Golden Software Blog

As one of the industry leaders in 3D visualization, Voxler does an excellent job creating detailed 3D models that visualize numerous types of 2D and 3D data, including well surveys, CAD and GIS data, imagery, and 3D point data. Our users spend a lot of time creating Voxler models and frequently request methods to share them amongst managers, project stakeholders, colleagues, and other team members that don’t have access to Voxler.

Currently, Voxler users can export their projects to a number of different static image or bitmap formats and can also export to 3D formats like DXF and IV. Although images exported from Voxler projects can be an effective way of presenting a model in a report, the most effective way to display a Voxler project is in three dimensions with zoom in and out capabilities and complete model rotation. This allows stakeholders and teammates to see the full extent and detail of the model in its entirety.

Earlier last week, Golden Software presented two preconference workshops at the GIS in the Rockies annual convention in Denver. The workshops focused on using Surfer as an alternative solution to ESRI’s Spatial Analyst and Geostatistical Analyst extensions for ArcMap. The workshop, given by myself, went through a number of different workflows that can be performed in both Surfer and ArcMap, where there is an advantage to using Surfer. Whether the advantage is cost, processing speed, ease-of-use, or fewer clicks; we flexed Surfer’s muscle for a number of different workflows showing the crowd how easy it is to use Surfer as an alternative to these commonly used ArcMap extensions. The workshops, which were well attended, wowed the crowd with in-depth examples. All of the attendee’s left with some great knowledge about Surfer and a solutions manual so they could apply the workflows to future projects.

Our customers do incredible things! This week, I’m pleased to present another customer story. Dr. Richard Koehler, founder of Visual Data Analytics, uses Surfer to visualize complex marine data.

Marine environments can be tricky as data is typically collected over time. This results in large, multi-variate datasets which contain a wealth of information; however, traditional 2D and 3D visualization methods don’t communicate this information in a clear manner.

A topic in which we receive many customer inquiries is coordinate systems. I recently reviewed the individual questions as they pertain to Surfer, and many users are confused about where to change the coordinate system information, what to set it to, or what order to perform the steps. To shed some light on this very important component of map making, this blog will address these questions.

I recently had a question where a user needed to convert the XY coordinates of the map from lat/lon (degrees) into meters, so that they could add a profile to the map showing meters as the Distance units instead of degrees. 

We are pleased to present another story detailing the application of Surfer in the industry.

This story comes from former Golden Software team member, Jared King, who now works as a hydrogeologist for Knight Piésold. Mr. King and the Knight Piésold team were tasked to characterize groundwater resources for a potential mining area. An important component of the mining process, water is used for mineral processing, metal recovery, dust mitigation, and the basic needs for on-site workers. Even more importantly, a thorough understanding of groundwater resources is a major factor in understanding the environmental impact of the mine on those resources.