Faster Display, Export of Raster Layers and Improved 3D Rendering

Hallowell, Maine – November 9, 2016 - Blue Marble Geographics is pleased to announce the immediate availability of version 18 of the Global Mapper Software Development Kit (SDK) along with the Global Mapper LiDAR Module SDK. The latest upgrade to this powerful developer’s toolkit incorporates many of the functional enhancements and performance improvements that were introduced with the recent release of the desktop version of Global Mapper. In tandem with the desktop version, the SDK reflects the rapidly increasing importance of 3D data among GIS professionals with major improvements in LiDAR and terrain data rendering.

For over two decades, Blue Marble's affordable, user-friendly GIS software has been meeting the needs of hundreds of thousands satisfied customers throughout the world. Users come from all industries including software, oil and gas, mining, civil engineering, surveying, and technology companies, as well as government departments and academic institutions.

Global Mapper is an affordable and easy-to-use GIS application capable of displaying, converting, and analyzing virtually any type of geospatial data. The Global Mapper SDK and LiDAR Module SDK provide software developers with a toolkit for accessing much of this functionality from within an existing or custom-built application. The SDK also enables the creation of custom toolbars and extensions to enhance the data processing and analysis functionality of the standard version of Global Mapper. This capability allows in-house developers to create a unique version of the software to meet their specific needs and requirements.

The version 18 release of the SDK provides new LiDAR access methods for efficiently reading and writing large point cloud layers. A new query function allows points matching specified criteria to be quickly selected and edited. Further upgrades have been made to speed up the display and export of most raster/terrain formats, especially with large amounts of data loaded. The release improves thread-safety of low-level raster/elevation layer access, making it possible to concurrently access and draw the same layers in multiple threads. New and updated format support in the latest release includes OGC GeoPackage files and PDF files from which vector features can be loaded as separate vector layers.

Version 18 also sees the introduction of a high performance, asynchronous, multi-threaded 3D Viewer with advanced compression allowing the display of much larger 3D datasets. The “Infinite Terrain” capability allows the entire extent of any loaded terrain or point cloud dataset to be displayed with the detail level dynamically updated as the 3D View is zoomed or panned. The redesigned 3D Viewer also introduces support for displaying two or more elevation surfaces and offers “mole’s-eye” view capability providing a sub-surface perspective of terrain layers.

“With the increasing need to process very large datasets, many software engineers are leveraging the capabilities of the Global Mapper SDK for their geospatial applications.” stated Patrick Cunningham, Blue Marble President. “The release of version 18 of the SDK delivers functionality and performance improvements that allow developers to build more powerful and efficient, multiple threaded, 3D and 2D applications.”