Spectrum Spatial (SSA/LIM)

We're planning to use Spectrum Named Tiles for publishing old aerial photos from local files. Available formats are mainly ECW and SID, but also have some with JPG.
Have been trying to find a list of supported raster formats in SSA, so we can convert the aerial photos to a compatible format and upload them, but haven't been able to find it in documentation.
Are ECW and SID supported formats for SSA? and is there a list of supported raster formats?

Kind regards,

------------------------------
Miquel Roy Sunyer
Kirklees Council
HUDDERSFIELD
------------------------------

Hi Miquel,

Thank you for seeking answers to this query in the Knowledge Community. The following are the supported raster formats as mentioned in the MapInfo Professional Documentation :

*.bil, *.sid, *.gen, *.adf, *.img, *.ntf, *.ecw, *.url, *.tif, *.grc, *.bmp, *.gif, *.tga,*.jpg, *.pcx, *. jp2, *.j2k, *.png, *.psd, *.wmf, *.emf, *.map

Uploading the same to the Spectrum Spatial Analyst via Map Uploader Tool must be possible.

------------------------------
Nalin Mathur
Pitney Bowes Software India PVT. Ltd
Noida
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 07-15-2019 05:11
From: Miquel Roy Sunyer
Subject: SSA - Supported Raster Formats

We're planning to use Spectrum Named Tiles for publishing old aerial photos from local files. Available formats are mainly ECW and SID, but also have some with JPG.
Have been trying to find a list of supported raster formats in SSA, so we can convert the aerial photos to a compatible format and upload them, but haven't been able to find it in documentation.
Are ECW and SID supported formats for SSA? and is there a list of supported raster formats?

Kind regards,

------------------------------
Miquel Roy Sunyer
Kirklees Council
HUDDERSFIELD
------------------------------

Thanks Nalin for providing a full list of compatible formats. This will be really useful.

Kind regards,

------------------------------
Miquel Roy Sunyer
Kirklees Council
HUDDERSFIELD
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 07-15-2019 06:37
From: Nalin Mathur
Subject: SSA - Supported Raster Formats

Hi Miquel,

Thank you for seeking answers to this query in the Knowledge Community. The following are the supported raster formats as mentioned in the MapInfo Professional Documentation :

*.bil, *.sid, *.gen, *.adf, *.img, *.ntf, *.ecw, *.url, *.tif, *.grc, *.bmp, *.gif, *.tga,*.jpg, *.pcx, *. jp2, *.j2k, *.png, *.psd, *.wmf, *.emf, *.map

Uploading the same to the Spectrum Spatial Analyst via Map Uploader Tool must be possible.

------------------------------
Nalin Mathur
Pitney Bowes Software India PVT. Ltd
Noida

Original Message:
Sent: 07-15-2019 05:11
From: Miquel Roy Sunyer
Subject: SSA - Supported Raster Formats

We're planning to use Spectrum Named Tiles for publishing old aerial photos from local files. Available formats are mainly ECW and SID, but also have some with JPG.
Have been trying to find a list of supported raster formats in SSA, so we can convert the aerial photos to a compatible format and upload them, but haven't been able to find it in documentation.
Are ECW and SID supported formats for SSA? and is there a list of supported raster formats?

Kind regards,

------------------------------
Miquel Roy Sunyer
Kirklees Council
HUDDERSFIELD
------------------------------

Miquel,

There are actually a few different questions here.
First of all, the raster/grid formats that Spectrum Spatial supports are listed in our online documentation.  ​
http://support.pb.com/help/spectrum/18.2/en/webhelp/Spatial/index.html#Spatial/source/Development/devguide/rasters_grids/raster_supportedformats.html 
While sometimes good information is hard to find, in this case, going to the main landing page.
http://support.pb.com/help/spectrum/18.2/en/webhelp/Spatial/index.html#Spatial/source/LandingPageForHelp.html and searching for raster did find this. 
Note that while we are working to merge the user experience (and purchase experience) of the Spectrum Spatial Analyst application and the Spectrum Spatial server capabilities, the rendering of raster images is not done by the application. What is supported by the server is what is important to you. 

Note that this list shows what image types are rendered by Spectrum Spatial. 
In your case, you are also interested in Map Tiling presumably for performance reasons. Typically this is done so that the map rendering required for vector layers or mixtures with raster, is not done on the fly but can be cached and displayed quickly. 
In Spectrum Spatial Manager, when you set up map tiling, your choices for formats are PNG, GIF and JPG or the vector MVT format.  So while you could create a map tile for data that is in ECW or MrSID, what would be happening at the back end is that those rasters would be rendered into one of the above (PNG....) and those would be cached server side.

A question for you! When you say aerial photos, are these already separated into tiles? Or are they just large images. The previous paragraph is based on the idea that they are just large images.  If so, it may be that you don't need  map tiling at all if our server can essentially extract the correct portion of the image on the fly. In that case, what will be delivered to the user in the browser will also be a png or jpg. However,  you will not have to do anything to make that happen and you won't have to set up storage for the tiles. 
To test this out in Spatial Manager you can create a table for the image and then a layer. That layer can be see in your project settings for Analyst, assuming you are using version 18.2. You should be able to just see it in your map.


------------------------------
Eric Blasenheim
Spectrum Spatial Technical Product Manager
Troy, NY
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 07-15-2019 05:11
From: Miquel Roy Sunyer
Subject: SSA - Supported Raster Formats

We're planning to use Spectrum Named Tiles for publishing old aerial photos from local files. Available formats are mainly ECW and SID, but also have some with JPG.
Have been trying to find a list of supported raster formats in SSA, so we can convert the aerial photos to a compatible format and upload them, but haven't been able to find it in documentation.
Are ECW and SID supported formats for SSA? and is there a list of supported raster formats?

Kind regards,

------------------------------
Miquel Roy Sunyer
Kirklees Council
HUDDERSFIELD
------------------------------

Hi Eric
I see that MRR is listed as a grid format but not as a raster format. I am a keen fan of merging hundreds of raster images into one MRR file for it's superior performance in MapInfo and easier to handle one file rather than tons. Would this still work in Spectrum Spatial?

