Update Archive

2001

011220 Version

Macintosh and Windows Versions

File - Open Image menu item

MultiSpec can now read the HDF formatted image files that NASA is producing for systems such as Landsat 7 and MODIS. If the HDF formatted file has more than one image data set in it, the 'Change Image Description' dialog box will open to allow one to select the data set that one wants to view in the image window. The list of data sets is in a popup menu list. A '_' in front of the data set name in the list indicates that the data set is in a format that MultiSpec cannot handle (such as real data value). A '*' in front of the data set name in the list indicates that MultiSpec can read the data. One can use the 'Edit - Change Image Description' menu to change the data set being displayed in the image window.

Note that HDF files with more than one data set in them can not be used as the base image for a project. One will have to create a new image file using the "Reformat - Change Image File Format" processor. One can then use the new file as the base image for a project.

Edit - Selection Rectangle menu item

An option has been added to allow one to apply an edited selection rectangle to all open image windows.

Image Windows

One can now control the color and line widths of overlays (shape files). For the Macintosh version, hold down the 'Option' key before selecting the overlay button to get the overlay popup menu and then select a specific overlay, a dialog box will appear allowing one to control the color and line width of the overlay. For the Windows version, hold the right mouse button down and then select an overlay. You will notice that when the right mouse button is down and you select on the overlay button, there is a ... after the overlay name indicating that a dialog box will come up.

Other Changes and Fixes

Changes were made so that long file names will be handled properly. Path names (combination of all nested folders and the file name) in the Windows version up to 253 characters will work correctly now. The Macintosh version handles file names (not including folder names) up to 31 characters.

Macintosh Version

Carbonized Version

A carbonized version has been developed which will run native under OSX 10.1. Everything works in the carbon version under OSX except for copying and pasting images. We have not figured that out yet. One way around this is to save the image window as a TIFF file and use another application to copy and past into another document. Let us know if you run into any problems with the carbon version.

Note that only one of the dialog boxes (the Display Multispectral Image dialog) has been changed to have the complete OSX appearance. The others work; they are just not as pretty.

Making the carbonized version caused several other changes to be made which are described below.

File - Open Image

The open image dialog box is quite different. One can now move it. There are several more options available. There is a pause when the dialog box opens because MultiSpec is checking all files in the default folder to see which ones are image files that can be read. Only those that can be read are listed in the dialog box. There is an option via a popup menu to show all files.

Dialog Boxes

Most of the dialog boxes will now allow one to change to a different application if they are opened. This will allow one to do copying and pasting if needed.

Text Window

A different set of code is being used to handle the text in the output window. This code is now PowerPC native in the PPC and Carbon versions.

010531 Version

Macintosh and Windows Versions

There were a lot of changes in this version since the 10.6.00 version. Some menu items were changed to be more consistant with the general useage across applications. Also some additional GIS capability was added with the ability to overlay shape files on image windows and the ability to display coordinates in map units. The intent is NOT to make MultiSpec a GIS application. It was done to allow easier transfer between MultiSpec and GIS applications such as ESRI's ArcView.

Menu Bar Changes

File Menu

The 'New Project', 'Open Project', 'Close Project', 'Save Project' and 'Save Project As...' menu items have been added to the File menu where file activities occur (from the Project menu).

The 'Close' menu item will behave as follows: What has been called the Statistics window in the documentation will now be called the "Project" window to better fit the this window represents. There is a close box on the Project window which will close the project when clicked in. The Close Window menu item will be named "Close Image Window" when an image window is active, "Close Project Window" when the Project window is active and "Close Graph Window" when a graph window is active.

The Change Image Description menu item was moved to the Edit menu.

Edit Menu

The Change Image Description... menu item was moved to here from the File menu

A 'Image Map Parameters...' menu item was added to the Edit menu to allow one to edit the planar map coordinate information for the file.

A 'Clear Overlays' menu item was added to allow one to clear overlay files such as ArcView shape files from memory.

Project Menu

The 'New Project', 'Open Project', 'Close Project', 'Save Project' and 'Save Project As...' menu items have been moved to the File menu where file activities occur.

Processor Menu

The Reformat dialog box has been changed to a Reformat submenu containing commands for all of the reformat processors.

Palette Menu

The palette menu has been made a submenu of the options menu. This was to better reflect the status of these commands. We don't perceive that they are used very often.

Options Menu

The "New Selection Graph" menu item has been moved from the Window menu.

The "Show Selection Coordinates" menu item has been moved to the Window menu. Its purpose has been change to show or hide the coordinate view which is located at the top of the image window for both the Mac and Windows versions. See the Coordinate View discussion below.

The "Show Selection Coordinates" menu item in the Options menu has been replaced by the "Image Map Parameters..." menu item and moved to the Edit menu.

