, HTML and ASCII
text .csv formats as well as to any OLE DB or
ODBC database or to database providers such as
Oracle, SQL Server, DB2 or MySQL if installed
Professional Edition
Editing Tools
Copy and paste from Topology Creation
and to drawings, Move, Rotate, and
images and data bases Scale Vector Data
Standard Vector Split (with)
Editing Plus: Spline
– Extend,trim, bearing,
angle offset
– Snapping
– Image “tracing”
– Shared Edit
Vector Functions
Professional Edition:
3D Visualization
Animation from:
www.manifold.net
Professional Edition with
Debugger
Same features as the Professional Edition
plus sophisticated Debugging tools for
programmers
Enterprise Edition Features
All the features of the Professional Edition
PLUS:
Integrated debugger system for scripting
Export to ESRI .e00 format
Diagram from
Storage in Centralized DBMS Manifold System
Help
– Any Manifold component can be stored within a
database, on an “Enterprise Server”
– Supported ODBC compliant database management
systems include IBM DB2, Microsoft SQL Server,
and Oracle (others such as MySQL are known to
work)
Multi-user Coordination enforces access control
and controlled editing of shared components
Use One Component in Many Projects – Data
links allow access by several projects to a single
component kept within the Enterprise Server.
Advantages of Enterprise Edition
Architecture
Faster performance, at times by a factor of 100 or
more in interactive GIS operations as compared to
older architectures
Reliable, conflict-free editing of complex data in a
multi-user environment
Freedom to choose almost any DBMS vendor
Connect to multiple DBMS servers - within the
same project Manifold can transparently include
multiple components from different Enterprise
servers hosted by different DBMS vendors
Advantages of Enterprise Edition
Architecture (continued)
DBMS safety. If the DBMS crashes while
working on an Enterprise project the project is still
safe and can be saved with no loss of data
Network fault tolerance. If the network crashes
while working on an Enterprise project the project
is still safe.
Ability to use Internet for remote DBMS
connections
Off-line working capability such as with laptops
when traveling away from a direct connection to
an Enterprise server
Manifold® Universal Edition
All of the features of Professional and
Enterprise Editions
With two extensions included
– Business Tools
– Surface Tools
Universal Edition provides a Cost savings
of $80.00 over purchasing the extensions
separately
Manifold® Business Tools
Extension
Districts (Advanced) - Redistricting using a
condensed, expert level dialog.
Districts (Visual) - Redistricting via an easy-to-use
visual, interactive dialog.
Drive-Time Zones - Computation of drive-time
zones via an easy-to-use, interactive dialog.
Optimal Route - Finding an optimal route to
designated locations using a condensed, expert
level dialog.
Manifold® Business Tools
Extension (continued)
Optimal Route (Visual) - Finding an optimal route
to designated locations via an easy-to-use,
interactive dialog.
Send Email - Automatically send email to map
objects. Used to send spatially-targeted email.
Topology Factory - An interactive dialog to view
and repair common topological errors in drawings.
Expanded programmatic access to routing and
other functions.
Manifold® Surface Tools
New Surface Transform command dialog allows
arbitrary transformation of surfaces, including
computations that involve multiple surfaces such
as subtracting one surface from another. A very
rich collection of operators allows many different
types of tasks to be accomplished.
Transfer Heights command enables rapid transfer
of surface values from surfaces to points.
The Visible Area (View Shed) command shows
areas that are visible from given points. The
height of viewing points may be automatically
adjusted from a height field.
Manifold® Surface Tools
(continued)
Options in surface generation include creating
surfaces from drawings and tables using
triangulation, Median-Polish Kriging, and Kriging
interpolation (Linear, Power, Rational and
automatic model choices).
Interpolation of missing pixels and Interpolate
Row.
The ability to work with new Profiles and
Elevations components that show cross-sectional
cuts through a given path over a surface.
Manifold® Surface Tools
(continued)
Sophisticated watershed capabilities and
other hydrology functions includeing:
– Automatic computation of:
» streams, flow direction, flow accumulation,
watersheds and upstream areas.
– Objects created by hydrology computations can
be automatically ordered by data attributes
giving their Strahler or Shreve ordering.
Expanded programmatic access to surface
operations.
Surface Tools
Image/Surface Functions
Only available in
Surface Tools
Only available in
Enterprise Edition
Pros
Full featured GIS package with functions usually
associated with very expensive programs
Strong Development Cycle
A scalable GIS solution from a stand alone GIS to
a full Enterprise GIS
Great set of training videos available at a very
reasonable cost
Volume purchase discounts available in addition
to an already outstanding
price/performance/feature ratio
Runtime Editions available for developers and
IMS servers
Cons
Unique interface and workflow makes
transition from other GIS software more
difficult
Small company means fewer users, and less
third party support
The vast GIS tool set may be slightly
overwhelming for new GIS users
Manifold Links and Resources
Manifold Home Page
– http://www.manifold.net
Article on use of Manifold IMS in Hurricane
Katrina research:
– http://www.gismonitor.com/news/newsletter/archive/091505.p
Manifold Training Videos
– http://www.gisadvisor.com
Procedure comparison of Manifold and ArcGIS 8
– http://dspace.library.cornell.edu/handle/1813/165
List Servers/Forums
– www.Georeference.org
– www.directionsmag.com