------------------------------
John Ievers
CDR Group
Hope Valley, United Kingdom
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 07-15-2019 09:45
From: Eric Blasenheim
Subject: SSA - Supported Raster Formats

Miquel,

There are actually a few different questions here.
First of all, the raster/grid formats that Spectrum Spatial supports are listed in our online documentation.  ​
http://support.pb.com/help/spectrum/18.2/en/webhelp/Spatial/index.html#Spatial/source/Development/devguide/rasters_grids/raster_supportedformats.html
While sometimes good information is hard to find, in this case, going to the main landing page.
http://support.pb.com/help/spectrum/18.2/en/webhelp/Spatial/index.html#Spatial/source/LandingPageForHelp.html and searching for raster did find this.
Note that while we are working to merge the user experience (and purchase experience) of the Spectrum Spatial Analyst application and the Spectrum Spatial server capabilities, the rendering of raster images is not done by the application. What is supported by the server is what is important to you.

Note that this list shows what image types are rendered by Spectrum Spatial.
In your case, you are also interested in Map Tiling presumably for performance reasons. Typically this is done so that the map rendering required for vector layers or mixtures with raster, is not done on the fly but can be cached and displayed quickly.
In Spectrum Spatial Manager, when you set up map tiling, your choices for formats are PNG, GIF and JPG or the vector MVT format.  So while you could create a map tile for data that is in ECW or MrSID, what would be happening at the back end is that those rasters would be rendered into one of the above (PNG....) and those would be cached server side.

A question for you! When you say aerial photos, are these already separated into tiles? Or are they just large images. The previous paragraph is based on the idea that they are just large images.  If so, it may be that you don't need  map tiling at all if our server can essentially extract the correct portion of the image on the fly. In that case, what will be delivered to the user in the browser will also be a png or jpg. However,  you will not have to do anything to make that happen and you won't have to set up storage for the tiles.
To test this out in Spatial Manager you can create a table for the image and then a layer. That layer can be see in your project settings for Analyst, assuming you are using version 18.2. You should be able to just see it in your map.


------------------------------
Eric Blasenheim
Spectrum Spatial Technical Product Manager
Troy, NY

Original Message:
Sent: 07-15-2019 05:11
From: Miquel Roy Sunyer
Subject: SSA - Supported Raster Formats

We're planning to use Spectrum Named Tiles for publishing old aerial photos from local files. Available formats are mainly ECW and SID, but also have some with JPG.
Have been trying to find a list of supported raster formats in SSA, so we can convert the aerial photos to a compatible format and upload them, but haven't been able to find it in documentation.
Are ECW and SID supported formats for SSA? and is there a list of supported raster formats?

Kind regards,

------------------------------
Miquel Roy Sunyer
Kirklees Council
HUDDERSFIELD
------------------------------

I see your address is in the UK so I am sure you are well aware that we don't all speak the same "English" (ok not a great joke). Technology makes things worse!
Historically, MapInfo and MapInfo Professional made the distinction between "raster" (a picture) and "grid" (a raster with data) mostly due to the ability to change the visualization ​based on parameters. The only real difference is that a picture supposedly has values that are rgb (or argb) and grids had values where the color was determined thematically.
Our colleagues at Northwood geoscience developed Vertical Mapper and called their files grids which we adopted. The extensible "raster handler" api in MapInfo Pro was developed for pictures. the "grid handler api" was developed after with the idea that it was an extension of "raster". A grid handler is a raster handler but not the other way around. Also grids were expected to be created, often from vector data and statistical methods. 

Grid, of course, is one of those terms that has lots of meanings. The GridMaker tool in MapInfo Pro does not create these. 

In many other places, however, the term raster means both. Our colleagues in Australia who developed MRR certainly come from that background. Thus the MRR piece in MapInfo Pro is part of Advanced Raster with no mention of Grid.
Our docs were probably started trying to mesh with MapInfo Pro. MRR deployment has just confused the terminology but the functionality is the same.
Note that our MI_SQL functions() that access the values are called MI_GridValueAt() and MI_GridValueAtPixel().  They now support multi-field and band as well.

That's the background and the answer to your question is that MRR is supported in Spatial on both Windows and Linux. Call is raster or grid it will be the same.
In the next release Spatial Manager will allow you to build layers overrides that give you control of the visualization overriding what is in the .GHX file. If you are not familiar with that, the Advanced Raster plugin writes your choices and its calculations into this file which is then used to control what is displayed.
This is not good for a multi-user environment like Spatial. With this layer capability, the visualization properties are sent from Spatial to the MRR engine. That allows for users a,b,c and d to each have their own set of visualization properties and for these attributes to be sent on the fly. 
We also hope to add more capabilities including the ability to create and modify MRRs on the server.  I would love to hear from people who are interested in that capability.


------------------------------
Eric Blasenheim
Spectrum Spatial Technical Product Manager
Troy, NY
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 07-16-2019 06:43
From: John Ievers
Subject: SSA - Supported Raster Formats

Hi Eric
I see that MRR is listed as a grid format but not as a raster format. I am a keen fan of merging hundreds of raster images into one MRR file for it's superior performance in MapInfo and easier to handle one file rather than tons. Would this still work in Spectrum Spatial?

------------------------------
John Ievers
CDR Group
Hope Valley, United Kingdom

Original Message:
Sent: 07-15-2019 09:45
From: Eric Blasenheim
Subject: SSA - Supported Raster Formats

Miquel,

There are actually a few different questions here.
First of all, the raster/grid formats that Spectrum Spatial supports are listed in our online documentation.  ​
http://support.pb.com/help/spectrum/18.2/en/webhelp/Spatial/index.html#Spatial/source/Development/devguide/rasters_grids/raster_supportedformats.html
While sometimes good information is hard to find, in this case, going to the main landing page.
http://support.pb.com/help/spectrum/18.2/en/webhelp/Spatial/index.html#Spatial/source/LandingPageForHelp.html and searching for raster did find this.
Note that while we are working to merge the user experience (and purchase experience) of the Spectrum Spatial Analyst application and the Spectrum Spatial server capabilities, the rendering of raster images is not done by the application. What is supported by the server is what is important to you.

