Environmental scientists and engineers have long-embraced Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and geospatial analysis. Those of us who have made a career of managing environmental information rely on GIS not only to analyze spatial environmental data but to manage and store it with the rest of our tabular data.
GIS has certainly ‘crossed the chasm’ into the mainstream. MapQuest may have introduced GIS to the masses, but thanks to Google, web mapping is now ubiquitous. While many now take the sophistication of Google Maps and Bing Maps for granted, there are a few of us who rely on GIS for more than mapping; we need to analyze and manipulate geospatial data. Manifold GIS was introduced about 10 years ago and those who use it are generally excited to spend 30 minutes telling anybody (who will listen) why Manifold is, or was, the most innovative product they have ever used.
 |
| Where the heck is Version 9? |
GIS has certainly ‘crossed the chasm’ into the mainstream. MapQuest may have introduced GIS to the masses, but thanks to Google, web mapping is now ubiquitous. While many now take the sophistication of Google Maps and Bing Maps for granted, there are a few of us who rely on GIS for more than mapping; we need to analyze and manipulate geospatial data. Manifold GIS was introduced about 10 years ago and those who use it are generally excited to spend 30 minutes telling anybody (who will listen) why Manifold is, or was, the most innovative product they have ever used.
Manifold GIS (www.manifold.net) was the first GIS product to do a great job of integrating geospatial and tabular data. For many of the product’s early users, Manifold offered its users a vision that all data (spatial or tabular) could be managed in a single environment. Sadly, it has been two years since the vendor has offered a serious new upgrade and us early users hope that what was once a disruptive technology won’t join Turbo Pascal in the obsolete software graveyard.
Manifold has been unwilling to share its future product development plans, and unfortunately the user community is impatient. Other companies have certainly continued to innovate. Over the past two years ESRI has introduced native support for spatial data in SQL Server 2008 as well as fantastic new support for the iPhone and iPad. Qgis (www.qgis.org) has emerged as a pretty useful open source desktop mapping product.
Manifold has been unwilling to share its future product development plans, and unfortunately the user community is impatient. Other companies have certainly continued to innovate. Over the past two years ESRI has introduced native support for spatial data in SQL Server 2008 as well as fantastic new support for the iPhone and iPad. Qgis (www.qgis.org) has emerged as a pretty useful open source desktop mapping product.
Do we stop waiting for Manifold version 9 and just go on with our lives?
3 comments:
Our son bought Manifold years ago and used the geocoding capabilities in a web based multi-list real estate application. Consequently, it has been on my radar for years. Since comparable ESRI software is so much more expensive, I've been thinking that I should check out Manifold but I have also been wondering if it has a future ?
I skipped version 9 of Surfer and now see that the recently released version 10 has gained some additional GIS functionality. Golden Software has reasonable upgrade policies (unlike AutoDESK) so my investment in version 8 of Surfer is still worth something. Unlike ArcGIS v8.2, Sufer v8.0 will run under Windows 7 (including the 64-bit Pro version).
DeLorme Topo applications were purchased initially for hiking and exploring but they have professional applications too. At this point, I'm on my 2nd DeLorme GPS, a hand held PN-20.
Regards,
Tom Wells, P.E.
WELLS Technical Services
Nice article. I've been using ESdat software for sometime which I've also found very useful for environmental database management. It's easy to use and has been a real time saver.
Yes. We do. We move on to work with vendors and software developpers who respect their client enough to update them as to what is happening with software they have spent money on.
Global Mapper, QGIS, are likely where we will invest time and resources developping procedures. As we move to 64bit Windows 7 hardware this year Manifold will sadly be abandonned.
Post a Comment