Golden Software Blog

One of the things that drew me to Colorado is the wide range of activities that are available to its residents. Among the many available activities is biking. Whether you prefer mountain biking or street biking, there are multitudes of trails to explore for all skill levels. With spring on its way, I decided to map out the biking trails around Denv...

One of the new features in the Surfer mapping software that hasn’t gotten a lot of mention is the ability to download imagery as grids. Most of you may know that Surfer can connect directly to WMS servers and download georeferenced images directly into your maps as base layers. You can download aerial photographs, orthoimagery, shaded topographic images, scanned USGS maps, images showing geological bedrock, etc.  However, did you know you can also download imagery as grid files and use them to create contours or other grid-based maps?

You can download images as grids from WMS servers using either the Grid | Grid from Server command, or by clicking the Download button in the Open Grid dialog when creating a grid-based map. The difference is that the Grid | Grid from Server command downloads the image as a grid file directly to your hard drive so you can use it later on (e.g. for blanking) or in multiple maps.