Note that this list shows what image types are rendered by Spectrum Spatial.
In your case, you are also interested in Map Tiling presumably for performance reasons. Typically this is done so that the map rendering required for vector layers or mixtures with raster, is not done on the fly but can be cached and displayed quickly.
In Spectrum Spatial Manager, when you set up map tiling, your choices for formats are PNG, GIF and JPG or the vector MVT format.  So while you could create a map tile for data that is in ECW or MrSID, what would be happening at the back end is that those rasters would be rendered into one of the above (PNG....) and those would be cached server side.

A question for you! When you say aerial photos, are these already separated into tiles? Or are they just large images. The previous paragraph is based on the idea that they are just large images.  If so, it may be that you don't need  map tiling at all if our server can essentially extract the correct portion of the image on the fly. In that case, what will be delivered to the user in the browser will also be a png or jpg. However,  you will not have to do anything to make that happen and you won't have to set up storage for the tiles.
To test this out in Spatial Manager you can create a table for the image and then a layer. That layer can be see in your project settings for Analyst, assuming you are using version 18.2. You should be able to just see it in your map.


------------------------------
Eric Blasenheim
Spectrum Spatial Technical Product Manager
Troy, NY

Original Message:
Sent: 07-15-2019 05:11
From: Miquel Roy Sunyer
Subject: SSA - Supported Raster Formats

We're planning to use Spectrum Named Tiles for publishing old aerial photos from local files. Available formats are mainly ECW and SID, but also have some with JPG.
Have been trying to find a list of supported raster formats in SSA, so we can convert the aerial photos to a compatible format and upload them, but haven't been able to find it in documentation.
Are ECW and SID supported formats for SSA? and is there a list of supported raster formats?

Kind regards,

------------------------------
Miquel Roy Sunyer
Kirklees Council
HUDDERSFIELD
------------------------------

Thanks for the explanation Eric.
So the MRR is supported in Spectrum Spatial but are you saying that it is not subsequently broken down into a gazillion tiled images? Rather it is always rendered directly from the MRR file?
Interesting...

------------------------------
John Ievers
CDR Group
Hope Valley, United Kingdom
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 07-16-2019 09:21
From: Eric Blasenheim
Subject: SSA - Supported Raster Formats

I see your address is in the UK so I am sure you are well aware that we don't all speak the same "English" (ok not a great joke). Technology makes things worse!
Historically, MapInfo and MapInfo Professional made the distinction between "raster" (a picture) and "grid" (a raster with data) mostly due to the ability to change the visualization ​based on parameters. The only real difference is that a picture supposedly has values that are rgb (or argb) and grids had values where the color was determined thematically.
Our colleagues at Northwood geoscience developed Vertical Mapper and called their files grids which we adopted. The extensible "raster handler" api in MapInfo Pro was developed for pictures. the "grid handler api" was developed after with the idea that it was an extension of "raster". A grid handler is a raster handler but not the other way around. Also grids were expected to be created, often from vector data and statistical methods.

Grid, of course, is one of those terms that has lots of meanings. The GridMaker tool in MapInfo Pro does not create these.

In many other places, however, the term raster means both. Our colleagues in Australia who developed MRR certainly come from that background. Thus the MRR piece in MapInfo Pro is part of Advanced Raster with no mention of Grid.
Our docs were probably started trying to mesh with MapInfo Pro. MRR deployment has just confused the terminology but the functionality is the same.
Note that our MI_SQL functions() that access the values are called MI_GridValueAt() and MI_GridValueAtPixel().  They now support multi-field and band as well.

That's the background and the answer to your question is that MRR is supported in Spatial on both Windows and Linux. Call is raster or grid it will be the same.
In the next release Spatial Manager will allow you to build layers overrides that give you control of the visualization overriding what is in the .GHX file. If you are not familiar with that, the Advanced Raster plugin writes your choices and its calculations into this file which is then used to control what is displayed.
This is not good for a multi-user environment like Spatial. With this layer capability, the visualization properties are sent from Spatial to the MRR engine. That allows for users a,b,c and d to each have their own set of visualization properties and for these attributes to be sent on the fly.
We also hope to add more capabilities including the ability to create and modify MRRs on the server.  I would love to hear from people who are interested in that capability.


------------------------------
Eric Blasenheim
Spectrum Spatial Technical Product Manager
Troy, NY

Original Message:
Sent: 07-16-2019 06:43
From: John Ievers
Subject: SSA - Supported Raster Formats

Hi Eric
I see that MRR is listed as a grid format but not as a raster format. I am a keen fan of merging hundreds of raster images into one MRR file for it's superior performance in MapInfo and easier to handle one file rather than tons. Would this still work in Spectrum Spatial?

------------------------------
John Ievers
CDR Group
Hope Valley, United Kingdom

Original Message:
Sent: 07-15-2019 09:45
From: Eric Blasenheim
Subject: SSA - Supported Raster Formats

Miquel,

There are actually a few different questions here.
First of all, the raster/grid formats that Spectrum Spatial supports are listed in our online documentation.  ​
http://support.pb.com/help/spectrum/18.2/en/webhelp/Spatial/index.html#Spatial/source/Development/devguide/rasters_grids/raster_supportedformats.html
While sometimes good information is hard to find, in this case, going to the main landing page.
http://support.pb.com/help/spectrum/18.2/en/webhelp/Spatial/index.html#Spatial/source/LandingPageForHelp.html and searching for raster did find this.
Note that while we are working to merge the user experience (and purchase experience) of the Spectrum Spatial Analyst application and the Spectrum Spatial server capabilities, the rendering of raster images is not done by the application. What is supported by the server is what is important to you.

Note that this list shows what image types are rendered by Spectrum Spatial.
In your case, you are also interested in Map Tiling presumably for performance reasons. Typically this is done so that the map rendering required for vector layers or mixtures with raster, is not done on the fly but can be cached and displayed quickly.
In Spectrum Spatial Manager, when you set up map tiling, your choices for formats are PNG, GIF and JPG or the vector MVT format.  So while you could create a map tile for data that is in ECW or MrSID, what would be happening at the back end is that those rasters would be rendered into one of the above (PNG....) and those would be cached server side.

A question for you! When you say aerial photos, are these already separated into tiles? Or are they just large images. The previous paragraph is based on the idea that they are just large images.  If so, it may be that you don't need  map tiling at all if our server can essentially extract the correct portion of the image on the fly. In that case, what will be delivered to the user in the browser will also be a png or jpg. However,  you will not have to do anything to make that happen and you won't have to set up storage for the tiles.
To test this out in Spatial Manager you can create a table for the image and then a layer. That layer can be see in your project settings for Analyst, assuming you are using version 18.2. You should be able to just see it in your map.


