Golden Software Blog

One of our power users is accomplishing his goals using a combination of our applications. Joe Harrer, who is an independent Hydrogeologist with Anthropocene Solutions Inc., is using a synergy between Voxler and Strater to create a conceptual site model of a brine storage facility located in rural Alberta. For those of you that follow my blogs, I recently posted a blog article on Joe Harrer’s application of Voxler to create a 3D brine plume model of the same storage facility. The model was used for ground water monitoring and remediation efforts. Joe has taken the brine plume model a step further and has developed it into a complete conceptual site model of the facility. In Voxler, he has incorporated cross sections of the site’s lithological layers that were generated from borehole data in Strater, groundwater and ground level surfaces, groundwater monitoring wells, a site map, and drone imagery to create a complete conceptual site model.

The 3D conceptual site model in Voxler showing a brine plume, monitoring wells, lithology cross sections, groundwater surface, and ground surface.

Since 1985, Surfer has served the geoscience community. As the industry shifts and changes, Surfer has kept pace with new features and improvements based directly on feedback from users.

Today marks the 14th release of Surfer and boasts over 200 new features and enhancements. Designed to improve usability, streamline workflows, and ultimately save you time and money, Surfer v14 is an indispensable visualization tool for the geoscience industry.

The ability to edit contour lines is one of Surfer’s most highly requested features, and we are pleased to report this feature is available in the latest release!

A contour map is a two-dimensional representation of a surface where the surface is represented by contour lines. A contour line connects points of equal elevation, and the distance between contour lines represents the relative slope of the surface.

An exciting new Surfer feature is the Map Wizard. Create numerous maps in as little as three steps. The wizard is a great tool for Surfer newbies as it steps through the map creation process from raw data to interpolated grid to final map. More experienced Surfer users appreciate the ability to create multiple maps at once, and everyone benefits from the Data Preview window so you no longer open the incorrect file.

Step 1: Select Your Data – Select the data, grid, base map, or image file to create your map.

There are many ways to customize and enhance maps. One popular enhancement is including images such as satellite imagery, aerial photographs, or historical maps. Images provide additional information and context for the map. In order to spatially relate the image with the other geographic data sources in a map, the image must be georeferenced.

Georeferencing an image is the process of assigning real-world coordinates to each pixel of the image. The latest release of Surfer can georeference images using three or more control points. Below I will step you through some of the main georeferencing features, but for more detailed instructions on how to georeferenced an image of your own, check out our knowledge base article, How can I georeferenced (assign coordinates to) an image base map in Surfer?