terrain modeler version 8.0.4: bigger, faster,...

Applied Imagery • www.appliedimagery.com • [email protected] • (301) 589‐4446

Quick Terrain Modeler Version 8.0.4: Bigger, Faster, Easier! With Quick Terrain Modeler v8.0.4, Applied Imagery continues to enhance our users’ workflows by accelerating common tasks, adding analytical tools, and, in general, making life easier:

• Bigger! o Digital Elevation Models (DEM’s, DSM’, etc.) will now consume 40% ‐ 60% less

memory, thus enabling analysis of even bigger areas.

• Faster! o We have achieved significant speed upgrades by implementing improved

multithreading and other techniques. You will see these improvements in in commonly used tasks such as point cloud loading, Helicopter Landing Zone (HLZ) calculation, Line of Sight (LOS) calculation, image (texture) import, cut/crop, area statistics calculation, and many other functions.

• Easier! o Interactive Vectors: All vectors will now be interactive in the 3D scene. This

means selecting, dragging, rotating entire vectors and/or individual nodes. o Flight Surfaces & Bounding Boxes: Entirely new tools that will enable users to

define rectangles and visualize “flight surfaces” for a more comprehensive HLZ/LZ flight planning experience, as well as easy identification of obstructions to aircraft approach.

o Route Planning Revamped: Route planning will be much simpler and will no longer display markers at every turn point. Now you will simply create a measurement line, edit the line, then convert to a “QT Route” – no confusion about what markers belong to what route.

o Distances in meters and heights in feet – at the same time!: By user demand, measurements can now be made in separate units for vertical and horizontal objects. For example, a route could be measured in the 3D scene and the distance would display in meters, but vertical change would display in feet.

Please read on for more details. As always, we appreciate all of your feedback and suggestions. Please keep the great ideas coming! Sincerely, The Applied Imagery Team


Quick Terrain Modeler Version 8.0.4: Bigger, Faster, Easier!

Bounding Boxes and Flight Surfaces (Button: ) Bounding Boxes establish a rectangle of user‐defined dimensions in the 3D scene. The purpose of this box is to establish a visual reference of both size and orientation to assist in various planning and analysis tasks. One of the primary uses for bounding boxes is to aid in identifying suitable Helicopter Landing Zones (HLZ's) and Landing Zones (LZ's). Because of the utility in the aviation community, bounding boxes can be enhanced to display "flight surfaces" which display semi‐transparent planes.

Interactive Vector Editing Users can now interactively edit vectors in the 3D scene. This will prove very useful in repositioning vectors (e.g., drag range rings around the 3D scene for quick range assessment) or to edit more complex vectors (e.g., reposition building footprints more accurately in the scene). The key functions are: In the 3D scene:

• Double click on vectors to enter “Edit Mode” – nodes will appear as circles. • Click & drag on nodes to move them. • Right click on line segments or nodes to add/delete nodes. • Hold down “K” and left click/drag to move entire vector. • Hold down “K” and right click/drag to rotate entire vector. • Enter edit mode, hold down “K” and left click/drag to move specific individual feature in

a multi‐featured vector. In the Layer Tree:

• Right click on the vector in the layer tree and select “Edit Nodes” to enter Edit Mode. • Many more quick functions available by right clicking a vector in the layer tree (e.g.,

display style)


Enhanced LAS & LAZ Support: QT Modeler adds support for LAS v1.3 and v1.4, as well as support for custom LAS formats. In addition, LAZ is now supported in opening, importing, searching, and indexing functions. LAZ import speeds are significantly faster in v8.0.4.

Route Planning Completely Reworked (New button: ): While the principles of route planning did not change, the placement of the route will be much simpler and more intuitive. The placement of routes now can begin by clicking on the new Route button ‐ next to the measurement line in the tactical toolbar. When the route is complete, just right click. Alternatively, just place a measurement line and type "X" to end the line, thus creating a route or right click on “Active Mensuration” in the layer tree and select “Export QT Route”. Markers will no longer pop up at every turn point, leaving the route as a simple, interactive line very similar to a mensuration line. Double click the route to enter “Edit Mode”. All nodes (turn points) will appear and can be dragged to new locations. Right click to add new nodes. All export functionality remains the same – GPX, KML, SHP, etc.


Distances and Heights in Different Units: Users can now display horizontal distances measured in meters and heights measured in feet – at the same time. Go to the File Menu > Options/Settings > Set display Units. Choose horizontal and vertical display units independently of each other.

Range Rings (New Button: ) Range ring placement now allows entry of multiple ranges at once, generates automatic range labels, and adds a new button to reset the center position interactively in the 3D scene. Furthermore, range rings (and all vectors) can be dragged around in the scene by holding down “K”, left clicking, and dragging the range ring.