------------------------------
Eric Blasenheim
Spectrum Spatial Technical Product Manager
Troy, NY

Original Message:
Sent: 07-15-2019 05:11
From: Miquel Roy Sunyer
Subject: SSA - Supported Raster Formats

We're planning to use Spectrum Named Tiles for publishing old aerial photos from local files. Available formats are mainly ECW and SID, but also have some with JPG.
Have been trying to find a list of supported raster formats in SSA, so we can convert the aerial photos to a compatible format and upload them, but haven't been able to find it in documentation.
Are ECW and SID supported formats for SSA? and is there a list of supported raster formats?

Kind regards,

------------------------------
Miquel Roy Sunyer
Kirklees Council
HUDDERSFIELD
------------------------------

In Spatial MRR is supported like any other "table" whether vector or raster. Spectrum Spatial does not support raster reprojection but that is not an MRR specific limitation.
As I mentioned at the start of this thread, if you create a Named Tile and decide to cache it, then those gazillion tiles images will be created. Those will be PNG or JPG as I mentioned.  If you use the tile service without cache the same thing happens but those little files are not saved on the server. Caching still happens in the brower.  Tiles are always rendered based on the overall bounds, the size of each tile, the number of levels, etc.  

The Spatial mapping service is more generic than tiles. You can render any size and and location given a bounds or a center/zoom. All the standard stuff. Just like in MapInfo Pro the area of interest will be rendered. 

However, the Analyst application is build on openlayers and it mostly uses the a tiled type implementation. In this case, the admin can set up the size of tiles but it is still tiled. Note, however, that Analyst does not use this for labels because labels need the whole map canvas.

The point here is that Spectrum Spatial can be used in a whole map or tiled manner but Analyst will only give you the tiled implementation except for labels.  I believe most Analyst customers use the 512 x 512 tile size but not sure. 
In summary the MRR can work in Spatial without creating tiles but that the image will be delivered in some chunk size that is controlled by the admin.

------------------------------
Eric Blasenheim
Spectrum Spatial Technical Product Manager
Troy, NY
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 07-16-2019 09:38
From: John Ievers
Subject: SSA - Supported Raster Formats

Thanks for the explanation Eric.
So the MRR is supported in Spectrum Spatial but are you saying that it is not subsequently broken down into a gazillion tiled images? Rather it is always rendered directly from the MRR file?
Interesting...

------------------------------
John Ievers
CDR Group
Hope Valley, United Kingdom

Original Message:
Sent: 07-16-2019 09:21
From: Eric Blasenheim
Subject: SSA - Supported Raster Formats

I see your address is in the UK so I am sure you are well aware that we don't all speak the same "English" (ok not a great joke). Technology makes things worse!
Historically, MapInfo and MapInfo Professional made the distinction between "raster" (a picture) and "grid" (a raster with data) mostly due to the ability to change the visualization ​based on parameters. The only real difference is that a picture supposedly has values that are rgb (or argb) and grids had values where the color was determined thematically.
Our colleagues at Northwood geoscience developed Vertical Mapper and called their files grids which we adopted. The extensible "raster handler" api in MapInfo Pro was developed for pictures. the "grid handler api" was developed after with the idea that it was an extension of "raster". A grid handler is a raster handler but not the other way around. Also grids were expected to be created, often from vector data and statistical methods.

Grid, of course, is one of those terms that has lots of meanings. The GridMaker tool in MapInfo Pro does not create these.

In many other places, however, the term raster means both. Our colleagues in Australia who developed MRR certainly come from that background. Thus the MRR piece in MapInfo Pro is part of Advanced Raster with no mention of Grid.
Our docs were probably started trying to mesh with MapInfo Pro. MRR deployment has just confused the terminology but the functionality is the same.
Note that our MI_SQL functions() that access the values are called MI_GridValueAt() and MI_GridValueAtPixel().  They now support multi-field and band as well.

That's the background and the answer to your question is that MRR is supported in Spatial on both Windows and Linux. Call is raster or grid it will be the same.
In the next release Spatial Manager will allow you to build layers overrides that give you control of the visualization overriding what is in the .GHX file. If you are not familiar with that, the Advanced Raster plugin writes your choices and its calculations into this file which is then used to control what is displayed.
This is not good for a multi-user environment like Spatial. With this layer capability, the visualization properties are sent from Spatial to the MRR engine. That allows for users a,b,c and d to each have their own set of visualization properties and for these attributes to be sent on the fly.
We also hope to add more capabilities including the ability to create and modify MRRs on the server.  I would love to hear from people who are interested in that capability.


------------------------------
Eric Blasenheim
Spectrum Spatial Technical Product Manager
Troy, NY

Original Message:
Sent: 07-16-2019 06:43
From: John Ievers
Subject: SSA - Supported Raster Formats

Hi Eric
I see that MRR is listed as a grid format but not as a raster format. I am a keen fan of merging hundreds of raster images into one MRR file for it's superior performance in MapInfo and easier to handle one file rather than tons. Would this still work in Spectrum Spatial?

------------------------------
John Ievers
CDR Group
Hope Valley, United Kingdom

Original Message:
Sent: 07-15-2019 09:45
From: Eric Blasenheim
Subject: SSA - Supported Raster Formats

Miquel,

There are actually a few different questions here.
First of all, the raster/grid formats that Spectrum Spatial supports are listed in our online documentation.  ​
http://support.pb.com/help/spectrum/18.2/en/webhelp/Spatial/index.html#Spatial/source/Development/devguide/rasters_grids/raster_supportedformats.html
While sometimes good information is hard to find, in this case, going to the main landing page.
http://support.pb.com/help/spectrum/18.2/en/webhelp/Spatial/index.html#Spatial/source/LandingPageForHelp.html and searching for raster did find this.
Note that while we are working to merge the user experience (and purchase experience) of the Spectrum Spatial Analyst application and the Spectrum Spatial server capabilities, the rendering of raster images is not done by the application. What is supported by the server is what is important to you.