Coordinate View

The coordinates window has been replaced by a coordinate view (which is similar to where the coordinates were located in the Windows version). One can display/hide the coordinate view by selecting "Show Coordinate View" in the Window menu or selecting the button (Mac version only) that is at the top of the vertical scroll bar. Selecting the button again will hide the coordinate view.

The coordinate view has been expanded with additional options. One can select several different units to display the cursor location in. The default is always line/column. If planar information is available such as is in the .lan header, an ArcView .lnw, .tfw, etc file or a GeoTIFF file, the user will also have the option to display the coordinates as meters, kilometers, etc. Any selections will also be displayed in those units. Possible units include a broad range which can be used in land to medical applications.

The user can also elect to display the area in different units. The default is always number of pixels. However if information is available that indicates the planar units for each pixel in the image, then the area can be displayed as square kilometers, hectares, etc.

Finally, if the planar units for each pixel is available, then the scale of the image being displayed is given at the right end of the coordinate view. The will change as one zooms in and out. Currently, the monitor is always assumed to be 72 pixels/inch which is usually close but not always accurate.

The planar units can be edited using the "Edit - Map Parameters..." menu command.

The thousands and decimal separators are those defined by the user for the operating system that they are using. Both the Mac and Windows OS allow one to set these according to the usage that the user desires. This must be done before MultiSpec is started.

File - Open Image menu item

MultiSpec can now read at least some of the map geometry information in GeoTIFF files. It is used for allowing options in displaying the map coordinates. MultiSpec can also read the map geometry information in Imagine, FastL7A and GeoSPOT files.

This menu item will now allow one to open ArcView Shape files ( as long as an image window is opened first). A popup menu button has been added to the lower left of the Mac Image Window to allow one to turn the overlay(s) on and off. The popup button for the Windows version is next to the zoom buttons in the toolbar. (There is no control over the color currently). The shape file will only be added to the active image window. One can use the Edit - Clear Overlay menu item to remove the selected shape file from memory.

Correction was made so that more of the European LGSOWG formatted files can be read correctly.

Warning message is presented when one tries to open a TIFF file with an image in tiled format.

File - Open Project Menu Item

Problem fixed in which the number of pixels in a field with more than 32,767 pixels was read in incorrectly.

Processor - Reformat - Add/Change Header Menu Item

A button has been added to this dialog box to allow one to edit the map parameters before adding or changing an ERDAS *.gis or *.lan header. The bottom causes the same Map Parameter Dialog Box to open as the does the Edit - Map Parameter menu item.

Processor - Statistics Enhancement Menu Item

Change made in the default number of unlabeled pixels to be used. The number is based on the memory available or the total number of unlabeled pixels - whichever is less. This is the way it was prior to the 10.6.00 version. Making the default number a value similar to the number of labeled (training) pixels in the 10.6.00 version did not work well when the number of training samples was small. Note: when the number of unlabeled samples becomes many times the number of labeled (training) samples, the results tend not to work well also; but no good rule of thumb has been found yet.

Processor - Feature Selection menu item

Change made so that for those cases when the message "Variance was 0 and set to x.xxxx" is listed, it is listed only once and not for every feature combination which could be thousands or millions of times.

Processor - Classify Processor menu item

A bug was fixed which caused the names of the classes written to classification files to not be correct sometimes when a subset of the classes were used for the classification. The intent was to add "-not used" to those class names which were not used. This did not happen in all cases.

Processor-Utilities-List Image Description menu item

This processor will now list the map information in the text output window if available in the image file.

Macintosh Version

This version has been tested on a 68040 machine (Quadra 660/AV) running under OS 7.6.1. I am pretty sure now that Mac OS 7.x is now required but I have no machines running OS 6.x to check it out. This version will run without the Appearance Manager present when using Mac OS 7.x but it runs better if it is available. How many still require the ability to run under 68040 machines, i.e. pre PowerPC Macintoshes?

The ability to create images with patterns on black & white machines like the Mac SE and Mac Plus has been removed. There will be no more non-coprocessor versions, i.e. for Mac Pluses and Mac SE's.

Menu Bar Changes

The Window menu in the Mac version has been moved to the right end of the menu just before the Help menu. This makes it very similar to the location of the Window menu in the Windows version. This also makes it similar to the location in several other Mac applications.

Windows Version

Processor - Display Image menu item

The default amount of memory available for an image has been reduced to closer to the actual physical memory available and not the virtual memory available. I believe that some are running into problems when displaying large images that cause the image to be spooled to disk. This causes the system to slow considerably and not display correctly. The memory available controls the default line and column interval.

Processor - Histogram menu item

A bug was fixed which caused the histogram information to be listed for all channels even if the user selected a subset of channels.

Text Output Window

A change was made so that more than 65,000 characters can be listed in the Output Text window when running under Windows NT/2000. The limit when running under Windows NT/2000 should now be based on memory available. The limit for Windows 95/98 is still 65,000. I do not know about Windows ME.