Indexing (New Button: ) QT Modeler’s indexing tool now offers the ability to create indexes by specific file types (e.g., LAS, NITF, GeoTIFF, etc.) It now will also provide a report of files searched and whether any problematic (e.g., non‐georegistered) files were encountered. In addition, it will index CADRG files (CIB, JOG, TPC’s, etc.) and provide a more seamless and less cluttered zooming experience in Google Earth. See the new interface and example KML index below.

New Buttons & Toolbars: We have added a few new buttons, some of which have been incorporated into the standard toolbar and/or the tactical toolbar.


Legends – With Backgrounds! By overwhelming customer request, QTM now has the ability to add a white or black background behind the legend. Just right click on the legend in the Layer Tree > Special Overlays Folder. Choose the old transparent display, or the new black/white backgrounds.

Model Histograms: Model histograms have been improved in both the way they are calculated as well as the way they are displayed. Histograms display the distribution of a given attribute’s value over an entire model. For example, the distribution of elevation (Z) values is shown below. In v8.0.4, histogram generation has been multithreaded, will account for every single point and attribute, and will have a colorized display.

Significant Speed Enhancements: V8.0.4 employs multithreading and other methods to significantly accelerate many functions. Multithreading speed gains will be proportional to how many CPU cores your workstation has. Some of the things we have sped up are:

• Multithreaded the following functions: o Helicopter Landing Zone (HLZ) calculation o Line of Sight (LOS) calculation o Texture import. This will be very noticeable when importing large SID files. o Grid Stats & Area Stats o Contour line creation o Image Smoothing o Color LOD Building o Saving LOS QTA Attributes


o Progress bars • Faster point cloud loading & QTA quick color calculations. • Faster point cloud cut & crop. • Faster height color reset using “Z” shortcut. • Sped up creation of QTA Snapshots from LOS Maps

Miscellaneous Enhancements & Tweaks:

• Annotation overlay objects will no longer stay in edit mode after you switch out of overlay mode.

• Attempted to address issue with windows labelling QT as "not responding" while loading large models.

• Reworked point cloud level of detail algorithm. • QTTs now compress their normal data on‐the‐fly. QTT models can now use up to 50%

less memory (depending upon the nature of the terrain, whether you have vertex colors, etc).

• Movies: QTM will now record model show/hide states (show/hide model & show/hide vertex colors). This will only work properly if when you play back the movie you have all the same models loaded in the same order (vectors and regular models).

• QTM should now properly remember Moving Speed in INI. • Multi‐Variate Filtering will now report the number of points it alters. • Water Level contours should now honor selection area • Added button to export Profile to ASCII to PAT • Water Level should now appear in CSAT. • Added option to reverse Cross Section direction in Cross Section Analysis Tool (CSAT). • LAS Export: If you set class to a value greater than 31, and export to LAS12, QT will take

that as a signal to treat the exported Class as an 8‐bit value. • Added "Selection Area" menu to right‐clicking on selection area toolbar buttons. • BPF: Sped up BPF Import • BPF: Greatly increased speed of BPF histogramming through better cache management. • LOS Mapping should now properly cast shadows across multiple tiles • Fixed "Import Merged Geotiff DEMs". Theoretically it will import and downsample any

number of tiles. They don't have to be the same Coordinate System. They don't have to be the same datum. QTM will convert all tile data to the Coordinate System of the first tile and sample onto a common grid.

• Added Legend for Virtual Line of Sight • Added FULLSCREEN Mode: File Menu > Options/Settings > Go Fullscreen • Modernized Model Info window. • Tweaked LOS text in Travel Route Analysis Tool (TRAT) to match normal Virtual LOS

conventions • Redid ray tracing into point clouds. QT should now do a much better job of figuring out

the mouse position in complex point clouds. • Added "Export Current VLOS Image to Texture" button to RTLOS window.


Support Files, Plugins, API, etc.: • Added many new messages to the API (USA version only). • Updated to GDAL 2.0.0 Dev • Updated to MrSid 9.1. • Uses LasLib and LasZip directly instead of through PDAL

Bug Fixes

• Fixed bug when cancelling contour generation • Fixed issue with proper titling of Grid Stats legend for "Number of Points" and "Density". • Fixed "Rename Marker" and "Remove Marker" not updating layer tree marker list. • Save markers to MRK/workspace will now ensure that duplicate names are preserved • Shadow Mapping should now properly cast shadows across tiles • Fixed crash issue properly handling garbage point data (bad LAZ, etc). • Fixed issue with properly recalculating QTA histograms after Cut/Crop • Fixed hang when attempting to generate contours while 2D polygon select is active • Fixed issue importing extremely small LAS files (1 to 2 points) • Tweaked reported File Creation data (was sometimes one day off). • Fixed an un‐necessary logging issue slowing down contour consolidation. • Fixed issue with Marker Sensor Height Color Filter properly managing angle wrap. • Fixed some issues with un‐necessary progress bar updates while writing binary files • Fixed some issues with point cloud rendering in compatibility mode (all options off)

terrain modeler version 8.0.4: bigger, faster,...

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