Note that this list shows what image types are rendered by Spectrum Spatial.
In your case, you are also interested in Map Tiling presumably for performance reasons. Typically this is done so that the map rendering required for vector layers or mixtures with raster, is not done on the fly but can be cached and displayed quickly.
In Spectrum Spatial Manager, when you set up map tiling, your choices for formats are PNG, GIF and JPG or the vector MVT format.  So while you could create a map tile for data that is in ECW or MrSID, what would be happening at the back end is that those rasters would be rendered into one of the above (PNG....) and those would be cached server side.

A question for you! When you say aerial photos, are these already separated into tiles? Or are they just large images. The previous paragraph is based on the idea that they are just large images.  If so, it may be that you don't need  map tiling at all if our server can essentially extract the correct portion of the image on the fly. In that case, what will be delivered to the user in the browser will also be a png or jpg. However,  you will not have to do anything to make that happen and you won't have to set up storage for the tiles.
To test this out in Spatial Manager you can create a table for the image and then a layer. That layer can be see in your project settings for Analyst, assuming you are using version 18.2. You should be able to just see it in your map.


------------------------------
Eric Blasenheim
Spectrum Spatial Technical Product Manager
Troy, NY

Original Message:
Sent: 07-15-2019 05:11
From: Miquel Roy Sunyer
Subject: SSA - Supported Raster Formats

We're planning to use Spectrum Named Tiles for publishing old aerial photos from local files. Available formats are mainly ECW and SID, but also have some with JPG.
Have been trying to find a list of supported raster formats in SSA, so we can convert the aerial photos to a compatible format and upload them, but haven't been able to find it in documentation.
Are ECW and SID supported formats for SSA? and is there a list of supported raster formats?

Kind regards,

------------------------------
Miquel Roy Sunyer
Kirklees Council
HUDDERSFIELD
------------------------------

I just checked and the 512 x 512 size for business layers is hard coded. So that would be the size.  ​

------------------------------
Eric Blasenheim
Spectrum Spatial Technical Product Manager
Troy, NY
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 07-16-2019 12:02
From: Eric Blasenheim
Subject: SSA - Supported Raster Formats

In Spatial MRR is supported like any other "table" whether vector or raster. Spectrum Spatial does not support raster reprojection but that is not an MRR specific limitation.
As I mentioned at the start of this thread, if you create a Named Tile and decide to cache it, then those gazillion tiles images will be created. Those will be PNG or JPG as I mentioned.  If you use the tile service without cache the same thing happens but those little files are not saved on the server. Caching still happens in the brower.  Tiles are always rendered based on the overall bounds, the size of each tile, the number of levels, etc.

The Spatial mapping service is more generic than tiles. You can render any size and and location given a bounds or a center/zoom. All the standard stuff. Just like in MapInfo Pro the area of interest will be rendered.

However, the Analyst application is build on openlayers and it mostly uses the a tiled type implementation. In this case, the admin can set up the size of tiles but it is still tiled. Note, however, that Analyst does not use this for labels because labels need the whole map canvas.

The point here is that Spectrum Spatial can be used in a whole map or tiled manner but Analyst will only give you the tiled implementation except for labels.  I believe most Analyst customers use the 512 x 512 tile size but not sure.
In summary the MRR can work in Spatial without creating tiles but that the image will be delivered in some chunk size that is controlled by the admin.

------------------------------
Eric Blasenheim
Spectrum Spatial Technical Product Manager
Troy, NY

Original Message:
Sent: 07-16-2019 09:38
From: John Ievers
Subject: SSA - Supported Raster Formats

Thanks for the explanation Eric.
So the MRR is supported in Spectrum Spatial but are you saying that it is not subsequently broken down into a gazillion tiled images? Rather it is always rendered directly from the MRR file?
Interesting...

------------------------------
John Ievers
CDR Group
Hope Valley, United Kingdom

Original Message:
Sent: 07-16-2019 09:21
From: Eric Blasenheim
Subject: SSA - Supported Raster Formats

I see your address is in the UK so I am sure you are well aware that we don't all speak the same "English" (ok not a great joke). Technology makes things worse!
Historically, MapInfo and MapInfo Professional made the distinction between "raster" (a picture) and "grid" (a raster with data) mostly due to the ability to change the visualization ​based on parameters. The only real difference is that a picture supposedly has values that are rgb (or argb) and grids had values where the color was determined thematically.
Our colleagues at Northwood geoscience developed Vertical Mapper and called their files grids which we adopted. The extensible "raster handler" api in MapInfo Pro was developed for pictures. the "grid handler api" was developed after with the idea that it was an extension of "raster". A grid handler is a raster handler but not the other way around. Also grids were expected to be created, often from vector data and statistical methods.

Grid, of course, is one of those terms that has lots of meanings. The GridMaker tool in MapInfo Pro does not create these.

In many other places, however, the term raster means both. Our colleagues in Australia who developed MRR certainly come from that background. Thus the MRR piece in MapInfo Pro is part of Advanced Raster with no mention of Grid.
Our docs were probably started trying to mesh with MapInfo Pro. MRR deployment has just confused the terminology but the functionality is the same.
Note that our MI_SQL functions() that access the values are called MI_GridValueAt() and MI_GridValueAtPixel().  They now support multi-field and band as well.

That's the background and the answer to your question is that MRR is supported in Spatial on both Windows and Linux. Call is raster or grid it will be the same.
In the next release Spatial Manager will allow you to build layers overrides that give you control of the visualization overriding what is in the .GHX file. If you are not familiar with that, the Advanced Raster plugin writes your choices and its calculations into this file which is then used to control what is displayed.
This is not good for a multi-user environment like Spatial. With this layer capability, the visualization properties are sent from Spatial to the MRR engine. That allows for users a,b,c and d to each have their own set of visualization properties and for these attributes to be sent on the fly.
We also hope to add more capabilities including the ability to create and modify MRRs on the server.  I would love to hear from people who are interested in that capability.


------------------------------
Eric Blasenheim
Spectrum Spatial Technical Product Manager
Troy, NY

Original Message:
Sent: 07-16-2019 06:43
From: John Ievers
Subject: SSA - Supported Raster Formats

Hi Eric
I see that MRR is listed as a grid format but not as a raster format. I am a keen fan of merging hundreds of raster images into one MRR file for it's superior performance in MapInfo and easier to handle one file rather than tons. Would this still work in Spectrum Spatial?

------------------------------
John Ievers
CDR Group
Hope Valley, United Kingdom

Original Message:
Sent: 07-15-2019 09:45
From: Eric Blasenheim
Subject: SSA - Supported Raster Formats

Miquel,

There are actually a few different questions here.
First of all, the raster/grid formats that Spectrum Spatial supports are listed in our online documentation.  ​
http://support.pb.com/help/spectrum/18.2/en/webhelp/Spatial/index.html#Spatial/source/Development/devguide/rasters_grids/raster_supportedformats.html
While sometimes good information is hard to find, in this case, going to the main landing page.
http://support.pb.com/help/spectrum/18.2/en/webhelp/Spatial/index.html#Spatial/source/LandingPageForHelp.html and searching for raster did find this.
Note that while we are working to merge the user experience (and purchase experience) of the Spectrum Spatial Analyst application and the Spectrum Spatial server capabilities, the rendering of raster images is not done by the application. What is supported by the server is what is important to you.

Note that this list shows what image types are rendered by Spectrum Spatial.
In your case, you are also interested in Map Tiling presumably for performance reasons. Typically this is done so that the map rendering required for vector layers or mixtures with raster, is not done on the fly but can be cached and displayed quickly.
In Spectrum Spatial Manager, when you set up map tiling, your choices for formats are PNG, GIF and JPG or the vector MVT format.  So while you could create a map tile for data that is in ECW or MrSID, what would be happening at the back end is that those rasters would be rendered into one of the above (PNG....) and those would be cached server side.

A question for you! When you say aerial photos, are these already separated into tiles? Or are they just large images. The previous paragraph is based on the idea that they are just large images.  If so, it may be that you don't need  map tiling at all if our server can essentially extract the correct portion of the image on the fly. In that case, what will be delivered to the user in the browser will also be a png or jpg. However,  you will not have to do anything to make that happen and you won't have to set up storage for the tiles.
To test this out in Spatial Manager you can create a table for the image and then a layer. That layer can be see in your project settings for Analyst, assuming you are using version 18.2. You should be able to just see it in your map.


------------------------------
Eric Blasenheim
Spectrum Spatial Technical Product Manager
Troy, NY

Original Message:
Sent: 07-15-2019 05:11
From: Miquel Roy Sunyer
Subject: SSA - Supported Raster Formats

We're planning to use Spectrum Named Tiles for publishing old aerial photos from local files. Available formats are mainly ECW and SID, but also have some with JPG.
Have been trying to find a list of supported raster formats in SSA, so we can convert the aerial photos to a compatible format and upload them, but haven't been able to find it in documentation.
Are ECW and SID supported formats for SSA? and is there a list of supported raster formats?

Kind regards,

------------------------------
Miquel Roy Sunyer
Kirklees Council
HUDDERSFIELD
------------------------------

John,

Not sure if this is what you meant but I have created .MRR files for 250K rasters and VMD for GB and VML for the North of England and use them in SSA for my demo basemaps, works fine.

Cheers

Nick

------------------------------
Nick Hall
Mapchester LTD
nick.hall@mapchester.co.uk
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 07-16-2019 09:38
From: John Ievers
Subject: SSA - Supported Raster Formats

Thanks for the explanation Eric.
So the MRR is supported in Spectrum Spatial but are you saying that it is not subsequently broken down into a gazillion tiled images? Rather it is always rendered directly from the MRR file?
Interesting...

------------------------------
John Ievers
CDR Group
Hope Valley, United Kingdom

Original Message:
Sent: 07-16-2019 09:21
From: Eric Blasenheim
Subject: SSA - Supported Raster Formats

I see your address is in the UK so I am sure you are well aware that we don't all speak the same "English" (ok not a great joke). Technology makes things worse!
Historically, MapInfo and MapInfo Professional made the distinction between "raster" (a picture) and "grid" (a raster with data) mostly due to the ability to change the visualization ​based on parameters. The only real difference is that a picture supposedly has values that are rgb (or argb) and grids had values where the color was determined thematically.
Our colleagues at Northwood geoscience developed Vertical Mapper and called their files grids which we adopted. The extensible "raster handler" api in MapInfo Pro was developed for pictures. the "grid handler api" was developed after with the idea that it was an extension of "raster". A grid handler is a raster handler but not the other way around. Also grids were expected to be created, often from vector data and statistical methods.

Grid, of course, is one of those terms that has lots of meanings. The GridMaker tool in MapInfo Pro does not create these.

In many other places, however, the term raster means both. Our colleagues in Australia who developed MRR certainly come from that background. Thus the MRR piece in MapInfo Pro is part of Advanced Raster with no mention of Grid.
Our docs were probably started trying to mesh with MapInfo Pro. MRR deployment has just confused the terminology but the functionality is the same.
Note that our MI_SQL functions() that access the values are called MI_GridValueAt() and MI_GridValueAtPixel().  They now support multi-field and band as well.

That's the background and the answer to your question is that MRR is supported in Spatial on both Windows and Linux. Call is raster or grid it will be the same.
In the next release Spatial Manager will allow you to build layers overrides that give you control of the visualization overriding what is in the .GHX file. If you are not familiar with that, the Advanced Raster plugin writes your choices and its calculations into this file which is then used to control what is displayed.
This is not good for a multi-user environment like Spatial. With this layer capability, the visualization properties are sent from Spatial to the MRR engine. That allows for users a,b,c and d to each have their own set of visualization properties and for these attributes to be sent on the fly.
We also hope to add more capabilities including the ability to create and modify MRRs on the server.  I would love to hear from people who are interested in that capability.


------------------------------
Eric Blasenheim
Spectrum Spatial Technical Product Manager
Troy, NY

Original Message:
Sent: 07-16-2019 06:43
From: John Ievers
Subject: SSA - Supported Raster Formats

Hi Eric
I see that MRR is listed as a grid format but not as a raster format. I am a keen fan of merging hundreds of raster images into one MRR file for it's superior performance in MapInfo and easier to handle one file rather than tons. Would this still work in Spectrum Spatial?

------------------------------
John Ievers
CDR Group
Hope Valley, United Kingdom

Original Message:
Sent: 07-15-2019 09:45
From: Eric Blasenheim
Subject: SSA - Supported Raster Formats

Miquel,

There are actually a few different questions here.
First of all, the raster/grid formats that Spectrum Spatial supports are listed in our online documentation.  ​
http://support.pb.com/help/spectrum/18.2/en/webhelp/Spatial/index.html#Spatial/source/Development/devguide/rasters_grids/raster_supportedformats.html
While sometimes good information is hard to find, in this case, going to the main landing page.
http://support.pb.com/help/spectrum/18.2/en/webhelp/Spatial/index.html#Spatial/source/LandingPageForHelp.html and searching for raster did find this.
Note that while we are working to merge the user experience (and purchase experience) of the Spectrum Spatial Analyst application and the Spectrum Spatial server capabilities, the rendering of raster images is not done by the application. What is supported by the server is what is important to you.

Note that this list shows what image types are rendered by Spectrum Spatial.
In your case, you are also interested in Map Tiling presumably for performance reasons. Typically this is done so that the map rendering required for vector layers or mixtures with raster, is not done on the fly but can be cached and displayed quickly.
In Spectrum Spatial Manager, when you set up map tiling, your choices for formats are PNG, GIF and JPG or the vector MVT format.  So while you could create a map tile for data that is in ECW or MrSID, what would be happening at the back end is that those rasters would be rendered into one of the above (PNG....) and those would be cached server side.

A question for you! When you say aerial photos, are these already separated into tiles? Or are they just large images. The previous paragraph is based on the idea that they are just large images.  If so, it may be that you don't need  map tiling at all if our server can essentially extract the correct portion of the image on the fly. In that case, what will be delivered to the user in the browser will also be a png or jpg. However,  you will not have to do anything to make that happen and you won't have to set up storage for the tiles.
To test this out in Spatial Manager you can create a table for the image and then a layer. That layer can be see in your project settings for Analyst, assuming you are using version 18.2. You should be able to just see it in your map.


------------------------------
Eric Blasenheim
Spectrum Spatial Technical Product Manager
Troy, NY

Original Message:
Sent: 07-15-2019 05:11
From: Miquel Roy Sunyer
Subject: SSA - Supported Raster Formats

We're planning to use Spectrum Named Tiles for publishing old aerial photos from local files. Available formats are mainly ECW and SID, but also have some with JPG.
Have been trying to find a list of supported raster formats in SSA, so we can convert the aerial photos to a compatible format and upload them, but haven't been able to find it in documentation.
Are ECW and SID supported formats for SSA? and is there a list of supported raster formats?

Kind regards,

------------------------------
Miquel Roy Sunyer
Kirklees Council
HUDDERSFIELD
------------------------------

Hi Nick
Yeah, I have plenty of raster maps merged as one MRR for use in MapInfo. A lovely big 135GB aerial imagery MRR of Leicestershire too. The question,after the support for MRR in Spectrum Spatial, was more to do with how Spectrum handles this as a tiled layer - whether as a base map or business layer. Eric has added his wisdom to the pot of knowledge.
Cheers

------------------------------
John Ievers
CDR Group
Hope Valley, United Kingdom
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 07-16-2019 14:42
From: Nick Hall
Subject: SSA - Supported Raster Formats

John,

Not sure if this is what you meant but I have created .MRR files for 250K rasters and VMD for GB and VML for the North of England and use them in SSA for my demo basemaps, works fine.

Cheers

Nick

------------------------------
Nick Hall
Mapchester LTD
nick.hall@mapchester.co.uk

Original Message:
Sent: 07-16-2019 09:38
From: John Ievers
Subject: SSA - Supported Raster Formats

Thanks for the explanation Eric.
So the MRR is supported in Spectrum Spatial but are you saying that it is not subsequently broken down into a gazillion tiled images? Rather it is always rendered directly from the MRR file?
Interesting...

------------------------------
John Ievers
CDR Group
Hope Valley, United Kingdom

Original Message:
Sent: 07-16-2019 09:21
From: Eric Blasenheim
Subject: SSA - Supported Raster Formats

I see your address is in the UK so I am sure you are well aware that we don't all speak the same "English" (ok not a great joke). Technology makes things worse!
Historically, MapInfo and MapInfo Professional made the distinction between "raster" (a picture) and "grid" (a raster with data) mostly due to the ability to change the visualization ​based on parameters. The only real difference is that a picture supposedly has values that are rgb (or argb) and grids had values where the color was determined thematically.
Our colleagues at Northwood geoscience developed Vertical Mapper and called their files grids which we adopted. The extensible "raster handler" api in MapInfo Pro was developed for pictures. the "grid handler api" was developed after with the idea that it was an extension of "raster". A grid handler is a raster handler but not the other way around. Also grids were expected to be created, often from vector data and statistical methods.

Grid, of course, is one of those terms that has lots of meanings. The GridMaker tool in MapInfo Pro does not create these.

In many other places, however, the term raster means both. Our colleagues in Australia who developed MRR certainly come from that background. Thus the MRR piece in MapInfo Pro is part of Advanced Raster with no mention of Grid.
Our docs were probably started trying to mesh with MapInfo Pro. MRR deployment has just confused the terminology but the functionality is the same.
Note that our MI_SQL functions() that access the values are called MI_GridValueAt() and MI_GridValueAtPixel().  They now support multi-field and band as well.

That's the background and the answer to your question is that MRR is supported in Spatial on both Windows and Linux. Call is raster or grid it will be the same.
In the next release Spatial Manager will allow you to build layers overrides that give you control of the visualization overriding what is in the .GHX file. If you are not familiar with that, the Advanced Raster plugin writes your choices and its calculations into this file which is then used to control what is displayed.
This is not good for a multi-user environment like Spatial. With this layer capability, the visualization properties are sent from Spatial to the MRR engine. That allows for users a,b,c and d to each have their own set of visualization properties and for these attributes to be sent on the fly.
We also hope to add more capabilities including the ability to create and modify MRRs on the server.  I would love to hear from people who are interested in that capability.


------------------------------
Eric Blasenheim
Spectrum Spatial Technical Product Manager
Troy, NY

Original Message:
Sent: 07-16-2019 06:43
From: John Ievers
Subject: SSA - Supported Raster Formats

Hi Eric
I see that MRR is listed as a grid format but not as a raster format. I am a keen fan of merging hundreds of raster images into one MRR file for it's superior performance in MapInfo and easier to handle one file rather than tons. Would this still work in Spectrum Spatial?

------------------------------
John Ievers
CDR Group
Hope Valley, United Kingdom

Original Message:
Sent: 07-15-2019 09:45
From: Eric Blasenheim
Subject: SSA - Supported Raster Formats

Miquel,

There are actually a few different questions here.
First of all, the raster/grid formats that Spectrum Spatial supports are listed in our online documentation.  ​
http://support.pb.com/help/spectrum/18.2/en/webhelp/Spatial/index.html#Spatial/source/Development/devguide/rasters_grids/raster_supportedformats.html
While sometimes good information is hard to find, in this case, going to the main landing page.
http://support.pb.com/help/spectrum/18.2/en/webhelp/Spatial/index.html#Spatial/source/LandingPageForHelp.html and searching for raster did find this.
Note that while we are working to merge the user experience (and purchase experience) of the Spectrum Spatial Analyst application and the Spectrum Spatial server capabilities, the rendering of raster images is not done by the application. What is supported by the server is what is important to you.

Note that this list shows what image types are rendered by Spectrum Spatial.
In your case, you are also interested in Map Tiling presumably for performance reasons. Typically this is done so that the map rendering required for vector layers or mixtures with raster, is not done on the fly but can be cached and displayed quickly.
In Spectrum Spatial Manager, when you set up map tiling, your choices for formats are PNG, GIF and JPG or the vector MVT format.  So while you could create a map tile for data that is in ECW or MrSID, what would be happening at the back end is that those rasters would be rendered into one of the above (PNG....) and those would be cached server side.

A question for you! When you say aerial photos, are these already separated into tiles? Or are they just large images. The previous paragraph is based on the idea that they are just large images.  If so, it may be that you don't need  map tiling at all if our server can essentially extract the correct portion of the image on the fly. In that case, what will be delivered to the user in the browser will also be a png or jpg. However,  you will not have to do anything to make that happen and you won't have to set up storage for the tiles.
To test this out in Spatial Manager you can create a table for the image and then a layer. That layer can be see in your project settings for Analyst, assuming you are using version 18.2. You should be able to just see it in your map.


------------------------------
Eric Blasenheim
Spectrum Spatial Technical Product Manager
Troy, NY

Original Message:
Sent: 07-15-2019 05:11
From: Miquel Roy Sunyer
Subject: SSA - Supported Raster Formats

We're planning to use Spectrum Named Tiles for publishing old aerial photos from local files. Available formats are mainly ECW and SID, but also have some with JPG.
Have been trying to find a list of supported raster formats in SSA, so we can convert the aerial photos to a compatible format and upload them, but haven't been able to find it in documentation.
Are ECW and SID supported formats for SSA? and is there a list of supported raster formats?

Kind regards,

------------------------------
Miquel Roy Sunyer
Kirklees Council
HUDDERSFIELD
------------------------------

Hi Eric,

Thanks for your detailed answer. It is confusing sometimes finding the right documentation to search for answers, so this Knowledge Community is vital I think for a lot of us! We have already tested Map Tiling using MrSID and ECW as data sources and results are quite good, excellent I'd say.

I do think we need Map Tiling for the Aerial Photographies, because most of them (the old ones) come in large tiles, and would probably be slower to load (haven't tested though). Results for now using Map Tiling are optimal and, as disk size is not a limitation, I do believe we'll stick on tiling aerial photographies. We do have a dataset from 2018 that maybe we can avoid tiling.

Kind regards,

------------------------------
Miquel Roy Sunyer
Kirklees Council
HUDDERSFIELD
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 07-15-2019 09:45
From: Eric Blasenheim
Subject: SSA - Supported Raster Formats

Miquel,

There are actually a few different questions here.
First of all, the raster/grid formats that Spectrum Spatial supports are listed in our online documentation.  ​
http://support.pb.com/help/spectrum/18.2/en/webhelp/Spatial/index.html#Spatial/source/Development/devguide/rasters_grids/raster_supportedformats.html
While sometimes good information is hard to find, in this case, going to the main landing page.
http://support.pb.com/help/spectrum/18.2/en/webhelp/Spatial/index.html#Spatial/source/LandingPageForHelp.html and searching for raster did find this.
Note that while we are working to merge the user experience (and purchase experience) of the Spectrum Spatial Analyst application and the Spectrum Spatial server capabilities, the rendering of raster images is not done by the application. What is supported by the server is what is important to you.

Note that this list shows what image types are rendered by Spectrum Spatial.
In your case, you are also interested in Map Tiling presumably for performance reasons. Typically this is done so that the map rendering required for vector layers or mixtures with raster, is not done on the fly but can be cached and displayed quickly.
In Spectrum Spatial Manager, when you set up map tiling, your choices for formats are PNG, GIF and JPG or the vector MVT format.  So while you could create a map tile for data that is in ECW or MrSID, what would be happening at the back end is that those rasters would be rendered into one of the above (PNG....) and those would be cached server side.

A question for you! When you say aerial photos, are these already separated into tiles? Or are they just large images. The previous paragraph is based on the idea that they are just large images.  If so, it may be that you don't need  map tiling at all if our server can essentially extract the correct portion of the image on the fly. In that case, what will be delivered to the user in the browser will also be a png or jpg. However,  you will not have to do anything to make that happen and you won't have to set up storage for the tiles.
To test this out in Spatial Manager you can create a table for the image and then a layer. That layer can be see in your project settings for Analyst, assuming you are using version 18.2. You should be able to just see it in your map.


------------------------------
Eric Blasenheim
Spectrum Spatial Technical Product Manager
Troy, NY

Original Message:
Sent: 07-15-2019 05:11
From: Miquel Roy Sunyer
Subject: SSA - Supported Raster Formats

We're planning to use Spectrum Named Tiles for publishing old aerial photos from local files. Available formats are mainly ECW and SID, but also have some with JPG.
Have been trying to find a list of supported raster formats in SSA, so we can convert the aerial photos to a compatible format and upload them, but haven't been able to find it in documentation.
Are ECW and SID supported formats for SSA? and is there a list of supported raster formats?

Kind regards,

------------------------------
Miquel Roy Sunyer
Kirklees Council
HUDDERSFIELD
------------------------------